Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Karma & Rebirth

"Don’t latch on to the results of your actions; latch on to the fact that you’re making the decisions right now, all the time. Once a decision has been made, it’s been put into a larger circle of cause and effect beyond your control; but you do have a chance to make a decision again the next moment, and the next moment, and then the next. Focus on that. Don’t get caught up in the results of past actions. Focus on what you can do now to make the present actions skillful. That’s the focus of the teaching, “We’re the owners of our actions.” " ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Sublime Attitudes" (Meditations2)

"The general Western resistance to the concept of defilement is a serious obstacle to reaching the end of suffering and stress and to reaping the benefits of the practice along the way. In light of the first two facts — that defilement is a quality of actions measured by the extent to which they cause affliction — an unwillingness to accept the idea of defilement translates into an unwillingness to examine your own actions to see if they cause harm. This is a form of narcissism that makes it impossible to see the connection between the second and first noble truths. If you refuse to accept the idea that your thoughts, words, and deeds cause suffering, you won’t be able to see the sources of suffering coming from within the mind. In light of the third fact — that the brightness of the mind is its ability to recognize defilement and do something about it — an unwillingness to accept the idea of defilement translates into a willed ignorance around one’s own actions and their effects....

"Virtue, in Buddhism, is expressed in the five precepts. Of the five, truthfulness is said to be the highest virtue because it’s only through truthfulness that you’re in a position to admit your mistakes and to learn from them. There are passages in the Canon called the Jātaka tales, which tell the stories of the Buddha in previous lifetimes. And it’s obvious from some of the stories that he’s still learning the ropes, because sometimes he breaks the precepts: Sometimes he kills, sometimes he steals, sometimes he has illicit sex, sometimes he takes alcohol. But he never lies. Ever. For him, that’s the most important precept. Because after all, if you lie to someone, the misunderstanding you create can have a bad effect not only in this lifetime but also into future lifetimes. And as the Buddha says, if you feel no shame at telling a deliberate lie, there’s no evil you’re incapable of doing." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Five Faculties: Putting Wisdom in Charge o...

"A good action, an action motivated by a skillful intention, leads to good results. It’s impersonal. Unskillful actions motivated by unskillful motivations lead to pain. Each of us has a lot of actions in the past, so there’s bound to be good mixed with bad. You don’t have to wear off the bad kamma before you can enjoy the good. You simply learn to make the best use of both pleasure and pain when they come along." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Empathetic Joy"

"As you’re getting the mind still, it’s not just a question of stress reduction or staying calm. You’re trying to understand something. The something you’re trying to understand is what you’re doing and the results of what you’re doing. The mind is doing things on a lot of levels. It’s like a big switchboard in there. All kinds of signals are coming in from all the different nerves, and it’s as if there are several different people at the switchboard, deciding which calls to answer and which ones just to leave. Lots of decisions are being made all the time, simply as you sit here. You may think you’re sitting here just being still, but there’s a lot of doing going on in the being still. The reason we try to get the mind still is so that we can see more and more clearly exactly what’s going on in the mind, what ideas are in charge, and then learning to watch to see what the effects are, learning to make the connections." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Watch What You’re Doing"

"[The Buddha] recommends assuming that the law of kamma is 24/7. It’s not like a traffic law, for instance, where no parking is allowed on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but you can park all you want on other days of the week. All too often we have the attitude that the effects of kamma should bend to our will. In other words, with some actions we tell ourselves, “I hope this action has a result,” but with others we like to tell ourselves, “I hope this won’t have a result. It doesn’t matter.” But the Buddha says that you have to take on the basic assumptions of kamma consistently if you want to follow the path consistently. In other words, skillful actions lead to good results and unskillful actions lead to unpleasant results. Always." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Five Faculties: Putting Wisdom in Charge of the Mind"

"Don’t latch on to the results of your actions; latch on to the fact that you’re making the decisions right now, all the time. Once a decision has been made, it’s been put into a larger circle of cause and effect beyond your control; but you do have a chance to make a decision again the next moment, and the next moment, and then the next. Focus on that. Don’t get caught up in the results of past actions. Focus on what you can do now to make the present actions skillful. That’s the focus of the teaching, “We’re the owners of our actions.” " ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Sublime Attitudes" (Meditations2)

"In the teaching on kamma, not everything in the present moment is determined by the past. You’re making choices in the present as well, and there are important areas where they can make a difference. Remember that discussion the Buddha had with some Niganthas, a sect that existed in his time. They believed that everything in the present moment was shaped by the past and they endured self-torture to burn off their past kamma. The Buddha asked them, “Have you ever noticed that this pain you feel during your tortures ends when you stop doing the torture?” In other words, the pain is not coming only from the past. It can also come from things you’re doing right now. What you’re doing right now is something you can’t be equanimous about. You have to be equanimous about the fact that there is a pattern for cause and effect. You do certain things and certain results will come: That’s something you’ve got to accept. But then you have the choice as to what kind of things you want to do, b...

"Everything the Buddha teaches gets analyzed down into actions, intentions and their results. The intention you can gauge as to whether it’s skillful or not, the results you can gauge as to whether they are skillful or not. What kind of person you are, how good or bad you are, that’s not anything you can gauge at all. If you try to do it, it really gets in the way. So your duty here is to look at your intentions, and then to see how well those intentions play out when you act on them. And learn how to judge the results. Look at things simply in terms of cause and effect, and measure the effects in terms of whether they’re harmful or not, whether they lead to happiness or whether they lead to stress and suffering." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Thoughts with Fangs"

"The Buddha once said that wisdom starts with the question: “What when I do it will lead to my long-term harm and suffering? And what when I do it will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” That’s getting you to think in terms of the four noble truths right there, noticing that what you do is going to be a cause and can lead either to harm and suffering, or to welfare and happiness. That’s the framework of the four noble truths. And the focus again is on what you’re doing and the results you’re getting. When the Buddha first taught his son, that was the first teaching he gave him: Look at your actions and see what results you’re actually getting. If you see you’re getting bad results, don’t repeat that action again. If you see you’ve got good results, take pride in the fact that you’re progressing in the training. “Progress” here means that you’re becoming more and more sensitive to the results you’re getting, and to the connection between those results and causes that act...

"We often think of mindfulness simply as being fully aware of the present moment but it actually means the ability to keep something in mind. As the Buddha defined it, it’s the ability to remember things that were said or done long ago — and in particular, things that you  said and did long ago. This is so that when the results come, you can recognize, “Oh, this is connected to that. This happened because of this action I took. I said that, now my mind is a mess. I said that a couple of hours ago but my mind is a mess now.” Or, “I did that a while back and now my mind’s in good shape.” If you can’t see these connections, you don’t really have true insight. The insight lies in seeing cause and effect. After all, when the Buddha summarized the insight of his awakening, he boiled it down to a causal principle, the ability to see the connections: When one thing arises it causes something else to arise, either right now or down the line. When it passes away it causes the other thing t...

"We talked about different ways you deal with the causes of suffering. Some causes of suffering go away when you just look at them; others require that you engage in what the Buddha calls, “exerting a fabrication” [MN 101]. And when the Buddha’s talking about fabrication in this context, he’s talking about these three kinds of fabrication. For example, suppose that you’re feeling a strong sense of anger and you want to get over it. The first thing you do is to look at your breath. Usually when you’re angry, your breath is disturbed, which aggravates the anger. So, remember what you’ve learned to do with the breath in meditation: calm the breath down, breathe through any tightness you may feel in your chest or your abdomen, and in this way you begin to reclaim your body from the anger, which has hijacked it. You make the breath your own again. That’s bodily fabrication. When the body feels calmer, it’s easier to think clearly about the situation. This is where you apply directed th...

"Feeling and perception have an effect on the mind, and the breath has an indirect effect on the mind through the feelings. How do you use these fabrications to gladden the mind? How do you use them to steady the mind? How do you use them to release the mind? In some cases, the Buddha says, you simply watch a particular defilement or a particular hindrance that’s weighing the mind down, and simply by your watching it, it goes away. Other times, as he says, you have to exert a fabrication to let go of a particular cause of stress. That can involve bodily fabrication, which is the breath; verbal fabrications, which are directed thought and evaluation; and mental fabrications, which are feeling and perception. Now, all of this is to get you really sensitive to the process of fabrication. It’s not just a matter of things coming and going, arising and passing away. The mind has an intentional element in all of its experiences. Basically, you take the potential for, say, a form or a fee...

"Given the fact that the experience of the present moment is shaped both by past and by present intentions [kamma], it is possible that — if an illness is the result of present intentions — a change of mind can effect a cure in the illness; but if the illness is the result of past intentions, a change of mind may have no effect on the illness but can at least protect the mind from being adversely affected by it. Thus some of the passages focus how practicing the Dhamma can cure a person of illness, whereas others focus on how the Dhamma can ensure that, even though a person may die from an illness, the illness will make no inroads on the mind." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Beyond Coping: The Buddha's Teachings on Aging, Illness, Death, and Separation: A Study Guide"

"A good action, an action motivated by a skillful intention, leads to good results. It’s impersonal. Unskillful actions motivated by unskillful motivations lead to pain. Each of us has a lot of actions in the past, so there’s bound to be good mixed with bad. You don’t have to wear off the bad kamma before you can enjoy the good. You simply learn to make the best use of both pleasure and pain when they come along." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Empathetic Joy"

"You see someone else doing something that gets you upset or something that offends you. Don’t focus on the other person; focus on the action in and of itself, as part of a causal process, and then turn around and look at yourself. If, in your mind, you create other people out there, you create a lot of problems. But if you simply see life in the community as an opportunity to watch the principle of cause and effect as it plays itself out, the problems vanish." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Admirable Friendship" (Meditations1)

"Don’t latch on to the results of your actions; latch on to the fact that you’re making the decisions right now, all the time. Once a decision has been made, it’s been put into a larger circle of cause and effect beyond your control; but you do have a chance to make a decision again the next moment, and the next moment, and then the next. Focus on that. Don’t get caught up in the results of past actions. Focus on what you can do now to make the present actions skillful. That’s the focus of the teaching, “We’re the owners of our actions.” " ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Sublime Attitudes" (Meditations2)

"Once you learn how to deal with the sleepiness and the pain and the distraction, you’re beginning to master the skills for understanding the mind, mastering the skills for finding happiness inside. Underlying all this is a willingness to learn, to notice your actions, to connect cause and effect, and to figure out which kinds of causes are good causes and which ones are not. When you have that attitude — that you’re here to learn — then no matter what comes up in the meditation, it becomes grist for the mill. If you simply have it in mind that you want this or that to happen in the meditation and it doesn’t happen and you get frustrated, that’s not how you’re going to find true happiness inside. It has to come from a willingness to learn, a willingness to observe, and particularly a willingness to being alert to your own actions. So it’s not just a matter of sitting there and watching whatever comes up. You’ve got to realize that you’re playing a role in fashioning what comes up....

"Everything the Buddha teaches gets analyzed down into actions, intentions and their results. The intention you can gauge as to whether it’s skillful or not, the results you can gauge as to whether they are skillful or not. What kind of person you are, how good or bad you are, that’s not anything you can gauge at all. If you try to do it, it really gets in the way. So your duty here is to look at your intentions, and then to see how well those intentions play out when you act on them. And learn how to judge the results. Look at things simply in terms of cause and effect, and measure the effects in terms of whether they’re harmful or not, whether they lead to happiness or whether they lead to stress and suffering." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Thoughts with Fangs"

" “I am the owner of my actions, heir to my actions, whatever I do for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir.” So we do have the power of our actions. This was so important in the Buddha’s teachings that even though he wasn’t the sort of person who would go out and start arguments with people, there were times when he would go to argue with people who were teaching that what you’re doing right now didn’t have an impact right now. Three different groups of people stand out: 1) those who taught that whatever you experience right now is the result of past actions; it’s your vipāka, so you’ve got to put up with it; 2) those who taught that whatever you experience right now is the result of some creator god having created the world, so you’ve got to put up with it; and 3) those who taught that whatever you experience right now is totally random, there’s no pattern of cause and effect that you can understand or master to make a change in things. So put up with it. As ...