Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Karma & Rebirth

"So when the texts tell us to stick with the precepts in all cases, they’re actually teaching us how to protect our long-term well-being. This doesn’t mean that the precepts leave you totally defenseless against an enemy, just that they force you to think outside the box. If you’re determined not to kill under any circumstances, that determination forces you to think in more creative ways to keep an adversary from taking advantage of you. You learn methods of self-defense that fall short of killing. You put more store in diplomacy and don’t look down on intelligent compromise." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "At War with the Dhamma"

"There are so many battles in the world that just lead to bad kamma even when you win, sometimes especially when you win. Look at the history of the world when nations that won battles ended up being transformed into the enemy, taking on the enemy’s characteristics. Is this what you want? At the same time, when you win a battle, you gain the animosity of those who lost. This is why the Buddha said that it’s better to focus on the battles inside, battles over your own defilements, greed, aversion, and delusion. Those are the battles that can be won, and when you win, you don’t create any bad kamma." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "A Victory that Matters" (Meditations6)

"We’ve often found in the past that we get our way by being angry, but when we stop and look at it, we’re also creating a lot of kamma for ourselves, a lot of bad kamma. We have to stop and think for a while: Anger is not the positive thing we think is. We sometimes we say that injustice wouldn’t be fought without that anger. Well, it can be fought without anger. In fact, it’s most effectively fought without anger. If we’ve been the victims of injustice, we don’t like to think that we’ve somehow been complicit in it. But that’s what the four noble truths are pointing us to: the suffering we create for ourselves. That’s the issue. The suffering coming from outside was not the main issue. It is an issue, but because we pile on our own suffering inside, we make it more and more difficult to deal properly with the outside stuff. So straightening out our own mind is not a question of laying the blame on us. It’s just saying that if we can’t take care of this issue inside, we won’t be a...