Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Karma & Rebirth

"There’s a phrase you often hear in Buddhist circles, that you have to accept that things are the way they should be. There’s one way in which that’s right, but a lot of ways in which it’s wrong. It’s right in the sense that, given the past and present conditions, you can’t complain because this is the raw material you have to work with. But you don’t just let it sit there and say, “Well, that’s just the way it’s got to be.” That’s what you’re presented with, but you can learn skills to deal with what’s coming up in the present moment and to handle it well, to do something good with it." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Things Aren’t as They Should Be" (Meditations13)

"Sometimes the Pali word for stress, dukkha is translated as unsatisfactoriness. There’s a way in which that’s right, but a huge way in which it’s wrong. Dukkha means pain, stress, suffering. It’s unsatisfactory because there is something better, but taken on its own, when you say that something is unsatisfactory, it sounds as if you could simply change your standards and learn how to be satisfied with things, and then you’d be okay. And that’s a lot of what modern Dhamma teaches: Accept the fact that things change. Don’t want them to be any way different, and you’ll be okay. Learn some equanimity. That is not  the escape from suffering. That’s not the escape from unsatisfactoriness. The escape is realizing that you’re implicit in making these things happen. When the Buddha says that the objects of the senses and the senses themselves are fabricated, it’s not simply that they depend on conditions, but that you play a role in getting engaged with them, shaping them. And it’s becau...

"There’s a passage in the Dhammapada when the Buddha says that you don’t go to heaven or to hell because of other people’s actions. Yet all too often we find ourselves in our own mental heaven or hell because of what someone else did. Actually, though, we’re the ones who create that heaven and hell. It’s through our own actions that we take what they did, what they said, or even what we think they thought, and turn it into our own private heaven or our own private hell." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Other People"

"As the Buddha said, “You don’t go to heaven or hell because of other people’s actions. You go because of your own actions.” Those can take you to heaven; they can take you to hell. So why are you taking yourself to hell? And why are you upset with what other people are doing, which really has nothing to do, really, with you? It’s your actions that make all the difference." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Look at Yourself"

"For most of us, a lot of the interest in the stories coming up in our lives is about the injustices, the feeling that something hasn’t been settled, something hasn’t been brought to closure. But when you realize it’s part of a long, long, long mudslinging battle through the many lifetimes, it gets less and less and less interesting. Less and less worthy of anger. Some people say, “That means you’re saying that the victim is responsible for his or her suffering.” Well, what’s wrong with that? What’s really wrong with that is what people tend to make out of it, which is the belief that if someone did something bad in a previous lifetime, then they deserve to get what they’re getting now, so you don’t have any compassion for them. That’s the wrong response. As I said, everybody here in the human realm has some bad karma. If you reserve your compassion only for good people, who are you going to have compassion for? Only people who have no bad actions in their past? There would be nob...

"I was talking recently to a group of people who were very wound up in the politics of the world right now. One of them was saying, “You can’t just let evil survive in the world.” Well, evil has been surviving for a long time in the world. When the Buddha left the world, there was evil in the world. There’s been evil all along. The problem is that if you try to wipe evil out of the world, you can become pretty evil yourself. You have to realize that there’s a lot in the world that’s beyond our power." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Metta Isn’t Love"

"The principle of kamma should make you happy, because it opens possibilities, good possibilities. Of course, it also means that you have to learn how to take the results of past bad actions with good grace, realizing that they don’t justify anybody who mistreats you, but they do mean that you learn to take things in stride and do your best with the good kamma that comes your way." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Happy about Kamma"

"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...

"Equanimity is sometimes taught with a defeatist attitude. A defeatist attitude says, basically, that there’s no lasting happiness to be found in the world, so you might as well give up trying to find it. Just learn to accept things as they are and don’t hope for them to be better than what they are. When you give up on your search for happiness, you can be equanimous and content with what you’ve got. That, as I said, is a defeatist attitude. It’s equanimity tinged with regret, disappointment, and a sense of powerlessness. It’s heavy and narrow, a contentment found by lowering your standards for satisfaction. We bow down to the Buddha, though, because he actually has us raise our standards for satisfaction, to accept nothing less than the ultimate happiness. There’s nothing defeatist in his attitude at all. In fact, he called the noble eightfold path the path to victory: You can find a happiness that’s not subject to aging, illness, and death, that’s totally free of s...

"[An awakened person] feels sympathy for others and seeks their well-being, experiencing a sense of satisfaction when they respond to [his/her] teachings, but otherwise [he/she] stays equanimous, untroubled, mindful, and alert. This passage shows that the even-mindedness of a fully awakened person is an attitude not of cold indifference, but rather of mental imperturbability. Such a person has found true happiness and would like others to share that happiness as well, but that happiness is not dependent on how others respond. This is the ideal state of mind for a person who truly works for the benefit of the world." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Wings to Awakening"

"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...

"When you decide that you don’t agree with society’s values, learn to do it in a way that’s not confrontational. After all, you’re going your own way. You’re not a permanent earthling. You’re not here to settle down for good. You’re here primarily to practice, to train your mind. If, having trained your mind, you can help other people, that’s fine. But if you can’t, make sure that at least you get your own mind in shape." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "An Anthropologist from Mars"

"You start thinking about the well-being of all beings. It takes you out of your narrow concern with your own sense of being pained by something. Think of all the beings in the world: A lot of people out there are suffering right now. So when you’re suffering the results of bad kamma, you’re not the only one. This thought helps to take a lot of the sting away. The Buddha gave a good example of this when he was injured by Devadatta. Devadatta rolled a rock down the mountain, hoping to crush the Buddha. The rock was turned off course by another rock. The rock shattered, some of the stone slivers shot out, and one of them went through the Buddha’s foot. So they had to get the stone sliver out, and then he had to rest. Mara came along to taunt him: “What are you doing, you sleepyhead? Are you moping around because of what happened?” And the Buddha said, “No. I’m lying down here with sympathy and goodwill for all beings.” That included the people who tried to injure him. In that way,...

"We live a life full of the power of kamma — old kamma and new. You can’t do anything about old kamma. You have to accept it like a good sport. That’s why you practice equanimity. But as for the new kamma you’re creating right now, you can’t practice equanimity with that. You have to be very concerned about what you’re putting into the system because you realize that this is the only chance you get to make the choice. Once the choice is made and it gets put into the system, then whatever the energy — positive or negative — that’s the sort of energy you’re going to have to experience. So pay attention: What are you putting into the system right now? This is the important thing to focus on. Whatever other people do to you, whatever arises in your body in terms of pains, illnesses, aging, death, or whatever: That’s old kamma that you simply have to learn to take with good humor, with a sense of equanimity. As for what you’re putting into the system right now, that’s ser...

"Karma’s in charge." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu From: "Happiness – Yours & Others’" by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

"No matter how much you feel that your desire to straighten other people out is a good desire, you’re looking in the wrong place. Remember the acrobats. You have to maintain your balance and in doing so, you help other people maintain theirs. If you’re reaching over to straighten out their balance, you’re leaning over. And of course, when you’re leaning over, it causes other people to lean over as well, and everybody falls down. Always remember that the problem is inside." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Look at Yourself"

"As the Buddha said, “You don’t go to heaven or hell because of other people’s actions. You go because of your own actions.” Those can take you to heaven; they can take you to hell. So why are you taking yourself to hell? And why are you upset with what other people are doing, which really has nothing to do, really, with you? It’s your actions that make all the difference." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Look at Yourself"

Question 15. Is it possible to burn off old kamma — say, by simply putting up with pain? Thanissaro Bhikkhu: No. In the Buddha’s time, an ascetic group called the Nigaṇṭhas believed that they could burn off old kamma by not reacting to the pain of their austerities, and the Buddha reserved some of his sharpest ridicule for that belief. As he said, the Nigaṇṭhas should have noticed that the pain they experienced during their austerities ended when they stopped the austerities, which meant that the pain was the result not of old kamma being burned off, but of their present kamma in undertaking the austerities [MN 101]. Still, it is possible to weaken the results of bad past kamma. The Buddha compared past bad kamma to a big lump of salt. If you put the salt into a small glass of water, you can’t drink the water because it’s too salty. But if you toss it into a large, clean river, it doesn’t make the water of the river too salty to drink. The river here stands for a mind t...

"Although the Jains, like the Buddhists, teach a doctrine of the moral consequences of actions, the teachings of the two traditions differ in many important details. This discourse points out two of the major points where the Buddhist teaching is distinctive: its understanding of the complexity of the kammic process, and its application of that understanding to the psychology of teaching. The Buddha shows that a simplistic, fatalistic view of the kammic process is logically inconsistent, and also leads to unfortunate results for any person who, with a background of bad kamma, believes in it. The actual complexity of kamma, however, allows for a way in which past evil deeds can be overcome: through refraining from evil now and into the future, and through developing expansive mind-states of goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, & equanimity. In such an expansive mind state, the unavoidable consequences of past evil actions count for next to nothing. The Buddha als...

"Karma’s in charge." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu From: "Happiness – Yours & Others’" by Thanissaro Bhikkhu