Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Karma & Rebirth

"Without all the Buddha’s efforts, where would we be? Those six years of austerities and the many years of teaching difficult people, just so that the Dhamma and Vinaya could be established. And here it is, it’s free. We should be overwhelmed with gratitude and practice accordingly." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Buddha's Compassion"

"The first level of right view is conviction in the principle of kamma: that there are good and bad actions that lead to good and bad results, which are determined by the quality of intention behind the action. A lot of us resist the teaching on kamma because we tend to run into it mostly when we find ourselves facing a bad situation, and kamma seems to say, “Well, you’re guilty, or you deserve this bad situation,” which is not what it really teaches at all. But because we think that, we tend to have a negative impression of the teaching. Actually, when the Buddha introduced kamma, he introduced it to show that it affirms two very important values in life: generosity and gratitude...." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Need for Right View"

"Basically, [the Buddha] starts out with what’s called mundane right view, which essentially is belief in the principle of kamma, your actions: that your actions really do make a difference, that the quality of your intentions really does determine the quality of the results. There are good and bad actions leading to good and bad results. A lot of us resist this teaching because as soon as we think about our past actions having results, we think about all the bad things we did and say, “Oops, they’re going to come and get me.” But that’s not how the Buddha introduced the topic of kamma. When he was talking about mundane right view or the principle of kamma, he’d start out with generosity and gratitude. The phrasing is, “There is what is given, there is what is sacrificed, there is what is offered.” It sounds strange, but he’s basically pointing out that giving does constitute a meritorious act, and for two reasons. One, you do have choices — and this is probably the essential par...

"We try to develop thoughts of goodwill [mettā], and all the things that are associated with merit: thoughts of generosity, thoughts of gratitude, thoughts of virtue, thoughts of harmlessness. When you’re sending out that kind of energy, that’s a lot of what gets reflected back. It creates a better atmosphere, a better environment in which to allow the mind to settle down and really get still inside, so that you can send out even better energy. Of course, you’re not the only one picking up on that energy. People around you pick up on it as well. So both for your own sake and for the sake of the people around you, you want to be really careful about what kind of energy you’re broadcasting. The more stillness, the more peace in the energy that the mind is creating, the more you’ll experience that stillness, experience that peace, even coming in from outside." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Energy You Broadcast"

"If you meet up with the results of some past bad kamma — suppose somebody does something bad to you — it doesn’t mean that your past kamma compelled them to do something bad. It’s simply that your past kamma left the opening. They saw the opening and they took it. And of course, that becomes their kamma now. The fact that you had that past bad kamma: There are unskillful ways and skillful ways that you can think about it. The unskillful way would be to think, “Well, this person was simply carrying out the dictates of kamma. So the person’s not responsible or is actually doing something good.” That’s unskillful. There’s no excuse for that person’s behavior, because the person did choose to take that opening. The skillful way is to say, “Well, I must have some past bad kamma, so I’ll learn how to take it in stride and not get too worked up about it. And I’ll take it as an incentive to try to be more skillful in the future.” As for times when someone does something real...

"As the Buddha pointed out, a teacher’s duty is to offer protection, and the primary protection he offered was to show us that we do have freedom of choice. The few times he would go out and argue with other teachers were when they denied freedom of choice because, as he said, that leaves you unprotected. You don’t feel you can do anything at all. You’re trapped. Whatever suffering comes up, you’re stuck with it. So his first gift is to remind us we do have freedom of choice, and the choices can take us very far. That’s his protection. There’s another connection in Pali. The word saranam can mean both a refuge and something you keep in mind. So here again you keep in mind what the Buddha taught. You have gratitude for what he taught, and it will provide you with protection — the protection that comes when you know that you’re free to choose. You’re ultimately going to be free to choose not to suffer at all. Always keep that in mind." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Mindful & ...

"Other helpful attitudes toward the past include gratitude and forgiveness: the ability to appreciate the good things that other people have done for you, and to forgive them for the bad." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Karma of Happiness: A Buddhist Monk Looks at Positive Psychology"

"This is what gratitude is all about: It’s a sense not only that you appreciate the choices that people made but also that you need to respond. The word patikaroti means to repay or to make amends, but it can also mean to imitate. In other words, you imitate the goodness that they did, the intention that they had. You try to carry that out. That’s the response that keeps their goodness alive. There’s that question that people would often ask Ajaan Fuang: “How can I repay you for having taught me?” and his response was, “Be really intent on the practice.” That’s the best repayment right there. So this is why the Buddha’s teachings on gratitude are all surrounded by words that deal with action. You appreciate someone’s good actions and then you realize there’s an action that’s called for from you, an appropriate response. That’s what makes it different from appreciation or contentment. As the Buddha said, it’s a characteristic of a good person to feel gratitude and to want to rep...

"If you appreciate the help that you have received from others and show gratitude for the effort that they put into it, you will also be more likely to provide help to others. So you can see that the Buddha’s teachings on kamma affirm the social virtues of generosity and gratitude. Without these two virtues, human society would be chaos." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Karma of Mindfulness: The Buddha's Teachings on Sati and Kamma"

"A lot of people don’t like the idea of responsibility. They’d rather have kamma-free zones in large areas of their lives where they can do what they want and not have to deal with the results, or have someone else protect them from the results. But that attitude is childish. If you wanted to live in a world where your actions had no results, that would also mean that generosity would have no meaning. Gratitude would have no meaning. Actions would just be thrown around, without any consequences — but they wouldn’t have any meaning, either. Nothing would have any meaning. It’s because we are responsible for our actions that they do have meaning." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Lessons of Good Kamma" (Meditations9)

"On the mundane level, the first five factors of [the Buddha's noble eightfold] path [leading to the cessation of suffering and stress] correspond to the faculty of conviction. Right view on this level means believing in the principle of kamma and trusting that those who have practiced properly truly understand the workings of kamma in this life and the next. In the Buddha’s words, this level of right view holds that “There is what is given, what is offered, what is sacrificed. There are fruits & results of good & bad actions. There is this world & the next world. There is mother & father. There are spontaneously reborn beings; there are contemplatives & brahmans who, faring rightly & practicing rightly, proclaim this world & the next after having directly known & realized it for themselves.” What this passage means is that there is merit in generosity; the moral qualities of good and bad are inherent parts of the cosmos, and not ...

Question 9. When people talk about kamma, why do they tend to focus on the punishments and hardships coming from past kamma? Thanissaro Bhikkhu: Because they ignore the positive role that present kamma can play in shaping your life. They think that past kamma is deterministic, leaving you helpless in the face of misfortune in the present moment — which is not how the Buddha taught kamma at all. In fact, when he introduced the topic of kamma to his listeners, he focused on how it empowers you in the present moment, at the same time allowing for qualities we all know to be good — like generosity and gratitude — to actually make sense [AN 10:165]. Here’s why: • In terms of empowerment, the Buddha’s teachings on kamma and causality explain why we can develop skills that lead to the end of suffering. On the one hand, because certain actions tend to lead to certain results, we can learn from past actions the general pattern as to what would and wouldn’t work in leading to more happiness. ...

"On the mundane level, the first five factors of [the Buddha's noble eightfold] path [leading to the cessation of suffering and stress] correspond to the faculty of conviction. Right view on this level means believing in the principle of kamma and trusting that those who have practiced properly truly understand the workings of kamma in this life and the next. In the Buddha’s words, this level of right view holds that “There is what is given, what is offered, what is sacrificed. There are fruits & results of good & bad actions. There is this world & the next world. There is mother & father. There are spontaneously reborn beings; there are contemplatives & brahmans who, faring rightly & practicing rightly, proclaim this world & the next after having directly known & realized it for themselves.” What this passage means is that there is merit in generosity; the moral qualities of good and bad are inherent parts of the cosmos, and not simply social ...

"If you appreciate the help that you have received from others and show gratitude for the effort that they put into it, you will also be more likely to provide help to others. So you can see that the Buddha’s teachings on kamma affirm the social virtues of generosity and gratitude. Without these two virtues, human society would be chaos." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Karma of Mindfulness: The Buddha's Teachings on Sati and Kamma"

"We live in a society where people tend to take things for granted. It’s one of the drawbacks of having a lot of creature comforts to the point where they seem normal and we don’t notice them anymore. This taking things for granted tends to grow into a sense of entitlement. Not only do we have good things, but we feel that we should have good things and we get upset when we don’t. Some people have begun realizing the problem here, recommending that we cultivate gratitude for the things we have. But they’re not talking about gratitude for the things, but gratitude to the things. You’re grateful to your house for sheltering you; you’re grateful to your bed for supporting you, for giving you comfort. I’ve seen many articles written on the topic and have heard people talking about this many, many times, that we should be grateful to the things that provide us with comfort. But that’s not the Buddha’s take. Gratitude, he says, is not to things, it’s to people, to beings who’ve made ...

"Other helpful attitudes toward the past include gratitude and forgiveness: the ability to appreciate the good things that other people have done for you, and to forgive them for the bad." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Karma of Happiness: A Buddhist Monk Looks at Positive Psychology"

"Mundane right view focuses on kamma and rebirth, and specifically on the value of generosity on the one hand, and gratitude on the other. Most of us, when we first hear the teachings on kamma, tend to think about punishment. You hear that you’re going to suffer from the results of your past bad actions, and the first thing that comes to your mind is, “Oh my God! That thing I did in the past when I hurt that person or did this thing I know was wrong: It’s going to come back and get me!” That’s our normal first thought about the teaching on kamma. But that’s not what the Buddha emphasizes when he teaches kamma. He emphasizes the positive side of karma: The fact that we can do a lot of good with our actions. He starts with reflecting on the gratitude we owe to people who’ve helped us — because they actually chose to do it. It wasn’t that they were acting under determined forces that forced them to help us. They chose to help us. We owe them gratitude — particularly, ou...

"A lot of people don’t like the idea of responsibility. They’d rather have kamma-free zones in large areas of their lives where they can do what they want and not have to deal with the results, or have someone else protect them from the results. But that attitude is childish. If you wanted to live in a world where your actions had no results, that would also mean that generosity would have no meaning. Gratitude would have no meaning. Actions would just be thrown around, without any consequences — but they wouldn’t have any meaning, either. Nothing would have any meaning. It’s because we are responsible for our actions that they do have meaning." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Lessons of Good Kamma" (Meditations9)

"When the Buddha taught the teaching on karma, he mentioned, “There is mother and father” — which, of course, sounds obvious, but it was a controversial topic back in those times. By saying there is or there isn’t mother and father, you were saying whether your parents were owed any specific debt of gratitude. When they said there isn’t mother and father, they meant that human beings were just chemical elements that happened to combine and then give rise to your body and that was it. There’s no special virtue there. You don’t owe them any real debt, either because they were just material things or because what they did was totally predetermined. They had no choice in the matter. So when the Buddha was saying there is mother and father, he was saying that you’re not just the physical body, and your parents aren’t just their physical bodies. At the same time, they did have freedom of choice: They could have aborted you; they could have abandoned you. The fact that you have a body,...

"Kamma is one of those teaching that’s sometimes hard to relate to, both intellectually and emotionally: intellectually because it’s related to the issue of conviction, or saddhā . We hear the word conviction — or even worse, saddhā is often translated as faith — and we think that we’re being asked to commit to something that we’re not really sure about, that we don’t have any means of knowing. But that’s not what conviction means in the Buddha’s teachings. It means you’re going to take something on as a working hypothesis. You’re committed to the sense that you’re really going to really try to test it, but no, you’re not being forced to give your emotional assent to say, “Yes, despite my lack of evidence I’m being forced to say this must be true.” Instead, you’re advised to say, “I’m going to try it out. It makes sense. It’s asking me to believe that my actions matter and that I have a choice in my actions that’ll give results. But I’m free enough to learn from past mistakes so...