Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Karma & Rebirth

"A lot of people don’t like looking at their actions because, after all, they’ve done a lot of unskillful things. Well, just remind yourself, all human beings have been doing unskillful things. If we had no unskillful behavior in our background, we wouldn’t be here, we’d be someplace else. So we all have habits that we have to learn how to undo, and new habits that we have to learn how to develop. But it’s in exploring the potential we have for choosing freely between different courses of action that we find a different kind of freedom ultimately. It’s a freedom that’s not conditioned. Now, looking at our past actions and looking even at our present actions is often like looking at a bramble patch. That’s where we want to say, “Forget about that, let’s just go for the larger Oneness.” But it turns out that you have to go through the brambles to get to the nice part inside the bramble patch — those brambles are protecting something. It’s not brambles all the way. But you explore y...

"We bow down to the Buddha every night, but the real bowing down, he said, is when you practice the Dhamma in line with the Dhamma — in other words, not in line with your own preconceived notions or in line with your old habits. You want to learn how to change your habits so they fit in with the Buddha’s way of thinking, speaking, and acting." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "My Way"

"We want to be able to see why the actions we do for the sake of happiness end up leading to stress and how we can change those ways, so that we can actually act in a way that leads to true happiness. We break things down into very simple components so that we can manage them. We realize that this is a problem we can manage. That’s the good news of the Buddha’s teachings: that even though we may be causing ourselves stress and suffering, we can put an end to it. If our suffering really were caused by things outside that were beyond our power, then there’d be no hope. Or if it were caused by things we were doing that we couldn’t change, there’d be no hope, either. But here we’re making choices. We’re probably not making them all that wisely, but we do have some wisdom. We do have some discernment. It’s just a matter of applying it, giving it a foundation here in the present moment, and then really using it to look carefully to see: Where are we creating unnecessary stress and suff...

"Even though you may have done a lot of unskillful things in the past, you do have your skillful potentials. And it’s up to you to decide which past actions are the important actions in your life story. We all have a mixed bag in the past. You can think about this as if someone were writing your life story. And if you decide to stick with the skillful path, that means that the skillful qualities you had in the past are the important ones. If you stray away from the skillful path, that means the unskillful qualities, the unskillful things you did in the past are the important ones. So as you shape the present, you’re not only shaping the present, but also highlighting different things in your past. So why not highlight the good things? If you find yourself focusing on the bad ones, remind yourself, “At least I had some good qualities in the past and those are the ones that eventually won out. At least they are winning out right now.” If a part of your mind retorts, “W...

"Then there’s that reflection on karma. That’s where our refuge is. If you look at it, it says: “We’re owners of our actions, heir to our actions, whatever we do for good or for evil, to that will we fall heir.” And you can focus either on the good or the evil. Karma is scary. There are a lot of things we do that are unskillful and will bear results, one way or another. It’s so easy to slip and forget. That’s one of the reasons why you want to be mindful. But there’s also the good side to karma — there’s a lot of good that you can develop with your actions. When the Buddha teaches karma, that’s what he focuses on — the good that can be done. This is why the reflection on karma is meant to give rise to confidence — that you have it within you that you can do this. If your habits are unskillful, you can change them. They’re not written in stone. Past karma doesn’t control everything. In fact, your primary experience is what your intentions are right now. When the Buddha...

"Fabrication, this process of making, comes before phenomena themselves. We hear so often how people shape their reality, how our perceptions tend to filter the ways we see reality, and yet we don’t see it as it’s actually happening, even though it happens very directly right here. Even in your own sense of the body there are lots of different sensations coming in, through the various nerve ends. The mind has its habits for selecting among these sensations to present itself with a picture of what’s going on. Sometimes the physical sensations get mixed up with the mental sensations, for lots of mental information is coming in at the same time. And so we select things, block some things out, highlight others, to create the story of our mind, our sense of what’s going on in here. And there’s ignorance underlying it all. What we’re trying to do here is to replace that ignorance with clear knowing. This is why we bring the mind to the present moment: so we can watch this process as it ...

"When we meditate, we begin to see that there are alternative ways of relating to the world and that we have a choice. We’re not bound to a particular way of relating to the world just because it’s a long-term habit. We can change. That’s what the Buddha’s teachings on kamma are all about. Some things in your life are influenced by past actions but a lot is influenced by what you choose to do right now." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Above the World"

"Virtue is not just following the precepts, but it’s a quality of mind that’s solid in its intentions. You make up your mind that you’re going to avoid evil, and then you just stick with that intention. That’s the essence of virtue. The word “sila” in Pali is related to the word “sela,” which means rock. In other words, there’s a solidity to that intention that you hold onto. You don’t let it go. Initially it may not seem like much, but you find that as you really hold onto these intentions — “Not to harm, not to harm, not to harm” — it really protects the mind from a lot of things. You learn not only not to harm people outside, but you also learn how not to harm yourself. And as you don’t harm yourself, you find resources of strength in your mind that you wouldn’t have guessed at otherwise. Because as long as the mind is harming itself, it keeps sapping its own strength, thinking in ways that get it depressed, thinking in ways that get it fearful, that just drain its strength aw...

"The second precept [for the mind] is against stealing: This refers to stealing other people’s bad qualities and thinking about them all the time, without asking their permission to take their bad qualities to think about. You just take them. And that’s a kind of stealing. What happens is that you clutter up your mind with all kinds of garbage. As long as you’re going to steal other people’s habits or behavior, steal their good ones. See what other people are doing that sets a good example. Take that as a lesson for yourself. If you’re going to look at their mistakes or their bad habits, reflect back on yourself. You see their bad habits. This is what those habits look like from the outside. If you have the same habits, that’s what they look like. Use their bad habits as a mirror. Check and see if you have any of those yourself. But if you don’t have those habits, you don’t have to take them from them. You’d just be cluttering up your mind with garbage." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu ...

"These are important skills: learning how to recognize how you fabricate an emotion and how you do it unskillfully; and how you can deconstruct it and construct something more skillful in its place. It may sound artificial, but the whole process of constructing an emotion is artificial in the first place. It’s something fabricated. There’s an element of intention and, in many cases, the intentions have become so habitual that they seem automatic, because of the strength of the perceptions and the strength of the breath or that particular way of breathing around greed or aversion or delusion. You tend to think, “Well, this is what I really feel.” But it’s just a habit, and as with any habit, if you see that it’s harmful to you, harmful to the people around you, you want to learn how to undo it; replace it with other habits." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Deconstruct Your Emotions"

"You can follow the path of action by looking at your actions. Ask yourself, “Okay, what are the results I’m getting here? Are they satisfactory?” If not, go back and change what you’re doing. Remember Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. We want to be sane, so we have to figure out where to change our actions so that we can get the results we want. If you don’t like the results of your actions, that’s perfectly fine. That’s a kind of discontent that the Buddha actually encouraged. But don’t stop there and give up. And don’t make the mistake of asking, “What’s wrong with me?” Instead, ask yourself, “Where am I acting in a way that’s not skillful? And how can I change that?” Those are the questions that can take you far." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Ask Yourself the Buddha's Question"

"Be careful about your intentions. Because these are the factors that shape your life, and right here is where it’s being shaped. Past actions, past intentions: Those are already shaped. You can’t do anything about them. As for future ones, you can’t determine anything about how they’ll be handled except through developing good habits right here and now. We have to realize the importance of our choices as we make them because they really do shape our lives and the lives of the people around us." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Decisions"

"Look at what you’ve been doing and see where it’s been unskillful. When you do this, you are passing judgment. But you’re passing judgment on your actions, not on yourself. Your intentions in the past may have been unskillful, or the actions may have been unskillful, but you’re not stuck there. Just because you’ve had unskillful intentions doesn’t mean that you’re always going to have unskillful intentions. You can change your mind. You can change your habits." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Shame & Acceptance" (Meditations5)

"You have to have confidence in the principle of action — that it can have an impact on your suffering. You’re not just a victim. You can come out victorious. After all, that’s what the images of the path often say: unexcelled victory. Victory over what? Over our ignorance, over our craving, over all our foolish tendencies. Our ways of looking for happiness that don’t really work out but we keep doing them again and again and again." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Reflecting on Karma"

"You have to be responsible for the skillfulness of your actions. You can’t blame it on your upbringing, you can’t blame it on other things from the past. Now, there are things that you’re likely to do or, through the force of habit, you can’t think of any other way to do them. But as the Buddha said, if people couldn’t develop skillful qualities, then it wouldn’t have served any purpose to teach. If they couldn’t abandon unskillful ones, there’d be no purpose to teaching. But it’s because we have this ability to choose to be more skillful or less skillful: That’s why he taught the Dhamma. So it’s up to you to take advantage of that fact: that the Dhamma is available and you can create some good habits now that will help you in the future. After all, we do have both good and bad qualities in the mind, and our habits tend to push us in one way or another. But the more good habits you develop — by making the right choice right now, right now, right now — the easier it’ll be to make ...

"Even though you may have done a lot of unskillful things in the past, you do have your skillful potentials. And it’s up to you to decide which past actions are the important actions in your life story. We all have a mixed bag in the past. You can think about this as if someone were writing your life story. And if you decide to stick with the skillful path, that means that the skillful qualities you had in the past are the important ones. If you stray away from the skillful path, that means the unskillful qualities, the unskillful things you did in the past are the important ones. So as you shape the present, you’re not only shaping the present, but also highlighting different things in your past. So why not highlight the good things? If you find yourself focusing on the bad ones, remind yourself, “At least I had some good qualities in the past and those are the ones that eventually won out. At least they are winning out right now.” If a part of your mind retorts, “W...

"So try to sensitize yourself throughout your life to the choices you’re making. And realize that your happiness depends on making skillful choices, a process that you can learn. If your life has been unskillful up to this point, and you’ve got lots of burdens and issues in your life, you can make choices to deal with those burdens skillfully. You can make a choice, change your habits. That’s the good part of this process of fabrication: Nothing is ever permanently engraved in stone. After all, even stone washes away and disintegrates. But in the meantime, because there is this constant process of fabrication, you can focus on the present moment. You don’t have to worry about first causes or what happened way back in the past. Just notice what you’re doing right now, how you’re reacting to and shaping the raw material of life right now. Learn to do it more and more skillfully. And you find that it can take you a lot further than you might imagine." ~ Thanissaro B...

"You can follow the path of action by looking at your actions. Ask yourself, “Okay, what are the results I’m getting here? Are they satisfactory?” If not, go back and change what you’re doing. Remember Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. We want to be sane, so we have to figure out where to change our actions so that we can get the results we want. If you don’t like the results of your actions, that’s perfectly fine. That’s a kind of discontent that the Buddha actually encouraged. But don’t stop there and give up. And don’t make the mistake of asking, “What’s wrong with me?” Instead, ask yourself, “Where am I acting in a way that’s not skillful? And how can I change that?” Those are the questions that can take you far." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Ask Yourself the Buddha's Question"

"When the Buddha described his quest for awakening as a series of responses to questions of the form, "Why am I doing this?" he was indicating the point at which the search for a way out of stress turns inward: the realization that stress may be caused by one's own actions. He was also indicating that an important part of the path consists of the realization that one's habits — and in particular, one's intentions — are not to be blindly accepted or taken for granted. They should be called into question and subjected to honest scrutiny. However, he also was indicating that not everything is to be questioned — in particular, conviction in the efficacy of action should be maintained as a working hypothesis all the way to release." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Skill in Questions: How the Buddha Taught"

"Even though you may have done a lot of unskillful things in the past, you do have your skillful potentials. And it’s up to you to decide which past actions are the important actions in your life story. We all have a mixed bag in the past. You can think about this as if someone were writing your life story. And if you decide to stick with the skillful path, that means that the skillful qualities you had in the past are the important ones. If you stray away from the skillful path, that means the unskillful qualities, the unskillful things you did in the past are the important ones. So as you shape the present, you’re not only shaping the present, but also highlighting different things in your past. So why not highlight the good things? If you find yourself focusing on the bad ones, remind yourself, “At least I had some good qualities in the past and those are the ones that eventually won out. At least they are winning out right now.” If a part of your mind retorts, “W...