Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Karma & Rebirth

"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...

"We could view samsara as a big mud fight. I splash mud on you. You splash mud on me. And then I splash mud on you back because you splashed mud on me. It goes back and forth like this and it never ends. So the idea of trying to straighten everybody out — or trying to settle the score — again makes no sense. There’s that famous story of Somdet Toh. A junior monk came to see him once, complaining that another monk had hit him over the head for no reason at all. He hadn’t done anything to harm the other monk. The other monk was just a really bad guy who came up and hit him. And Somdet Toh said, “Well, you hit him first.” The junior monk replied, “No, no, he came up and hit me first. I didn’t do anything to him at all.” Somdet Toh kept insisting, “No, you hit him first.” And so the young monk went to complain to Somdet Toh’s superior, who must’ve been the supreme patriarch. He went to Somdet Toh to question him about this: “Why did you keep insisting that the innocent m...

"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 guilt cultures that we have, especially in monotheism, there’s the sense that justice has to be done one way or another. Whereas Buddhism doesn’t talk about justice at all — it talks about being skillful in your behavior. Now, sometimes skillfulness does involve punishing people who are wrong, but you’re not necessarily trying to get justice done. Think of the case of Aṅgulimāla: all those people he’d killed, and yet the Buddha saw that he had a potential. So he taught him. Aṅgulimāla was able to give up his murderous ways and become an arahant. The karmic consequence of all the killing he’d done was simply that, as he was on his alms rounds, there were people who were probably upset that he’d literally gotten away with murder and they would throw things at him: sometimes tearing his robes, sometimes bashing his bowl, sometimes bashing his head. But as the Buddha said, that was a lot less than the consequences would have been if he hadn’t gained that attainment. So the who...

"Real injustices are being done out there. The question is: what to do about them? Often we see a situation that we don’t like, anger arises, and we try to think of what to do about the situation while the anger is still in the mind. From the Buddha’s perspective, the problem is not so much that we want to do something about the injustices, but that we allow the anger to color our perception of the situation and of what should be done. So he’s not telling us to simply accept things as they are and try to swallow your anger, feeling that we’re to blame for the anger. Rather, he’s saying that we have to deal with the anger in such a way that it doesn’t get in the way of responding in an appropriate way, or a skillful way, to what we see as wrong. Once you get the anger out of the way, there are two things that can happen. One is that you may see that the situation is not as bad as you thought it was, but simply that your opinions had colored the situation. The other is ...

"Think of the case of Angulimala. He had killed hundreds of people, yet the Buddha saw that he had potential. Rather than just leaving him to his fate, the Buddha was able to teach the Dhamma in such a way that Angulimala wasn’t going to have to suffer in the lower realms. A lot of people were unhappy with that because, literally, he was getting away with murder. But then you take their desire to see him punished, and you compare that with the Buddha’s goodwill to see him escape, regardless of what his past was: That’s what goodwill [mettā] means. A lot of harm is done in the world by people who want to see justice done through punishment. But if you can find a way that people can learn how to behave skillfully and stop doing unskillful things, that’s much better than just punishing people, because punishment doesn’t go very far. Some people learn their lesson from punishment, but a lot of people don’t." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Light of the World"

"Regarding attempts at social change under the principle of kamma would also entail having to accept the principle that any forms of injustice that do not respond to the activities of merit have to be treated with equanimity. After all, the results of some past bad actions are so strong that nothing can be done to stop them. And if they could be alleviated now only by unskillful actions — such as lies, killing, theft, or violence — the trade-off in terms of long-term consequences wouldn’t be worth it. Any such attempts would not, in the Buddha’s analysis, be wise." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Wisdom over Justice"

"Real injustices are being done out there. The question is: what to do about them? Often we see a situation that we don’t like, anger arises, and we try to think of what to do about the situation while the anger is still in the mind. From the Buddha’s perspective, the problem is not so much that we want to do something about the injustices, but that we allow the anger to color our perception of the situation and of what should be done. So he’s not telling us to simply accept things as they are and try to swallow your anger, feeling that we’re to blame for the anger. Rather, he’s saying that we have to deal with the anger in such a way that it doesn’t get in the way of responding in an appropriate way, or a skillful way, to what we see as wrong. Once you get the anger out of the way, there are two things that can happen. One is that you may see that the situation is not as bad as you thought it was, but simply that your opinions had colored the situation. The other is that you can ...

"I remember that when I first learned about the hindrances and how ill will doesn’t mean negativity or dislike — it means actively wanting to see somebody suffer — I couldn’t see in my own case that I wanted to see anybody suffer. But then I reflected: During my first year in particular, when I was meditating on the top of the hill there at Wat Dhammasathit, the thoughts that would destroy my concentration more than anything else came from thinking back on some injustice, where somebody had done something wrong or was doing something wrong and getting away with it. I could get worked up about that for hours at a time, with a strong sense of righteous indignation — and that’s a lot of what ill will is. You don’t like what’s happened, and it seems wrong that there’s no punishment, that people are getting away with things you can clearly see they shouldn’t be getting away with. But that, the Buddha says, is wrong view. Remember that the right attitude to have toward somebody who has ...

"Reflection on karma is often useful as well. There are certain issues in life where we feel that we’ve been unjustly treated, and it’s good to remember that karma has been going on for a long, long time. And the back and forth that we’ve had with one another has been so, so long and so complex that there’s really nobody to keep tally. And it wouldn’t be worth it anyhow. Putting the individual events of your life into that much larger framework sometimes help take out a lot of the sting. You can step back from them and view them with a little bit of distance." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Breath Energies"

"In terms of distress with reference to the world, the number one issue that’s hardest to put down is the sense that you’ve been wronged. There’s a very strong sense of self that grows around that and a very strong sense that if you don’t keep that in mind, you’re going to miss out on some justice, so you’re the one who has to keep the issue alive. You have to realize that whether the wrong was deserved or not, it’s an issue that you have to chalk up to karma. You may have done something like that a long time ago. It’s so long ago that you’ve forgotten and it doesn’t seem right that something you’ve forgotten so long ago should come back and hit you, but that’s how karma works. Sometimes things take many lifetimes before they show up. So it’s not a case of whether you deserved it or didn’t deserve it. It’s simply that there was a cause and this was the result. And there’s no need to feel that you have to keep it in mind in order to have justice done, because again, karma will work...

"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 able to take care of issues outside. This has to come first." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Unskillful Habits"

"We could view samsara as a big mud fight. I splash mud on you. You splash mud on me. And then I splash mud on you back because you splashed mud on me. It goes back and forth like this and it never ends. So the idea of trying to straighten everybody out — or trying to settle the score — again makes no sense. There’s that famous story of Somdet Toh. A junior monk came to see him once, complaining that another monk had hit him over the head for no reason at all. He hadn’t done anything to harm the other monk. The other monk was just a really bad guy who came up and hit him. And Somdet Toh said, “Well, you hit him first.” The junior monk replied, “No, no, he came up and hit me first. I didn’t do anything to him at all.” Somdet Toh kept insisting, “No, you hit him first.” And so the young monk went to complain to Somdet Toh’s superior, who must’ve been the supreme patriarch. He went to Somdet Toh to question him about this: “Why did you keep insisting that the innocent monk had hit...

"You get an idea of the difference between the perspective that’s provided by thinking about the many times we’ve been reborn and the belief that we have only one birth. When there’s only one birth, we can get very worked up about things. Things are tragic, things are horrible, great injustices have been done. But from the Buddha’s point of view, a lot of those ideas and feelings come from the fact that we don’t see the whole story. Think about it. He says there hasn’t been just one universe. There’ve been many universes, one after another. Scientists tell us how many billions of years the stars in our universe have been around, and we haven’t even gone through the whole cycle of this particular universe. And there’ve been many before us. As the Buddha said, those who can remember past lives back forty eons — in other words, forty universes — have a short memory. His memory extended far beyond that, to the point where he said that trying to find a beginning point for all this, eve...

"It’s often the case that when we’re disappointed outside, it’s not just the case that we simply suffer. We can also lash out at what we don’t like — out of disappointment, out of a sense of being treated unjustly. That often creates more problems, just more bad karma. So this practice we do is not only for our own good in the sense of finding a reliable sense of comfort inside, but also it means that we can become more reliable in our actions — the things we do and say and think. In that way, regardless of what’s happening outside, we can behave in a responsible manner, a harmless manner." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Inner Refuge"

"The same goes for any anger that you’re carrying around. Is it worth carrying around? “Well, so-and-so did this, and it really was bad.” Well, does it really matter? And do you need to carry that around right now? You can have an image in your mind of all the things the mind carries around as being like a big burden you’ve placed on your shoulders, and how huge that burden can be. Now, if you saw somebody carrying a load like that around, you’d feel really sorry for them: “Why do you carry it around? There’s nobody forcing you. You can put it down.” Part of the mind may complain about putting it down, but look carefully into the part of the mind that’s complaining about putting it down, that says, “It’s not right. I want to get back at that person. Justice won’t be done.” Justice is rarely done in the world. Once one person’s idea of justice has been carried out, other people don’t like it and will come back with their idea of justice. The world has this back and forth, back an...

"Reflection on karma is often useful as well. There are certain issues in life where we feel that we’ve been unjustly treated, and it’s good to remember that karma has been going on for a long, long time. And the back and forth that we’ve had with one another has been so, so long and so complex that there’s really nobody to keep tally. And it wouldn’t be worth it anyhow. Putting the individual events of your life into that much larger framework sometimes help take out a lot of the sting. You can step back from them and view them with a little bit of distance." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Breath Energies"

"It’s often the case that when we’re disappointed outside, it’s not just the case that we simply suffer. We can also lash out at what we don’t like — out of disappointment, out of a sense of being treated unjustly. That often creates more problems, just more bad karma. So this practice we do is not only for our own good in the sense of finding a reliable sense of comfort inside, but also it means that we can become more reliable in our actions — the things we do and say and think. In that way, regardless of what’s happening outside, we can behave in a responsible manner, a harmless manner." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Inner Refuge"

"There’s a story about Somdet Toh. A young monk came to see him one evening and said, “This monk came up and hit me. I hadn’t done anything to him at all. He just came up and hit me.” And Somdet Toh said, “No, you hit him first.” They argued over this for a while, and then the young monk, frustrated, went to find another senior monk to complain about Somdet Toh, who he said wasn’t listening to reason. So the senior monk came and asked Somdet Toh, “What’s this all about?” And Somdet Toh said, “Well if this monk hadn’t had any kamma with that other monk in the past, the other monk wouldn’t have come up and hit him.” But then of course that raises the question, why did the first monk hit the second monk, or who hit who first? When you trace it back and back and back, that question becomes meaningless. And the funny thing is, is that making it meaningless takes a lot of sting out of it. The part of the mind that says, “I’ve got to right this wrong,” that holds on to old w...

"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...