Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Karma & Rebirth

"Right view teaches you that your actions are important, that you have to hold on to your actions no matter what’s happening outside. No matter what other people are doing, you make sure that your actions are skillful, and to that extent you’re safe. That, of course, applies to your virtue as well. You think of all the ways in which you could harm yourself and harm others, and all the excuses you can give for doing those harmful acts, and you realize that if you give in to those excuses, you’ve sold away your most valuable possessions. You’re the one who squanders them. Because the world outside can take away your health, it can take away your wealth, it can take away your relatives. But you have to let it  take away your right view, and let it  take away your virtue. You’re the one who gives these things away. You’re the one who smashes those treasures. If you don’t smash them, they’re in good shape. The world can do nothing to destroy them." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "A Ref...

"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 for what other people are thinking or saying or doing, just remember: They can never take you to hell. If you’re going to go to hell, it’s through your own doing. They can’t take you to heaven, either. If you are going to heaven, it’s through your own doing. And you don’t have to worry about heaven and hell in the afterlife. Right here and now, you can see it. Other people can do horrible things, but it’s only when you let what they’re doing get into your mind, and then you start doing horrible things along with them: That’s when it really gets bad. At the same time, no matter how good other people may be, you can always be worried about how much longer that goodness is going to last. Sometimes, the better the person is, the more you’re worried: “It can’t last. So I’m just going to have to hold on to them.” The issue isn’t what other people are doing, it’s how you’re managing your own mind. This is why you have to give importance, give weight to this ability to st...

"Figure out what your actions are and what the results are, how they’re connected, and which actions give rise to better results than others. This is why we meditate — to develop those powers. So it’s not a matter of you versus the system outside, where you are trustworthy and the system outside is not. Rather, it’s learning how to sort out inside you which perceptions and which thought constructs are actually more trustworthy than others." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Trust in Heedfulness"

"There was a debate recently over the question of whether there are times when it’s justified to go out and kill people if they’re really evil. Well, that’s making your goodness depend on their goodness or badness. It’s not an independent value; it’s not an independent principle. But as the Buddha pointed out, your goodness has to be generated from within. It comes from your wisdom, seeing that regardless of how bad other people are, you’re not going to behave in that way. And that gives rise to a sense of self-esteem." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Loving Yourself Wisely"

"We do have the power to exert control over our intentions right now. And our intentions do shape our experience of the world around us, the world inside us, at least to some extent: enough to make the difference between suffering and not suffering. What we’re experiencing right now is the result of past intentions, plus our current intentions, plus the results of our current intentions. Even though we may not have absolute control over things, and will ultimately have to let them all go, we do have some control over our actions now. And you want to make the most of that fact." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Limits of Control"

"So the general interconnectedness out there is not always a good thing. In fact, Interbeing is Inter-eating. We feed on one another. The types of connections that can be helpful, though, are the ones that we connect through our karma. In that chant we have about our actions: kammabandhu,  we are related through our actions. It’s through our choices that we’re connected with different people in different ways — which is one of the reasons why you want to be very careful about how you relate to others, how your actions have an impact on others. Try to create connections that are good. This is what generosity is for; it’s what virtue is for Meditation helps in this way as well. The stronger we are inside, the less we have to lean on others. The more clarity we bring to our own actions, the less we’re likely to harm others. And the greater sense of strength we have inside, the less we’re likely to do unskillful things. Because it’s usually through a sense of weakness or being threate...

"Your actions are what are real, that have the most reality. The world out there is not the issue. The world that you experience comes from your [intentional] actions [kamma]. Your actions are more solid, more powerful than your experience of earth, wind, water, fire, and all the other elements. That’s a pretty radical statement. This is why the Buddha keeps focusing back on what you’re doing right now because what you’re doing right now is the big shaping force in your experience." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "So Little Time" (Meditations8)

"The cause of suffering lies inside. You suffer, not from what comes into the mind, but from what comes out of it. Things outside — society, the climate — might be atrocious, but they’re not the real cause of your suffering. If they were, then in the quest to put an end to suffering, you’d have to make the world a perfect place. But the world resists being made perfect." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Four Noble Truths"

"Think about how you’d like a happiness that doesn’t harm anybody, partly because you feel empathy with other beings and partly because you realize that if your happiness depended on other people’s suffering, it wouldn’t last. They would do what they could to destroy it. So you want a happiness that doesn’t impose on people. And because this is a happiness that depends on your own inner resources, you find that your true happiness doesn’t conflict with anyone else’s true happiness. So you wish them goodwill [mettā] . May they be happy too. May they understand the causes for true happiness. Now, as you do this, you may find that part of your mind says, “Well, there are certain people I would rather see suffer first for one reason or another.” So again, think of it as a committee meeting. You’re sitting down and you say, “Okay, exactly why? What would you gain from that person’s suffering?” As we all know, most people do evil because they’re feeling threatened, they’re feeling mis...

"We often think of mindfulness simply as being fully aware of the present moment but it actually means the ability to keep something in mind. As the Buddha defined it, it’s the ability to remember things that were said or done long ago — and in particular, things that you  said and did long ago. This is so that when the results come, you can recognize, “Oh, this is connected to that. This happened because of this action I took. I said that, now my mind is a mess. I said that a couple of hours ago but my mind is a mess now.” Or, “I did that a while back and now my mind’s in good shape.” If you can’t see these connections, you don’t really have true insight. The insight lies in seeing cause and effect. After all, when the Buddha summarized the insight of his awakening, he boiled it down to a causal principle, the ability to see the connections: When one thing arises it causes something else to arise, either right now or down the line. When it passes away it causes the other thing t...

"We’re always worried about our relationships to people outside, but our relationship to ourself is very unskillful and that’s a lot more basic, and a much bigger problem. How do you relate to your own thoughts? How do you relate to your perceptions? Learn how to relate in more skillful ways." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Overcoming Complacency"

"So be serious about being happy. Be willing to do whatever is needed. Be willing to sacrifice whatever has to be sacrificed, and you’ll find that that kind of survival really is worth struggling for, because you’re not involved in struggling against other people, you’re struggling against your own defilements. And victory over the defilements is the best kind of victory there is. You’re not creating bad kamma with other people. In fact, your inner victory is going to be good for other people outside as well." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "For the Survival of True Happiness"

"It’s easy to see the appeal of a notion of Oneness benevolently designed to take care of us all in spite of our actions. And why that notion can appear to be a more compassionate teaching than interconnectedness through action, in that it provides a more comforting vision of the world and is more forgiving around the precepts. But actually, the principle of interconnectedness through our actions is the more compassionate teaching of the two — both in showing more compassion to the people to whom it’s taught and in giving them better reasons to act toward others in compassionate ways. To begin with, interconnectedness through kamma allows for freedom of choice, whereas Oneness doesn’t. If we were really all parts of a larger organic Oneness, how could any of us determine what role we would play within that Oneness? It would be like a stomach suddenly deciding to switch jobs with the liver or to go on strike: The organism would die. At most, the stomach is free simply to act in lin...

"You understand the principle of karma inside, because karma is not just something that acts between lifetimes. It’s happening all the time. With every intentional action, there’s going to be a result. Some of those results show up right away, and some of them show up over time. You want to be able to see those connections. Observing the precepts — having precepts that are pleasing to the noble ones — means you’re going to stay right here. That’s your intention, and the results will have to be right here as well. That’s why it’s easier to see the connection between the two. That’s how the practice of virtue and concentration then leads to discernment, because discernment is all about seeing cause and effect. You start out by taking the Buddha’s word for it: You take his teachings as a working assumption. But then, when you’re really here — focused, still — then you can start seeing the truth of those teachings for yourself. So, the emphasis on virtue, concentration, and discernmen...

"So you’ve got to reflect on your actions. You’ve got to reflect on your thoughts, words, and deeds, on how they have an impact on you and how they have an impact on others. Keep your attention focused there more than outside. Our media nowadays tend to focus on everything outside. We almost live in the screens of our hand-held devices or our computers or whatever. And the important people seem to be the ones who are in the screens. But they’re not. The important person is the person holding the screen. What is this person doing? What is this person saying? What is this person thinking? That’s something you can actually have an impact on. And the impact is not felt only by you; it’s felt by all the people around you. So you have to be very, very careful. This is what the principle of heedfulness is all about. Your actions do have consequences. So instead of having the energy run out your eyes and ears or whatever, try to keep the energy focused inside so that you can ...

"Normally, people will allow their happiness to depend on a whole lot of conditions. And the more you think about those conditions, the more you realize that they’re totally beyond your control: the economy, the climate, the political situation, the continued beating of certain hearts, the stability of the ground beneath your feet, all of which are very uncertain. So what do you do? You learn to look inside. Try to create a sense of well-being that can come simply with being with the breath. Even though this isn’t the total cure, it’s the path toward the cure. You learn to develop a happiness less and less dependent on things outside, and more and more inward, something more under your control, something you can manage better. And as you work on this happiness you find that it’s not a second best. It actually is better than the kind of happiness that was dependent on things outside. It’s much more gratifying, more stable. It permeates much more deeply into the mind." ~ Thanis...

"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"

"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"

"You see someone else doing something that gets you upset or something that offends you. Don’t focus on the other person; focus on the action in and of itself, as part of a causal process, and then turn around and look at yourself. If, in your mind, you create other people out there, you create a lot of problems. But if you simply see life in the community as an opportunity to watch the principle of cause and effect as it plays itself out, the problems vanish." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Admirable Friendship" (Meditations1)