Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Karma & Rebirth

"So in a world where people are engaging in wrong actions and wrong speech, there are times when you’re put at a disadvantage. But those disadvantages are only temporary. The fact that you’re holding to the precepts means you have something of solid worth that gives you a good future over the long term." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Values of the Noble Ones"

"As [the Buddha] noted, you can’t see all the results of actions here in this lifetime. Some people say, “Everything I’ve seen in life is enough to convince me that kamma works.” Well, No, it’s not. There are plenty of people who do all kinds of horrible unskillful things, yet they’re still alive. They thrive. The Buddha has a long list of people who thrive because they kill, steal, engage in illicit sex, lie, or take intoxicants [Saṁyutta Nikāya 42:13]. They do it with the right people and they do it in the right way to please someone in power, so they actually get rewarded by society in one way or another. But as the Buddha commented, those are only the short-term consequences. You’ve got to take the long-term consequences into consideration as well." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Rebirth is Relevant"

"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"

" Dhammo have rakikhati dhammacāriṃ: The Dhamma protects those who practice the Dhamma. Sometimes it seems like those that practice the Dhamma are at a disadvantage. Other people get to lie, but we don’t. Other people can push for their own advantage without any scruples, but we have to stick by our principles. But those principles are what protect us. The advantage that people gain by harming themselves, harming other people, doesn’t last very long. It’s good to remember that, because we’re here for long-lasting well-being. That’s what wisdom is all about. Which means that we have to train the mind to be patient." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Dhamma Protects"

"Of course this few minutes is part of a longer practice. It’s good to remember that we’re not here just running 100-meter dashes. We’re running a marathon, which means you have to learn how to pace yourself. If you push yourself too hard, you won’t finish. If you don’t push yourself hard enough, you won’t finish. [....] Even if you stumble, remember: This is a marathon, you can pick yourself up and keep going. If it were a 100-yard dash, if you stumbled that would be the end of it, you wouldn’t even try to finish. But in this case. you do pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep on running. Because, as I said, we’re not competing with anyone else, we’re just competing with ourselves. And you want to find just the right amount of pressure, just the right amount of effort to go along with the energy you’ve got. That way you make it all the way to the finish line. Now, whether it’s now or tomorrow or the next day: That’s not the issue. Just keep on plugging away, plugging away,...

"It’s easy not to believe that the quality of your intention is going to determine the results of your actions, because you see a lot of people acting out of greed, hatred, and delusion, and yet they seem to be pretty happy, in the short term at least. So it is a matter of belief. And the Buddha’s proof simply is a pragmatic one: If you believe in your actions, you’ll act more skillfully. He adds that if you really want to put an end to suffering through your own efforts, this is what you have to believe. You have to take this as your working hypothesis." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Believe in Your Actions"

"We repeat so often, “There is no one in charge.” There’s no one to tell us that we have to sacrifice our happiness or our well-being for some larger purpose. But even though there’s no person in charge, still karma’s in charge . What you do to pursue your happiness is going to determine whether your happiness is long-term or short-term. If you’re wise, you’ll go for the long-term." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Happiness – Yours & Others’"

"You will make mistakes, but learn how to learn from them, and the best way to be willing and able to learn is to make sure that you start out with the intention not to harm. Then you can check to see: If you’re harming anybody, harming yourself, you stop. If you don’t see any harm, you continue. Then, after the action is done, you look at the long-term results. If it turns out you did do harm, you go talk it over with somebody who has experience on the path. Don’t be ashamed. Don’t be embarrassed. We’re here to learn. Talk it over with somebody you trust, and then learn that lesson for the next time around. It’s this way that your good intentions become skillful, and even when you do make a mistake, the fact that you were operating on good intentions to begin with makes it a lot easier to live with the fact that you made a mistake. It’s in this way that your practice stays protected — you’re protected and you’re protecting others through your actions." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu ...

"The reasonability of the teaching can be gauged by the central principle in views of integrity as explained above in MN 110. That principle is conviction in kamma, the efficacy of human action: that people are responsible for their actions, that their intentions determine the quality — the skillfulness or unskillfulness — of their actions, that actions give results, and that the quality of the action determines the quality of the result. A person who does not believe in these principles cannot be trusted. Because the distinction between skillfulness and unskillfulness is central to the principle of kamma — and also to the project of putting an end to suffering and stress — MN 135 recommends approaching potential teachers and asking them: “What is skillful? What is unskillful? What is blameworthy? What is blameless? What should be cultivated? What should not be cultivated? What, having been done by me, will be for my long-term harm & suffering? Or what, having been done by me,...

"If a monk commits an offense and refuses to undergo the penalty, the Community may decide how seriously they take the matter. Since there is no monks’ police beyond the individual’s conscience, it may often happen that no one else knows of the offense to begin with, and nothing is done. If however it becomes common knowledge, and the Community regards it as a serious matter, they should talk privately with the monk to help him see the error of his ways. If he is recalcitrant, they may strip him temporarily of his status, either by censuring him, stripping him of his seniority, driving him from the Community, or suspending him from the Order of monks as a whole. If the offender sees the error of his ways and reforms his behavior accordingly, the Community may return him to his former status. Now of course there may be some hardened souls among the monks who are unfazed by punishments of this sort, but we should note that the Buddha saw no use for physical coercion in enforcing his...

"The Buddha once said that wisdom starts with the question: “What when I do it will lead to my long-term harm and suffering? And what when I do it will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” That’s getting you to think in terms of the four noble truths right there, noticing that what you do is going to be a cause and can lead either to harm and suffering, or to welfare and happiness. That’s the framework of the four noble truths. And the focus again is on what you’re doing and the results you’re getting. When the Buddha first taught his son, that was the first teaching he gave him: Look at your actions and see what results you’re actually getting. If you see you’re getting bad results, don’t repeat that action again. If you see you’ve got good results, take pride in the fact that you’re progressing in the training. “Progress” here means that you’re becoming more and more sensitive to the results you’re getting, and to the connection between those results and causes that act...

"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...

"There are a lot of things in life that, if you thought, “This is your one lifetime, this is your one chance,” would strike you as very unfair. It would be hard to live with the idea that, say, someone smeared your name and you couldn’t get it un-smeared. Other people who don’t seem to have any right to power have taken over a lot of power. But if you take the long view of things, you realize that this is going to pass, and this is not your only chance. It makes it a lot easier to live with the things you can’t change, and focus on the ones you can." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Patience & Hope"

"This is where true happiness is going to be found: in learning how to train your actions. Any loss of that conviction would be fatal to a pursuit of happiness that could be reliable, trustworthy. So that’s going to be a serious loss. Fortunately, the things that would be a serious loss are things that are under your control. You can maintain your virtue. People can offer you all kinds of rewards for breaking the precepts, but you can say No. You can maintain your right view. As for loss of relatives, loss of wealth, loss of your health, that’s going to happen at some point anyhow, sooner or later. You lose these things; you get them back. You get them back; you lose them again. But with loss of right view, loss of your virtue: If you lose that, you’re going to be acting on wrong view, acting in unskillful ways, and that’s going to be for your long-term harm. That’s why it’s a serious loss. But it is under your control. You can prevent that. So you work on that — y...

"This is another reason why the Buddha taught rebirth: as one of our motivations for practicing and for being really strict with ourselves as we practice. After all, some cravings and clingings in the mind appear at first glance to be no problem at all. They don’t seem to be affecting anybody else. We’re okay with them. But if you think about the fact that these cravings are creating not only your identity now, but also the world into which you’re going to be reborn, you realize that they’re dangerous. It’s like tuning your radio: It’ll connect with whatever’s on that particular frequency: hard rock or Beethoven or the ravings of some lunatic. Are your cravings on the frequency of the kind of world you’d really want to create and inhabit long-term? Sensual passion is the worse offender, because all of the worlds of intense suffering and conflict are on the frequency of sensual passion. Are those worlds you’d want to inhabit long-term?" ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "...

"Some people actually find it easier to start with thoughts of goodwill [mettā] for someone who’s been a benefactor, a person who has helped them. Whoever you find it easiest, start with that person first. Think about what it means to have goodwill for that person. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to be there for that person all the time, simply that whatever you do or say or think that’s going to have an impact on that person, you don’t want it to harm them. If possible, you want them to act to skillfully, too. Because it’s not that the case that your wishing them happiness is going to be like a magic wand that will light up a little light someplace in their head. After all, there is that phrase: “May they look after themselves with ease,” in other words, may they know how to behave in such a way that actually does lead to true happiness. This is where goodwill goes deeper than just hoping that people have a nice life. You hope that they, too, will act on skillful intentions. I...

"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"

"As [the Buddha] noted, you can’t see all the results of actions here in this lifetime. Some people say, “Everything I’ve seen in life is enough to convince me that kamma works.” Well, No, it’s not. There are plenty of people who do all kinds of horrible unskillful things, yet they’re still alive. They thrive. The Buddha has a long list of people who thrive because they kill, steal, engage in illicit sex, lie, or take intoxicants [Saṁyutta Nikāya 42:13]. They do it with the right people and they do it in the right way to please someone in power, so they actually get rewarded by society in one way or another. But as the Buddha commented, those are only the short-term consequences. You’ve got to take the long-term consequences into consideration as well." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Rebirth is Relevant"

"You realize that if your peace is going to last, if your happiness is going to last, it has to depend on not causing any harm to anybody else. Otherwise they’ll try to destroy it. So you have to take their desire for peace, their desire for happiness into consideration. There’s a passage where the Buddha tells King Pasenadi that you can search the whole world over, and you’ll find no one who doesn’t have fierce love for themselves. You have fierce love for yourself. Everyone else has the same fierce love for themselves. So if your happiness gets in the way of their fierce love of themselves, they’re not going to stand for it. There’d be no peace." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "No Happiness Other than Peace"

"So look out for any wrong views that would make you want to listen to what the world out there has to say about how you have to get back at certain people, or that you have to fight in an unfair way for what you think is right. The idea that ends justify the means is really destructive because there are no ends in samsara. It’s like a series of meadows I walked through one time near the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. You came across a meadow and you could see to the end of the meadow. But then when you came to the end of the meadow, it turned out there was a slight turn in the path, and there was another meadow. You saw to the end of that meadow and when you walked there, there was another meadow. It just kept going and going and going like that. So remember: There are no “ends” out there in samsara, there are just “means.” They only real end is nibbana. You may not be sure whether you can attain any of the ends that you want, but you can be sure that your means are...