Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Karma & Rebirth

"Like the teaching on not-self, or the teaching on all three of the three perceptions [inconstant, stressful, not-self]: There are certain cases where, he says, you don’t apply them. You don’t draw out inferences, like inferring from the fact that all feelings are fabricated that all feelings have to be regarded as stressful, painful. He says that when you’re talking about karma, that’s not the inference you should draw. You should talk about the three types of feelings that result from karma: pleasant, painful, neither pleasant nor painful, because they’re related to skillful, unskillful, and neutral actions. You’re talking about karma to get people to know what kind of actions they should and shouldn’t be doing. If you say that all feelings resulting from action are painful, who’s going to bother trying to be skillful? That’s a case where there’s a wrong inference." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Give of Yourself"

"As Ajaan Suwat once pointed out, there is an important riddle to contemplate in the practice. On the one hand, the Buddha said that all phenomena are not self, and seeing things in that way is part of the path. On the other hand, there is that point we’re supposed to contemplate everyday: “I am the owner of my actions, heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, whatever I do for good or for evil to that will I fall heir.” There is very definitely an “I am” there. So it’s good to think about that riddle."   ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu  "The Riddle of 'I Am'"

"I know some people who say that when you’re working with kamma, you’ve got to realize that your intentions are simply the result of causes and conditions. They don’t have anything to do with you. But that doesn’t give you any motivation to try to make skillful choices. Those people say you have to let go of every sense of “I” because it causes you trouble. Well, it’s actually necessary for certain skillful decisions." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Pull Yourself Up by Your Fetters" (Meditations11)

"There’s that old question you hear every time people hear the Buddha’s teachings explained, and it’s this: Given the teaching on not-self, how do to explain the teaching on karma? If there’s no self, who does the action? Who receives the results of the action? There are two problems with that question. One is that the Buddha never answered the question of whether there is or isn’t a self. The second problem with the question is that it’s got the context backwards. It should be: Given the teaching on karma, how do you explain the teaching on not-self? The teaching on karma comes first. It’s the context. On the night of the Buddha’s awakening, the second knowledge in the second watch of the night was about karma, about how people’s views shape their actions and how their actions then shape what happens to them, now and into the future. It wasn’t until later that issues of self and not-self came into the picture." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Karma & Not-self"

"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’"

"As Ajaan Suwat once pointed out, there is an important riddle to contemplate in the practice. On the one hand, the Buddha said that all phenomena are not self, and seeing things in that way is part of the path. On the other hand, there is that point we’re supposed to contemplate everyday: “I am the owner of my actions, heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, whatever I do for good or for evil to that will I fall heir.” There is very definitely an “I am” there. So it’s good to think about that riddle."   ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu  "The Riddle of 'I Am'"

"When I was up in the Bay Area [in September 2017], I came across a new word: corelessness . Apparently, the latest fashion is to claim that the Buddha said we are coreless, and that that’s the meaning of anatta . In other words, there’s a jumble of karmic activities that make up a human being. That’s what you are. The anatta  teaching, in this interpretation, is not a not-self teaching; it’s a no-self teaching. It answers the question of what you are, saying that what you are has no core. You’re like a karmic fuzz ball. All the fuzz that’s picked up as the fuzz ball moves across the floor under the force of the wind is held together only by static electricity, but there’s no real core there. This is supposed to represent what the Buddha taught about what we are. The problem is that the Buddha never talked about what we are. That was one of the questions he consistently avoided. If you say that there’s no core there, then when kamma ends in the attainment of nibbana, there’d be no...

"I was giving a Dhamma talk on kamma up in the Bay Area. After the talk, a woman came up and said, “You know, this made me think, ‘Maybe my life isn’t determined by my DNA after all.’” I was surprised. She’d been going to Dhamma talks for a fair while and yet was still able to maintain the idea that somehow DNA determined everything that was going to happen in her life, everything she was going to do. But then, it is easy to have that view in conjunction with a lot of stuff that’s taught as Dhamma these days: the idea that there’s really no self there, that things are just happening on their own, and the only way to find happiness is to get out of the way. Don’t have any desires for anything to happen differently from the way it is. Just accept things as they are and be done with it. That’s what they say, but that’s not what the Buddha taught. His teachings all start with the power of intention. Your mind is what shapes your experience. You’re not just passive recipients. If we a...

"Another argument against karma is that given the doctrine of not-self, how does karma make sense? If there is no self then who's doing the action? Who's receiving the action? What's there for continuity? That's getting the context backwards. The Buddha started with the teaching on karma first and then came up with the doctrine of not-self in the context of karma. In other words he said people act — you can see that for sure. Then the question of how does the doctrine of not-self fit in to the way people act? And it turns out that the Buddha said that our sense of self is something that we do — it is a type of karma. You create your sense of yourself. You create the sense of what you are. Your create your sense of what belongs to you. It’s a type of action and the question is: Is it a skillful action? Is it going to create suffering or is it not going to create suffering?" ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "War on Karma" (51min mp3 audio)

"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’"

Question: So there’s no self. So in that case, who acts and who creates the kamma? Thanissaro Bhikkhu: The Buddha never said that there is no self. When he teaches not -self, he’s teaching a technique, a strategy for getting rid of attachment. There’s a common misconception that the Buddha starts with the idea of there being no self, and in the context of no self teaches the doctrine of kamma, which doesn’t make sense: If there’s no self, who does the kamma and who receives the results? But that misconception gets the context backwards. Actually, the Buddha starts with the doctrine of kamma, and then views ideas of “self” and “not-self” as types of kamma. In other words, he focuses on seeing the way we define our sense of self as an action. Then the question becomes, when is the activity of identifying things as your self skillful, and when is it not? When is the activity of identifying things as not-self skillful, and when is it not? There are some instances where the B...

Question: Can you form the hope to be welcomed at the moment of death, the grand passage, with “people” you’ve loved or the “people” for whom you may have some devotion or teachers who have put us on the path of the Dhamma? I have lots of gratitude for these “persons.” Thanissaro Bhikkhu: There’s no need to put the word “person” or “people” in quotation marks. There is the belief sometimes that the Buddha teaches that there are no persons, but actually, he teaches that there are persons as long as there’s the process of becoming. We keep on taking on the identity of people, of persons, through our attachments and clingings as we go from life to life to life. It’s only when you reach nibbāna that you go beyond being a person. Now, the question concerns the hope for being welcomed by the people you love or to whom you’re devoted: You have to be careful, because sometimes the people you have loved are not in really good destinations. They may have gone to a lower destination. If you tel...

" “The world has nothing of its own. One has to pass on, leaving everything behind.” Actually, we don’t leave everything behind. As the Buddha points out, you take your karma. So you try to only take good things with you by making sure you create only good karma. Ajaan Suwat used to comment on how the Buddha would talk about how the aggregates are not-self, the sense media are not-self, not-self, not-self. But then the Buddha would turn around and say, “We are the owners of our actions.” In Thai, the translation is basically both that we’re the doers of our actions and the owners, at the same time. Our actions are ours. So again, you develop the qualities of mind that give you good actions that you can depend on." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The World Offers No Shelter"

"All of [the Buddha's] really basic teachings have to do with action, which is why kamma is so central to what he taught. Kamma consists of your intentions, and your intentions are shaped by your views. If your views are concerned with what you are or what the world is, you’re going to be sloppy in your actions. But if your views deal with what are you doing, what kind of actions are skillful, what kind of actions are not skillful, they focus your attention where it really can make a difference — where it really can be of use. The rest of the path then follows on that. You make up your mind that you’re going to act on intentions that are not harmful, and you apply that principle to your daily life." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Expert's Mind"

"I don’t know how many times I’ve run into people who say that they’ve learned from their meditation that there is no agency, there is no choice. There are meditation methods that try to drive choice underground: You get to the point where you deny that you have choice, that you’re simply there on the receiving end of what happened from the past. But that’s not in line with what the Buddha taught. He said that if you think that the present moment is totally determined by the past, you have no freedom at all. If whatever you do is determined by the past, you have no choice as to kill or not to kill, to steal or not to steal. It would be a meaningless life. There would be no meaning in the path. And, he said, it would leave you unprotected and bewildered. “Unprotected” in the sense that you wouldn’t have any way of arguing against your urges to do something unskillful. And “bewildered” because you’d say, “What did I do in the past that made me compelled me to do this?”...

Question: So there’s no self. So in that case, who acts and who creates the kamma? Thanissaro Bhikkhu: The Buddha never said that there is no self. When he teaches not -self, he’s teaching a technique, a strategy for getting rid of attachment. There’s a common misconception that the Buddha starts with the idea of there being no self, and in the context of no self teaches the doctrine of kamma, which doesn’t make sense: If there’s no self, who does the kamma and who receives the results? But that misconception gets the context backwards. Actually, the Buddha starts with the doctrine of kamma, and then views ideas of “self” and “not-self” as types of kamma. In other words, he focuses on seeing the way we define our sense of self as an action. Then the question becomes, when is the activity of identifying things as your self skillful, and when is it not? When is the activity of identifying things as not-self skillful, and when is it not? There are some instances where the B...

"As Ajaan Suwat once pointed out, there is an important riddle to contemplate in the practice. On the one hand, the Buddha said that all phenomena are not self, and seeing things in that way is part of the path. On the other hand, there is that point we’re supposed to contemplate everyday: “I am the owner of my actions, heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, whatever I do for good or for evil to that will I fall heir.” There is very definitely an “I am” there. So it’s good to think about that riddle."   ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu  "The Riddle of 'I Am'"

Question: So there’s no self. So in that case, who acts and who creates the kamma? Thanissaro Bhikkhu: The Buddha never said that there is no self. When he teaches not -self, he’s teaching a technique, a strategy for getting rid of attachment. There’s a common misconception that the Buddha starts with the idea of there being no self, and in the context of no self teaches the doctrine of kamma, which doesn’t make sense: If there’s no self, who does the kamma and who receives the results? But that misconception gets the context backwards. Actually, the Buddha starts with the doctrine of kamma, and then views ideas of “self” and “not-self” as types of kamma. In other words, he focuses on seeing the way we define our sense of self as an action. Then the question becomes, when is the activity of identifying things as your self skillful, and when is it not? When is the activity of identifying things as not-self skillful, and when is it not? There are some instances where the B...

"Ajaan Suwat once gave a Dhamma talk on how karma is not not-self. You don’t ever see the Buddha saying that your karma is not-self. The results of karma are not-self. Once you’ve done something, the results lie outside your control. You’ve set a series of conditions in motion and now you can’t call them back. But while you’re making the decision to act, that’s something you are responsible for. You do have control there. So, he says, focus your attention on the area where you do have control and make the most of it. You can choose to cause suffering. You can choose to cause temporary happiness. You can choose to cause lasting happiness. You could choose to find the end of suffering. These are choices you can make." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Control"

 "All of [the Buddha's] really basic teachings have to do with action, which is why kamma is so central to what he taught. Kamma consists of your intentions, and your intentions are shaped by your views. If your views are concerned with what you are or what the world is, you’re going to be sloppy in your actions. But if your views deal with what are you doing, what kind of actions are skillful, what kind of actions are not skillful, they focus your attention where it really can make a difference — where it really can be of use. The rest of the path then follows on that. You make up your mind that you’re going to act on intentions that are not harmful, and you apply that principle to your daily life." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Expert's Mind"