Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Karma & Rebirth

"When the Buddha discourages speculation about karma, he’s discouraging the kind of speculation that says, “Why did this particular event happen right here, right now, to me?” If you try to trace things back, you go crazy. Karma is very complex in its working out, but simple in its basic principle: that if you act on skillful intentions, you get good results; if you act on unskillful intentions, you get bad results. And you can learn how to make your intentions skillful by acting on the best intentions you can think of. When you find the results are not good, you talk it over with those who are more advanced on the path. You reflect on what you did, where it might be wrong, where there was some delusion even in your good intentions. That’s how you learn. This is what the Buddha taught to Rāhula and it applies all the way along the path. That’s the kind of thing you need to know about karma. ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Suffering Starts Before Life"

"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 ...

"When an intention comes up to do or say or think something, you want to know what that intention is. It’s a teaching that the Buddha teaches his son Rahula: to look at his intentions before he does or says or thinks anything. I’ve heard a lot of people say, “Gee, that’s an awful lot of attention to something like that,” because they have so many other things they have to pay attention to. Well, it turns out that the other things you’re paying attention to are often the results of your own past actions. It’s much better to start at the very beginning to make sure that the new intentions coming out are well-formed. So try to stay right here. Find ways of making the mind happy to be right here, so that it has the energy and the inclination to want to look into what’s going on in the mind and straightening that out. Once you’ve straightened out the mind, everything else gets straightened out further down the line." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Straightened Intentions...

"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...

"When an intention comes up to do or say or think something, you want to know what that intention is. It’s a teaching that the Buddha teaches his son Rahula: to look at his intentions before he does or says or thinks anything. I’ve heard a lot of people say, “Gee, that’s an awful lot of attention to something like that,” because they have so many other things they have to pay attention to. Well, it turns out that the other things you’re paying attention to are often the results of your own past actions. It’s much better to start at the very beginning to make sure that the new intentions coming out are well-formed. So try to stay right here. Find ways of making the mind happy to be right here, so that it has the energy and the inclination to want to look into what’s going on in the mind and straightening that out. Once you’ve straightened out the mind, everything else gets straightened out further down the line." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Straightened Intentions...

"Kamma is often misunderstood and as a result often disliked. Part of the problem, in America at least, is that the teaching on kamma is sometimes seen as psychologically unhealthy. This is because it’s believed to be deterministic. As a result, the complaint is that the idea of kamma makes people get fatalistic about their own suffering, complacent about their pleasure, and callous and indifferent to other people’s suffering. But this view is based on a misunderstanding of the Buddha’s actual teachings on kamma. Tonight I would like to show how the Buddha taught kamma in a way that is psychologically very healthy. The first step will be to talk about what constitutes a healthy attitude toward action. The second step will be to see how the Buddha taught a healthy attitude toward action to his own son, Rāhula. And then the third step will be to draw some implications from what he taught Rāhula...." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "A Healthy Understanding of Kamma"

"In most people’s eyes, the idea of being kind to yourself means indulging yourself, like the wisdom, quote unquote, on wrappers of Dove chocolate: “Go ahead, be kind to yourself. Have another chocolate.” From there, the idea of being kind to others becomes basically indulging them, doing things they like. But if you think in terms of karma, kindness is something else. Being kind to yourself means looking at your thoughts, looking at your actions, and figuring out where they’re still lacking in skill, so that you can do something about it. A lot of us don’t like to do this. We feel we’re coming down hard on ourselves if we look at our shortcomings. But this is why the Buddha prefaced his instructions to Rahula on how to meditate with the teaching on making your mind like earth. People spit on earth, but earth doesn’t react. Make your mind like water. Water is used to wash away dirty things, but the water doesn’t react, doesn’t shrink away. Make the mind like wind. Wind blows dirt...

"You wonder what the Buddha would think about teachings that are said in his name nowadays: that you don’t do the practice; that there’s no “you” there to do the practice, it’s just conditions happening. That sort of thinking defeats any sense of your worth as a person, or of the worth of your choices. The Buddha was very clear that what you choose to do right now — what you choose to focus on, what you choose to think about, which intentions you choose to act on — is of prime importance. He started Rahula, his son, on the path of the Dhamma by having him look at his actions to see the extent to which his actions do have an impact, and trying to make that impact harmless. That theme carries all the way through the practice." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "You Are Not Redundant"

 "We have this inbred difficulty of looking at our own actions, but that’s precisely what the meditation is: looking at your own actions. It’s not so much self-purification as action-purification. It requires that you see your intentions and the actions and their results. Often these are things we don’t like to look at. Sometimes it’s just simple dishonesty. Other times we don’t like to look at these things because we don’t know how to handle what we see. How can you look at your mistakes without getting all tangled up in self-hatred, self-frustration? This is where the right attitudes come in. Look at those instructions the Buddha gave to Rahula. He said that when you see an action that you’ve done has caused harm, you should feel shame and loathing — not shame and loathing for yourself, shame and loathing for the action. That’s an important distinction. Shame around the action means that you realize you’re a better person than that. You shouldn’t have done it. It doesn’t mean th...

"One of the really fine things about Buddhism is that it was founded by someone who knows what it’s like to make a mistake. Even in his last lifetime, the Buddha made a huge mistake — six years of tormenting himself. And all those previous lifetimes! You look in the Jātaka stories and it’s not as if the Buddha was always perfect. He was making mistakes and having to learn from them. So unlike a religion that’s supposedly founded by a God who’s never been a human being, who’s never had to admit a mistake, the Buddha knows what it’s like to make a mistake and to have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and move on. Those instructions he gave to Rāhula are really useful in this regard. He said that if you see you’ve made a mistake, admit the mistake, talk it over with someone else, and then simply resolve not to repeat that mistake. You don’t have to carry the guilt around with you, just the memory that that was a mistake. Then you move on. The Buddha gave similar instructions to...

"When an intention comes up to do or say or think something, you want to know what that intention is. It’s a teaching that the Buddha teaches his son Rahula: to look at his intentions before he does or says or thinks anything. I’ve heard a lot of people say, “Gee, that’s an awful lot of attention to something like that,” because they have so many other things they have to pay attention to. Well, it turns out that the other things you’re paying attention to are often the results of your own past actions. It’s much better to start at the very beginning to make sure that the new intentions coming out are well-formed. So try to stay right here. Find ways of making the mind happy to be right here, so that it has the energy and the inclination to want to look into what’s going on in the mind and straightening that out. Once you’ve straightened out the mind, everything else gets straightened out further down the line." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Straightened Intentions...

"In examining our actions in terms of cause and effect, skillful and unskillful, we are already beginning to look at experience in line with the two sets of variables that make up the four noble truths: the origination of stress (unskillful cause), the path to the cessation of stress (skillful cause), stress (unskillful effect), and the cessation of stress (skillful effect). The way the Buddha recommended that Rāhula judge the results of his actions — both while doing them and after they are done — echoes the insight that formed the heart of his awakening: that intentions have results both in the immediate present and over time. When we look at the present moment from this perspective, we find that our experience of the present doesn’t “just happen.” Instead, it’s a product of our involvement — in terms of present intentions, the results of present intentions, and the results of past intentions — in which present intentions are the most important factor. The more we focus on that ...

"You watch yourself in action. And this, of course, starts with the Buddha’s instructions to Rahula. I know a lot of people who’ve commented they really wished that their parents had been like the Buddha, teaching them the way the Buddha taught Rahula. He’s basically saying to try to avoid mistakes, but if you find that you’ve made a mistake, this is what you do so you don’t have to make it again — probably some of the most valuable advice you can get. If you’re planning to do something, ask yourself, “What have been the results of my doing this in the past?” If doing it led to harm, you say, “Nah, I don’t want to do that again.” That’s a skillful decision. The Buddha here is teaching compassion. But he’s also teaching you to remember your actions. It’s a training in mindfulness and the ability to see connections: “I did x, and y happened as a result.” We don’t always see those connections, either because we don’t want to see, or because the cause and the effect were separated ...

"We have this inbred difficulty of looking at our own actions, but that’s precisely what the meditation is: looking at your own actions. It’s not so much self-purification as action-purification. It requires that you see your intentions and the actions and their results. Often these are things we don’t like to look at. Sometimes it’s just simple dishonesty. Other times we don’t like to look at these things because we don’t know how to handle what we see. How can you look at your mistakes without getting all tangled up in self-hatred, self-frustration? This is where the right attitudes come in. Look at those instructions the Buddha gave to Rahula. He said that when you see an action that you’ve done has caused harm, you should feel shame and loathing — not shame and loathing for yourself, shame and loathing for the action. That’s an important distinction. Shame around the action means that you realize you’re a better person than that. You shouldn’t have done it. It doesn’t mean tha...

"When an intention comes up to do or say or think something, you want to know what that intention is. It’s a teaching that the Buddha teaches his son Rahula: to look at his intentions before he does or says or thinks anything. I’ve heard a lot of people say, “Gee, that’s an awful lot of attention to something like that,” because they have so many other things they have to pay attention to. Well, it turns out that the other things you’re paying attention to are often the results of your own past actions. It’s much better to start at the very beginning to make sure that the new intentions coming out are well-formed. So try to stay right here. Find ways of making the mind happy to be right here, so that it has the energy and the inclination to want to look into what’s going on in the mind and straightening that out. Once you’ve straightened out the mind, everything else gets straightened out further down the line." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Straightened Intentions...

Question: The Buddha trained Rāhula in how to comport himself so that he would not be a nuisance to other people. Unfortunately, not everyone in the world is Rāhula. What attitude should one adopt in the face of people who do things that are unreflective and who have no sense of their own limits? Should we develop patience, tolerance, forgiveness? What other things should we do, especially given that we have not yet attained the first level of awakening? Thanissaro Bhikkhu: When dealing with difficult people, the approach we take should be determined by whether they are responsive to our actions or not. Some people are responsive and we can actually have a good influence on their actions. In that case, try to be proactive in helping them. Others are difficult to deal with and will not respond. That’s where you have to develop equanimity and forgiveness. And this is why it’s good to think about the principle of kamma in general. That helps put your actions and the other person’s actio...

"When an intention comes up to do or say or think something, you want to know what that intention is. It’s a teaching that the Buddha teaches his son Rahula: to look at his intentions before he does or says or thinks anything. I’ve heard a lot of people say, “Gee, that’s an awful lot of attention to something like that,” because they have so many other things they have to pay attention to. Well, it turns out that the other things you’re paying attention to are often the results of your own past actions. It’s much better to start at the very beginning to make sure that the new intentions coming out are well-formed. So try to stay right here. Find ways of making the mind happy to be right here, so that it has the energy and the inclination to want to look into what’s going on in the mind and straightening that out. Once you’ve straightened out the mind, everything else gets straightened out further down the line." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Straightened Intentions...

"When the Buddha was teaching Rahula how to look at his actions, at his words, at his deeds, the point was that he should try to purify the thoughts, the words, and the deeds. He wasn’t focused on making himself a better person; the point was to learn how to respond to situations in a more skillful way. That’s something you can evaluate, something you can learn from. If you make a mistake, you learn from the mistake and learn how not to repeat that mistake. If you do something well, remember that, take joy in that, and keep on training. In other words, when you look at your actions, don’t make them a gauge of how good a person you are. That’s where the fangs begin, and then they start you thinking about, “Well, am I better than that other person over there? Do they do a better job? Are they more generous? Are they more virtuous? Are they better meditators? Am I better than they are?” However you answer those questions, that kind of thinking has fangs because it re...

"In another passage where the Buddha’s teaching kamma, he starts with the virtues of generosity and gratitude. For most of us, when we hear about kamma, there’s that “Oh darn” moment, where we start thinking about all the bad things we did in the past and all the bad things that are going to happen to us in the future because of that. But the Buddha doesn’t start with the bad things at all. He starts with the good. He does say that certain actions tend to lead to certain results, but the fact that a past bad action has happened doesn’t mean that you, acting in the future, can’t make some changes in how it’s going to be experienced. He gives the analogy of a crystal of salt. You’ve got a crystal of salt, say, the size of your fist. If you put it into a cup of water, you can’t drink the water because the water is way too salty. But if you put it into a large, expansive river of clean water, you can still drink the water in the river. In the same way, if you develop an...

"People have noted how ironic it is that in a teaching that emphasizes not-self we have some of the earliest spiritual autobiographies of the world. The Buddha, when talking about his quest for awakening spoke very much in terms of: This is what I did, and looking at what I had done and seeing that it hadn’t given the results I wanted, I tried something else. That’s the pattern. When you think of the issue in other terms, though, this way of speaking is not ironic at all because the Buddha’s main teaching was kamma: We suffer because of our actions, but we can find the end of suffering by understanding our actions — the actions that lead to suffering, and then the actions of the path to the end of suffering. That understanding is what opens the way. The Buddha’s autobiography shows the lessons he learned about action in the course of his awakening, and he tells his story to show how we can follow his example and learn from our actions, too. Now, in doing an action and learning fr...