Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Karma & Rebirth

"There are people who complain that if you’re really serious about the practice you lose your spontaneity. Well, spontaneity may have its good side but it has its bad side as well. You want to be really careful, you have to be heedful, your actions do have consequences, you can’t pretend that they don’t. As for the pleasure in the practice, the Buddha says it’s loaded there in the practice of right concentration. If you want to find joy and spontaneity, look there. As for your other actions, you have to be very careful to be restrained. Otherwise, you end up doing and saying and thinking things that you later regret. And that regret is very hard to get rid of. Especially as life goes on and you don’t see any progress coming in your practice, you begin to wonder, “What’s this all about? What have I been doing?” Don’t be the sort of person who realizes that a lot of time was wasted, a lot of time was thrown away. After all, we don’t have an infinite amount of time. Th...

"People who’ve come back from near-death experiences often say that the things they regret most — when they look back on their lives, thinking that they’re about to die — are the opportunities where they could have helped someone else, been kind to someone else, but they didn’t. So, be generous with others and have some restraint in your behavior: no killing, no stealing, no illicit sex, no lying, no taking of intoxicants; no divisive speech, no ill will. Then as you look back on your life, you realize there’s nothing for which you have to reproach yourself, or anything you have to be afraid of, that you’re going to be punished for. That’s one fear that can be alleviated by generosity and virtue." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Fear of Death"

"So when we wish that all beings be happy, part of the reason is that we’re trying to develop the motivation that we don’t want to harm anybody in our actions. Because that’s all we’re responsible for: our own actions. Then you also think about the fact that the happiness there — in “May all beings be happy” — has to come from causes. It’s not that we go around with a magic wand to touch beings on the heads and say, “Okay, whatever you’re doing right now, be happy.” Because a lot of activities that people do are harmful to themselves, to other people. Part of being truly happy — and that’s the important part, that it’s true happiness — part of being truly happy is to learn how to stop doing unskillful actions." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Can All Beings Be Happy?"

"The development of goodwill [mettā], which the Buddha equates with restraint, teaches you that restraint is not a type of confinement. Instead, it’s an act of kindness to yourself and others. In fact, you best show your goodwill for others when you refrain from doing them harm. This realization makes you more inclined to practice the mental restraint needed for strong concentration." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Happiness as a Skill: The Practice of Puñña"