Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Karma & Rebirth

" 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"

"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’"

"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 want to be able to see why the actions we do for the sake of happiness end up leading to stress and how we can change those ways, so that we can actually act in a way that leads to true happiness. We break things down into very simple components so that we can manage them. We realize that this is a problem we can manage. That’s the good news of the Buddha’s teachings: that even though we may be causing ourselves stress and suffering, we can put an end to it. If our suffering really were caused by things outside that were beyond our power, then there’d be no hope. Or if it were caused by things we were doing that we couldn’t change, there’d be no hope, either. But here we’re making choices. We’re probably not making them all that wisely, but we do have some wisdom. We do have some discernment. It’s just a matter of applying it, giving it a foundation here in the present moment, and then really using it to look carefully to see: Where are we creating unnecessary stress and suff...

"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...

"So for this question the mind always has — “What should I do now?” — [the Buddha] provides an answer for it. This is why the Dhamma is so good for the mind, so right for the mind, because it answers your burning question: You’ve got these responsibilities. How do you handle them, for the sake of a happiness that’s worth the effort that goes into it? The Buddha doesn’t waste his time talking about totally irrelevant things. After all, he said he learned a lot of things in the course of his awakening that he didn’t talk about. Why? Because it wouldn’t help with the solution to this problem: Why are we suffering? What are we doing that’s creating the suffering and what can we do to stop? He was very critical of teachers who would engage in what he called “bombast”: flowery words, beautiful sentiments that don’t offer any guidance that could be applied to that question, “What should I do next? What is the wisest thing to do next?” So we should take his teachings and app...

"When you’re observing the precepts, there come times when you know that people are going to take advantage of you because you’re honest, because you’re telling the truth. You have to decide which is to be feared more: telling a lie or having people take advantage of you? If you’re wise, you’ve got to decide that telling a lie is more fearful, something more worthy of fear." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Right Fear"

"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’"

"[The Buddha] has an interesting analysis of attention. He’s not talking about bare attention — just sitting there, passively watching things arise and pass away, as if you’re in a drugged state. To pay attention to life means to ask questions. Appropriate attention is when you start asking the right questions. And this is a good one to begin with: “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” “Long-term” here is important. You want long-term rather than short-term happiness. That’s part of the wisdom. The other part is that happiness depends on your actions — what you do, what you say, what you think. From that principle, you can derive a lot of the Buddha’s teachings." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Living Honorably" (Meditations8)

"Meditation is a gift. You’re taking care of the area where you really are responsible. That’s another one of the Buddha’s basic definitions of wisdom: that you take care of the area that you really are responsible for and you don’t drop that to go meddling into other people’s affairs or into things where you’re not really responsible. The fact that we have the ability to create either suffering or happiness inside, and the fact that we use this ability to create so much suffering: That’s our problem. That’s something that we have to work on. Once you solve that problem, you solve all the other problems you’re responsible for. Then you have energy left over to help other people — to be, at the very least, a good example for them, or to give them advice so they can work on their inner responsibilities, too." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Training Your Minds"

" 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"

"So for this question the mind always has — “What should I do now?” — [the Buddha] provides an answer for it. This is why the Dhamma is so good for the mind, so right for the mind, because it answers your burning question: You’ve got these responsibilities. How do you handle them, for the sake of a happiness that’s worth the effort that goes into it? The Buddha doesn’t waste his time talking about totally irrelevant things. After all, he said he learned a lot of things in the course of his awakening that he didn’t talk about. Why? Because it wouldn’t help with the solution to this problem: Why are we suffering? What are we doing that’s creating the suffering and what can we do to stop? He was very critical of teachers who would engage in what he called “bombast”: flowery words, beautiful sentiments that don’t offer any guidance that could be applied to that question, “What should I do next? What is the wisest thing to do next?” So we should take his teachings and apply them right...

"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"

"Regarding attempts at social change under the principle of kamma would also entail having to accept the principle that any forms of injustice that do not respond to the activities of merit have to be treated with equanimity. After all, the results of some past bad actions are so strong that nothing can be done to stop them. And if they could be alleviated now only by unskillful actions — such as lies, killing, theft, or violence — the trade-off in terms of long-term consequences wouldn’t be worth it. Any such attempts would not, in the Buddha’s analysis, be wise." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Wisdom over Justice"

"So we’re not here to be as passive as possible, to say that we’re seeing things just as they are. Look at the way the Buddha approached awakening. He didn’t just sit there passively. He tried different approaches. He focused his mind in different places. He took different things as the themes of his meditation. Then he evaluated the results. How did it work? What was he able to do? And what was not up to his expectations? Then the question always was, “What am I doing wrong?” He would turn around and check out other possibilities. He experimented, which meant that he had to act and then look at the results of his actions, pass judgment on them, and then decide what to do next based on that judgment. It was through this process of committing himself to doing what he thought was the wisest and most skillful thing to do and then reflecting on the results that he was able to come up with some good standards for judgment. And that’s what the four noble truths are, standards for judgm...

"We suffer not because of what other people do, and the path to the end of suffering doesn’t lie in straightening other people out. We suffer from what we’re doing, and the path lies in straightening out ourselves. So that’s where our focus has to be. That’s where we have to be centered. This means we shouldn’t try not to be self-centered. We have to be self-centered in a wise way, a skillful way." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "How to Be Self-Centered" (Meditations11)

"The purpose of the practice is not just to accept what’s happening and to simply let it happen. When you look at the Buddha’s teachings on karma, you realize that what we experience in the present moment is not something that’s beyond our control. We do have a role in shaping it. That’s what allows for a path of practice. If we didn’t have that role in shaping it, we’d just have to accept things, like a TV show. Wherever the writers decide the show is going to go, you have to accept that. You can’t yell at the screen and tell the characters to do something else, or go back and rewrite it. Actually, experience is more like an interactive game. You have some control over how things are going to go. You have some choices that can steer the action in new directions. The whole point of the practice is to learn how to make those choices wisely, to make wise changes in your mind. That’s what we’re doing as we meditate: We’re here changing our minds." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu ...

"As you meditate, you learn the lessons that help you wise up after realizing you’ve been foolish. Strengthen these lessons by looking at your intentions, attention, and perceptions, and realize that these govern your actions. Remember: What you do is what matters. There’s a clear distinction between skillful and unskillful. You don’t want to act in unskillful ways. You’ve seen the harm. This is the wisdom of wising up: recognizing when you’ve been a fool in any way. The lessons implicit in that wisdom include believing that choices are real; they have real consequences; those choices depend on views, which in turn are based on perceptions, attention, and intentions, what you would like to achieve through your actions. These are all important lessons. This is why the Buddha focuses on these elements as being crucial to what shapes your life so you can start shaping it in a wise way." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Wisdom of Wising Up" (Meditations6)

"This is where our culture at large is really lacking. The basic assumption is that there has to be a lot of strife and a lot of conflict. The newspapers thrive on conflict. If everybody were at peace, you couldn’t sell a newspaper — except for the Sudokus and the comics — and so they try to stir up as much controversy as possible. They thrive on that. There are other people, too, who profit off of conflict, who try to keep it all stirred up. The image they project is that we can’t live in peace with one another. It’s either them or us. In this kind of culture, the idea of a happiness that spreads around, a happiness that’s shared, gets trampled. The people who do good are the fools: That’s the attitude of the culture. You’ve got to fight for yourself. It’s interesting that many people who don’t believe in biological Darwinism do believe in social Darwinism. The people who fight are the ones who will get ahead: That’s the attitude. It’s a very unhealthy culture. So you can’t expec...

" 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"