Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Karma & Rebirth

"Now, there are some people, of course, whose behavior is such that you may not want to be connected with them. But at least have sympathy: To whatever extent they’re doing unskillful things, they’re suffering. In some cases, the best course of action is to wish them well but to realize that you’re going to have to go separate ways." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Faith in Goodness"

"When people who are enjoying good fortune abuse that good fortune — say, using their power to create war and mayhem in the world — you can’t wish for them to lose their good fortune. A more skillful attitude would be to wish that they would see the error of their ways and then use their good fortune for greater good." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Sublime Determinations: a Retreat on the Brahmavihāras with the Sociedade Vipassana de Meditação BrasÍlia"

“And what is the stress [dukkha] of not getting what is wanted? In beings subject to birth, the wish arises, ‘O, may we not be subject to birth, and may birth not come to us.' But this is not to be achieved by wishing. This is the stress of not getting what is wanted." ~ the Buddha, The Great Establishing of Mindfulness Discourse: The Four Noble Truths, transl. Thanissaro

"Goodwill [mettā] is a wish for happiness — true happiness — which means it’s happiness that comes from within. As we know from the Buddha’s teachings on karma, people are going to be happy, not because you simply wish them to be happy, but because they create the causes for happiness in the skillfulness of their thoughts, their words, their deeds. Which means that when you’re extending goodwill to yourself, extending goodwill to others, there’s no question of whether you or they deserve goodwill, whether you or they deserve happiness. When the Buddha was teaching the end of suffering to people, he didn’t ask them first, “Do you deserve to suffer?” Everybody he met had karma that could induce them to suffer, but they didn’t have to suffer from it. That’s what the teaching was all about. You don’t have to suffer. And again, he didn’t hold people’s past against them. This is the way out. That should be the attitude you have to others as well. There are a lot of people out there wh...