Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Karma & Rebirth

"Although the Buddha does mention that large gifts can create a great deal of puñña , he’s quick to add that the goodness of even great gifts of generosity to highly attained individuals is no match at all for the goodness that comes from observing the five precepts: abstaining from killing, stealing, illicit sex, lying, and taking intoxicants. The goodness of observing the precepts, in turn, is no match for the goodness of developing a heart of goodwill [mettā] . In other words, the karma of virtue and vice, both inner and outer, is much stronger than the karma of generosity, so there’s no truth to the idea that the puñña of generosity can buy your way out of the results of a life of corruption or crime. A better way to compensate for any past misdeeds would be to recognize them as mistakes, to resolve not to repeat them, and to devote the heart to the practice of virtue and goodwill. These, the more powerful forms of puñña, are not for sale. In fact, they’re open...

"Kamma is one of those teaching that’s sometimes hard to relate to, both intellectually and emotionally: intellectually because it’s related to the issue of conviction, or saddhā . We hear the word conviction — or even worse, saddhā is often translated as faith — and we think that we’re being asked to commit to something that we’re not really sure about, that we don’t have any means of knowing. But that’s not what conviction means in the Buddha’s teachings. It means you’re going to take something on as a working hypothesis. You’re committed to the sense that you’re really going to really try to test it, but no, you’re not being forced to give your emotional assent to say, “Yes, despite my lack of evidence I’m being forced to say this must be true.” Instead, you’re advised to say, “I’m going to try it out. It makes sense. It’s asking me to believe that my actions matter and that I have a choice in my actions that’ll give results. But I’m free enough to learn from past mistakes so...

"Think about the teaching on karma. Everyone treats it as if it were kindergarten Buddhism. Some people actually treat it as if it weren’t really Buddhist: something that got picked up by the tradition from its surroundings in India, something that got thrown into the baggage by mistake when it flew over here from Asia. But that’s not the case. The teaching on karma is actually radically central to everything the Buddha taught. Your intentions are the big issue in life, the big issue in the practice, and they come one by one by one. You can watch them one by one by one, and you can see that they have their impact. You learn how to judge them by evaluating that impact and connecting the dots: It’s the kind of intention that gives this or that kind of result. The next time you see it, then if it’s a bad result, watch out and try to avoid it. If it’s a good result, remember it and add it to your range of skills. You still have to watch it carefully, just to be sure, but meanwhile you...

"So remember, your actions are important, and you can make skillful choices now. Now, as you live in this human life, we can’t guarantee that once you’ve started on the path everything will be a path of roses. We all have our past kamma, the things that come at us in life from our past actions. But again, it’s what you’re doing right now that’s going to make all the difference, so you want to focus on: What are your capabilities right now? Where are you holding onto things that are making you suffer? That was the Buddha’s definition of suffering. It’s not something that’s happening to us. It’s something we're doing." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Encouragement"

Question: When you are in mindfulness, are you remembering and by this act soliciting the past, or are you firmly in the present? Thanissaro Bhikkhu: With mindfulness, you are trying to bring only what you need to know from the past. Through the quality of alertness, you focus on the present. Try to bring the two of them together, so that you remember what you need to know from the past so as to shape the present moment well. Remember, too, that the present is not just given to you. It’s also something that you’re shaping in the present moment as well. Past kamma gives you the potentials for the present moment, but your present kamma is actually what shapes your experience from those potentials. ~ "The Karma of Mindfulness: The Buddha's Teachings on Sati and Kamma"

"You’ve got the body here; you’ve got the breath. And a lot of what you experience in the body and breath comes from old kamma. As the Buddha said, all of our six senses should be experienced as old kamma. But we’re not just stuck with old kamma; in fact, our present kamma is something we experience prior to sensory contact. This is a peculiar point in the Buddha’s description of causality: that intentions come prior to our experience of the six senses. In one sense it’s not peculiar. We can often see for ourselves how the way we have an intention in the mind is going to shape the way we experience things. If we’re hungry right now, we’re going to experience the world in one way. If we’ve had more than enough food, we’re going to experience the world in another way. It all comes down to our intentions. What’s strange about this is that your present intention, your present kamma, is actually something that you experience prior to the results of your past kamma. The contact at the s...

"A lot of us, when we first hear the teachings on karma, think about the bad things we did in the past, which is one of the reasons why karma is a very unpopular teaching. Things that were past, we hope to leave past. But karma says, “They may still have their fangs.” Of course, “karma” doesn’t mean just bad karma. It also means good karma. In fact, the Buddha, when he introduces karma, introduces it in a very positive way, connecting it with generosity and gratitude, both of which are really good parts of human life. The Buddha says that generosity has meaning because our actions have meaning. They have meaning in the sense that we choose to do things. That means that people have meaning, too. When we give meaning to other people, we give meaning to ourselves: that it’s worthwhile helping someone else, either materially or in terms of our knowledge or in terms of our time. If we didn’t have freedom of choice, all of this would be meaningless. We’d be just mechanical robots, pre-...