The Quotable Thanissaro

[dhammapal]

If you're going to walk across the room, you've got to have the desire to get to the other side. The question is how to use that desire in a skillful way. Walking across the room is not a big issue, but the issue of desire in the practice is a lot more subtle, a lot more intricate. We want the desire that impels us along the path, but we don't want it to be so overwhelming that it gets in the way. We need desire to be focused on this one issue: What can we do that gives rise to long-lasting happiness, and ultimately, a happiness that doesn't give rise to change at all? That's what we're working on here. Wherever we may be in the practice right now, that's the general direction we're heading. That's the question that underlies everything we do. But to make sure that the desire doesn't overwhelm us, we have to refocus it on the practice, on the individual steps that will take us where we want to go.

So look at the particulars of what you're doing, in terms of your thoughts, words, and deeds, not only while you're sitting here meditating, but also in the whole course of the day. What habits do you have that get in the way of long-lasting happiness — your habits in terms of dealing with yourself, dealing with other people, how you manage the day, where you devote your time, the intensity in which you focus on what you're doing. All of this is part of the practice. These are things you can look at. And this is important. All the things the Buddha teaches are things we can actually look at. He wasn't a mystifier. He didn't make anything into a big mystery. He said that everything you need to know is right in front of your eyes. The problem is that you're looking past it. So look very carefully at your intentions, right here.
From: The World Is Swept Away by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

Another way to loosen that sense of identity is to think of the mind as a committee. The committee contains all kinds of members who propose all kinds of things. Just because somebody in the committee has proposed a bad idea doesn't mean the committee is bad. The duty of the committee is to listen to the ideas brought to the floor figure out which is the best one to act on right now. If they make a mistake, they go back and undo the old decision, open the floor to suggestions, and arrive at a new decision. They don't worry about the innate nature of the committee.
From: Meditation Prep by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

The second doctrinal arc starts with the description of dependent co-arising in the first three udānas. While this teaching is by no means simple or elementary, it is basic in the sense that it provides the framework for understanding one of the more difficult teachings in the collection: the arahant’s abandoning of any sense of personal identity – a point mentioned in 2:1, 4:1, 6:6, and 7:1, and graphically symbolized in 8:9 and 8:10. In this way the first udānas introduce a string of udānas that help to explain how what in the last two udānas looks like annihilation actually is not: Instead, it is simply the ending of suffering and the attainment of an indescribable destination, beyond location, that brings unwavering bliss.
From: Udāna: Exclamations translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

Ajaan Lee once made the comment that we tend to confuse things. We think the teachings that seem basic and simple aren’t deep. We think the deep teachings are the ones that are abstract and obscure. But a lot of times, those abstract and obscure teachings are just words; the fact you can say them doesn’t mean anything at all. The deep teachings are the ones that give us advice that’s useful all the time, right here right now. Because what use is wisdom if it can’t lead to long-term happiness, if it can’t stop you from causing yourself to suffer?

Ajaan Lee’s uses the analogy of a person who wants to find gold. He knows there’s gold in the rock in the mountain. The person who thinks he’s smart tends to think, “Well, all I have to do is just go out there, take a little pick, and get the gold out. I don’t want the rock, I want just the gold. I’d be stupid to take the rock.” But you can’t get the gold out of the rock with a pick. In other words, you can’t gain the Dhamma by figuring things out too much in advance. The person who’s going to succeed is the one who’s convinced that there’s gold here, but it may take time and it may take work. But he’s willing to put in the effort. He’s willing to use his tenacity. You take the rock, you carry it home, and you throw it in the fire. Eventually the fire reaches the melting point of the gold, and the gold comes out on its own without your having to pry it loose from the rock.

In other words, you hold to a few basic principles and apply them across the board — in particular, this principle of knowing what’s your task and what’s not. If you know what your task is, you just stick with it. As for all the other work you could be doing, you can let it go. You don’t have to waste your time.
From: The Wisdom of Tenacity by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

So don't hate your fears or fear your fears. Learn how to educate them. When they're educated and trained, they're part of the path to the end of suffering. This is part of the Buddha's genius: He took things that many of us don't like about the mind, things that actually cause trouble in the mind, and learned how to tame them, to train them, so that they actually become part of the path to the end of suffering. In this way, you can reach a place in the mind where there really is no more reason to fear. As Ven. Ananda said, you use desire to come to the end of desire. In the same way, you can use fear, treating it wisely, to bring yourself to the end of fear. And as it turns out, that's the only way you can get there.
From: The Uses of Fear by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

The connections we have in life with different people are created by our actions: things that we've done together with other people or to other people or for other people. These create the connections that we have with the people around us.

Interconnectedness is a very popular teaching in Buddhism, especially nowadays, but it's funny that people like to talk about interconnectedness without the teaching on karma. They turn to dependent co-arising as a model for interconnectedness, this web of connections where one factor can't exist without a whole lot of other factors, but they neglect to realize that dependent co-arising is a teaching on how ignorance is connected with suffering, how craving is connected with suffering. It's the kind of connectedness you want to cut, not the kind you want to celebrate.

Connectedness through karma can go either way — the connections can be good, or they can be bad. So you want to foster the good ones.

And again, where do you look? You look at what you're doing right here and right now. How are you behaving with other people? How are you treating them? These create the relationships you're going to be able to enjoy or you're going to be stuck with, now and on into the future. So choose your actions carefully.
From: The Sublime Attitudes by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

Perhaps to counteract the common fear that the release of nibbana is a type of starvation, Khp 6 depicts it as a form of consumption in which one’s food is totally free — freely available, free from debt, and free from suffering:
§ 50. Those who, devoted, firm-minded,
apply themselves to Gotama’s message,
on attaining their goal, plunge into the deathless,
freely eating the liberation they’ve gained." — Khp 6
From: The Shape of Suffering: A Study of Dependent Co-arising by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

The Buddha himself pointed out that the highest sense of oneness is the sense of consciousness being totally one and single, when everything in the range of your consciousness becomes one. But, he said, even in that sense of oneness, there is inconstancy. There is stress. It’s not totally under your control.

He also said that the idea that you are one with the world, or you’re one with the cosmos, is the most ridiculous self-view there is. After all, if you are one with something, or it really is you, you should be able to control it, get it to do what you want. All you have to do is think, and there it goes: It changes in line with the thought. And if something is you, then it’s also going to be yours. If you’re at one with everything, then the piece of land next to ours is yours. The cars in the parking lot are yours. Everything that comes along should be yours. But it’s not. Try to go and exert your ownership over land or the cars, and a lot of people will fight you off.

So the sense of oneness may be a nice state of concentration, a very relaxing sense of wellbeing, but beyond that, it doesn’t really mean anything. It doesn’t have any truth value, and it’s certainly not the end of suffering.
From: The Limits of Control by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[tiltbillings]

The Buddha himself pointed out that the highest sense of oneness is the sense of consciousness being totally one and single, when everything in the range of your consciousness becomes one. But, he said, even in that sense of oneness, there is inconstancy. There is stress. It’s not totally under your control.

He also said that the idea that you are one with the world, or you’re one with the cosmos, is the most ridiculous self-view there is. After all, if you are one with something, or it really is you, you should be able to control it, get it to do what you want. All you have to do is think, and there it goes: It changes in line with the thought. And if something is you, then it’s also going to be yours. If you’re at one with everything, then the piece of land next to ours is yours. The cars in the parking lot are yours. Everything that comes along should be yours. But it’s not. Try to go and exert your ownership over land or the cars, and a lot of people will fight you off.

So the sense of oneness may be a nice state of concentration, a very relaxing sense of wellbeing, but beyond that, it doesn’t really mean anything. It doesn’t have any truth value, and it’s certainly not the end of suffering.
From: The Limits of Control by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

This is one of the texts that would support the above. I would interested in a few others.

[dhammapal]

So don’t think that when you sit here with your eyes closed, you’ll just float your way over to nibbana. The dangers are not only on this shore; they’re also on the river you have to cross.

Take the flood of sensuality. You sit here and all of a sudden you find yourself thinking of all the different sensual pleasures you’d like to get engaged in – things you’re missing right now. And you can embroider them with all kinds of details that make them appealing. The Buddha calls these thoughts sensual resolves: your plans for sensual pleasures. You’d like this, you’d like that. You can cook up all kinds of narratives around how nice it would be to get this pleasure, how nice it would be to get that pleasure. And your attachment to this kind of thinking pulls you away. That’s one thing that keeps you from getting across to the other shore.

The antidote there, of course, is to look at the downside of those pleasures. First, just look at how much your sensual pleasures and plans are lying to you. There’s that great story in Ajaan Lee’s biography about the time he was a young monk and was feeling tempted to disrobe. He goes up into an empty spot in the chedi at Wat Sra Pathum in Bangkok. He makes his plans: how he’s going to disrobe, what lay life is going to be like. And at first, the story is just really amazing. He gets an ideal wife from a noble background and lands a good job. He gets a kid. But then reality sets in. The wife is not all that healthy. After all, she came from a noble background; she’s not used to having to work. She dies. And things just go downhill from there, until he says, “Gee, I wish I hadn’t disrobed.” Then he reminds himself, “Well no, I haven’t disrobed. Here I am!” Simply by being truthful to himself, he began to realize that the sensual pleasures he was planning and thinking about: all that thinking and planning was a lie.
From: Murderers, Vipers, & Floods, Oh My! by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

[Nibbana's] not annihilation. In fact, it is just the opposite. The only thing that gets annihilated there are stress and suffering.
From: Strategies for Happiness by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

There's also the problem that, if the aggregates were what you are, then — because nibbāna is the ending of the aggregates — that would mean that when you attain nibbāna you would be annihilated. The Buddha, however, denied that nibbāna was annihilation. At the same time, what good would be the end of suffering if it meant total annihilation? Only people who hate themselves or hate all experience would go for it.
From: Out of the Thicket and Onto the Path: Selves & Not-self: The Buddhist Teaching on Anatta by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

It’s easy to point out people who have a very strong desire for awakening, and the desire actually gets in the way of awakening, or their desires are turning neurotic. They’re trying to obliterate themselves. That’s where the idea that the stream-enterers wipe out their personality comes from. There are people who hate their personalities, so they want to get rid of them and think that here is the Buddha’s approval of their attitude. That’s a neurotic desire, which is easy to satirize, easy to make fun of. And it’s really unhealthy in the practice. But satirizing at it, making fun of all desire, is not helpful either. You’ve got to realize that there is such a thing as healthy desire. Desire for awakening is a lot better than the desires most people act on, but again you’ve got to learn how to do it skillfully, with wisdom.
From: Wise Effort by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

The distinction between skillful and unskillful is another basic principle. Once one of the Buddha's lay students was accosted by someone from another tradition who asked him, "Well now, does your teacher teach about the origin of universe, or whether it's finite or infinite?" He went down the list of the big issues of the time, and the lay student kept saying, "No, he doesn't talk about any of those things." And the other person responded, "Well, in that case he's a nihilist. He doesn't teach anything at all." So the lay student said, "No, that's not true. He does teach the difference between what's skillful and what's not." He later went to report this conversation to the Buddha, who approved of what he had said.
From: Wisdom for Dummies by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

So instead of getting into a discussion as to which type of self is your true self — or your ultimate self or your conventional self — the Buddha is more interested in showing you how your sense of self is an action. The adjectives he uses to describe actions are not "ultimate" or "conventional." They're "skillful" and "unskillful." These are the terms in which he wants you to understand your selves: Are they skillful? Are they not? And because skill can be understood only through mastery, the Buddha wants you to master these actions in practice.
From: Talk 2: Out of the Thicket and Onto the Path: Selves & Not-self: The Buddhist Teaching on Anatta by Thanissaro Bhikkhu