The Quotable Thanissaro

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
Question: Being new to the Buddhist ways, I have a question about prayer. When we want to hold someone in our heart and bless them for protection and well being, is prayer that way we should go? To whom/what do our prayers go?

Thanissaro Bhikkhu: Buddhism — at least the type of Buddhism taught by the Buddha — doesn’t have anyone to whom your prayers go. It does, however, advise that you hold people in your heart and wish for their happiness and well being. The power of this wish — especially if made when the mind is in a strong state of concentration — is stronger than you might think. It creates a better atmosphere in the world, and when you consciously wish well for others, you find it easier to find opportunities to actually help them.

~ Tricycle 2007
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
Generosity: You realize that you’re not just a guest here in the human realm. You have something you can give it. You become part of the goodness going around in the realm, one of the agents that makes this a good place to be. Rather than just living off the goodness of others, you participate in creating goodness here. And that means you belong here. You become part of the group of people who are really working to make this a good place to be. This gives you a sense of stability, a sense of belonging here.

From: Certainty Inside by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
There’s a certain point where worrying becomes counterproductive. After all, the best thing you can do to help other people is to have your mind in good shape, because when bad things do come, as they inevitably will, you’ll be in good shape and a good position to be of help. If you wear yourself out worrying, then when the time comes when you need the powers of the mind, they won’t be there. You’ve frittered them away.

This is why meditation is such an important principle in finding peace. To begin with, it helps develop all kinds of useful qualities of mind, like mindfulness and alertness. You stick with the breath: That requires mindfulness. You watch the breath, you’re sensitive to the breath: That requires alertness. These are the two qualities you really need for any endeavor.

From: Peace of Mind by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
The word sati in Pali has lots of meanings. The basic one is to keep something in mind. We’re often told it means alertness or awareness, but that’s not the case. Alertness and awareness come under the Pali word, sampajañña. Sati means keeping something in mind, like remembering to stay with the breath, remembering the various things that help in the training of the mind.

From: Varieties of Mindfulness by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
When the Buddha calls the noble truths “noble,” there have been people who’ve complained, “What’s noble about suffering? What’s noble about craving.” The suffering and the craving themselves are not noble, what’s noble is the *attitude* the Buddha has you take toward them.

If we see, “Oh. The clinging: That’s the suffering. That’s a problem.” That’s when we develop a noble attitude. We usually don’t see our clinging as a problem at all. That’s what we like to do: We’re expert clingers. The same with craving: As the Buddha says, “Everywhere we go, we go with craving as our friend.” It whispers into our ear, and whatever it says, we tend to believe it. But now you step back and say, “Wait a minute, the things that I like because of my craving and clinging, the things that I hold onto most dearly: Maybe I’ll have to learn how to let go of them.” That attitude is noble, and that’s what’s noble about those two noble truths.

The same with the truth of the path. You say, “I can’t blame anyone else for my complacency. I was the one who fell for these things to begin with. I’ve got to do something about it.” That’s why the path is noble: You take responsibility for your own suffering, and you take responsibility for putting an end to it.

From: The Graduated Discourse by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
The sutta we chanted just now that talks about caring for your sense of goodwill [mettā] in the same way that a mother would care for her only child. Sometimes that’s mistranslated as having a love for all beings in the same way that a mother would love her only child. But that’s impossible. The love you have for your child is very different from the love you would have, say, for someone else in your family, and even more so for other people outside the family, or for people who’ve really wronged you, or people who’ve wronged those you love. What the Buddha is actually saying here is that you want to look after your goodwill the same way that a mother would look after her only child. Meticulously. Thoroughly. Always keeping it in mind. Sacrificing your life for it, if it comes to that.

From: Feeling & Intention by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
I was reading a book on the noble eightfold path a while back where the author was saying that even the Buddha engaged in unskillful speech. Well, it turned out what this author meant by “unskillful speech” was saying things that people don’t like. Now, there’s nothing necessarily harmful about saying things that people don’t like. The Buddha said, though, that you have to watch for the right time and the right place. But the idea that people’s likes should be the determining factor is creating a tyranny of emotions. Just because one person doesn’t like what the Buddha is saying doesn’t mean that what the Buddha said was not skillful. What made it skillful was that it was, one, true; two, beneficial; and three, he would choose the right time and the right place to be pleasing or displeasing. That’s a much higher standard, and it’s a much more livable standard. Because if we take our likes and dislikes as the measurement of the world, we’ll never come to any peace.

From: The Buddha's Standards or Yours? by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
It’s not that you’re going to go around to look after everybody else and clean up after them and take care of them and try to please them and always have a close intimate relationship with them. There are some beings, some people, where it’s really hard and it’s too much to ask. You want to focus instead on your own mind, making sure that you have no ill will for anybody and that, at the very least, you’re harmless in your behavior.

From: Forgiveness by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
Learn to look at what other people say as the result of your past actions; what other people do is the result of your past actions. In other words, the karma you’ve done in the past is coming back at you.

It’s a sobering thought to think: Your past actions were done with the desire for happiness, and now you’re experiencing the skillfulness or lack of skillfulness in your past actions, in your past desires for happiness, your past efforts to bring about happiness.

When you have that attitude, it’s a lot easier to live with other people. If they do something outrageous, you realize that you probably were a real character sometime in the past. And let it go at that.

Your focus right now should be on what you’re doing and saying and thinking in the present moment.

From: Your Own Karma by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
This is the method: Look at what you’re doing, look at the results. If things aren’t going well, consult someone else who’s also on the path. This is part of the method, too. Give importance to your intentions. Reflect on what you’re doing. Use your imagination. These are all part of the method. When you understand the method, then you apply it to everything. Make it your sport to see: What’s the most skillful thing to do in this situation? What’s the most skillful thing to think? What’s the most skillful thing to say? And instead of getting upset with yourself or depressed or upset at the situation when things don’t turn out the way you expected them to, just learn from it, chalk it up to experience. Next time it comes around, try again.

This is what concentration is for: to give you a well of energy, a well of strength from which you can draw to keep at this experiment, to keep at this challenge. And in this way, talk of making your practice your whole life or making life your practice is not just a vague generality. It’s very specific: Right now, here in this situation, what’s the most skillful thing you can think of doing? And then do it. And then see what happens.

As the Buddha said, this is the technique by which everyone has purified themselves. All those who *have* purified themselves did it this way; all those who *will* purify themselves will do it this way; all those who *are* purifying themselves right now do it this way. This is how they do it; this is the method. And part of the method includes having the desire for your own happiness; the trust that true happiness is possible; and trust in your own ability to find it, to create the causes, to master the necessary skills. Just because you’ve been unskillful in the past doesn’t mean that you can’t develop skill in the future. It’s simply a matter of applying the proper method.

From: The Path of Action by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
[The Buddha is] saying that the people to whom you give have worth. It’s not that there’s nothing there or that the people get wiped out at death. They don’t. They move on to wherever their cravings take them. And so when you help somebody, you give something to someone who’s going to be lasting for a long time.

From: Spread Goodness Around by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
So sometimes lack of animosity looks like you’ve lost, but a better way of thinking of it is that someone is offering to hand their bad karma to you, and you refuse it. It’s a big ball of filth. They say, “Do you want to take this and throw it back at me?” If you do, you’re going to get filth all over your hands. Think of it that way and say, “No, I don’t want that.” If someone comes at you angry, it’s like they’re wearing a shirt all covered with shit, and they’re saying, “You want to put my shirt on?” If you respond with anger, that’s what you’re doing. You’re putting on that shirt.

So try to hold these perceptions in mind because they remind you of what true victory is — and how you can gain a victory that really matters.

From: Victory by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
So when we say that you’re looking at yourself, remember you’re not looking at your “self.” You’re looking at your thoughts, words, and deeds. Try to look at them as objectively as possible, get the whole issue of “self” out of the way, and then it becomes a lot easier to make improvements.

From: Admirable Friendship by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
If you give in to anger, you’re on fire all the time. Yet somehow we forget this. And the next time the impulse arises, we go with it again. It flashes a little gold our way, and we just run after it. It turns out, of course to be fool’s gold, but we forget.

From: Fabricating against Defilement by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
I’ve forgotten which Western philosopher said it, but I remember it from one of my classes at school: that all wisdom begins with consciousness of death. Realizing that we’re going to die forces us to take stock of our lives and our actions, in light of the fact that we have a limited amount of time and it’s important to make the most of the time we’ve got.

Of course, that reflection can go off in all sorts of directions. Some people say, “Well, eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.” So it takes more than just consciousness of death to make you wise. It also requires a consciousness of your actions, the power of your actions to make a real difference in how your death goes, and what your death will result in.

This is why the Buddha said that heedfulness lies at the root of all skillful qualities. You realize that it’s not just a matter of limited time. There are also lots of important choices to be made. You want to be very, very careful about those choices because they really do make a difference. That’s the underlying insight of heedfulness.

This, too, is sparked by consciousness of death. In fact, there’s that passage of the four heavenly messengers. It tells of a person who’s lived a very heedless life, dies, and is taken before the lord of hell. The lord of hell says to him, “Why did you behave yourself so poorly? Didn’t you see the messengers that were sent to warn you?” And the guy says, “No, I didn’t see any messengers.” The lord of hell describes four messengers: a sick person, an old person, a dead person, and a person in prison undergoing punishment. He says, “These are the things that were warning you that you’ve got to live heedfully.”

So it’s always good to keep these things in mind, to keep our actions in line with the path, in line with what really is skillful.

From: Rooted in Heedful Desire by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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