The Quotable Thanissaro

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
dhammapal
Posts: 2646
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 9:23 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

Post by dhammapal »

Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
The question often arises, “How much concentration do you need?” The Buddha talks about different levels of jhana, as he calls them, but we’re not here to focus on jhana, we’re here to focus on our breath. There’s no jhan-o-meter than can measure whether you’ve gone over the threshold to how much concentration is needed. What you know is that when you get the mind still enough, with a sense of well-being, you like being here. That’s the important thing.

From: The Most Important Thing to Be Doing by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
dhammapal
Posts: 2646
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 9:23 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

Post by dhammapal »

Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
I have a student back East who’s on the autistic spectrum. She told me one time she could never understand why Dhamma teachers like to extol equanimity as the goal of the practice. As she said, she’s pretty equanimous all the time, and it’s not much of a goal. And the Buddha himself never said that it was the goal. It’s the last of the factors for awakening, and that’s led some people to think that that’s what the factors for awakening are aimed at. But all the factors are parts of the path. They’re meant to lead to something better than they are. They’re all means to an end. They’re tools for arriving at the ultimate happiness.

There’s no place where the Buddha says nibbana is the ultimate equanimity. It’s always “the ultimate happiness.” So the question is: What role does equanimity play on the path?

The first thing to notice is that sometimes it’s regarded as skillful and sometimes it’s not. When it makes you lazy, it’s not part of the path.

From: Equanimity on the Path by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
dhammapal
Posts: 2646
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 9:23 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

Post by dhammapal »

Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
The idea that you can simply relax, and the unconditioned will come through your relaxation, has *nothing* to do with the path. It’s based on a wrong idea about the relationship between the fabricated and the unfabricated. The Canon and the ajaans never used analogies of relaxation to explain the path to awakening. Instead, they use analogies of warriors, of people developing skills: in other words, people who overcome difficulties through using their own powers of analysis together with their persistence.

From: You Can’t Relax Your Way to Awakening by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
dhammapal
Posts: 2646
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 9:23 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

Post by dhammapal »

Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
We often think of mindfulness simply as being fully aware of the present moment but it actually means the ability to keep something in mind. As the Buddha defined it, it’s the ability to remember things that were said or done long ago — and in particular, things that *you* said and did long ago. This is so that when the results come, you can recognize, “Oh, this is connected to that. This happened because of this action I took. I said that, now my mind is a mess. I said that a couple of hours ago but my mind is a mess now.” Or, “I did that a while back and now my mind’s in good shape.” If you can’t see these connections, you don’t really have true insight.

From: Questioning Everything by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
dhammapal
Posts: 2646
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 9:23 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

Post by dhammapal »

Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
Even when they try to make a science out of happiness — they ask people to measure their happiness on a scale of zero to ten. Well, happiness doesn’t come with little numbers like that. It’s all very subjective. It’s not really a science at all. So on the one hand, you can’t really measure how much someone else is suffering, and two, it’s really irrelevant to the issue at hand, which is how much suffering are *you* creating right now? And how can you learn to create less? That’s the only issue that matters.

From: Thoughts with Fangs by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
dhammapal
Posts: 2646
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 9:23 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

Post by dhammapal »

Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
The suffering that really matters is the suffering you add on to what’s happening outside. It’s all too easy to say, “I’m suffering because of so-and-so.” And there’s a lot of talk nowadays about how we should expand the Buddha’s teachings on the causes of suffering to include social issues outside, but he was very specific. The suffering he was going to cure was the suffering that starts at the real source, craving, because even if society is perfectly peaceful, people are still going to suffer, and the reason society is not peaceful is because of their craving. So either way, the source is inside. But the good news here is that if you can take care of the source inside, then no matter how bad things get outside, you don’t have to suffer.

Now, this is not just a matter of saving your own skin, because if you’re not suffering, you’re much less likely to thrash around and make other people suffer along with you. And think: What kind of world would we have to live in if we wanted to put an end to suffering, and yet suffering was totally caused by things outside? You’d have to be all-powerful. You’d need to change the world to be precisely the way you wanted it. That would be impossible. But the realization that suffering is caused from within means that the end of suffering is something available to everybody, no matter what their social status, no matter what their power or lack of power within the world.

In fact, as the Buddha said, the people who go out and try to gain power basically shut themselves off from the way, because they’re going to have to harm others and they’re not going to want to be open about the harm. They’re going to cover it up, and then they start covering other things up, too. They don’t want to look into what’s skillful and what’s not. They don’t want to hear the Dhamma. They don’t want to hear the Vinaya. In that way, the pursuit of power can actually close off the path.

So the Buddha’s basically saying you have power within you to put an end to suffering if you understand the workings of your own mind. This is why we meditate.

From: Protect Your Virtue & Right View by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
dhammapal
Posts: 2646
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 9:23 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

Post by dhammapal »

Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
You see that there is suffering in your life, and you’ve been causing it. This is not to say other people haven’t done horrible things. They have. You don’t have to look very far into history. You don’t have to look very far even into the newspaper these days to see all the horrible things that people are choosing to do. But the reason your mind is so weighed down with suffering is because of the things *you’re* doing. This sounds like bad news to some people, but it actually is good news, because you can learn to change what you’re doing, act in ways that are less harmful to yourself, act in a ways that are less harmful to others. This takes a huge burden off the mind, and allows you to see the more subtle and precise ways in which even the movements of the mind can cause stress of a more subtle form.

From: A Thread Out of the Maze by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
dhammapal
Posts: 2646
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 9:23 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

Post by dhammapal »

Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
Our culture — and this applies both to France and to America — tells us that sensual desires are good, and we very rarely want to think about their drawbacks. But if you don’t think that sex has drawbacks, go to a divorce court. I don’t know about France, but in America divorce court is the most dangerous court in the entire court system. They actually need two or three bailiffs per court: A bailiff is an armed policeman stationed in the court who enforces peace in the court. Each divorce court has to have two or three bailiffs, where other courts can get by with only one. Do they do that in France, too? No? Maybe that tells you something about America. But it does point out the fact that there are a lot of drawbacks to sexual relations. When they turn sour, they can easily turn violent. If sex were totally good, no one would feel bad over the sex they had in the past with a person who later betrayed them. The wonderful nature of sex would more than compensate for the later disappointment.

You can also think of all the stupid things you’ve done in the past because of sexual desire. If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll be able to find some way for realizing that the sensual desire you’re feeling has drawbacks that far outweigh the gratification, and that you’d be much better off focusing on the breath to let the mind gain a sense of inner peace and calm instead.

From: The Karma of Mindfulness: The Buddha's Teachings on Sati and Kamma by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
dhammapal
Posts: 2646
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 9:23 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

Post by dhammapal »

Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
Look at the way you perceive your relationship to other people. If you feel that you’re victimized by other people, that’s a perception that’s not going to help. You have to have the sense that you’re well-grounded and safe, solid in your own well-being. And the breath helps here. If the bodily sensations feel uncomfortable, you’ll have a hard time maintaining any real sense of well-being here, and that will make it harder to wish for the well-being of others, because the well-being has to start in here. As Ajaan Lee says, “If you say the thoughts of goodwill, but you don’t really feel any sense of happiness or well being inside, it’s like opening up the faucet to an empty tank of water. Nothing but air comes out.” The coolness of air and the coolness of water are two very different things. What you want is water. So you want to develop the cool water of a sense of well-being inside you. And the breath is a good place to start.

From: High Level Metta by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
dhammapal
Posts: 2646
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 9:23 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

Post by dhammapal »

Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
If a stranger appears in the meditation, wish that person goodwill [mettā]. Then get back to your meditation object. This a good habitual attitude to develop. If the being appears powerful or angry, first fill your body with good breath energy and full awareness, as a form of protection, and then spread goodwill as an expression of harmlessness.

From: Recollecting the Devas by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
dhammapal
Posts: 2646
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 9:23 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

Post by dhammapal »

Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
So try to sensitize yourself throughout your life to the choices you’re making. And realize that your happiness depends on making skillful choices, a process that you can learn. If your life has been unskillful up to this point, and you’ve got lots of burdens and issues in your life, you can make choices to deal with those burdens skillfully. You can make a choice, change your habits.

From: The Power of Choice by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
dhammapal
Posts: 2646
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 9:23 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

Post by dhammapal »

Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
Make sure that what you say is true and that it’s actually beneficial for the people who are listening. The idea that you just want to express your thoughts or express your feelings doesn’t have any room here. We’re in a monastery where words have an impact on everybody around you. They’re trying to keep their minds still, so you want your words to be helpful, conducive to stillness. That’s what beneficial means right now.

From: Speech for the Sake of Stillness by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
dhammapal
Posts: 2646
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 9:23 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

Post by dhammapal »

Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
This is why we look into the mind, why the training of the mind has you sitting here with your eyes closed. If the suffering were caused by the world outside, we’d have to keep our eyes open to be on the lookout for what the world might do. But we sit here with our eyes closed so that we can focus on what the mind is doing, how the mind is adding a lot of unnecessary burden on itself.

From: To Discern Suffering by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
dhammapal
Posts: 2646
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 9:23 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

Post by dhammapal »

Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
There’s a real lightness that comes from being able to find happiness simply sitting here breathing. It means that your happiness is dependent on very few contingencies. The people with money, the people with investments, are the ones who have to read the newspapers every day to figure out what’s safe, what’s not safe out there in the world. But if your investment is in the skills of the mind, then no matter what the situation, you’re secure.

From: Wilderness Wealth by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
dhammapal
Posts: 2646
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 9:23 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

Post by dhammapal »

Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
You’ve probably had the experience of lusting after somebody. If you step back and looked at the lust, you’d realize you’re focusing only on a few things in a narrow narrative that includes a few details of the other person’s body — and your body — but the narrative excludes an awful lot. After all, there’s an awful lot of oppression that goes on even in a consensual sexual relationship, but we don’t like to think about it, so we just block it out. There’s also the whole question of what that person contains right under the skin, what *you* contain right under *your* skin. Is that really worth lusting for? Again we block that out. So many of our sensory pleasures are just that: a blocked out, narrow, confined range of view. That’s why they’re intoxicating.

From: Two Kinds of Middle by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Post Reply