The Quotable Thanissaro

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dhammapal
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

Post by dhammapal »

Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
Most often we go through the world, looking not at our own actions but at what other people are doing, and then we react. We feel that our reaction is a natural response, built into the way things are: When people do outrageous things, we feel we’re bound to get angry. But as the Buddha said, whether they’re outrageous or not, your reaction is still your kamma. You have to look at it that way.

So you have to ask yourself, “What kind of action would be skillful in a case like this?” It’s not the first thought that often comes to us. When you look around at the world, it’s hard to say, “It’s a wonderful world, everything’s fine, therefore I’m going to be good.” You have to realize that, ok, even though the world is a mess, and people are doing all kinds of horrible things to make it messier, still, for your own sake, you have to ask yourself, “What kind of actions can I do right now that would lead to good long-term results?” That’s what you’re responsible for, and that’s what you’re going to have to live with. So regardless of what other people do, you’ve got to make sure that you’re in control of your choices.

From: Death World by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

Post by dhammapal »

Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
The wealth of the mind is different from the wealth of the world. With the wealth of the world, the bigger the numbers you have, the more wealth you’ve got. But in this case, the mind: The closer it gets to one, the better it is, the higher the value of the mind, because the power of the mind gets concentrated in one spot. You begin to see that the mind really does have some special abilities when it gets concentrated that it wouldn’t have when it’s just scattered about.

It can see things a lot more clearly. It has the strength to let go of things that it knows or sees are unskillful and to work on the things that are skillful. When the mind is scattered, it doesn’t have that strength. It doesn’t have that clarity.

So try to make it one, right here, right here. Then if you have to act or speak or think about something, have it come from this spot of unity, this spot where the mind is gathered together.

From: Hearing Voices by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

Post by dhammapal »

Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
Equalize your sense of compassion and goodwill. You realize that if your happiness depends on other people’s suffering, they’re not going to stand for it. You can’t say, “Excuse me, this is my happiness, and so you’ll just have to let me continue enjoying it because it’s so special.” They’ll say, “This is my suffering. It’s special, too. I don’t want it.” This is an equalizer in that it makes you realize that your happiness forces you to take other people’s happiness into account.

From: Bodies & Minds Outside by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

Post by dhammapal »

Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
Start with this simple intention, “May all beings be happy.” Now, you’re not expecting that all beings will be happy, but you want to make sure that at least from your quarter there’s no danger for any beings at all. You’re setting your intentions straight. And that’s really all you can be responsible for.

From: The Right Attitudes by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

Post by dhammapal »

Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
As for stealing, as Ajaan Lee says that, on the level of concentration practice, it means stealing the affairs of other people, thinking about how this or that person is no good. He says, “You never really asked their permission to think about their bad habits, so it’s like stealing their stuff.” And what kind of stuff you are stealing? You’re stealing their garbage. If you’re going to steal things from other people, at least steal their valuables. Think about their good points in a way that gives you some energy to emulate those good points yourself. Remember the analogy the Buddha gives, of a person traveling across the desert, tired, trembling with heat, thirsting for water, and finding a little bit of water in a cow’s footprint. He realizes: “Here I am, tired, thirsty, and trembling. I need that water. But if I try to scoop it up with my hand, I’ll get the water all muddy.” So he gets down on all fours and very carefully slurps up the water straight from the cow print.

Your need for the goodness of other people is that extreme. If all you can see is other people’s bad points, you’re going to lose your enthusiasm for treating them skillfully. You’ll say, “Well, everybody else is cheating, I might as well cheat as well.” That’s a very common attitude that you see throughout society. Again that kills your goodness.

So you don’t want to steal other people’s bad traits. Think of their good traits. Think about the great ajaans, and think about Upasika Kee: people who gave their lives to the practice and have done so much for the world as a result. You can do that, too. There’s nothing about them that’s super-human. While you’re thinking about their good habits, maybe you can think about how they might have solved the problems you’re facing right now. That gives you energy. So as Ajaan Lee says, as long as you’re going to steal something, steal their valuables. Don’t steal their garbage.

From: Right Action by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
So a skillful expression of goodwill [mettā] is: “May all beings understand the causes for true happiness and be willing and able to act on them.”

This is an attitude you can extend to anyone without hypocrisy, even to people who have been cruel and heartless in their behavior.

Now, there may be people you would like to see suffer or be punished a little bit for their past misdeeds before they become happy, but you have to ask yourself: Why? What good would be gained by that? Would that punishment actually make them see more clearly the error of their ways? Often suffering makes people even more insistent that they were right to begin with.

Think of yourself: You know you have some bad kamma in your past. Would you want to be punished for those actions first before you can be happy? Of course not. You’d like to have the chance to come to your senses first, so extend the same forgiveness to others.

As the Buddha said, if we all had to be punished for our past bad actions before gaining awakening, no one would ever gain awakening.

Most of the cruelty in the world comes from people who are suffering and fearful. It would be better to wish that they willingly see the error of their ways and willingly change how they act.

You can then rejoice in that. In the Buddha’s image, such a person brightens the world in the same way that the moon brightens the night when it’s released from a cloud.

From: Sublime Determinations: a Retreat on the Brahmavihāras by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
So it’s important as we meditate that we don’t just think about ourselves. We also have to think about others. You see this pattern again and again in the Buddha’s teachings. Think of the five reflections that we have as a common chant: “I am subject to aging, subject to illness, subject to death, subject to separation from all that is dear and appealing to me. I am the owner of my actions.”

The Buddha says that as you reflect in that way, it gives you motivation to become more and more skillful in what you do in thought, word, and deed. But he doesn’t leave the reflection there. He has you reflect not only on “me,” but also on the fact that all beings everywhere, on every level of the cosmos, are subject to aging, illness, death, and separation. They, too, all have their kamma. Think about that: everybody, no matter what they are, from hell-beings all the way up through the highest levels of heaven. There’s nobody in charge, nobody in the universe who lies above the laws of kamma. The only ones who are free are the arahants. Everyone else is trapped.

When you think about the particulars of your situation, realize that they’re not that much different from anyone else’s. This is why the emphasis on what makes us different from one another is so opposed to the principles of the Dhamma. The principles of the Dhamma concern what we have in common: the fact that we’re all suffering, that suffering comes from the same sorts of things, and that the path to the end of suffering comes from the same sorts of things.

For this reason, we don’t focus so much on the particulars of our own sufferings, but look instead for the common pattern. That way, when we get out of ourselves, we can get a better perspective on what really needs to be done, what CAN be done. And it takes a lot of the sting out of our own suffering, too. After all, one of the hardest parts about suffering is the sense of, “Why is this happening to me? It’s not happening to anybody else. Why am I the one that the universe seems to be picking out and dumping on?” But then you stop and reflect: You’re not the only one.

There was the case where King Pasenadi was having an audience with the Buddha, and one of his courtiers came up and whispered into his ear that his favorite queen, Mallika, had died. The king broke down and cried. The Buddha said to him, “When has it ever been the case that someone who has been born doesn’t age, doesn’t grow ill, doesn’t die?” This happens to everybody.

You would think the grief of one person dying would not be helped by thinking of all the other people who’ve been dying, that all that additional suffering would be even a heavier burden, but the mathematics of the mind don’t work that way. The heaviest sufferings are the ones where you feel that you’re the only one who’s suffering in this fashion. You get yourself out of the line of fire when you realize that other people are suffering this way, too. Other beings are suffering, sometimes worse — in fact, many are suffering a lot worse. And that thought lightens things: The universe isn’t dumping on you particularly. You’re simply experiencing something we all have in common. That thought helps pull you out of the whirlpool.

Our thoughts, when they get into whirlpools like that, just go around and around and around. Thought a leads to b leads to c leads to d, which then leads back to a, and they just go around in circles like this, as the circle spirals downwards. But when you start thinking about other people and get out of yourself, it cuts the cycle. The Buddha is throwing you a lifeline so that you can pull yourself out.

It’s good to think in these terms, to get out of yourself every now and then. This is one of the reasons why we have thoughts of goodwill, thoughts of compassion, thoughts of empathetic joy, thoughts of equanimity for all beings as a daily practice. We can just chant the words to the point where it doesn’t mean anything, but stop and think: There are a lot of beings out there who are suffering right now. In fact, everybody who’s not an arahant is suffering in one way or another, and that calls for compassion.

This is a world of suffering people. Some people wear their suffering on their sleeves; other people hide it, but it’s there. Some people are very much aware of how they’re suffering, other people are not so much aware, but we all have this in common.

This was the genius of the Buddha, to see what we all have in common by looking into his own mind and then inferring from what he saw there that everybody else has the same sorts of things.

From: Get Out of Yourself by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
If you really want other people to be happy, you don’t just treat them nicely. You also want them to learn how to create the causes for happiness. The best way to do this is to show them through the example of your own behavior. If possible, you can also encourage them to follow your example. At the very least, you don’t thwart their attempts to act skillfully.

From: The Sublime Attitudes: A Study Guide on the Brahmavihāras by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
Here we live in a world where people teach generosity, where they teach virtue, where they teach getting some control over your mind through meditation. And they not only teach about these things, they also practice these things to show how it’s done. When we think about that fact, then even though there are a lot of undesirable things and people in the world, the fact that there are some people who recognize goodness and teach the way to goodness, can give rise to a sense that this is a good world to live in despite all the ups and downs.

From: Food for Endurance by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
The important question [as far as the Buddha was concerned] is not “Who am I?” but “What should I do — and what will be the results?” That’s a question that can be answered — and answered in ways that really do make a difference in your life and can get you out of the confines of the world entirely.

From: No One in Charge by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
The bliss of concentration is an acquired taste. It’s a specific kind of happiness, which the Thai [Buddhists] call santi-sukha, which literally means the happiness of peace. This is a basic level of well-being that we tend to overlook because it carries no excitement, no thrills. It’s just a basic sense of ease that’s steady, like the flame of an oil lamp.

From: Examine Your Happiness by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
Goodwill [mettā] and compassion, all the brahmavihāras, are another set of the guardian meditations. Think about how you’d like a happiness that doesn’t harm anybody, partly because you feel empathy with other beings and partly because you realize that if your happiness depended on other people’s suffering, it wouldn’t last. They would do what they could to destroy it. So you want a happiness that doesn’t impose on people. And because this is a happiness that depends on your own inner resources, you find that your true happiness doesn’t conflict with anyone else’s true happiness. So you wish them goodwill. May they be happy too. May they understand the causes for true happiness.

Now, as you do this, you may find that part of your mind says, “Well, there are certain people I would rather see suffer first for one reason or another.” So again, think of it as a committee meeting. You’re sitting down and you say, “Okay, exactly why? What would you gain from that person’s suffering?” As we all know, most people do evil because they’re feeling threatened, they’re feeling miserable. They say, “As long as I’m miserable, let everybody else be miserable, too.” That’s what they think. So what would be gained by that person’s suffering?

You say it doesn’t seem right. They’ve done so much evil in the past that it doesn’t seem right to let them off the hook. But you know the principle of kamma is such that the results of your past actions do not totally determine what’s going to happen in the future. It would actually be better for those people to learn in the meantime how not to suffer from bad situations, so that even if bad situations do come up, they can control themselves, they can keep the mind on an even keel. That would be much better for the world.

That story of Angulimala, the murderer who later became an arahant: When you find yourself identifying with Angulimala, it’s a really nice story. When you find yourself identifying with the victims or the families of the victims, it’s a pretty upsetting story. So, which side do you want to be on? You recognize, okay you’ve probably done a lot of unskillful things in the past. If you want to believe that you can train your mind so that you don’t have to suffer from the results of your past mistakes, you should give the same right to other people. As we’ve seen over and over, vengeance doesn’t really solve anything. When people suffer a lot, it doesn’t necessarily make them wise and compassionate.

So, try to sort through whatever resistance you have to the idea: May all beings be happy. When you sort through it, you find it easier and easier to stick with the practice. The next time that you call up those thoughts of goodwill, they really do feel nourishing. You find yourself more and more aligned with them. And when you can have goodwill for all beings, it becomes really hard for you to do anything unskillful because you don’t want to harm anybody.

From: Training the Committee by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
I remember that when I first learned about the hindrances and how ill will doesn’t mean negativity or dislike — it means actively wanting to see somebody suffer — I couldn’t see in my own case that I wanted to see anybody suffer. But then I reflected: During my first year in particular, when I was meditating on the top of the hill there at Wat Dhammasathit, the thoughts that would destroy my concentration more than anything else came from thinking back on some injustice, where somebody had done something wrong or was doing something wrong and getting away with it. I could get worked up about that for hours at a time, with a strong sense of righteous indignation — and that’s a lot of what ill will is.

You don’t like what’s happened, and it seems wrong that there’s no punishment, that people are getting away with things you can clearly see they shouldn’t be getting away with.

But that, the Buddha says, is wrong view. Remember that the right attitude to have toward somebody who has no good qualities at all is to see that person as a sick person lying by the side of the road in the middle of the desert. Even if that person is a stranger, when you see him you have to think: “If only someone could help that person.” That’s the right attitude to have toward someone who’s misbehaving, who has no good qualities: compassion. When you keep that image in mind, you have to ask yourself: Who’s sick here? You have to see the other person as sick and you have to see yourself as sick if you’re filled with righteous indignation. You may not be able to do anything about that other person’s illness, but you CAN do something about your own.

From: When Your Will is Ill by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
Was it Sartre that said hell is other people? No, hell is your own mind! The dangers that other people can pose to you are nothing compared to the dangers you pose to yourself. But the dangers you pose to yourself are things you can learn how to control. Other people are hard to control, but you can control your thoughts, your words, your deeds, and *these* are the true measure of where you’re going to go, how well you’re going to fare.

From: Calm & at Ease by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
There’s a passage in one of Ajaan Maha Boowa’s Dhamma talks where he’s saying to the monks, “Suppose the Buddha were able to see your defilements. Don’t you think he’d be disgusted?” I’ve heard people react to that, saying that the Buddha wouldn’t be disgusted with us. The Buddha would love us; he would be compassionate toward us. To say that is really to define yourself very intensely with your defilements. Our attitude is, “Love me, love my defilements.” But it’s because the Buddha has compassion for us that he points out that the mind has defilements and that they can be removed. That’s the important point.

From: Love Me, Love My Defilements by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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