The Quotable Thanissaro

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

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
There’s never a case in the Dhamma where good ends justify unskillful means. The means have to be good — in fact, everything is all means. After all, where would you put the ends? You settle one issue and there’s another issue. You settle that issue, then everyone dies, they get reborn, and things start up again. We don’t have the closure of a final judgment. The only real closure in the Buddha’s teachings is nibbāna.

From: Justice vs. Skillfulness by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
Each of us is the owner and doer of actions. And so you don’t want to cause people to do things that will make them suffer, and at the same time you don’t want to do anything that is going to make yourself suffer. It’s a pretty radical view of our relationships.

We like to think that we can make other people happy by being nice to them, and there is a certain pleasure they can get when we’re nice to them, but that doesn’t necessarily make them happy. You’ve probably seen many cases where you’ve tried your best to be nice to somebody and they’re not happy. They’ve got their own karma.

This is especially clear when people are suffering from a mental illness, when they’re getting old and sick, or when a baby is newly born. You can’t talk to the baby and make things okay. You realize that what we experience is our own actions. We do have an impact on other people, but the major impact is through what we get them to do.

So we want to look for happiness in a way that inspires other people to look for happiness in a way that’s skillful too. If everybody could meditate, if everybody could develop good qualities of mind and find a sense of well-being inside, then there would be a possibility that all living beings would be happy. That’s the only way it can happen.

From: Raise Your Standards by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
When we do acts of merit, the Buddha says it’s a form of happiness. It’s the direct answer to that question, “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” Be generous, observe the precepts to be virtuous, and develop good qualities of the mind through meditating.

When you do these things regularly, you begin to realize that this is where real happiness lies. We’re all too often swept away by the pleasures of other things, especially now that we have distractions all around: We carry distractions in our pocket, we carry distractions in our knapsack — in other words, all the screens that we have. The pleasure that comes from being with the screen makes us forget that the real pleasures in life come from the good that we do.

So we have to remember that goodness is something that comes from within, that happiness is something that comes from within, so that we’re not constantly outside looking outside for our pleasures. The world gives pleasure sometimes but sometimes it doesn’t give pleasure. A lot of painful things happen in the world. We want to be able to live in the world and not be pained by them. That’s why we develop goodness inside, because that becomes our refuge, that becomes our source of strength, our nourishment.

So always keep this point in mind: that the goodness of the world, the happiness of the world, is something we’ve got to look for within. When you’re developed inside, then you can share with others. This is the best kind of sharing there is. You can share information on screens but the goodness of life comes from the qualities that you develop in your mind, and that’s shared in a different way. It’s shared through direct contact but sometimes just through the currents of the mind. Sometimes, as you’re sitting here meditating, you spread thoughts of goodwill to someone else, and if they’re receptive, they’ll know. It’ll make them feel good to know: Someone’s thinking of them. If they’re not receptive, you’re still broadcasting goodness outside, which is how the world is made into a better place, by taking the resources you have inside and developing them as fully as possible. And then when they’re developed, you have more than enough to share.

This way your attitude toward the world isn’t that you’re always taking and taking and taking. As long as we’re feeding there’s going to have to be some taking, so you want to make sure that you pay back in terms of the goodness that you spread around through the qualities of the mind.

From: Where Real Happiness Lies by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
When you look at what the Buddha has to say about goodness and merit — and practicing them as a skill — that goes against the grain with a lot of people. They like to think of goodness and merit as being spontaneous, with no calculation, and here the Buddha’s talking about developing these things as a skill: thinking about your generosity, thinking about your motivation, thinking about your gift, thinking about who you want to give it to; putting extra thought into your precepts; extra thought into finding the best way to develop goodwill [mettā] for all beings. It’s very much a skill. If you don’t like the idea of happiness or goodness as a skill, you’re placing a huge block in your way. Because that’s what the practice is all about. Happiness is a skill. It is possible to approach it as a skill, and to reach the highest happiness: unbinding [nibbāna]. If you don’t want it to be a skill, then happiness then becomes something that’s random.

From: Warm Your Heart by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
There was a debate recently over the question of whether there are times when it’s justified to go out and kill people if they’re really evil. Well, that’s making your goodness depend on their goodness or badness. It’s not an independent value; it’s not an independent principle. But as the Buddha pointed out, your goodness has to be generated from within. It comes from your wisdom, seeing that regardless of how bad other people are, you’re not going to behave in that way. And that gives rise to a sense of self-esteem.

From: Loving Yourself Wisely by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
Equanimity is not the goal. We’re not here just to be equanimous about things, because there’s a sense of powerlessness in equanimity. You realize that there are things you simply cannot change as long as you’re in this world dealing with other people. They may decide they want to go to war. What are you going to do? You can protest, but what if they decide they’re not going to listen to the protests? What if they mow the protesters down?

People do unskillful things all over the world all the time. This is the world we’re born into — and this is one of the relatively good ones. So equanimity cannot be the goal. But the fact that the reflection on equanimity is also the same as the reflection that leads to a motivation to want to practice the path, shows that when the Buddha teaches us equanimity, it’s not just a general indifference. When you have equanimity for all beings, it’s not just saying, “Well, who cares?” It’s more to focus you. There are a lot of things you cannot change in the world, but there are some things that are within your power, and the path is something that’s within your power. It’s something you can do. That, the Buddha says, is a type of action. It’s the type of action that leads to the end of action, but it’s a choice you can make.

So when you develop thoughts of equanimity to overcome disappointment, grief, or just general irritation of the world, you then want to think about it a little bit further to take it beyond simply learning how to accept things as they are. You have to learn to accept the fact that there are potentials as well. There’s the potential to act skillfully, so skillfully that you can put an end to suffering. That’s there, too. So this motivation starts with samvega, but also leads to pasada, confidence that there is a way out.

Equanimity on its own, the Buddha points out, can leave you doing nothing, accomplishing nothing. He says that if you sit here meditating and develop only equanimity without trying to get the mind firmly concentrated, without exerting right effort, nothing happens. But if you combine equanimity with discernment, you realize there are a lot of things you can’t control, but there are some things you can. Focus on those.

From: Equanimity & More by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
Think of the example of the bandits trying to cut you up into pieces. The Buddha said that even in that case, you have to have goodwill [mettā], and the goodwill starts with them. There’s a long tradition that dates from the very last books of the Canon — they were added well after the Buddha passed away — that recommend that, when you’re developing goodwill, you start with yourself, and then you go to people who are easy, and then you go to people who are progressively harder. But in the case of the bandits, the Buddha said, you have to start with them. After all, who knows how much longer you’re going to last? They’re cutting you up into little pieces. So your goodwill has to go straight to the bandits and then, from them, you spread it for everybody because, as you’re dying, you don’t want to be focused on ill will for anybody at all.

As you go through the Canon, you get impressed by how much emphasis the Buddha places on your attitude at that last moment of life. You can be living a good life and the results of your good kamma will show, but they might get cut off or interrupted for a while if there’s a drop in your mind-state at the moment of death. And, conversely, you may have some bad kamma, but if you have a change of heart and the mind-state is lifted, you get at least a brief reprieve. And maybe in that reprieve you have the opportunity to develop the noble paths, the noble attainments, so that you can escape a lot of the kamma that you would have otherwise have to experience. At least it would be greatly weakened before you go.

So you want to make sure that your goodwill is quick. You’re being sawed up; you don’t want to think, “Well, may I be happy, may my parents be happy, may the people I love be happy, may my…” and then finally get to the bandits when who knows where you’re going to be at that point. You have to start with the bandits and then go to all beings.

So practice your goodwill so that it’s quick with regard to anybody — that it becomes the default mode — and this way you become skilled in aims, skilled in the goal. This is what should be done by someone who wants to be skilled in the goal.

From: Skilled in Aims by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
When you hear the word endurance, it seems to be nothing but pain, and more pain, and more pain, for a long period of time, but the key to true endurance is realizing that you don’t have to focus on the pains. You can focus on the things that are good in the present moment — starting from within.

And if within doesn’t seem all that good, there is some help from outside. This is the other aspect of food from sensory contact: We can listen to the Dhamma, we can see the example of other people who have been practicing the Dhamma and are practicing the Dhamma — and it’s refreshing to the mind.

Suppose we lived in a world where there was no Dhamma, where all people could think about was gaining wealth, gaining power, with no sense of right or wrong, no sense of generosity, no sense of virtue. It’d be a hard world to live in — not the kind of world you would want to live in. But 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:
Someone came to me and asked for a birthday blessing. The blessing I chose was, “May you have the strength to deal with whatever comes up.” And she looked disappointed. She said, “Can’t you wish for me to be happy all year round?” And I said, “I can’t promise that. You’re in the wrong world.”

We live in a world where there’s gain and there’s loss; status, loss of status; praise, criticism; pleasure, pain — a world where things go well and things go not-so-well. And to simply want nothing but the good stuff is very unrealistic. Which means that we need to have the strength to deal with the bad stuff when it comes.

From: The Equanimity that Doesn’t Give Up by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
Genuine reconciliation has been so hard to achieve in the modern world. The global village has made instant neighbors of deeply conflicting standards of right and wrong. In addition, many well-funded groups find it in their interest — narrowly defined — to emphasize the points of conflict that divide us — race, religion, social class, education — and to heap ridicule on sincere efforts to establish a widely acceptable common ground. Although the weapons and media campaigns of these groups may be sophisticated, the impulse is tribal: “Only those who look, think, and act like us have the right to live in peace; everyone else should be subjugated or destroyed.” But although the global reach of modern hate- and fear-mongers is unprecedented, the existence of clashing value systems is nothing new. The Buddha faced a similar situation in his time, and the way he forged a method for reconciling conflicting views can be instructive for ours.

From: Reconciliation, Right & Wrong by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Question: If any unskillful thought arises and you acknowledge it as unskillful, does it still have negative kammic effects?

Thanissaro Bhikkhu: No.

Question: In other words, does the arising of unskillful thoughts cause bad kamma or is it just our reaction to them?

Thanissaro Bhikkhu: It’s our reaction to them that can cause bad kamma. The fact that the thought arises is the result of old kamma. What you do with it is your new kamma. If you simply acknowledge it and it goes away, or if you think skillful thoughts that counteract it and make it go away, then the new kamma is good new kamma.

From: Good Heart, Good Mind: The Practice of the Ten Perfections by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
The attitude of respect is built into the Buddha’s teachings. A lot of people think that Buddhism is an interesting philosophy, perhaps a very good philosophy, that somehow got religion tacked onto it, with all the bowing and all the other paraphernalia that go along with religion. And they’d like to separate the two: “Can’t we just have the philosophy without the religion?” they say. But if you look at the nature of the Buddha’s philosophy, his teachings on the four noble truths, the whole attitude of respect is built into the teaching itself. When you realize that the big issue here is the possibility of a great deal of pain or a lot of pleasure, true pleasure, it puts an edge on the teachings. It’s not just an interesting description of things. It points out a dilemma we’re all placed in. We’ve got to do something about it.

From: Respect for Heedfulness by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
Everything talked about in the Dhamma relates to actions. When people talk about interconnectedness: We’re connected through our actions. We’re not connected through anything else. What kind of connections do we have? It’s not something we are born with, aside from the results of past actions. These connections are created right now as we’re acting. Then act well so that the connections are good, as long as you need connections. But ultimately you find the mind is a lot better off without connections to anything at all.

From: It's All about Action by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
When I was in Thailand this last time, I went to pay my respects to Ajaan Uthai. When I got there he was talking to a group of lay people, and he invited me to join the conversation. He started asking questions about the monastery here. One of his questions was, “When Westerners come to the monastery, what do they come for?” I said, “Most people come looking for peace of mind.” One of the lay people commented, “It sounds like those Westerners are going straight for the top.” Ajaan Uthai turned to them and said, “What do you mean, straight for the top? Even common animals want peace of mind. If you’re a human being, you want something better than that. You want goodness as well.” In other words, if you’re a genuine human being looking for a happiness that puts your mind at rest, it has to be good, too. It has to be harmless. It has to be blameless.

That, of course, is a value judgment, but it’s an important one. As the Buddha said, the beginning of wisdom is, among other things, asking, “What is blameworthy and what is blameless? What is skillful? What is unskillful? What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness? What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term harm and pain?”

Discernment starts with the realization that there are these dualities, these choices you have to make, and that one course of action is better because it gives better results than the other. Your discernment lies in seeing which is better.

From: The Wisdom of Dualities by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Re: The Quotable Thanissaro

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
Simply being in the present moment is not going to make you happy. But then trying to create a perfect society is not going to make you happy, either.

Look at the Buddha. If anybody could have created a perfect society, it would have been him. But he saw that it was useless. There was a time when Mara came to him. The question had arisen in the Buddha’s mind, “Could it be possible to rule in such a way that you wouldn’t have to create bad kamma and that you could do nothing but good for all beings?” Mara shows up, and says, “Ah, yes, do that.” And the Buddha realizes that this idea of creating a perfect society is all a trick of Mara, because you’re using people for ends. And how skillful are those ends? Even if the ends are good, there’s a tendency to try to attain them in unskillful ways, to impose them on people. If you tell people that things will be good and they’ll be happy only if society is perfect, people would die before they could find true happiness.

On the other hand, the solution is not a matter of simply accepting things as they are. It’s learning how to reshape them in a skillful way, starting with learning how to reshape things skillfully within yourself and, at the same time, being generous and virtuous. Generosity and virtue are probably the two best things for improving society. We’re never going to get a perfect society, but you find that the wiser you are in your generosity, the more consistent you are in your virtue, then the better the world you create around you. And it can be done without force, without imposing your will on other people.

Generosity and virtue are the yeast that gets into a society and makes it human, regardless of what the structure or system may be. If people were more virtuous and more generous, things would be a lot less oppressive. And the people who are virtuous and generous are also finding that they create happiness for themselves. It’s to their benefit. That goes together with the practice of meditation.

From: The Use of the Present by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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