The Quotable Thanissaro

[dhammapal]

Our society as a whole has really strange values.

I was reading recently that people working on Wall Street think they’re the smartest people in the world. And the hedge fund people think that the peons on Wall Street are just that — just slaves, wage slaves — while they’re the smartest ones on Earth.

It’s a very warped idea of what it means to be intelligent. It’s all very shortsighted: thinking that intelligence is a sign of putting in as little work as possible and squeezing the most out of other people that you can. It may be smart in the short term, but it’s really dumb in the long term.

As the Buddha said, you’ve got to take the long view if you want to be wise, if you want to be truly happy.

From: Smart vs. Wise by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

There are times when you have to be willing to take a hit in your income if you’re really going to practice the Dhamma. Ajaan Chah has a nice simile. He says wealth that’s gained through dishonest means or means that go against the Dhamma is not really wealth. If there’s a lot of it, it’s just like a lot of gravel. Wealth that’s gained through honest means, gained through the practice — sticking with the precepts, sticking with the principles of right livelihood — is genuine wealth. Even though it may be small, it’s like small diamonds, small bits of gold. It really does have value. Now, you’re not going to hear that idea often in the world out there. But you have to remember that if you took the values of the world out there to their logical extreme, there’d be nothing but oppression, taking advantage of one another.

Ajaan Chah has another interesting simile. He says that if everybody decided that wealth is the important thing in life no matter how you get it, then it’s possible that someone someday might decide that human skin could fetch a price. You could use skin to make all kinds of interesting things. Then he said, “There’d be nothing to say no. Everybody would be killing one another just to fetch skins to take to sell at the market.” His point is that you have to hold to other values that counteract the dominant values out there.

From: Practice at Home by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

When you decide that you don’t agree with society’s values, learn to do it in a way that’s not confrontational. After all, you’re going your own way. You’re not a permanent earthling. You’re not here to settle down for good. You’re here primarily to practice, to train your mind. If, having trained your mind, you can help other people, that’s fine. But if you can’t, make sure that at least you get your own mind in shape.

From: An Anthropologist from Mars by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

So regardless of what raw material your past karma keeps popping up in the present moment, as long as you’re not in the hell of totally unpleasant sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, ideas, and as long as you’re not in the heaven of totally pleasant sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, and ideas, you’re in a good position to practice.

And don’t think of how long you’ve been on the path or of how long you’re going to have to be on the path. It’s a good thing to be on the path. Some people get discouraged, thinking about how far away the goal is at the end of the path. But the way to deal with that is not to stop having goals. It requires learning to have a more mature attitude about being on the path: learning how to enjoy the path, remembering what life would be like if you didn’t have this path — and how lucky you are that you have this opportunity to practice it.

So keep the goal in mind. After all, if we didn’t have a purpose in being here, why would we be here? There are a lot of other places we could be right now, a lot of other things we could be doing. We’re here with a purpose. If you have the right attitude toward that purpose, then it’s easy to stick with it, no matter what pops up in the present moment.

That way, the pain doesn’t derail you, the pleasure doesn’t derail you. Whatever comes up can be raw material for the path.

From: Count Yourself Lucky by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

This is one of the general principles of the Buddha’s teachings: we look for happiness in terms of generosity, we look for happiness in terms of virtue and in terms of developing good qualities of the mind. If we’re looking for happiness someplace else, we’re looking for trouble.

This is one of the reasons why the world doesn’t have any peace. Very few people are looking for happiness inside, they’re looking for it outside. There’s going to be constant struggle, constant strife. But we don’t have to struggle and strive along with them. We can find a happiness inside. As the Buddha says, we live in a world where people are arguing but we don’t have to argue with them, people are hungry for pleasures but we don’t have to be hungry for those kind of pleasures. We’ve got something better inside. We’ve got the fullness, we’ve got the rapture that can come, the refreshment that comes from staying with the Dhamma. That’s our guide, that’s our guidepost.

From: Respecting the Dhamma Together by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

When people have wronged you, you have to ask yourself, “What good would you get out of their suffering?” The little child that likes to see revenge: Do you want to identify with that little child, that nasty little creature?

Think about it: If only other people could truly be happy inside. Wishing happiness for people doesn’t mean that you just wish them to be happy as they are. You wish for them to find the true causes for happiness.

From: Emotion by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

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

[dhammapal]

If we obsess over non-existent or trivial dangers, we’ll squander time and energy building up useless defenses, diverting our attention from genuine threats. If, on the other hand, we put the genuine dangers of aging, illness, and death out of our minds, we grow complacent in our actions. We let ourselves cling to things — our bodies, our loved ones, our possessions, our views — that leave us exposed to aging, illness, separation, and death in the first place.

From: Freedom from Fear by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

You think about the survivalists and all the food that they stash away. I know someone who’s got a whole three months’ worth of food stashed in his basement. But if things break down and your neighbors find out that you have food, do you think you’ll be able to keep it for three months? All these provisions we make are like putting up a cardboard wall to keep the sea away when the sea is rising. You’re not going to find security there.

Which means that, as you look at your body, you say, “Okay, I can’t rely on this body to provide security in and of itself, but I can *use* the body to develop virtue, concentration, discernment, and *those* are the things that will provide security.” Use the body to be generous, use the body to practice the precepts, use it as your topic of concentration and as your object of discernment.

Because as you focus on the body, you begin to realize you can see the mind’s defilements right here in the present moment very clearly. They all come gathering around right here. If there’s pain in the body — or if there’s concern about the body’s getting sick, the body’s getting old — your fear and worry and frustration will gather right here. To counteract them, you can engage in the reflection we chanted just now on the thirty-two parts of the body. You realize there’s not much there in and of itself. And if you hold on to the body for its own sake, then you’ll become like those people who die and then become worms in their own corpses.

But if you use the body as a tool, you find it has a lot to offer. So think of it as a tool. It’s not your haven but it can be your set of tools for finding a haven inside, in the qualities you develop in the mind. And have a lot of confidence in those qualities.

From: Worry vs. Heedfulness by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

Beings react to suffering in two ways: bewilderment and a search for a way out. If the conditions for suffering were not so complex, it would be the result of a simple, regular process that would not be so confusing. People would be able to understand it without any need for outside teachings. The fact of its actual complexity, however, explains why people find it bewildering and, as a result of their bewilderment, have devised a wide variety of unskillful means to escape from it: recourse to such external means as magic, ritual, revenge, and force; and to such internal means as denial, repression, self-hatred, and prayer.

From: The Wings to Awakening: An Anthology from the Pali Canon by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

Nowadays people get a little bit of Dhamma and they can’t wait to sell it, to figure out how to make money off of it. Just last night I saw in a catalog: mindfulness coloring books. There’s mindfulness mayonnaise. People with a little bit of Dhamma knowledge are all too happy to turn it into money.

If anyone would have had the right to charge for the Dhamma, it would have been the Buddha, but he didn’t. He saw that generosity was the beginning of our practice. And one of the best ways to teach generosity is to *be* generous yourself.

And the atmosphere he created by giving the Dhamma makes it something that’s given in the family. When you charge for something, it’s a sign that there’s a barrier. You’re not in the family anymore. You’re a stranger to one another and you make an exchange over that barrier of having to pay the price. But the Buddha gave the Dhamma as if he was giving it to his relatives. He’d give it to everybody as if he was giving it to his relatives. And it’s been passed down that way. It’s like a long extended family that we belong to.

From: Guardian Meditations, Right & Wrong by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

The Buddha talks a lot about clinging. And when we hear those teachings, we immediately translate them into attachment. We start thinking about our attachments to other people, our attachments to certain way of doing things, certain living situations we have. It’s important that we take those notions apart. Because when we hear the Buddha says to be unattached, it sounds like we’re being told to be cold-hearted or irresponsible.

But that’s not what he’s saying at all. He’s telling us not to be addicted to things outside and not to lean on things to the extent that we think that our happiness needs to depend on them. Because as we lean on them, we justify it by telling ourselves that it’s noble to have commitments to other people. Well, it is, but then there’s the element of our leaning on those commitments that the Buddha points out is unhealthy, both for ourselves and for the relationship.

So it’s important that we be clear on what he’s talking about. He’s not telling us not to have special relationships and not to be committed to other people. He’s not telling us to be cold-hearted and indifferent. What he *is* telling us is to find a resource within ourselves so that our happiness can be independent. That way, when we’re dealing with relationships, dealing with other people, we’re coming from a position of strength and there are no hidden agendas where we’re hoping to lean on them in a particular situation.

From: Relationships by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

So when an argument comes up, ask yourself, “Is there anything to be gained by engaging in this argument?” There are times when the Buddha would get engaged in arguments, but he wouldn’t argue out of anger. He would argue with the purpose of making things clear, either for the person he was talking to or for the people who were watching and listening. They might benefit from seeing how an argument that’s come to them actually works when treated in line with Dhamma principles. So there were times when the Buddha would engage in a debate because it would clear up somebody’s eyes a bit.

But there were other times when someone would come, and the Buddha would totally refuse to argue. There was once a brahman who came to see him and said, “What kind of teaching do you teach?” — hoping to engage in an argument with whatever the Buddha said. But the Buddha replied, essentially, “The kind of teaching where one doesn’t get engaged in useless arguments.” The brahman didn’t know what to say. He simply shook his head and left.

So, always keep in mind that the victory we’re after here is one over ourselves.

From: Victory by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

When lust comes up, for instance, the mind can create all kinds of reasons for why the object of lust is really attractive. You’ve got to remember to recognize it as a hindrance, and to recall that if you follow through with it, it’s going to create a lot of trouble.

Among the tools that mindfulness can use to help you here is the ability to remember that lust has its dangers. Here it’s good to think of all the stupid things people do under the power of lust — and the awful situations they get themselves into, getting tied down to a person they thought was attractive, and then discovering what else there is in that person: the person’s background, personality, family, all the connections that come bundled with that person. That helps you realize how risky it is.

When this really hits home, you’ll be a little more likely to want to actually apply that meditation in the chant right now, on the different parts of the body. First think about your own body: What’s in there that’s really worthy of lust? Take out all the parts and examine them to see which of them could be really attractive.

Only then do you apply the same contemplation to the other person — which is what makes it fair. In other words, you’re not saying that the other gender or the other person is the bad one. Your body, too, has the same sort of stuff.

But as the Buddha says, this analysis is going to work only if you have an alternative source of pleasure. This is why we work with the breath. The two contemplations have to go together.

All too often, when you’re really tired or stressed out, you say to yourself that the pleasure that comes from the lust is really worth it; it’s something you really need; you want your quick fix.

But if you can take a few minutes to stop and just breathe in a way that’s really refreshing, really nourishing, you give yourself some relief, you give yourself some strength, you give yourself some food, and then that enables you to say to yourself, “Actually, I don’t really need that other kind of pleasure after all.”

This is why ardency in developing concentration can be your first-line protection against lust. As the Buddha said, you can know all the drawbacks of sensuality but if you don’t have an alternative form of pleasure, all that knowledge is worthless. So ardency here also has to develop concentration, a sense of non-sensual well-being, working with the breath.

From: Protection Through Mindfulness Practice by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[dhammapal]

I read somebody complaining that they had seen a passage where someone had said that jhana is necessary for awakening, and he said, “No, that can’t be the case. My teacher says you see your defilements most clearly when they’re really strong: strong lust, strong anger. That’s when you’re going to gain awakening.” That’s what he said, but where are you in relation to that anger, where are you in relation to that lust when you’ve allowed these things to grow strong? When they stir up the mind, you can’t see things clearly. There has to be at least part of the mind that’s standing very still and watching whatever is happening, not the least bit stirred by those things. Otherwise you just slip along with them, accepting this as the normal way of the mind. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Part of the practice is learning that the mind at normalcy is not affected by those things. It’s a mind that’s been trained in line with the Buddha’s standards.

From: Accepting the Buddha's Standards by Thanissaro Bhikkhu