Home > Author > Thanissaro Bhikkhu
1 " If the Unconditioned is available, and it’s the only trustworthy happiness around, the most sensible course is to invest our efforts and whatever mental and spiritual resources we have in its direction [...] The news of the Buddha’s awakening sets the standards for judging the culture we were brought up in, and not the other way around. This is not a question of choosing Asian culture over American. The Buddha’s awakening challenged many of the presuppositions of Indian culture in his day; and even in so-called Buddhist countries, the true practice of the Buddha’s teachings is always counter-cultural. It’s a question of evaluating our normal concerns— conditioned by time, space, and the limitations of aging, illness, and death— against the possibility of a timeless, spaceless, limitless happiness. All cultures are tied up in the limited, conditioned side of things, while the Buddha’s awakening points beyond all cultures. It offers the challenge of the Deathless that his contemporaries found liberating and that we, if we are willing to accept the challenge, may find liberating ourselves. "
― Thanissaro Bhikkhu , Refuge: An Introduction to the Buddha, Dhamma, & Sangha
2 " Heedfulness: the path to the Deathless;Heedlessness: the path to death.The heedful do not die;The heedless are as ifalready dead.Knowing this as a true distinction,those wise in heedfulnessrejoice in heedfulness,enjoying the range of the noble ones.Dhp 21-22 "
― Thanissaro Bhikkhu , The Dhammapada
3 " The non-doing of any evil,the performance of what’s skillful,the cleansing of one’s own mind:This is the Buddhas’ teaching.Not disparaging, not injuring,restraint in line with the Patimokkha,moderation in food,dwelling in seclusion,commitment to the heightened mind:This is the Buddhas’ teaching.Dhp 183, 185 "
4 " Suppose that a man were to drop a salt crystal into a small amount of water in a cup. What do you think? Would the water in the cup become salty because of the salt crystal, and unfit to drink? Yes, lord. Why is that? There being only a small amount of water in the cup, it would become salty because of the salt crystal, and unfit to drink. Now suppose that a man were to drop a salt crystal into the River Ganges. What do you think? Would the water in the River Ganges become salty because of the salt crystal, and unfit to drink? No, lord. Why is that? There being a great mass of water in the River Ganges, it would not become salty because of the salt crystal or unfit to drink. "
― Thanissaro Bhikkhu , The Wings to Awakening: An Anthology from the Pali Canon
5 " Phenomena are preceded by the heart, ruled by the heart, made of the heart.If you speak or actwith a corrupted heart,then suffering follows you —as the wheel of the cart, the track of the ox that pulls it.Phenomena are preceded by the heart, ruled by the heart, made of the heart.If you speak or actwith a calm, bright heart,then happiness follows you,like a shadow that never leaves. "
6 " We don't wish for suffering, but once we understand how to be in relationship with it, it becomes the means through which we mature as loving and wise people. "
― Thanissaro Bhikkhu
7 " The role that kamma plays in the awakening is empowering. It means that what each of us does, says, and thinks does matter—this, in opposition to the sense of futility that can come from reading, say, world history, geology, or astronomy, and realizing the fleeting nature of the entire human enterprise. The awakening lets us see that the choices we make in each moment of our lives are real, and that they produce real consequences. The fact that we are empowered also means that we are responsible for our experiences. We are not strangers in a strange land. We have formed and are continuing to form the world we experience. This helps us to face the events we encounter in life with greater equanimity, for we know that we had a hand in creating them. At the same time, we can avoid any debilitating sense of guilt because with each new choice we can always make a fresh start. "
8 " Show your thoughts who's boss. "
9 " So the mind’s committee is less like a communion of saints planning a charityevent, and more like a corrupt city council, with the balance of power constantly shifting between different factions, and many deals being made in back rooms. "
― Thanissaro Bhikkhu , With Each and Every Breath
10 " But whoever develops mindfulness of death, thinking, 'O, that I might live for the interval that it takes to swallow having chewed up one morsel of food... for the interval that it takes to breathe out after breathing in, or to breathe in after breathing out, that I might attend to the Blessed One's instructions. I would have accomplished a great deal' — they are said to dwell heedfully. They develop mindfulness of death acutely for the sake of ending the effluents."Therefore you should train yourselves: 'We will dwell heedfully. We will develop mindfulness of death acutely for the sake of ending the effluents.' That is how you should train yourselves.-Manassatti sutta (AN 6.19 PTS: A iii 303) "
11 " The Buddha, on the external level, refers to Siddhattha Gotama, the Indian prince who renounced his royal titles and went into the forest, meditating until he ultimately gained awakening. To take refuge in the Buddha means, not taking refuge in him as a person, but taking refuge in the fact of his awakening: placing trust in the belief that he did awaken to the truth, that he did so by developing qualities that we too can develop, and that the truths to which he awoke provide the best perspective for the conduct of our life. The Dhamma, on the external level, refers to the path of practice the Buddha taught to this followers. This, in turn, is divided into three levels: the words of his teachings, the act of putting those teachings into practice, and the attainment of awakening as the result of that practice. This three-way division of the word “Dhamma” acts as a map showing how to take the external refuges and make them internal: learning about the teachings, using them to develop the qualities that the Buddha himself used to attain awakening, and then realizing the same release from danger that he found in the quality of Deathlessness that we can touch within. "
12 " In the initial stages, this usually involved evaluating how you were relating to the breath, and detecting more subtle levels of breath energy in the body that would provide a basis for deeper levels of stillness. Once the breath was perfectly still, and the sense of the body started dissolving into a formless mist, this process would involve detecting the perceptions of "space," "knowing," "oneness," etc., that would appear in place of the body and could be peeled away like the layers of an onion in the mind. In either case, the basic pattern was the same: detecting the level of perception or mental fabrication that was causing the unnecessary stress, and dropping it for a more subtle level of perception or fabrication until there was nothing left to drop.-Jhana Not By the Numbers "
