Thanissaro Bhikkhu on the Ultimate Goal

"Other people shouldn’t play that much of a role in our practice, because the practice is purely an internal matter. As Ajaan Lee once said, it’s your own business where you are in the practice. It’s nobody else’s business. If your behavior is a burden on them, that makes it other people’s business. But the less burdensome your behavior is, then it becomes less and less and less anybody else’s business — until finally you reach the deathless. That’s totally your own business. Nobody else has to know. They just sense it in that you’re less of a burden on them." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Self-esteem"

"We chant that passage every morning, every night: “May you forever be well.” And the question is, “How are you going to be forever well when there’s aging, illness, and death all around, separation all around?” The Buddha realized the only answer was that you have to look for something that doesn’t age, grow ill or die, something that’s not separated from things you depend on. That can be found only inside. This is why we meditate: to find that thing." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Looking for Happiness Inside"

"A lot of naïve thinking about insight comes in, telling us, “Well, you just learn how to accept things, because there’s nothing better than this.” That’s not what the Buddha taught at all. There’s something much better than what you’ve been doing. It’s through human effort that a totally unfabricated happiness, a totally free dimension, can be attained. And once that’s been attained, then everything else pales by comparison. Even the first taste of the deathless allows you to reorder all your priorities and all your ways of looking at things, because you realize that what the Buddha said was true. That kind of happiness is possible. At the moment, though, that happiness is simply news, but at least allow it to be the dominant news in your heart. Allow that possibility to have a big role in the discussion as to what’s worth doing and what’s not, where the voices say, “What’s next? What to do next? What to do next? Let’s go in that direction.” Try to get all the voices together

"We’re sitting here meditating, we’re practicing the Dhamma, partly because of the example of those who’ve gone before us, or as the Buddha would say, entirely because of the example of those who’ve gone before us. There’s a famous exchange where Ven. Ananda comes and says, “This is half of the holy life: having admirable friends.” And the Buddha says, “No, it’s the entirety.” He goes on to say that if it weren’t for him as an admirable friend, where would we be? We wouldn’t be practicing. We’d be off someplace else. We wouldn’t have any idea that there would be something good to be found just sitting here watching our breaths. So it’s good to think of the good examples that have gone before us, from the Buddha all the way on down. Tonight we’re commemorating the birthday of Rama IX. It’s become Thai national day. The reason we’re commemorating him is because of the good examples he set, primarily in the area of generosity, persistence, and truthfulness. We look back on the hist