Thanissaro Bhikkhu on the Ultimate Goal

"We’ve seen so much of the changes in the world, and we’ve realized that the only way the heart is going to find any true peace is to find a happiness that’s not going to change on you. The Buddha’s good news is that there is such a happiness. It does exist and it is attainable. So as you experience grief over the way the world is changing — and when you look around you at the world at large, it is pretty discouraging. But we have to remember that each of us is creating his or her own world, and it is possible through your actions to create a world in which the deathless is possible. You’re creating a new you; you’re creating a new world. The two go together. You’ll be going beyond them at some point, but you need to use them to get beyond them, which is what the training is for. So even though there’s some grief in the realization that you’re not there yet, it’s grief with hope, which is the opposite of depression. That’s grief with no hope at all, which is basically what’s bein...

"If we were all one, then when the Buddha gained awakening, everybody would have been awakened. And if we still insist that we’re all one, then nobody’s going to get awakened, and it would follow that the Buddha himself was not awakened. There’s an aspect of us that’s separate, and it’s a separate problem that we each have to deal with. And as I said, nobody else can do this for you. And if you don’t do it now, when are you going to do it?" ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "De-domesticated"

Question: I’ve come to meditation to help me bear the atrocities of the world. What is awakening? Is it a moment of conscience when one embraces all the sorrows of the world, and in that case means hello to all sorrows or is it on the contrary a state of total forgetfulness and egotism, in that case it would be hello to guilt? So, which is it? Thanissaro Bhikkhu: Neither. Remember the image of feeding. Ordinarily, we feed on the world, both physically and mentally, in order to gain happiness and maintain our identity as beings. But when you gain full awakening, the mind no longer needs to feed because it already has enough in terms of its own happiness. When you’ve reached that state, you can engage in the world without having to feed on it. You can help those whom you can help, and you don’t have to suffer in cases where you can’t help. In this way, you’re neither embracing the sorrows of the world nor are you running away from them. Instead you have a different relati...

"Ajaan Lee’s image is of the difference between letting go like a pauper and letting go like a wealthy person. The pauper says “I have no wealth, I’ll let go of it and say I have no desire for wealth.” But then the pauper doesn’t have anything to eat, doesn’t have anything to use. Whereas the wealthy person, having made a fortune, can let it go, and the fortune’s still there. It doesn’t run away anywhere. You don’t have to carry it around with you all the time, but the good things are there to use, for your own purposes and the purposes of others. If you don’t have a Cadillac, there’s no way you can lend a Cadillac to somebody else. If you haven’t learned about the practice through the practice, then all you have to share with others is what you’ve read or heard." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Hold on for All You're Worth"