Thanissaro Bhikkhu on the Ultimate Goal

"Perhaps to counteract the common fear that the release of nibbana is a type of starvation, Khp 6 depicts it as a form of consumption in which one’s food is totally free — freely available, free from debt, and free from suffering: § 50. Those who, devoted, firm-minded, apply themselves to Gotama’s message, on attaining their goal, plunge into the deathless, freely eating the liberation they’ve gained." — Khp 6 ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Shape of Suffering: A Study of Dependent Co-arising"

"So here we are in the midst of a storm. But there’s something deep inside that doesn’t have to suffer from the storm, doesn’t have to be threatened by the storm. Even though we may reflect on the awesomeness of the powers of nature and how huge they are, there is something in the mind that’s even more enormous, more solid, than they are. It can be found through our own efforts, and it offers a security that you can’t find in any place — because it’s outside of places. There’s a recurrent phrase in the Canon of the arahant’s being “released everywhere,” which means released from every where, every place. That idea’s awesome, too. The reality of it, once you’ve touched it, is even more awesome than the idea." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Awe" (Meditations6)

"One of the important things to understand as you come to practice the Dhamma is that you’re not running away from anything. If you want to run away from the human race: You come out here and what have you got? You’re sitting here under a tree, you’re sitting with a member of the human race. You want to run away from your body: You’re sitting there with your body. You want to run away from the issues of the mind: You find that when things are quiet, the issues have more space to come and confront you." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "No Running Away"

"You look at the world, and there’s just constant conflict. So your gift to the world is that you’re going to get out. Meanwhile, if you find what the Buddha said is a deathless happiness, it’s not as if you’re just snuffing yourself out and going away into nothingness. You’re finding something better: a type of happiness that doesn’t require that you lay claim to anything. So this practice we’re doing here is not just an exercise in stress reduction. It’s a gift to yourself, a gift to the world. You’re trying to pull yourself out of this constant conflict. Maybe you can’t stop all the conflicts in the world, but you can be one less person to be involved in those conflicts." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Papañca"

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...

"When the Buddha talks about his awakening, it’s interesting to notice that he never talks in terms of the three characteristics or the three perceptions. It’s always in terms of the four noble truths, which are truths about action and result: There are unskillful mental actions that lead to suffering, skillful actions that lead to the end of suffering. The awakening is to see that that’s actually true — and you see it’s true not by generalizing, but by actually following the path and putting an end to suffering. Some people describe awakening as giving assent to the three characteristics, saying, “Oh yeah, that really is true” — but what does that do, what does that change? The real change comes when you look in terms of the four noble truths. You actually do the path and it does lead you to something new — the end of suffering. That’s how you can be said to know the four noble truths — you’ve actually done the duties; you’ve seen the results." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Pa...

"There is this tendency. We read one of these passages, say, about the awakened one who experiences just the sight, just the sound, without assuming any person seeing the sight or anything behind the sight, any object to be seen. We think, “Well, if I just get myself so fully in the present moment where there’s no division between subject and object, that should do it: a taste of awakening.” But it’s not. Even if you actually can achieve a oneness of consciousness, the Buddha noted that there’s still stress there, because it’s something that has to be maintained. It’s not the case that we’re suffering because we have a sense of separateness between subject and object, and we can end that suffering by bringing them back together again, glomming them together. Once they’re glommed, they don’t stay glommed. There’s the stress of having to keep them glommed. And there’s also the question: Could you function continually that way? So this tendency we have of trying to clone awakening, ...

"The Buddha said that he taught just suffering and the end of suffering. Suffering is the problem he focused on and he proposed to solve it. First he was able to solve that problem inside himself. Then he taught other people to solve it within themselves. It seems fairly simple. You look at all the suffering in the world, and it’s obvious that it’d be really good that people not have to suffer. You see war, famine, induced war, induced famine. The things that happen in even just the human world are pretty bad, and there are realms where it gets a lot worse. So, any teaching that offers an end to suffering would seem to be something that would appeal to everyone. Yet when the Buddha talks about the implications of what it means to put an end to suffering, when he talks about nibbāna, a lot of people say it doesn’t sound all that appealing. Years back, when I gave my first study weekend here in California, the topic was the four noble truths. You get to the third truth before you ge...

"You know that comparison where the Buddha said that if you could make a deal where they would stab you with a hundred spears early in the morning, a hundred spears at noon, and a hundred spears in the evening — every day for a hundred years — but if you were guaranteed awakening at the end of those hundred years, it’d be a deal worth making. And when you finally did gain awakening you wouldn’t consider that you’d achieved it through pain. It was achieved through joy. The happiness of awakening is that intense, that overwhelming, that total. And the way to get started and the way to continue toward that happiness is having an attitude of giving, which teaches you to watch the happiness of your mind and learn how to grade the levels of happiness. Watch your mind in action, watch the results, and judge the results as to which is better than what. And developing those habits of observation and judgment will carry you all the way through." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "One Thing ...

"Whenever talking about awakening, there are always two dangers. The first danger is thinking that awakening is so far away that you give up any hope of attaining it. The other danger comes from the fact that there are many stages of concentration that sound very similar to awakening, and if you attain one of those you may think that you’ve attained awakening when in fact you haven’t. You’re still stuck in a fabricated state. In both cases, the danger lies in giving up your pursuit of being more skillful in your actions. The path to the end of suffering exists, but you stop or turn around. One way to avoid these dangers begins with having a right understanding of both kamma and mindfulness." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Kamma & Mindfulness Together"

"There’s a higher well-being, happiness, pleasure — the Pali word sukha covers all of that — that comes with the deathless. Everyone who’s attained the deathless says, “How stupid I was not to go for this.” That’s why people who gain genuine awakening don’t become proud over the fact of their awakening, because they’ve seen how stupid they were for so long." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Smart about Lust" (Meditations12)

"We’re not here to save the world. Sometimes you hear people saying that the Buddha wanted us to get rid of all kinds of suffering, wherever the suffering is found, and they use that as an excuse for not meditating and getting involved in all kinds of social programs instead, saying that their programs are Buddhist. But the Buddha was very particular. He focused on the suffering that comes from the mind’s own actions, because that’s where suffering is caused. He’s not here to save the world. He’s here to go beyond it, and that’s where our practice should be aimed." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The World is Aflame"

"So even though you may not be able to step outside of America right now, or whatever country you’re in, one of the reasons we have a monastic order is that it is an alternative society, with an alternative culture. The values are those set forth by noble ones, who say that these values are really helpful for the sake of release. It’s like having a subversive alternative culture here in our country, one that you can tap into so that you can step out of the world outside — into a bigger outside, the outside of a mind that’s liberated. You’re with people who live by the values set down by someone who was liberated, in which you find that you have a different identity where you’re not measured by your job or your family. You’re measured by the way you’re generous, the way that you’re virtuous, the care that you put into training your mind. These are different values entirely. And by measuring your generosity, it’s not in terms of how much you give, it’s more your willingness to give ...

"The Buddha started and ended his teaching with the issue of how to put an end to suffering, and it’s easy to agree with him that this is an important issue to address. Some people, though, wonder if that’s all he addresses. Just put an end to suffering? What else is there? Aren’t there bigger issues in life? Actually, it was a part of the Buddha’s genius to realize that if you put an end to suffering, you learn a lot of other things about the mind. If you focus on the issue of suffering, a lot of things are brought right there together. Because right where there’s feeling there’s also attention and intention, perception — particularly intention. And when these issues are solved, everything important gets solved as well." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Choice Not to Suffer"

"According to the Buddha, though, there is one thing that doesn’t disappoint. When you pursue Awakening, when you pursue nibbana, it’s not going to lead to disappointment. Quite the contrary, it goes wildly beyond your expectations, wildly beyond your hopes. Even just the first taste of the Deathless, stream entry, is enough to produce a seismic shift in your whole awareness, your whole understanding in what you think you are, and what’s possible in life, and in the importance of your own actions. Once you reach that state, your conviction in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha is unshakeable. Your standards for what counts as true happiness get ratcheted up immeasurably." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Culture Shock" (Meditations2)

"So, renunciation is a trade — and it’s a good trade, a trade up. You’re trading candy for gold. You’re abandoning the fears and worries that come with trying to lay claim to power, trying to lay claim to material things, and you’re finding your pleasure elsewhere, in safe places: inside you, in your experience of the body and the mind as you experience it from within. An area where no one else can enter, no one else can sense. If you’re looking for your pleasures outside, people can see the material things you have and they can want them. But when you’re looking for pleasure inside, it’s nobody else’s business — which means it’s safe . Nobody else has to know. But you’ve developed your resources inside: through the brahmavihāras, through the practice of jhāna, right concentration, until you get to that third high and luxurious bed of the Buddha’s which is the noble bed — where the mind is free from its effluents. In other words, no longer any dangers from outside, and also no da...

"If you focus on the area inside, you don’t have to conflict with anybody. No one is going to move into your territory. No one can evict you and take over your place — except for the fact that the body will evict you from the body at some point. Otherwise, you’re in this world wherever it goes. It’s your territory. So you want to make sure that it’s in order, and it’s not creating a lot of suffering for itself. It’s in a world that has lots of potentials for suffering, but also potentials for happiness. It’s in this inner world where the Buddha talks about touching deathless with the body. This is what he means: The deathless is something that will appear in your inner world. There’s that possibility, too, right here. So try to stay as grounded as you can right here, as sensitive as you can — sensitive not only in sense of sensing what’s going on, but also in the sense of understanding. When something happens, if there’s any pain, any suffering: Why? What can be done about it? It’...

"That old saw about the path of the arahant being selfish: What’s selfish about a happiness that doesn’t deprive anybody of anything? If you could go out and concentrate people’s minds for them, that would be a noble activity, but you can’t. What you can do is get into a concentrated mind state yourself and be an example to other people. People around you will pick up a sense of ease, a sense of peace, from the peace that you develop in your mind, the sense of happiness that comes when you can stay longer and longer and longer in one place and realize that you don’t have to get pushed out. No matter what happens, no matter how loud the noises around you are, how insistent outside stimuli maybe, they don’t destroy the breath. They don’t destroy your ability to stay with the breath. This is a kind of happiness that comes with practice. So it’s worth working on. It’s a happiness that does withstand scrutiny. Yet even this is not the ultimate. It’s not the happiness the Buddha went i...

"The Buddha was not down on pleasure, it’s simply that he was a real connoisseur. He said, "Why settle for second best when there’s best? And it’s available.” Now, we may decide that it seems awfully far away, and that we’re going to starve in the meantime unless we get the pleasures we want. But that’s taking the wrong attitude toward your pleasures. You can ask yourself, “Which pleasures are conducive to getting to the ultimate, and which ones are going to get in the way?” You focus on encouraging the ones that are conducive, letting go of the ones that’ll get in the way. That’s the real sign of wisdom. After all, the quest for wisdom begins with that question, "What when I do it will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” This applies to how you deal with pleasures, how you deal with pains: pleasures of the senses and pleasures of the practice; pains of the senses, pains of the practice. So you want to be wise about pleasure, wise about your feelings. That way,...

"As for deepening the mind, the Buddha usually uses “deepening” to refer to arahantship, the point where the mind is so deeply rooted that it’s like a stone column sixteen spans tall, eight spans buried in the rock of a mountain. As for the eight spans above ground, no matter how strong the winds come from any of the eight directions — these are the winds of gain/loss, status/loss of status, praise/criticism, pleasure/pain — the stone column doesn’t shiver or shake. Sometimes the Buddha would use the image of depth as in the depth of the ocean. The fully awakened mind is unfathomable like the sea. It’s so deep you can’t measure it, so big you can’t measure it. Even though this technically applies to arahantship, you can hold that perception in mind: that you have a property of awareness larger than everything it knows, that goes deeper than everything it knows. It can encompass everything. Hold that image in mind. And that awareness keeps on knowing regardless of whether the body ...