Thanissaro Bhikkhu on the Ultimate Goal

"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...

"Some people think that the idea of a totally independent source of happiness is selfish, or a way of running away from the real world, but it’s not. How can it be selfish when you’re in a position that allows everything you do to be an act of giving? What exactly is it running away from? It’s running away from your old feeding habits, your old dependencies, which are not only unstable for you but can also be oppressive for others in ways that you might not think, but they’re there. Just the fact that we have this body depends on food, clothing, shelter, and medicine — and where do those things come from? How many people are happily involved in the process that brings us food, happily involved in the process that brings us clothing, shelter, and medicine? There may be some people who are happy to do it, but a lot of people are doing it through pain and suffering. That’s why we chant that reflection every evening, to remind us of this fact. So that’s what you’re running away from. ...

"Theravada Buddhism is often criticized for being selfish. We’re not here to save all beings, we’re here to save our own skin: That’s what they say. It is true that we recognize that we each are making ourselves suffer and we have to work on putting an end to that suffering ourselves. Each of us has his or her own karma. You can’t take your karma and give it to somebody else. So it looks like we’re just working on our own goodness, our own happiness, and forgetting about everyone else. But when you think about goodness, you realize that it’s not the sort of thing that’s limited just to you. The goodness you do has to spill out into the lives of other people. There’s that image the Buddha gives of the two acrobats. One acrobat is standing on the top of a bamboo pole. Another acrobat, his female assistant, is standing on his shoulders. He says to her, “You look out after me, and I’ll look out after you, and that way we’ll maintain our balance and come down safely from the pole.” An...

"The important question is not “Who am I?” but “What should I do — and what will be the results?” That’s a question that can be answered — and answered in ways that really do make a difference in your life and can get you out of the confines of the world entirely. But to get out of the world requires that we first give something to it, and each of us will have to decide how and what we want to give. Some people say that if you try to get out of this process of samsara, you’re selfish — and that it’s bad for the world if people think they can get out. But actually it’s very good for the world, because you don’t get out by being selfish. You don’t take anything of the world with you; you have to leave everything worldly behind. Look at the Buddha. He created a lot of goodness and then he left it behind. That was how he was able to enter total nibbana. We don’t get to haul anything along with us into nibbana. We create goodness to leave it behind as our gift. And the leaving behind...

"When the security of our food source — the basis of our mental and material well-being — gets threatened, the finer qualities of the mind can vanish. People who believe in kindness can suddenly seek revenge. Those who espouse non-violence can suddenly call for war. And those who rule by divisiveness — by making a mockery of compassion, prudence, and our common humanity — find a willing following for their law-of-the-jungle agenda. This is why compassion based only on belief or feeling is not enough to guarantee our behavior — and why the practice of training the mind to reach an unconditioned happiness is not a selfish thing. If you value compassion and trust, it’s an imperative, for only an unconditioned happiness can guarantee the purity of your behavior. Independent of space and time, it’s beyond alteration. No one can threaten its food source, for it has no need to feed. When you’ve had even just a glimpse of this happiness, your belief in goodness becomes unshakable. That wa...

Question: Why is it that Theravāda is considered, with a certain amount of irony, as the small vehicle, whereas Mahāyānists call themselves the great vehicle, which carries its name because they’re more generous? — their goal being, always, the love of others, whereas for Theravāda it’s said to be first the love of yourself? Thanissaro Bhikkhu: It’s not that Theravādins don’t have any concern about other people. It’s more that we have a different sense of what we’re able to do for other people. We can teach other people how to gain awakening and we can set them a good example, but we can’t actually awaken other people. And it’s also not true that in Theravāda practice you don’t do good for other people. Generosity and virtue are large parts of the path. Even your mindfulness practice is good for others: The Buddha says it’s like being part of an acrobatic team. If you can maintain your balance at all times, it makes it easier for other people on the team to maintain theirs. And even ...

"Reflect on your own suffering and happiness: Don’t think about whether you deserve to be happy. The way to put an end to suffering is open to all. Do what you can to create the causes, not only for happiness in this life, but also for a happiness that’s solid and sure: the happiness of awakening. That’s when you have real compassion and empathetic joy for yourself. And that’s not a selfish thing." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Sublime Determinations: a Retreat on the Brahmavihāras"