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...

"We hear over and over again that, because of the principle of impermanence, even Awakening must be impermanent, but that’s not true. The Buddha didn’t say that everything is impermanent, only that conditioned things are impermanent. And even on the conditioned level, it’s possible to make irrevocable changes. This is why training the mind is so worthwhile." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Knife of Discernment" (Meditations2)

"The fact that the Unconditioned can be attained forces us to re-evaluate any other goals we may set for ourselves, any worlds we may want to create in our lives. On an obvious level, it points out the spiritual poverty of a life devoted to wealth, status, or sensual pursuits; but it also forces us to take a hard look at other more “worthwhile” goals that our culture and its sub-cultures tend to exalt, such as social acceptance, meaningful relationships, stewardship of the planet, etc. These, too, will inevitably lead to suffering. The interdependence of all things cannot be, for any truly sensitive mind, a source of security or comfort. 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. Even for those who are not ready to make that kind of investment, the awakening assures us that happiness comes from developing qualities within o...

"I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people depict the Buddha’s teachings like this: There really is no happiness in the world, and contentment lies in just admitting that fact and basically giving up on the search for happiness and learning how to be equanimous and unaffected by anything. That’s the best that can be expected. There is no transcendent. There’s nothing unconditioned. It’s just a matter learning how to accept where you are. That’s almost too depressing to think about, if that’s what it was all about. But fortunately, it’s not. The Buddha did find an ultimate happiness, one that is totally satisfying — so totally that it’s more than anything you could think about, more than anything you could imagine. Can you imagine not hungering? For most of us, just that idea stretches our imagination a lot. We’re used to being hungry and we find satisfaction in things that seem to satisfy the hunger, at least for a while. We forget that a lot of the things that are appealing i...

"It’s very sad when you hear about people saying, “Do you want happiness? An unconditioned happiness? Poor you.” What’s wrong with wanting a happiness that’s totally blameless, a happiness that doesn’t take anything away from anyone else? If you don’t have that kind of happiness, the only kind of happiness you’re going to find in life is the type that does take things from others. I was reading a while back about a teacher who said he wouldn’t want to live in a world without suffering because he wouldn’t then be able to exercise his compassion — which is a very selfish wish: You want there to be people who are suffering so that you can enjoy being compassionate to them? Your sense of well-being needs to feed off other people’s pain? What kind of ideal is that? The best possible ideal is to follow a path leading to a happiness that doesn’t depend on other people’s suffering in any way, shape, or form. Then you can show that path to other people. If they feel so moved, they can pra...