Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute talk, Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen argues that genuine transformation requires shifting our fundamental worldview—not just behavior or attitude. He identifies two dysfunctional “maps” controlling our lives: ignorance (misconceiving reality and self) and self-centeredness (evaluating everything through “what’s in it for me?”). Using concrete metaphors—a traveller with the wrong city map, a diver hesitating on the board—he explores the “awakened heart” as daring commitment to others’ welfare. He teaches other-centeredness and compassion as immediate practical tools. Geshe Dhawa then explains karma: how past actions create latencies that shape our perception and experience. A demonstration with an ambiguous image (young or old woman, depending on conditioning) illustrates how perception depends on our mental conditioning rather than external reality. For practitioners exploring Buddhist philosophy and personal transformation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 15 H and M of A.mp3
UUID: 77d23346-4112-4957-a648-404cd5bb9efe
Teacher: Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996 Jul-Sep (Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen)
Date: 1996 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.0 minutes
Words: ~5,641
So we begin as we always do in terms of adjusting our motivation, reorientating ourselves, redirecting ourselves perhaps, getting back in touch with certain principles or guidelines that we’d very much like to see our lives lived out of, to see as an expression of what we stand for and who it is we are. But oftentimes, for various reasons, one reason or another, we decide to get out of touch with, and our life goes by. You know, last week I began to emphasise the fact of developing as our motivation — the why we do what we do, the why behind our listening, various practices, our meditation. Maybe we can extend it that far — the why we do all our various activities throughout the day — to one of basically compassionate activity as an expression of our caring for others. Through the creative potential of my practising generosity and the other perfections — my ethics of patience, effort, concentration, and wisdom — may I achieve the state of the Buddha for the sake of all living beings?
And may I become a tremendously healthy person for the sake of all others. You know, I think Buddhism doesn’t offer us a quick fix. I think that’s pretty safe to say. Or if it does, I missed the boat somewhere. I think it’s working at a very deep level.
Many of the self-improvement methods, growth methods which have been popular for the last maybe twenty, twenty-five years, offer some way to change our behaviour, perhaps our attitudes. And sometimes they produce a temporary change, some kind of effect, desirable effect. But the basic dysfunctional patterns of our lives remain very much unchanged because they’re operating from a very deeper level than we normally are able to access or even consider. You know, the very maps that we use to navigate the terrain of our lives, the way that we navigate, operate in the course of our lives. You know, it is at this level that Buddhism is seeking to bring about a fundamental change in the nature of who we are — our worldview, our paradigms — out of which our attitudes and our behaviours develop.
If, you know, if we were travelling — say maybe we’re going to Sydney next weekend — we wanted to get to a particular street, it would be quite useful to have a city map to get there. But if someone, rather than giving us the map of Sydney, gave us the map of Brisbane, we’d have a terribly difficult time getting to where it is we wanted to go. So we might think, I’ll change my behaviour. I’ll just be a little more diligent. I’ll make more effort in trying to get to where I’m going.
The best we could hope for is to get to the wrong place faster. And that’s all we could ever hope for in such a situation. Or I could change my attitude, you know, about going down the wrong streets all the time. And we could get to the place where maybe, well, we accept the fact that we’re lost and maybe it’s okay. We might get by with the blasé attitude, with the sophisticated attitude, just hanging out and chilling out.
Acceptance and having no expectations and going with the flow, whatever. But the bottom line is we don’t get where we want to go. So, at a certain point it’s not only our behaviour which is necessary to work with — for sure, no doubt. But it’s not only our attitude, which is necessary to work with at some level — for sure. It is the very basic maps that we’re operating with. The very guidelines out of which our attitudes and behaviours arise.
So in Buddhism, that’s why it’s so hard, I think. We’re trying to change these most basic, fundamental blueprints out of which we understand what it means to be a human being, what the good life is about, how it makes sense of our world. And two of those most dysfunctional maps that we’re operating with are those of ignorance and self-centredness.
Ignorance misconceives the very nature of the world about us and the nature of the I. Most fundamental. Everything that we do, everything that we conceive of and operate in the world, is based upon that — I am doing this. It’s based on the total conception of the I as the agent of these various actions. And there’s a misconception with respect to that agent.
And therefore in some way or another all our various attitudes and behaviours which arise out of that fundamentally flawed map are inexact or inaccurate — don’t get us to where we want to get to. Somehow there’s a dissatisfaction. There’s always a level of disappointment, frustration. The wheel that grinds on its axle. Dukkha is suffering.
But also in terms of this dysfunctional predilection of self-centredness for sentient beings. You know, evaluating, assessing, responding to, conceiving of the world and everything within it — other people, various events and situations — in terms of what’s in it for me. How does it affect me? Evaluating it in terms of my purposes, my agendas, my goals. This way of being in the world — another fundamental map that we’re working with.
And these fundamental maps need a lot of working through. And that’s why in this process of reorientation, redirecting ourselves, not only do we have to work with developing more skilful behaviours in terms of ethics and the various forms of ethics, beginning to abandon unskilful types of actions and beginning to involve ourselves in skilful actions. Also in terms of benefiting others as a matter of ethics. Not only do we have to change our attitudes, but we have to change the very fundamental guidelines of our maps, our worldview, which are dysfunctional. And we have to keep coming back to that again and again and again.
I think I began last week — I began to read a paragraph, a quotation, but somehow I got off the track. It’s a paradigm shift that we have to constantly involve ourselves in. It’s not something which is natural to ourselves because our present maps, which are the nature of self-centredness, aren’t in accordance with what we’re trying to do. They aren’t getting us to where we want to get to. So it sounds a bit artificial.
It sounds a bit foreign to us. It feels incongruous with our present disposition and how we go about getting the good life for ourselves, how we go about trying to find happiness in our life. It seems perhaps unnatural. Unnatural. Many of the ideas perhaps some of us are working with.
But perhaps we have to begin to question — well, does my way work? Are my maps bringing me what I want? And beginning to be aware that we are operating from the basis of certain maps and a certain worldview. The very fact that we experience suffering should tell us — it is a message about the nature of our underlying belief system. That what we experience is very much a reflection of who we are.
You know, if we experience the world pathologically — that is, in some way dysfunctional, somehow unhealthy or in negative ways — you know, it is a reflection of our basic maps that we’re using to navigate. Our approach to life is somehow flawed. What we see is very much a reflection of ourselves. And so we perhaps have to begin to become aware of and acknowledge the fact that we’re operating from a worldview, that our minds — simply, if you know, perhaps we never considered it at all — but the fact that our minds are conditioned, we are operating from a belief system, from various ideas, that the ideas are the eyes out of which we see the world, and that many of our ideas and presumptions and these fundamental maps that we use are flawed.
And one of these is self-centredness as a method to get to the happiness that we want and be rid of the suffering that we don’t want. It isn’t working for ourselves, and becoming aware of how it is operating in our lives and is inhibiting ourselves from getting what it is we want. And to continually reorientate ourselves. You know, this is what we do week after week after week — in terms of first developing some idea of what are possible alternative types of refuges in our lives, what might actually bring about what it is that we’re looking for. And seeing that our present refuges aren’t working for ourselves, but then trying to transform the very reason that we’re involved in this.
Because if we’re still going to be — if the reason for involving ourselves is misconceived, if it is flawed in some way, then we’re never quite going to arrive at where we want to get to. We’ll simply have a better attitude about not getting there, or we’ll get to the wrong place faster. Buddhism is saying: let’s get to the right place as quickly as possible and begin to work at all the various levels — not only our behaviour and attitude but fundamental. And of these most fundamental are ignorance and self-centredness.
And so again and again, trying to bring into question the reason why we’re involved so that it doesn’t become part of the problem. You know, all the various solutions that we come up with ultimately are problematic because they involve these dysfunctional maps in one way or another. In order to overcome selfishness, it is necessary to become daring. It is as though you were dressed in your swimsuit standing on the diving board with a pool in front of you, and you ask yourself, now what? The obvious answer is to jump.
That is daring. You might wonder if you will sink or hurt yourself if you jump. We are attracted to our cocoons and our selfishness, and we are afraid of selflessness and stepping beyond ourselves. So in order to overcome our hesitation about giving up our privacy, in order to commit ourselves to others’ welfare, some kind of leap is necessary. So this leap, you know, is the awakened heart.
The awakened heart. And just, you know, most basically — that I will improve myself and develop my skills and my ability so I can be of greater benefit to others. The direction is very much in terms of other-centredness and making continual leaps. You know, even if they are only continuous little leaps over the course of our everyday life. So that we’re constantly undermining this dysfunctional pattern of self-centredness, so that we’re constantly building up the habit of other-centredness, the motivation behind why we do what we do.
Though growth is essentially an individual task, it occurs as an authentic response not only to our own needs — which are limited and exclusive, leading only to a partial and somewhat narrow growth — but in response to others’ needs, which are unlimited, which are universal. So, you know, we can talk about all the various growth methods, means of self-improvement. But at some time or other we have to simply become a good human being. You know, if you want — I was reading an article on management techniques. And you can go through all the training and communication skills perhaps and power strategies.
But at some level you just have to become a trustworthy person. Ultimately, people are never going to — there’s an incongruity between who you are as a person and the various techniques that you’ve built up. It becomes obvious. And over time, perhaps in the short term it might produce some kind of effect in terms of what you want, but not in the long run. You know, we have to work out who we are as a person.
And — I don’t know if it’s Emerson or it’s attributed to a Zen master — where he said the student came before the Zen master and the Zen master said, you know, who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear a word you’re saying. We forget that. And this is also true in some of the areas of psychotherapy where — you know, every day or every week, almost literally, there’s a new technique of psychotherapy coming on the market.
And they’re all trying to work out the method to cure our various psychological ills, you know, in one way or another. But there have been surveys made that the effectiveness of a therapist does not correlate positively with the type of therapy. Whether it’s Jungian or Freudian or Gestalt or behaviourism or cognitive therapy, there’s no correlation between the effectiveness of a therapist and the type of therapy that they may practise. But there is a correlation between the therapist himself or herself and the effectiveness — who they are as a person. And so what is the nature of our character?
What kinds of paradigms are we operating out of? What are the maps? What are our most basic beliefs about the world and how to be with people? And these are the levels that I think we’re working on. Not just quick fixes, not just to make ourselves feel good, not communication skills in order to help us be able to manipulate people a little bit better in order to get more of what we want, but just simply how to be a better person.
And I think then we get along better in life. And so other-centredness is a most fundamental way to be a better person and how to get along that much better in life. I said that there are two basic dysfunctional patterns underlying these dysfunctional maps that we’re operating under the control of or making use of. And these are ignorance and self-centredness. I think the overcoming of ignorance, the development of the wisdom understanding emptiness, is quite necessary.
There’s no question about that. But I think we have to look at this in a very long-term perspective. It’s going to take a great deal of effort and a great deal of time in working through the layers of misconceptions that we have, so that we actually begin — so this wisdom, this understanding, begins to actually act as an antidote to ignorance. Ignorance actually begins to lessen in strength. It no longer comes up as often.
When it does come up, it does not remain as long. Our wisdom is actually developing, beginning to grow, and beginning to overshadow the force of ignorance in our lives in terms of the nature of reality. A very, I think, long-term project, from what I see in Buddhism. But something that we can immediately put into effect is simply becoming a kinder person. I think altruism is the most immediate method for the quality of life that we would want for ourselves, open to ourselves as ordinary human beings.
Just being a little kinder, a little more sensitive and caring, and having that as the motivation — as best we can, again and again — as the reason why we’re doing what we’re doing. I think we will be that much happier. Our life will run that much smoother. We will achieve that much more of our goals. And I think the quality of our relationships will be that much improved, the good life will be that much achieved in proportion to how much we’re able to actually feel that and put it into practice.
Simply becoming sensitive and caring and beginning to think about others’ problems and others’ needs and beginning — perhaps in a healthy and appropriate manner — to set aside our agendas for the needs of others. To begin to make this type of paradigm shift in very small ways over the course of our everyday life in order to actually begin to reform these maps. So, you know, this is what we do or we try to do here — readjusting our motivation, working at one of our most fundamental maps which isn’t working for ourselves. And this is something that each of us has to do within our own hearts all the time, keep reminding ourselves, keep making these leaps. You know, if you’re on the diving board, go jump.
Do something which perhaps doesn’t quite feel natural at the time, but it only feels unnatural because it is incongruous with the map of self-centredness. That’s the only reason. It feels foreign at present. But there will come a time when it becomes your nature. It will feel the most comfortable way to be in this world.
So anyway, I think it’s worth bringing up and considering in the context of our discussion together, but even more so in finding — being mindful of it — in some small way in the course of your everyday life. When there are opportunities to make these leaps — when you’re on the diving board — that’s when it’s time to jump and make these little leaps, to give up our hesitation, to give up our cocoons in small ways from time to time and commit ourselves in small ways from time to time to others’ welfare. So in this process — this long-term process, this working through down to the most fundamental levels of who we are as a being — the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha. This is the final transformation of who we will ultimately be. This becomes a central concern of our life — creating space and putting forth the energy.
You know, taking that first step on a journey of a thousand miles and taking them one at a time, but taking them nevertheless. And, you know, make use of an actual method. You know, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. There are some profound teachings and means available to ourselves that we can pick up and use for ourselves in changing our mind. The Dharma.
And then this process — you know, asking and giving assistance of others, you know, interacting with others in a productive manner. And using each other as models, as goals, as inspirations, as teachers, examples, as whatever — you know, we have to give, and making use of that and giving whatever is that each of us has to give in the process. So, you know, it’s like creating a social context for this process to occur, to keep reminding myself not to create the environment where these dysfunctional patterns are simply being reinforced, where we don’t exalt them, we don’t empower them. But on the contrary, we encourage and exemplify perhaps, and maybe in some small way inspire others to choose an alternative, other possibilities, make other choices.
And then again and again, trying to raise the level of our motivation. Yeah. And that’s just so it doesn’t become — so it acts as an ultimate solution to our problems, whatever it is we’re involved in. It’s really working at a very fundamental level. But we’re going to do it in terms of widening the circle of others. So we can do that in any situation, at any time, in any context.
And here we do it in terms of why we’re going to meditate or why we’re going to be here together in this way. You know, might it be not just for myself, but might it be such that it can make me that much of a better person, such that I can be of that much more benefit to others. And then it acts as an antidote to our problem. It can only be of help. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha community, I go for refuge until awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings.
To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the spiritual community, I go for refuge until awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge until awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings. Reverently, I pay homage with my body, speech, and mind. Present clouds of every type of offering, those actual and imagined.
I disclose all my destructive acts accumulated since time without beginning and rejoice in the skilful actions of holy and ordinary beings. Please remain until cyclic existence has ended and turn the wheel of Dharma for living beings. I dedicate the skilful actions of myself and others to the great awakening. So, you know, we’ve been in terms of, again, development of love and compassion as our motivating force — you know, we’ve been working with various individuals. I think maybe it’s useful to go back a little bit, to backtrack.
I think it might be useful to focus upon ourselves. So taking yourself as the object of the development of love and compassion, and making this kind of commitment to yourself to help yourself. So using that as our focus. And then we’ll practise the nine-round breathing meditation and then mindfulness of breathing. And then we’ll do a loving-kindness meditation, which I’ll lead you through.
Okay? So take a firm, comfortable posture. Activity. Work. Mental, verbal, physical.
Karma is what shapes ourselves. In a way, we are our karma. Our lives are our karma. The real significance of karma is that we are responsible. I think that’s the main message of karma.
We might not like to hear that or quite be able to feel the full significance of what that might mean — that we are not, in fact, victims. All religions have to deal with the problem of suffering in one form or another. Why is there suffering in the world? You know, not even religions — just in general, whether secular or non-secular — it’s something which is to be tried to be understood and to be worked with in some fashion or another, at some level or another. You know, either this maybe — suffering is haphazard, it just by chance happens. Or our suffering is imposed upon ourselves by external forces, by other people, other nations, by an all-powerful God. But in any of those cases, we have no control or little control over whether we suffer or not.
It’s not as if it were in our hands. Buddhism is saying that, in fact, it is in our control — that ultimately we, as the agent of our actions, are responsible for not only our suffering but also our happiness, that the bottom line is ourselves. There’s nothing outside of ourselves to blame. But this is not meant to disempower ourselves — this is meant to empower ourselves, so that we can begin to intervene in the process which is at work in a skilful fashion, and thereby take control over the quality of our lives and achieve the happiness that we want and to eliminate the suffering that we don’t want. And it is in our hands.
That’s the significance, the import of karma. It’s empowering. It gives us a means, a handle on the problem of suffering and happiness in our life. You know, what we are now is what we have done. What we do now is what we’re going to become.
It opens up the possibility of shaping our future. So, you know, we began to talk about what we mean by karma — our various actions, but also the causal linkage between the action and the eventual experience of the effect of those actions. You know, there’s the general explanation of cause and effect in nature, and then there is that specific area of the law of cause and effect in terms of felt experience, in terms of that which is internal to the continuum of living beings. That is karma. Karma has actions and their effects.
So it’s simply a subcategory of a larger explanation of the law of cause and effect — that all effects arise in dependence upon certain causes, that it is not a haphazard universe, that it is not chaotic, but it runs according to certain laws. We may not be able to discern those laws at present, but still, nevertheless, they operate. And beginning to align ourselves in order to achieve more appropriate results — types of results that we would want for ourselves. So there are both the actions that we create, and these actions implant latencies within our mind. And these are the causal linkages which will, when they meet with the appropriate conditions, ripen into some sort of experience, some type of result internal to ourselves. In application, karma is classified as either skilful or unskilful.
And these are the terms that I use. I think they’re — you can use the word virtuous or non-virtuous or positive and negative. And when we meet with a particular object, a particular condition, we come in contact and that object — whether it’s a person, a situation, or a thing — is perceived as attractive. And in association with it, we experience pleasure. We act positively.
That’s what we mean by a skilful action. That’s all. Nothing more than that. When we meet with a particular condition — a person, a situation, a thing, or some other — due to the latencies within our mind ripening, the contact with that object is interpreted as unattractive or disagreeable, there is a felt experience of painfulness associated with that contact. It’s reacted to in a negative fashion.
Therefore, we say that the action which precipitated that way of experiencing that object, that situation, was an unskilful action. That’s all, you know, that’s all we mean by skilful and unskilful action. There’s no moral judgment being made. The quality of the action is determined by the quality of the result — whether painful or pleasurable. Buddhism does not talk in terms of right and wrong, but uses the different concept of skilfulness and unskilfulness, which are very definitely different.
Skilfulness is an ethical-psychological concept. Actions are seen as skilful if they are expressions of or conducive to skilful mental states. They are unskilful if they are expressions of greed, hatred, or delusion. Skilful actions are those which are conducive to human development and particularly to the development of samadhi, which is meditative concentration, and prajna, which is wisdom.
It is axiomatic in Buddhism that skilfulness is beneficial to both self and others, whilst unskilfulness brings suffering eventually to both. So, you know, the experience of a pleasurable or painful feeling is not an automatic byproduct of coming in contact with a particular object as some type of condition. As if the object — whatever it might be, a person, a situation, a thing — had an intrinsic nature from its own side which was agreeable or attractive, that they had an inherently agreeable or disagreeable nature of themselves. You know, when we come to the awakened mind, we’re going to discuss this at great length, ad nauseam — that phenomena are merely imputed by terms and conceptuality. Phenomena are merely imputed by terms and conceptuality.
So the implication of that, in terms of the discussion of karma, is that it is our karma — the predisposing latencies within our minds — which have the capacity to influence the way in which we conceive and therefore experience objects, things, people. This is how an understanding of emptiness supports an understanding of karma. An understanding of karma supports an understanding of emptiness. Basic to Buddhism is the conception that knowing is an organising into the known. Knowing is an organising into the known.
What we come to know is very much dependent upon our participation — the labelling process, our interpretation, how we are conceiving of the object. What is it that determines this process — whether we label this object as agreeable or disagreeable, attractive or unattractive? There is nothing inherently attractive or agreeable or unattractive or disagreeable about the object. Nothing inherently exists. Nothing exists from its own side.
It is very much dependent upon the mind labelling it as such. What determines why we label something as agreeable or disagreeable? It is our karma. So you can see how karma and emptiness fit together — how they support one another. Things are empty of inherent existence, but they exist.
And the way they exist is determined by terms and concepts, the way that we think of them. And what is it that determines how we think of them? Our karma — our past actions, the latencies within our mind. When our reaction to an object tends toward prolonging and repeating contact in the future — that’s the nature. We come in contact with an object, a glass of liquid.
And the nature of the contact is that I want to prolong that contact, that I want to repeat contact in the future, that the object is perceived in a very positive fashion. The object is labelled as attractive. It has a pleasurable appearance about it. It is then experienced — various feelings arise in dependence upon contact. In this case, in association with an attractive object, we experience pleasure.
And we react in a positive manner. So if the nature of our contact is such that we want to break off contact, we don’t want to meet that object again — the object is labelled, conceived of, designated as being disagreeable, unattractive. We associate with that object painful feelings. It is perceived in a negative fashion. This whole process is operating under the control of karma, the latencies within our mind, the conditioning factor — why we perceive the way we do.
So an indispensable cause for the experience of pleasurable and painful feelings are the karmic latencies within our mind. You know, usually we see the basis for our feelings outside. This piece of chocolate cake is somehow inherently pleasurable. But we know that is not the case, even when we begin to analyse the situation, even superficially. But we normally don’t analyse it in this way.
Somehow, due to association of pleasurable feelings with this object, we begin to think of the object as having, by its very nature, the ability, the capacity to bring us pleasure. But here it is being said that the piece of chocolate cake is merely the cooperative condition. By coming in contact with a cooperative condition, it ripens a predisposition, a latency within the mind, which causes us to perceive that object in an attractive way. We have a positive contact with it and we experience pleasurable feelings in association with it. The substantial cause of our feelings is within the mind itself.
That the things and the people and situations about us are merely the cooperative conditions. And we talked about this when we were discussing rebirth. Now I thought — I’ve never done this before, but I’d like to try a demonstration of how what we perceive is dependent upon our previous experience, that our perceptions are not devoid of factors from our conditioning within our mind, what we bring to the situation. That the objects do not objectively exist out there, but are very much dependent upon our preconceptions, labelling process, the conditioning factors within our mind. So I just want to try a demonstration.
I’ve never done this before. Maybe it won’t work. Okay? How past conditioning affects our perception. Now, what we’re going to do — we’re going to divide the room in half.
The upper half and the lower. I’m joking. You know, just — maybe draw a line somewhere down the middle. You’re either on my right side or my left side, whichever you feel like. You don’t have to actually do it.
You don’t have to physically move. Just think of yourself in that. And then okay. Now the right half of the room — I’m gonna show a picture to the left half. So while I’m showing the picture to the left half, I ask the right half to close their eyes.
Then I’m gonna show a picture to the right half. And while I’m showing the picture to the right half, I ask the left half to close their eyes. Okay? And you may be aware — you probably have seen this picture before. So, you know, just be open to what what’s being tried to be gotten at here.
And let’s kinda go along with it. Okay? Okay. So, you know, the right half, just close your eyes for a moment. Okay?
Okay. Now I’m gonna — the left half — show you a picture. Okay? We won’t make any comments about it for the moment.
Okay. It’s not so big, but can you see it okay? Okay. Okay. Now if the left half will close their eyes and the right half, will you look at this picture?
Okay. Again, we won’t make any particular comment about it. Just take a look at it. Okay. Now you can all look.
Okay? Now I’m gonna show you together a picture. Okay? Maybe you’ve seen this picture before. I don’t know.
Now, I’m curious. So how many of you see a young woman? Okay. How many of you see an old woman? Okay.
How many of you see an attractive woman? How many of you see an ugly woman?