Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A lone dog barking across a desert valley at dusk — borrowed from Carlos Castaneda’s account of Don Juan and glossed as “the nocturnal voice of a man begging his death to release him” — anchors this 40-minute opening session of the 1992 Lam Rim Weekend at Buddha House. Rather than beginning with doctrine, the talk uses wound-healing language drawn from Robert Bly’s work on men’s emotional lives and a “Sunday afternoon” image of samsaric restlessness to establish why honestly confronting dissatisfaction must precede any genuine change. Khensur Rinpoche then introduces the three fundamentals of the path — determination to be free, love, and wisdom, described as the two wings a bird needs to fly — arguing that all further Lamrim teachings reduce to these three. The session closes with unhurried, step-by-step mindfulness-of-breathing instruction. Well suited for newcomers to Buddhist meditation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 LR 1992 05 16.mp3
UUID: 61415f58-2285-416c-ab0d-954df4df1075
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Lam Rim Weekend (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1992-05-16
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 40.1 minutes
Words: ~4,952
My name is Champa. I think probably Jim introduced you to me. And he’s told you all the practical things that you need to know about Buddha House. So I’m going to tell you about all the impractical things, some of the things perhaps that we don’t normally become involved in, that we lose sight of. Very much in Buddhism we’re concerned not so much what we do, but why we do what we do, which is going to determine the outcome, which is going to determine Can you hear me in the back?
Yeah? Which is going to determine the quality of the result, our motivation, attitude, the quality of mind that we bring to all the various situations and problems and difficulties and happinesses that life brings us along the way. This process of solving problems can be very painful, can be very difficult. You know, last night I went I saw a video. It was called The Gathering of Men.
It was about the work of Robert Bly who is involved in men’s issues in the United States. It was quite moving to myself personally in the various issues that men have to deal with in coming to terms with what it means to be a man. And he talked about the necessity to heal our wounds. Men have wounds, women have wounds, children have wounds, elders have wounds, blacks have wounds, whites have wounds, we all have wounds. What it means to be an ordinary person is to be wounded.
And so we’re here to, in some way, to help us to heal wounds, however we may conceive of those wounds. And that each of the various methods has their particular conception about what our difficulties are, what our problems are. And each of them couch these wounds in different languages, in different paradigms, in different worldviews. And Buddhism has a particular worldview, and it sees the problems of ordinary ego based existence in a very unique way, in a way which is peculiar to its particular worldview, its interpretation of reality. But however we may conceive of our problems, we have to initially confront the fact that we have problems.
In determining our motivation and helping to develop some sort of direction, orientation, it seems as if it’s necessary to get into contact with the immediate experience of our life, which is suffering. It’s not a very popular notion. It’s something that we usually try to distract ourselves from. But it’s quite necessary if we’re ever going to solve our problems on perhaps a more deeper, more profound level than we have hitherto been working with them. Beginning to confront some of the high degree of unmanageability in our lives, begin to confront some of the reoccurring themes of dissatisfaction, frustration, disappointment, which very much permeate our lives.
We are beautiful people. We have a brilliant sanity about us and real basic goodness. But oftentimes we do lose sight of that. And one of the things that was brought out in the video last night is that a sense of feelings of insufficiency, of lack. We don’t have quite what it takes.
And in the light, that’s the way we’ve been taught. There’s a tendency toward normality which we have to fight against. And as I often say, to be normal in an insane society is to be unhealthy. And so we have to what does it mean to be normal? We have to begin to question our conception about what happiness in fact is and begin to look within our own unique experience if our particular methods, our particular ways of solving our problems, and even our conceptual concept of what our problems are are working for us.
We have a variety of problems that we have to deal with every day of our life. Some of them are material. Some of them are very practical. Some of them exist in relationship to others, in relationship to our work, in relationship to our play. Some of them are intrapsychic in terms of our own mind, the various scars and wounds that we carry from earlier life, perhaps from previous lives, however we want to consider it, however we want to look at it.
And so if we’re going to become skillful at working with our problems, we need an entire array of methods to help us to deal, to work with this array of problems. So we should have valuable relationships with significant individuals. We can have a comfortable home. We can have stylish clothing, a nice car. We can have work which brings us satisfaction, which we can take pride in.
We can have a family which we find fulfilling as a homemaker. These are all what makes up or constitutes a worthwhile life, a life with meaning, a life with this self-authenticating quality. But it simply brings one sense of a feeling of worth and a feeling of joy. But amongst these array of methods, we have to have some internal methods. We cannot forget that it’s not so much Blake said, The mind is in its place and in its way.
It can make a heaven of hell a hell of heaven. That it is the mind which is determinant of all things. And no matter how we try to arrange the world about us, however we might try to manipulate, that unless we have the proper attitude, unless we have some way of a healthy way, a skillful way of relating with all the various things about us, then no matter what we may be able to achieve on the outside, there’s never going to become a source of happiness. In fact, all of these things that we hope are going to bring us satisfaction and that we hope are going to bring us all the good things of life as we can see them can simply become sources of pain. You know, all the various things about us are as if neutral in a way, you know, like a knife.
In the hand of a surgeon, a knife can be life giving. It can be beneficial. That same knife in the hand of a thief can be destructive. It can be life threatening. So it’s what we make of these things.
And what we make of these things is very much determinant on our own attitudes, our own skillful. Patterns of conceptions, our emotions, beliefs, our ideas, our core assumptions, the premises in which we’re operating. We won’t change. I think unless we become aware and confront the issue of dissatisfactoriness in our life, we won’t change. It will be simply remain some sort of intellectual curiosity at best.
It will be something like pouring oil on water. It just kind of floats. It doesn’t really mix. Nothing will mix with your mind. We don’t need more information.
What we need is integration of what we already know. We all know enough to solve our problems. We all have the resources to be able to deal effectively and skillfully. But perhaps we’ve all had the experiences, but we missed the lesson or we dismissed the lesson. So if anything, Buddhism is simply helping us not to miss the lesson again and for us to begin to recognize the differences which can make a difference in our life and to help us to change.
And this change only comes about when it becomes necessary. Mother of invention is necessity. When it becomes necessary to change, you will change. You’ll be able you’ll access your own resources, your own wisdom, your own love, and your own energy to be able to deal more effectively with the situation if we confront them, if we confront our problems, if we keep distracting ourselves from them, if we keep pretending to ourselves and to others as if everything was okay, then there’s no solution. Then there’s only the repetitions of the same mistakes that we’ve been involved in from beginning this time.
So this reorientation process, this redirecting ourselves begins with the confrontation, with the acknowledgment of the high degree of dissatisfactoriness, the disappointments and the frustrations in which we’re involved in. It’s not to say we’re basket cases. We’re very healthy people, and we have the resources to solve this problem. But unless we The scene is the change. They’re not two things.
Once begin to see the dissatisfactory quality of many of unskillful ways of thinking and acting and communicating, then this will of itself begin to bring about change. It in itself is change. It’s not as if it’s two things. So beginning to become aware. This quality of I hope I’m not talking about this.
I remember when I first came to the West, having spent many years in India, I was advised not to talk about suffering. Westerners, they don’t like suffering. They don’t like to hear about people in India suffer. People who break their legs or get in car accidents, they suffer, but nobody else suffers. You can use the word dissatisfaction.
That’s a good word. Maybe things could be better. I think we can admit to that. Think, you know, when watching the film last night, the video last night, and being reminded, it’s like when you see, when a person like Robert Bly was speaking very profoundly about and very openly about the wounds that we have, specifically in terms of males and in terms of men. And it’s sort of as if removing the scar tissue for a moment, momentarily removing the bandages that we’ve placed over these wounds.
That’s our own Our wounds are our kind of truth. They’re a kind of intelligence. They’re trying to tell us something about our life and the way we’re living our life. And we just need to listen, But we have to get in contact with our wounds. We have to get in contact with our dissatisfaction if we’re ever going to listen.
It’s saying that there’s something wrong, that things aren’t quite right with the way we’re living our lives. Even in the case of physical wounds, We should rejoice that we’re healthy enough to have a wound. If you’re not healthy enough to have a wound, you die. You can’t live. I don’t want to take up too much time.
It paused. The silence around us was frightening. The wind hissed softly. And then I heard in the distant the barking of a lone dog. So this is from one of Carlos Castaneda’s books in which Don Juan, who is a Yaqui Indian, probably living in northern Mexico or maybe in the sub southwestern United States, is speaking to this PhD candidate from UCLA who thought he knew it all.
And Don Juan is a man of knowledge. He appears to be a derelict. He appears to be quite a fool. But in fact, he’s not. And he and Carlos Castaneda are standing on a plateau, a raised area in the desert.
And evening is approaching, and the sun is going down. The light is becoming dim. And there is a soft wind. And Carlos Castaneda is speaking about how he felt. He’s speaking about his wounds.
He paused. The silence around us was frightening. The wind hissed then softly. And then I have heard in the distance the barking of a lone dog. Listen to that dog barking, Don Juan said.
That is the way my beloved Earth is helping me to bring this last point to you. That barking is the saddest thing one can hear. We were quiet for a moment. The barking of that lone dog was so sad, and the stillness around us so intense that I experienced a numbing anguish. It made me think of my own life, my sadness, my not knowing where to go or what to do.
That dog barking is the nocturnal voice of a man, Don Juan once said. It comes from a house in that valley towards the south. A man is shouting through his dog since they are companion slaves for life, his sadness, his boredom. He’s begging his death to come and release him from the dull and dreary chains of life. Don Juan’s words had caught a most disturbing line in me.
I felt as if he was speaking directly to me. That barking and the loneliness it creates speaks of the feelings of men, he went on, men for whom an entire life was like a Sunday afternoon, an afternoon which was not altogether miserable but rather hot and dull and uncomfortable. They sweated and fussed a great deal. They didn’t know where to go or what to do. That afternoon left them only with the memory of petty annoyance and tedium.
And then suddenly it was over. It was already night. It’s It’s like a Sunday afternoon. You don’t quite know what to do with yourself. It’s a holiday.
And maybe the family’s gone out, you’re not used to You have to find some time how to make use of this unexpected vacancy in your life. And then you go to the television and turn the television on. Nothing quite appeals to you. So you begin to become restless. And you read a book, it just doesn’t appeal to you.
You walk around the house and you try to find something to distract yourself, something to absorb yourself in. And then the whole afternoon passes in this way until finally the family comes home. It’s quite a relief. Now you can begin the same routine, the same normality can return. And it’s night.
It’s finished. It’s over. And it’s not as if the day was altogether miserable. I don’t think Let’s just say it could have been better. Things could have been better.
Maybe life could have been a little bit sweeter, a little more joy, a little more fulfillment and meaning. The intellect works on the basis of proof and demonstration. But the soul, our heart, works on the basis, operates on the basis of belief and meaning. We need something to believe in. We have to have some meaning in our life if we’re going to nourish our soul, if we’re going to heal our wounds.
So this is the space that we try to create. We try to create it externally in the type of environment, in the atmosphere, but also the type of quality of mind, our internal space, a type of space where we’re trying to get in touch with our soul, with our meaning. And this involves oftentimes getting in touch with our own wounds and determining to heal our wounds and having compassion for ourselves. One Zen master in Bodh Gaya once said to me, practicing meditation is the way that we express our compassion for ourselves. And so beginning to recognize the necessity of working with our wounds on a much deeper level, a more profound level, than the levels that we’ve been working with up to now.
Does that make sense? Dealing with the outside world, the practicalities, we have to do that as necessary. We should do it efficiently and effectively on the basis of proof and demonstration, on the basis of using our intellect, our rational thinking process. But there’s something more to life, and we have to admit that, and we have to confront the emptiness and the lack of being in our lives. You know, very much meditation is the rerooting of our sense of identity from becoming to being when it’s simply enough to be, when that in itself is a self authenticating experience.
It has meaning beyond the intellect, beyond general acquisitive, ambitious, competitive mindset that we bring to our life, that we’ve been habituated to, that we cannot set aside. So there’s a lot, isn’t there, I think? We’re talking not about information, not about techniques, but a way of being, another way of being. And so it’s a little, I don’t know anything about it, so it’s difficult for me to talk about it. And it’s very abstract.
We can’t grab hold of it like we can the more practical aspects, the various types of information that we could gather and hand out pamphlets and with outlines. But it’s something, the quality of our attitude that we bring to what we’re doing here, to make it something sacred, to make it something that there’s an opening, a possibility of another order, another way of being, another attitude, some kind of change. And I think we have to admit that we have to change. And, you know, where can where can we go? Yeah.
I think I would just like to encourage you that We’re going to do some meditation. We’re going to do mindfulness of breathing and then the various types of meditations and teachings which constitute what is called the graduated path. The path to awakening, I think it was called the path to enlightenment, whatever you want to call it, a path. A path is, you know, we’re here now. Maybe we aren’t, I don’t know.
Some of you are here now. And we have this idea, this conception that we have a goal. You know, how are we may conceive of that goal? And Buddhism has a particular type of goal, a paradigm, a model of sanity, and what it means to be a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being. We call that a Buddha.
A Buddha is just a person who has solved the basic problems of life, who experiences unremitting peace within themselves and out of their compassion, skillfully works without to help others to experience the same state. The Buddha made a discovery, and this discovery transformed his perception of reality. And he the Buddha lives in a world which has a meaning, which is experienced as peace, is experienced as an absence of conflict, a sense of harmony between internally, in terms of interpsychic phenomena, and within relationship to others, experiencing peace within and relating with others on the basis of love and compassion. This is what Buddhism is working toward, a path. And this is the goal.
And we’re here now with our problems, our difficulties. But most importantly, that we are all Buddhists to be, that we have this basic sanity, that we have some there’s something good about us intrinsically, that we have an instinct toward wakefulness. We have some sanity about us, and that we can avail ourselves. We all have some wisdom, some way of knowing directly beyond misconception, beyond preconception, beyond prejudice. No matter how obscure and faint that wisdom might be, it’s still there, that we all have some love and compassion, a burning desire that others be happy and taking responsibility to bring this about.
In fact, no matter how exclusive, no matter how limited that love and compassion might be, there is a seed. There’s something. There’s moments when we experience that very deeply. We all have some energy, some mental, spiritual, physical energy. No matter how unspontaneous, how unrefined that energy might be, it’s there.
So we have our problems. We’re ordinary beings. We live in a world which is based upon ego, is, that is to say, it is by its very nature dissatisfactory. That is, it is involved by its very nature in conflict. This is the system that we’re working within at the moment.
But we have the potential to transcend this system, that we have the potential to solve our problems on a very profound level, an ultimate level. So this is where we’re at, and this is where we want to go. And the way we arrive at the goal is by using a path. There’s a verse by the Zen monk, Ryokan, which says, the Buddha is your mind, and the path goes nowhere. Don’t look for anything but this.
If you point your cart north when you want to go south, how will you ever arrive? The Buddha is your mind. The path goes nowhere. Don’t look for anything but this. If you want to go north and you point your cart south, how will you ever arrive?
So we have to have some conception, some begin to conceive of some model of the type of person we would like to be. Buddha may be something in the sky. I’m talking about something in you, the Buddha within you. We don’t even have to use the word Buddha. It’s not important.
But whatever model you conceive of as being healthy, as being alive, as being joyful, as being worthwhile, which has meaning for you uniquely, Your mind will begin to the mind is dynamic. One of fundamental qualities of what we mean by a living being is approach and avoidance. It’s one of the most basic characteristics of life, approach and avoidance. It will approach, that is to say, it will move toward that which it conceives of as happiness, that which it conceives of some value of being worthwhile, of enhancing one’s existence. It will move toward that.
This is our basic sanity. We don’t have to force ourselves to be happy. On the other hand, it begins to withdraw from which that it can see as detrimental, as harmful, as threatening to its existence. We don’t have to force ourselves to move away from suffering. But what we have to do, and which is quite necessary, one of our problems is we have to make sure that our conception of happiness is in fact happiness.
We have to make sure that our conception of suffering is in fact suffering. If we conceive of putting our hand in a flame as happiness, then we shouldn’t be surprised if we’re continually being burnt again and again and again. This is within your own experience, is your conception of how you could be mistaken. You have to create that possibility of doubt, that what you conceive of as happiness may in fact not be happiness. Sometimes we’re very slow learners.
We all have had the experiences. We don’t need any more suffering to learn from our suffering. We’ve had enough suffering. But we have to use our intelligence, use our basic sanity to cease dismissing and missing the lesson that life is continually bringing us. You know, it’s like water running off a duck’s back.
It just doesn’t soak in. We distract ourselves. We dismiss from the lessons life is bringing us. The path from where we’re at now to where we want to get to. This may be where we want to get to.
I don’t know. The goal of the path is conceived of, at least by Buddhism, In the Pali language, the word for path is patipada. patipada literally means putting one foot in front of the other. And the feet which will help us to traversing the path are love and wisdom. Love and wisdom.
Putting the foot of love, and then wisdom, and the foot of love, and the foot of wisdom. So the path is constituted out of the development of love and wisdom. All of the various this supermarket of meditation, this libraries of volumes of teachings, commentaries of Buddhism, the philosophy, the theory, the practice, all is subsumed within love and wisdom. These are like the two wings of a bird. And in order to fly, it’s necessary that the bird have two wings.
And the wings, that which is going to take us from being an ordinary individual with all our problems, with all our hang ups, with all our difficulties, to the state in which we have a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being is love and wisdom. There’s nothing more than that: love and wisdom. All of the various teachings are helping us to support our approaches to development of authentic love and real wisdom. In order to develop love and wisdom, we have to change. We have to go beyond some mistaken premises, some fallacious ways of knowing that we’re now involved in.
That is to say, we’re stuck in some reoccurring mental patterns. And this requires some energy to get unstuck. Know, you’re involved in the way where it’s a negative feedback system and we have to introduce some kind of new energy into that system to evolve a higher order of self correction. And this energy is in the form of information and difference which makes a difference, some new way of knowing and which forces the mind to begin operating on a higher level, to begin to forcing the mind to work on a higher level of correction is change. So we need some kind of energy, some kind of input.
Otherwise the system is simply going to keep revolving in the same patterns which has been operating under up to now. And this is what we call the determination to be free. This is what supplies the impetus. When it becomes absolutely apparent that I have to change, then you will change. When you get sick and tired of being sick and tired, you’ll find a way to get well.
And the way that we get well is the development of love and development of wisdom. But unless we develop love for ourselves, have compassion for ourselves, begin to take our problems sincerely and seriously, how can we ever have real, stable, deep love and compassion for others, knowing our own difficulties immediately and only knowing others’ difficulties at best secondhandedly, vicariously? We won’t. And if we have a stock, if we have emotional investment in our fantasies, in our preconceptions about reality, that we’re never going to let go of them, That our identity is staked on them. We’re pinning all our hopes and our fantasies.
Unless we begin to supply the energy and begin to see that they aren’t working, then we’re never going to let go of them. We’re never going to develop real wisdom. So the development of love and wisdom is dependent upon the development of determination to be free. So these are the three fundamentals of the path to awakening, the path to enlightenment that we’re working with. And this is what all of the various teachings that Rinpoche is going to give will be working with.
However diverse they may appear, however abstract, theoretic, or however unrelated, they can all be drawn back to these three fundamentals: developing a determination to be free, the development of love, and development of wisdom. A front we’re going to do some actual meditation. And as a fundamental meditation, we’re going to do mindfulness of breathing. And I’ll go over slowly the techniques of mindfulness of breathing. Maybe if you give me an idea, how many are how many are not familiar with mindfulness and breathing?
Not not familiar. Oh, that’s great. Okay. Thank you. So perhaps I’ll describe it very extremely roughly.
And those who haven’t, aren’t familiar with mindfulness of breathing, during the break, let’s get together. There’ll be a break at ten thirty, or just a few minutes after that. And let’s get together and we’ll go over it then. So just to remind you, we’re going to focus upon the breath, the simple natural breathing.
We’re not trying to, in any way, alter the breath, neither make it longer or shorter. The natural breathing. And we’re focusing upon the various tactile sensations associated with breath. When you breathe, there’s various physical sensations which arise. The chest perhaps lifts up and the muscles stretch.
The skin rubs against the cloth. The abdomen rises and falls. Perhaps you can discern some kind of sensation on your upper lip inside your nostril. So all of these sensations taken together become the focus of your awareness. We want to keep bringing our attention back to the breath again and again and again.
By bringing the mind to rest upon a single object consistently, in a gentle, patient manner, the mind will come to rest. The quality of the cause must be in accordance with the result that we are trying to achieve. We are trying to bring about a focus, a concentration, and a quietening of the mind. So the type of cause that we use to create this state of mind must be in accord with that. So it is a sense of consistently but gently, and caringly, and patiently, bringing the mind back to the breath again and again and again.
That’s all. Developing the initial determination that the moment I become aware that my mind has strayed from the breath, that my mind has wandered, I’m going to immediately bring the mind back to the breath. Bring the mind back to the breath. Just keep bringing the mind back to the breath, and the mind will come to rest. It will come to rest.
If you take a firm, comfortable posture I realize I haven’t explained it in detail, but for those who would like more detail, just remain for a while after the session is finished. So I’m going to ring the bell at the beginning of meditation session and then at the end of the session. Perhaps first get in touch with the body, noticing any tensions, any tightnesses. And consciously bringing your awareness to these areas, especially around the shoulders and neck, and consciously relaxing, softening those areas. You almost can feel a sensation of tension moving down and out of the body.
The body becoming comfortable and soft. It feels good. And then gently bring the mind to the breath. The easy, even, gentle flow of the in and out of the breath.