Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A mortifying moment in Calcutta — Ven Jampa Gendun clipping a dying man’s toenails while quietly congratulating himself on his compassion, only to be told he wasn’t doing it properly — anchors this 26-minute Bodhicaryāvatāra commentary. He works through suffering’s positive role in Dharma practice: humiliation undercuts conceit; witnessing others’ pain stirs genuine compassion. Three approaches to nonretaliation then follow: using harm as a spur to compassion, examining anger’s underlying causes, and owning one’s own share in a difficulty rather than externalising blame. The commentary builds toward a full reading of Thich Nhat Hanh’s poem “Please Call Me By My True Names,” which asks whether anger toward those who harm us can survive recognising that, had we lived their life, we would likely act the same way.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 Bod 1997 03 30.mp3
UUID: 63aea730-1950-4fe9-858a-125eb5089962
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Bodicaryavatara (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1997-03-30
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 26.2 minutes
Words: ~3,555
Śāntideva goes on to say, Yet suffering does have its good points. Now we’re talking about people who are trying to practice Dharma, not in general. Yet suffering does have its good points. What does it mean to practice Dharma? Most essentially it is the actively opposing negative states of mind. The application of antidotes to negative states of mind.
I think that’s pretty much simply. So we’re talking about those who are involved in this, who it’s important for. Yet suffering does have its good points. Through humiliation, conceit is dispelled. Compassion is aroused for those in saṃsāra.
Evil is avoided, and liking is developed for virtue. You know, I I remember once when I when when I was living in India, I I went on holiday one and holiday. I went to the to the Calcutta to the House of the Dying for a few weeks. And a Dharma student’s holiday. And I remember, you know, this is where they pick up people out of the gutter and they bathe them and they give them a comfortable bed.
Most of them are going to die. Many of them don’t. It’s supposed that they’re on the verge of that. And I remember there was this old Indian man and I was working in the House of the Dying, this building. And you do what you can.
There’s not much I could do. But you learn how to do different tasks around the place without getting in the way. And I was clipping his toenail. And I think, how wonderful I I am, a sophisticated westerner, you know, living in great affluence and educated and coming to this wretched place and lowering myself to clip this this man’s toenails. And I just kind of glow around me, this halo.
At least I imagine that it must be there by now. And this guy looks at me and says, you’re not clipping good. Yeah. So this guy that I just picked up out of the gutter, who should have been, you know, he he didn’t like the way I was cutting cutting his toenails. So anyway, you know what to do.
It was a good lesson, wasn’t it? And, you know, I I could have been distressed to say, you know, who in hell do you think you are talking to talking to me like that? You know, look at look at look. I’m taking pity on you. You know?
But, anyway, it was it really, you know, took the rug out from under my pride, my ego at the moment. So, you know, that’s the context for evaluating that kind of activating experience, isn’t it? You know, obviously I had a desire to be thought of in a rather high fashion, you know, as a saint. That guy obviously obstructed my desire to be thought of like that. But what could I do about it?
I could either get distressed about it and say, you ungrateful wretch. Or I could say, you’ve really done me a favor showing me where I’m at in terms of pride and what was my real motivation for being here and really learning about myself and drawing. You know, a possible way of evaluating that experience and not becoming distressed. Another method of developing tolerance around it. And in terms of karma, that man, would he have improved his karma?
I’ve improved his karma. Would he have improved his karma? Would you improve his karma? Yeah. I don’t know what his motivation for saying that was. I could if there was it would depend upon that.
Maybe he just didn’t think I was doing a very good job and didn’t think of it either way. Or maybe he’s trying to do me a favor, maybe a better toenail clipper. Yeah. Could work. Okay.
So yeah. I I I don’t know. There’s a, you know, a verse from which kind of sums it up in a way. A verse there’s there is what’s called a Tibetan Dharmapada in a way. And I said the Dharmapada is collection of scenes of the Buddha and it’s very important.
It’s part of the Pali Canon, the area of Buddhism which was set down in the Pali language which is very much used by southern Buddhism like in Sri Lanka and Thailand. And there but there is a a similar volume in the Tibetan tradition and from the Sanskrit tradition which is called the the condensed words of the Buddha. It’s similar to the Pali collection of the Dharmapada. And the Buddha says, you who conquer thousands and thousands of enemies are not the victor in battle. He who conquers himself is the true victor in battle.
So it’s a different perspective, isn’t it? We hold high people who have like what was the general who won the Gulf War? Oh yeah. He a parade and all this. Stormin’ Norman, yeah.
But somebody who’s sitting in a cave trying to overcome their anger, you know, the real enemy of anger, the inner enemies of jealousy and pride. Our world, our society doesn’t hold a very high esteem. There’s not very much value placed upon that. So a person who’s trying to practice the Dharma can’t always think in ways of the world. They have to develop a different perspective.
And it’s difficult. That’s why I think practice is so difficult. Cause there’s a great stream of movement of values and and worldly Dharma. Wanting to be thought of as well by the people around you. Why? Your peers?
But who are your peers? And begin to question that. Who who is important that I be held significant in? What are my standards, my measures of being a successful person and leading a successful life? You know?
So from the if, you know, these soldiers and what they will go through to win a battle, the hardship, you know, how many of us are willing to do that to win the battle against internal enemy of our of our negative states of mind? And so the Buddha is trying to say that these are the real heroes. You know, that the others are but slayers of corpses. A bodhisattva is a true hero, someone who overcomes their hatred in their own mind and dedicates their life for the welfare of others is, you know, from the point of view of the Dharma is a true hero. So anyway, we’re trying to put shape we’re trying to shape our beliefs, our values, our standards by means of which we’re going to evaluate these difficulties of our life in general and here difficulties in our practice in such a way that we no longer become distressed around them, that we develop a tolerance and then we no longer feel frustrated or feel all these discouraged and agitated states of mind.
There there there is still the difficulty there, but we haven’t compounded the problem in doing it. So the problem doesn’t go away. It’s our perspective on the problem, our attitude towards the problem. Still have to wake up in a cold morning and get out of a nice warm bed. That problem is still there.
But maybe we can develop some tolerance around that problem. People are still going to suffer in life in general. The problem is still there, but we’ve developed a more skillful way of relating with it such that we don’t become distressed by it. So this is what we’re trying to do. We’re not trying to solve the problem per se, but our immediate reaction to the problem and how we’re going to go on to respond is going to be very much determined by that.
Now we’re going to look in terms of nonretaliation. The tolerance which is remaining undistressed in the face of harm brought to us by others. And how are we going to work with that? And we mentioned yesterday that maybe we said that we’re going to work with that in three ways. In terms of, so people are harming us.
They appear to be hurting us. In terms of a method for developing compassion, a way of evaluating this activating experience such that it provokes, it can be transformed into a method for developing compassion. We’re going to work with it in terms of the cause of anger, looking at their harm in such a way that we don’t become distressed by it, by viewing it, evaluating it in terms of the cause of anger which we’ll explain. And then thirdly, in terms of when undesirable situations occur, contemplating one’s own faults. You know?
Like owning the the the owning the the fundamental cause of the difficulty which is occurring rather than blaming and maybe putting the the real responsibility for the difficult difficulty where it most fundamentally belongs or or where it more skillfully belongs in terms of ourselves. You know, I was talking about the yesterday when I began to talk about the methods for, you know, the method of using harm of our difficulty as a mean, you know, the difficulties that bring us, the harm that they cause us as a means for development of compassion. And, you know, we have to and we also practiced a meditation yesterday was equalizing, not equalizing, The actual exchange of self or others being able to put ourselves in their place and identify with their situations. And trying to Appreciate the reality of other people’s lives and lived experience. Presently, we we we view and therefore evaluate all of what we experience in terms of the one perspective, ourselves.
Have this myopic vision. Others are seen as, to a large degree, as our our first reaction to them is as if they’re formed as objects. But but but at a deeper level analysis, people are much more than that. They’re more essentially feeling beings. This is we use the word sentient being.
sentient beings, in in terms of in practical terms, means feeling. Feeling peep beings who don’t want to suffer, who want happiness. That’s what we’re about. But not only us, but everyone. Not just ourselves.
But we don’t see others in that fashion. And therefore, we don’t evaluate them in that terms of when they do do something to ourselves. I was you know, this I I actually read this last I think it was only last Wednesday. In trying to, you know, when we we in my Wednesday night talks, were going through the two meditative traditions for the development of an awakened heart. And presently, we were going through the method which is outlined by Śāntideva in his eighth chapter which is called equalizing and exchanging self with others.
And, you know, trying trying to put oneself in another’s place. You know, beginning to, you know, as we did in that meditation yesterday, you know, see the world out of their eyes, feel their feeling. How would it be to be them? Understanding another person. And Thich Nhat Hanh, it was whose poem I’m going to read, has the notion and I think it’s has great meaning.
I think it’s very profound that to and I I I mentioned this yesterday. To understand another is to love them. To love them is to understand them. And I think this includes ourselves. If we really understood our own plight, the nature of our situation in a very deep manner, I think we would in understanding that we would have too much we would have so much greater love and compassion for ourselves.
That we wouldn’t allow ourselves to continue in such a way of life, to continue experiencing our world in the way that we do in terms of our suffering. And we would love ourselves, you know, understanding our potential to the extent that we would begin really to extend ourselves, to get ourselves out of this, that we would want to bring ourselves the happiness that we could experience, that we would find a way, that we would make that choice because we understand our potential, what we could become, and the nature of our present situation. That we would very much have love and compassion for ourselves. So here here in this poem, which I did, so stay with me for those who heard me read it last Wednesday night. Thich Nhat Hanh is I think, very much very well getting that kind of idea across.
You know? We how how we judge others. We single out qualities and things about them and we totalize the person and we we stand in judgment in our in our with self righteous indignation as if we were different than them somehow, as if we were beyond everything that they were. We you know, guess it’s yeah. The the notion of the the Christian concept of there but for the grace of god go I.
You know, it’s a humbling attitude I think. And it’s a useful way of it’s a useful perspective at times. I have a poem for you. This poem is about three of us. The first is a twelve year old girl, one of the boat people crossing the Gulf of Siam.
She was raped by a sea pirate and after that she threw herself into the sea. The second person is the sea pirate who was born in a remote village in Thailand and the third person is me. I was not on the boat. I was tens of thousands of miles away. But because I was mindful, I knew what was going on in the Gulf.
I was very angry of course. But I could not take sides against the sea pirate. If I could have, it would have been easier but I couldn’t. I realized that if I had been born in his village and had lived a similar life, economic, educational and so on, it is likely that I would now be that sea pirate. So it is not easy to take sides.
Out of suffering, I wrote this poem. It is called Please Call Me By My True Names because I have many names And when you call me by one of them, I have to say yes. Do not say that I’ll depart tomorrow because even today I I still arrive. Look deeply. I arrive in every second to be the bud on a spring branch, to be a tiny bird whose wings are still fragile, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive in order to laugh and to cry, in order to fear and to hope. The rhythms of my heart is the birth and death of all that are alive. I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river and I am the bird which when spring comes arrives in time to eat the mayfly. I am the frog swimming happily in a clear water of a pond And I am also the grass snake who approaching in silence feeds upon the frog. I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks, and I am the arms merchant selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve year old girl, refugee on a small boat who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate. And I am the pirate, my heart not capable of seeing and loving. I am the member of the Politburo with plenty of power in my hands, and I am the man who has to pay his debt of blood to my people dying slowly in a forced labor camp. My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom. My pain is like a river of tears, so full it fills up four oceans.
Please call me by my true names so that I can hear all my cries and my laughs at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are but one. Please call me by my true name so I can wake up and so the door of my heart can be left open, the door of compassion. So the there’s a the the Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran. He said that we are all prisoners but some of us live in cells with windows and some of us live in cells without windows. So the point is that none of us is free.
To be angry at someone, we must momentarily think of them as being in full control. That they must be in full awareness. That they must be freely choosing to what they do, to harm. None of us are in full control. None of us are fully aware.
None of us have complete freedom. None of us are the same and we’re all the same in that. Thich Nhat Hanh says, I realize that if I had been born in that village and had learned and lived in a similar life, you know same economic situation, same educational system or lack of education. I had lived in the same conditions. It is likely I would have now be that sea pirate.
So in this context, there but for the grace of God go I. In that, perhaps we can undermine the mis-beliefs that would serve as a vehicle for anger to arise. It’s not that you in any way approve of what happened. It’s just that you cannot despise the person any longer because you know for yourself that if you were in their place that you would probably be doing very much the same thing. And how who are you to judge?
Who are you in your self righteousness who can afford to become angry? You know, anger and hostility and aggression arise out of distress. And a person doesn’t become angry because they’re happy but because they are suffering. Anger is is the way they cope. Know, Śāntideva goes on to say, I’ll just very quickly finish this thought.
Śāntideva goes on to say, how is it possible not to have compassion and instead be angry with those who engage in such acts, such acts on account of a disturbed mind. You know, an angry person, a hostile person, an aggressive aggressive person is an unhappy person. You know, just like the pirate whose heart is not yet capable of seeing and loving, an angry person is, at that particular moment, is not capable of dealing with their pain. They’re in distress. They don’t have a more skillful way of dealing with that distress.
They don’t have a more positive way a coping mechanism. You know, whatever we do, we do for the sake of bliss. You know? You know, just like ourselves when, you know, this person who’s harming us, who’s who’s angry with us, who’s who’s who’s hostile toward us, who’s hurting us in some way, that person wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer. And at that particular that particular moment, they’re what they are they’re doing the best they can.
And then taking a particular perspective. We’re not approving of their action. We’re just trying to understand them, where that action is coming from. If we had been brought up in the same ways, the same values, the same educational system, the same types of skills or unskills, we would be acting exactly as they are in this we would provoke to be relating in the same manner, using the same coping skills as they are at present. That’s all they can do.
They’re doing the best they can. We’re doing the best we can. So, you know, we can’t begrudge them that that we can’t begrudge the fact that they want to be happy. And that this is the way they’re and they don’t want to suffer. And this is the present way that the only means which they have available to themselves at present or the only means which they can see at present by which they can alleviate their present suffering and achieve some kind of happiness.
And they’re trying to remove their pain. This is the way they’re trying to remove their pain at that particular instant, at this moment, by harming us. They’re trying to remove their pain by harming us. This is the method they have, the only thing that they have to work with at present. We’re all trying to do that.
We’re all trying to remove our pain. We’re all trying to experience it and each of us makes use of a different way and different means. So so though it may be difficult to generate compassion toward them, to someone who’s harming us, at least we shouldn’t be angry at them. Knowing we know better, and they probably don’t. Just one last quote.
It’s by, again, by Kahlil Gibran where he says, I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind. Yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers. You know, those who try to harm us are our greatest teachers. It is just that the lesson is painful. So we’ll stop there.