Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Jampa Gendun opens this 9-minute session with a sharp thought experiment: if pleasure were inherent in objects, we’d rationally stockpile them like pills — take a hit of bliss whenever we wanted. This reductio ad absurdum launches his Bodhicaryāvatāra commentary into the argument that pleasure and pain depend on our own karma and mental conditioning rather than on the objects themselves. He then develops the practice of contemplating one’s own faults when harmed: reframing injury as karmic ripening rather than innocent victimhood, and observing that the person who harms us may be doing us a service by helping that karma ripen. A brief Q&A on what “similar type” means in Buddhist causal reasoning follows, before the session closes with Śāntideva’s verses on loving enemies as the very field in which patience ripens.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 Bod 1997 03 31.mp3
UUID: c215a077-8064-4a28-8af9-6806bdbced34
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Bodicaryavatara (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1997-03-31
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 9.3 minutes
Words: ~1,145
Then it would make sense to get as many of them as you could, to store them up, to acquire a mass. You know, you could have a little bag of of of bliss pills. You know, you could just take whenever you wanted to hit a bliss, could just take out the pill and take it, you know, take a hit of bliss. That would make sense. If pleasure were inherent in the objects themselves, The the logic of attachment would make a great deal of sense.
We should amass as many things as we can because they are inherently blissful or pleasurable, and we should just make use of them as much as possible. But we know that’s not the case. The same object can be experienced quite differently from at different times. And we begin to get a notion that somehow whether objects are pleasurable or painful is very much dependent upon my attitude toward them. And if we carry that to its logical conclusion, we have to begin to think, what is it that is determining my attitude toward them?
And that is the conditioning factors within our mind, our own past karma. So this is essentially one of the means by which we can help ourselves in evaluating our experience such that our mind doesn’t become distressed. And here, you know, we use the word contemplating our own faults. That is to say, whatever harm I may experience, it’s very much a product of my own making. I’ve played my part in it.
I’m not an innocent victim. In fact, actually goes on to say, not only aren’t aren’t you an innocent victim, but you’re causing this person to create negative karma while you’re working off all your negative karma. This person is actually doing you a favor while you’re bringing them harm. And how dare But this is is he’s he’s carrying this analysis quite far, perhaps, the level where most of us can really appreciate it sincerely. But, okay, someone someone hurts us.
Can we view that? Can we gain that kind of confidence in the law of cause and effect in terms of karma and think, I played my part. This is the Wheel of Sharp Weapons coming back. I’ve sowed a seed and now I’m reaping the harvest of that seed. And thereby, our mind no longer becomes distressed.
We no longer retaliate in anger. It’s not to say that you don’t stop. You don’t stop the action. That’s not the question. We’re bringing it.
We’re trying to develop tolerance under stress mind. Even though you may have created the cause, it still is we can still say it’s wrong for him to act as a or her to act as a cooperative condition to ripen that karma. We are simply trying to develop methods, for not becoming distressed in the face of adversity and harm brought to us by others, developing tolerance. Yeah, Joe. So it doesn’t mean there aren’t new things in the world.
So we have Does the car have to have does there always have to be a car? A car has always existed for for a new for a car to newly I’m on your side, Joe. I know you’re bringing up. It’s a very difficult what we mean by similar type. That’s a difficult point.
It’s quite readily we can we can begin to quite readily say, well, yeah, an apple seed and an apple tree, they’re they’re a similar type. But there it becomes difficult to because we say, well, is a tree in a pillar? Now I say a pot and a pillar. These are things that quite use as illustrations in in Buddhist logic. A pot and a pillar, are they of similar type?
A pot and a pillar. Type? A pot and a pillar. No. Yeah.
Okay. So yeah. I mean, so but but they’re both made of matter, aren’t they? They’re similar in being both made from matter. Are from that point of view, are they similar in So then we have to go, what do we mean by similar in type?
Because they are both made of matter. But you didn’t really think of them as being similar in type, did you? So this is really an area that needs to be investigated. I mean, if if you’re interested in these kind of things. What how do we determine what things are of similar type?
It’s not linearly apparent. But there is the there is a method if we go into the logic. People who are knowledgeable in the area of terminology and understand what things are, what do they naturally think, as you did, as being similar in type? You didn’t think of a pillar and a pot as being similar in type, naturally. And you are you understand what a pillar and a pot is.
Even though they’re both made of matter, you don’t think of them as being similar in type. So they are so we we need something other than that. But we we can’t figure out a formula. But we can only appeal to the fact that people knowledgeable in terminology or understand the objects would naturally think of these as being similar in type. Which isn’t isn’t this it is an answer but it needs perhaps greater to be expanded upon what what that’s getting at.
But what you say is quite it’s a it’s a it’s a very difficult point. I don’t understand. That’s why I say it’s difficult. So I think and then finally, let me I’m gonna finish. Śāntideva and we’ve we’ve Śāntideva has used a lot of analysis in different areas, trying to use as many as possible.
Something that might work for us. Something that where something might click for ourselves and we can use that. And that’s what we have to do for ourselves. You have the text and I can’t explain it as you become quite aware, this kind of presenting the ideas. I wanted to close.
Just some thoughts about Śāntideva I think are worth repeating hearing. Therefore, I should love my enemies because they help me on the way to enlightenment. It is like finding a treasure at home without having made an effort to gain it. And the fruits of patience should first of all be dedicated to them because it comes about through our cooperation. They are indeed the cause for my tolerance.
And then finally, therefore the Buddha has taught the field of sentient beings to be a Buddha field for many who have loved them have thereby reached the highest perfection. So we’ll stop there, okay? I hope it’s been useful. We’re gonna have lunch. Let’s celebrate and talk.
Yeah. So we’ll cut the lunch break short by half an hour.