Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. “I love humanity — I just don’t like people.” Ven Jampa Gendun opens this 19-minute closing session from the Emptiness Weekend with that wry line, questioning whether dedications to “all sentient beings” carry any genuine feeling. He grounds the discussion in Buddhist psychology, explaining aspiration as one of fifty-one secondary mental factors — the attitude that links accumulated merit to a specific goal — and illustrates how positive energy works through a boulder-rolling-downhill analogy: the greater the mass, the fewer obstacles divert it. His practical advice on dedication follows: rather than aiming at an abstraction, start with the people closest to you, wish them well sincerely, and build outward from there. The session closes with formal dedication verses and long-life prayers for the Dalai Lama and Lama Zopa.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 EW 2011 03 05.mp3
UUID: d2fa764f-0b27-4d47-973c-019fb514d52c
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Emptiness Weekend (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2011-03-05
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 19.0 minutes
Words: ~1,062
Some kind of positive motivation and intention for the day. And it’s said that when we dedicate, we give rise to a particular mental factor. One way of talking about Buddhist psychology is there are fifty one functions of mind called secondary mental factors, and one of these is called aspiration. Aspiration is the attitude which seeks a goal. It can be negative or positive.
It can be selfish or selfless in terms of caring about others. And we can associate this, you know, this idea of merit or positive potential. We’ve created some kind of potency. And it’s like a and we can associate, you know, potency or merit is like I mean, the way I describe it to myself, one facet of it, one aspect of it is it’s like boulder on top of a hill. It has a certain potential, has potential energy, and that potential energy can be translated into kinetic energy when it rolls down the hill.
And the greater that mass of that boulder, the greater potential energy, and as it rolls down the hill, it’s not diverted from its path as easily. Can smash little twigs and bushes and so forth, it rolls right over them. And big objects may be diverted slightly off its path. So the more positive energy we have, the more that we’re able to achieve whatever goal that we set for ourselves. It’s like this positive energy.
The less we’re diverted from or the less obstacles we come across. So we can associate this positive energy. I know it’s rather abstract, but it’s a force of our own minds that we can associate it with our goal by means of generating an aspiration, this mental factor. So this positive energy becomes associated with a particular aspiration and it will allow us to access that goal or achieve that goal that much more readily. Will have fewer obstacles, we’ll be diverted from our path of achieving that less and less.
So aspiration, whatever it is, you know, it could be we can, you know, may I get a good piece of chocolate cake when I go home tonight? You know, that’s that’s one possibility. Or we can have a greater vision about what we would want for ourselves in terms of what we aspire to. Sometimes I Okay. I’m good at losing you.
It’s been a long day for you guys. I appreciate that. I think sometimes I just speak honestly. Sometimes it’s wonderful and it’s amazing to have sometimes when we’re able to expand our mind to incorporate all sentient beings and we hear our teachers, his Holiness, the Dalai Lama or Lama Zopa, I think their minds are capable of encompassing that unimaginable number of living beings. I’m limited.
I I don’t know. Maybe limited in self imposed one way or another. I’m not sure. But for for the present, if I actually going to move my heart, if this dedication and this motivation is actually going to be meaningful, I have to kind of limit what I can what I the extent that I actually feel that I can do this. You know, may, you know, my partner, may my children, my pet, my parents, may they be I would want them to be benefited by what I did today.
You know, maybe I can be a little more understanding, a little more kind, a little more patient in how I relate with them. Know? I don’t know about all sentient beings. Sometimes I think we talk about all sentient beings, you know, like like a person who says, I love humanity. I just don’t like people.
You know, they’re talking about some abstract ideas, not the people on the street or the people that they deal with in their everyday life, the people we can overlook. And, you know, we have less we have much more lofty ideas, goals and whatnot. So dedicating, you know, if only in a very limited sense, and including ourselves. You know, we sometimes forget that we are also sentient beings. We want to be happy.
We don’t want to suffer just like everyone else. Why should we exclude ourselves? So within own hearts, dedicating the positive energy we created for the well-being of ourselves, but also for those who are meaningful, are significant for you, and actually, you know, wishing them well. And if you can sincerely do that, then I think we can build from there. If we can’t have that sincere wish for a limited number of people, how could we develop for an unlimited number of persons?
It’s like, you know, graduation. So take a minute just directing the positive energy that we’ve created over the course of the day toward the well-being of those who you feel are significant in your life in whatever way you feel best, whatever way would be a benefit to them. And then as well, we can do this in a in a more formal manner. Always like dedication. To the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of Guru Buddha and lead all living beings without exception to that enlightened state.
May the supreme jewel bodhicitta that has not arisen arise and grow, and may that which has arisen not diminish but increase more and more. And if you would like to join in, we can recite the long life prayers of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, in the long life prayer of Lama Zopa, but also you should think that this is directed not toward these particular individuals, but who lead us in a genuine path toward real happiness. In the land circled by snow mountains, you are the source of all happiness and good. All powerful Chenrezig, Tenzin, Gyatso, please remain until Samsāra ends. You who uphold the three scopes’ moral way, who serve as the bountiful bearer of all, sustaining, preserving, spreading Mañjuśrī’s, magnificent prayers honoring the Three Jewels.
Protector of myself and others, your disciples, please remain stable. So those oh, I won’t see you tomorrow. Have a good have a have a good journey. Okay? And for the rest of you, I’ll see you tomorrow.
We just might mention that tomorrow morning, that nine o’clock is the Sunday morning meditation, and Jennifer’s going to lead that tomorrow morning. So if you don’t