Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Impermanence opens this 46.5-minute commentary when Ven Jampa Gendun recalls watching sunlit water droplets at Morialta Park and wishing he could bottle the moment — a concrete entry into the characteristic of suffering. He then moves to selflessness through a cartoon about a boy who has branded himself a permanent “C student,” showing how a fixed self-image generates its own misery, and offers a clay-statue metaphor for how tantric practice softens that grip. The second half turns to karma as the source of suffering: cake-baking and falling-brick analogies demystify cause and effect, followed by the four factors that determine a karma’s weight, propelling versus completing karma, and the story of King Ashoka dying in a flash of anger. The session closes with a guided loving-kindness meditation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 1987 08 04 4 NT.mp3
UUID: 7fdd90e7-30ae-468b-98b3-7e6d9acacb38
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Four Noble Truths (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1987-08-04
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.5 minutes
Words: ~5,527
You know, if we relate, if we understand things and the nature of changing, our relationships are going to change. It’s frightening, isn’t it? If you think about it, because you don’t want in here. But it doesn’t have to be frightening. Things can even get better than they are now, but they are going to change.
We don’t have to be pessimistic about it, that things aren’t going to remain the way they are. We must allow for this. We must allow for our partners to grow for different transformations in our way we relate with each other. Even within a day you may relate to your partner as the, you know, they have the theory of what do they call it, Paula? Transformational analysis, where they have adult child, you know?
Transactional. Transactional, not transformational. We’re constantly changing roles even with our partner. You know, if you try to be a macho, you know, and this is me, I’m a macho, I relate with this, my wife this way, what happens when you need some tender love and care? You need to put your head on your girlfriend’s lap and have some soothing words because you’re hurting.
It becomes very painful. You’ve added to your pain by trying to hold on to a permanent way of relating. So we have to be open to a dynamic way of relating with others, with ourselves. We have have to get used to the idea that I’m not going to live forever, that I’m going to die. I was at Morialta Park a couple weeks ago, and there was a waterfall there, and the sun was starting to go down, and the light caught the little droplets as they fell very beautifully.
The rays of red and green and all the shades of the rainbow were coming out of these little water droplets. It was very beautiful. And I was know, it’d be nice to take home something like that, you know, be able to have it in a little box. You could open it up and look at it anytime you want, you know. But you can’t, can you?
You know, it’s a matter of certain conditions coming together in the waterfall. The sun at a certain angle, I’m sitting at a certain angle, the light, all these conditions are coming together creating this one moment of beauty. But I can’t keep the sun from setting. You know, if I try to hold on to that beautiful, that beauty, I’m going to suffer. I’m going to be very disappointed.
There’s nothing I can do except enjoy it at that moment because the conditions are constantly changing. It’s a dependent arising and those causes upon which it depends are in the nature of change. It’s going to go away. You know, William Blake, He who bends to himself a joy does the wing life destroy, but he who kisses the joy that flies lives in eternity sunrise. We can enjoy all the beauty around us, the beauty of other people, of things, of ourselves, but we must accept the fact that they’re impermanent.
They’re going to change. If we try to relate them as if they’re fixed, as if they’re permanent, always going to be the same. We’re going to suffer. That’s the second characteristic of the truth, of suffering. And the third is, of the fourth seal.
That is all phenomena are selfless. All phenomena are selfless. Less. We have no fixed identity. This is a very profound subject, and we can talk on it from a very coarse level to a very subtle, extremely subtle level.
Difficult to understand, I don’t understand, I don’t claim to understand, but we’ve been talking about it on a very practical, everyday level. The fact of selflessness. We hold, we grasp very firmly as if we had a self, a permanent fixed identity of who I am. I’ve been this way since I can’t remember. I’ve been this way all the time.
I’m going to be this way in the future. It’s been this constant I am this, this identity, this fixed image of who we are. I found this cartoon a few months ago. You can’t read it. I’ll read it to you.
There’s these two young boys, they’re walking from home from school, and one boy talks to the other. He’s holding his exam results, and he says, That new teacher really did a number on me. And then he says, I thought I’d get a B on that test. He gave me a C. How did he know I was a C student?
So, he has an idea of who he is. This guy, I’m a C student. What’s going to happen? He’s going to graduate, he’s going to get a C job, he’s going to marry a C wife, he’s going to have a C income, he’s going have C kids and he’s going to do his best to teach them how to be Cs also. He’s going to propagate this whole problem.
But in fact, we do not have a permanent fixed identity. This is not the actual situation. This is not the nature of our actual strange looking figures up on the altar there. You know, these are potentials within us all, you know, wisdom, compassion. And if we begin to understand the idea of selflessness, that we don’t have a fixed identity, that identity is constantly changing, one day I can be, you know, one moment I can be extremely wise, as wise as all the Buddhas.
The next moment I can be stupid as hell, you know? And the next moment I can be very wise. If we understand that our identity is constantly under change. There’s no fixed image. It’s like as if we had a clay statue that’s been modeled and it’s very hard.
And we take this clay statue and we put it in water to soften it. And then we take it back out. And then we, because it’s become softened by the water, we can shape it into any shape that we want. We can remodel it if you like. And this is the method of selflessness, a very practical way to apply it to our daily life.
We have no fixed identity. In all tantric practices, they begin with dissolution into emptiness, selflessness. We try to understand to the best of our ability that I have no fixed identity, no fixed self. We try to understand it to the best of our ability, and then we try to generate ourselves in an aspect of wisdom, in an aspect of compassion. We have these potentials in us right now, compassion and wisdom, and we’re not trying to get something that we don’t at the moment.
We’re trying to promote these qualities within ourselves. And because we arise out of this feeling of selflessness, it’s a way of softening the clay of our self image, our perfect idea of who we are. I am a very compassionate person. We try to generate a loving attitude, caring. And we become a caring person, a loving person, a wise person.
Why not? There’s no reason why we can’t. You don’t have a fixed identity. You don’t have to be the way you are for the rest of your life. There’s no reason why you can’t manifest all the potentials that you have in you now, all the positive qualities that you have in seed form right now.
We hold on to a fixed self image of who we are extremely tightly. We feel if I wasn’t this way, I wouldn’t exist at all. And we feel threatened when our identity is questioned. But actually we’re deceived. It’s a mistake.
It’s an illusion. As long as we grasp at its fixed identity, you know, of who we think we are, we’re going to suffer. In your in dependence upon this identity, we create enemies and friends. Those who enhance your identity, we call friends. Those who, in some way, endanger, make you feel insecure, you call enemy.
Thereupon, you create negative actions, karma, and the fruits of those various negative karmas is suffering. As long as we hold on to this way of relating to ourselves, and in fact others, holding to a fixed identity, we’re going to continue to suffer. The situation is not going to change by itself. As long as we hold on, relate with the world as though it was fixed inherently, completely pleasurable outside of our own mind. As long as we relate with the world and the people in our various possessions as if they were unchanging, as if they had no dynamic quality, as if we could hold them static, hold them permanent, we’re going to suffer.
As long as we hold onto a self, a fixed identity that’s unchanging, that doesn’t exist in relationship to others or the things about you, we’re going to suffer. This is the truth of suffering. This suffering is not going to change unless you begin to correct the mistaken emotions upon which it is based, unless we begin to look for the source of suffering. So that leads us to the next question. What is the cause for these problems that we face?
What is the cause of true suffering? That’s true source, the second noble truth. So amongst the true sources, true sources are to be abandoned. That is, we question, you know, Okay, apparently am suffering. I’m beginning to recognize some of my suffering.
And I want to know, as Prince Siddhartha wanted wanted to know, can I get rid of it naturally enough? What is the cause? What is the cause of suffering? These are the true sources. There are karmic true sources and sources which are the afflictive emotions.
Karmic true sources and sources which are the afflictive emotions. afflictive emotions such as desire, hatred, greed, anger, miserliness, spite, ignorance. We call these afflictive emotions. We’re going to take up the first. We’re going talk a little bit about karma.
karma. karma is a Sanskrit It simply means action, work. It has the idea of volition. All our actions have some sort of ethical quality, volitional quality behind them, which determines the results that we’re going to experience. It’s interesting.
People hear about karma and they think it’s an Eastern trip. They don’t think it doesn’t apply to them, or if you believe in it if you don’t believe in it, then it doesn’t have any effect on you. It’s only if you believe in it that it begins to have an effect on your mind. But, you know, we all believe in cause and effect. Most people do.
That is to say, we regulate our lives on the basis of cause and effect. You know, if you’re making a cake and then you put the eggs and the flour and milk and baking powder, you stir it up and you pour it in a pan, you shove it in the oven, you turn the oven on, and okay, you created the causes and the conditions, right? You don’t sit there and say, Come on, cake, come on, go baby, rise. You you give yourself a hernia or something. You’ve created the causes and conditions, you can walk away, and that cake, you’re going to have a cake in twenty five minutes, right?
We depend upon the law of cause and effect all the time in our everyday life. Now it’s strange that we do not also begin to see that perhaps our happiness and suffering may also have causes. That in fact our happiness and suffering may be an effect. And that if we begin to check up in our lives, then maybe if we create purposely, consciously with awareness, create the causes, create the conditions for happiness, then why cannot we have happiness? And if we eliminate the causes, eliminate the conditions which bring about suffering, then why cannot we eliminate suffering?
But maybe that’s too rational. Don’t know. You have great faith in external cause and effect. You know, when you throw up a rock, if you throw up a brick and the the brick, you know, comes down in your head and hits you, you don’t say, you know, that the law of gravity has just punished me, you know. If you were actually living in harmony with the law of gravity, if you understood the law of gravity, when you threw up that brick threw up the brick you would get out of the way because you know it’s coming back down.
Likewise, if we live in harmony with the law of cause and effect, that is the law of cause and effect with relationship to ethical quality actions bringing certain types of results. If we live in harmony with this law, if you like, principle, then there’s no reason why we cannot get rid of our suffering. There’s no reason why we cannot have happiness if we only create the causes of happiness the causes of our suffering. There’s a natural harmony within the universe. We take our rightful place within, you know, just like as if we had a clock with all the various cogs and the wheels.
One day one cog says, Well, you know, I’m sick and tired of being a cog in this. I’m going to take over. And it’s like a disruption of this harmony which existed, was working. And ego represents a disruption in harmony. It’s sort of trying to go against the rules, the law of nature, if you like.
We just want to get in harmony with the law of nature. karma, coming to an understanding of karma is simply coming to an understanding of the law of nature, getting in harmony, acting in consistency with the law of nature. It’s not particularly mysterious. It’s just that the relationships between cause and effect are very subtle. In general, there are three types of phenomena.
There are obvious phenomena, that is books, tables, people, things we can see with the senses, things we can hear, taste, feel, smell. Then there are slightly hidden phenomena, things like impermanence, emptiness, selflessness, things we have to use reasoning in order to understand that we arrive at through logic, inference. You know, strangely enough, the back of your head is slightly hidden phenomena. You’ve never seen the back of your head. You only know that it’s there because of reasoning.
So then there’s the third level, and that is extremely subtle phenomena. And this is mainly the workings of the law of cause and effect that from a virtuous action, a skillful action and positive action, a positive result, happiness will result. From a negative action, suffering results. It’s difficult to see this relationship as a very subtle hidden phenomena. But we can begin to understand or have some feeling that if we meet someone, this person has a very positive state of mind, motivation, a caring person, if I talk to you and I want to benefit you and I have a positive state of of mind, it’s going to have some effect, you know, on your mind.
It’s going to create an atmosphere in the room, some sort of harmony. This is karma, action. My mental actions having an effect. So, we want to come to some feeling about karma. karma is extremely involved, complicated.
If you like contract then you’ll like karma. It’s a very technical subject, and it’s not important to go into all the minor technicalities, but if we can get some feel for it, some plausibility that actually our actions of body, speech and mind do have results. They aren’t just unrelated to our happiness and the suffering that we experience. Actions can be divided up into virtuous, non virtuous, and unspecified or neutral. Virtuous, you don’t like that word, we’ll say positive.
Non virtuous, we’ll say negative. Some people have problems with religious words. That’s okay. Generally we can say that rebirth in the three lower realms and the sufferings within the human realm are a result of non skillful negative karma, negative actions. Again, by three lower realms, generally we mean hell beings, hungry ghosts, and animals.
But if you like, you know, the hell being is just simply a state of intense physical, mental pain. hungry ghosts are the sufferings of intense frustration, unfulfilled desires, the state of an animal, the suffering of being abused, of stupidity being used, insensitivity. These occur, these experiences arise out of non virtuous actions, or negative actions. The various God realms, the deity realms, they arise out of virtuous actions. And we classify the virtue and non virtue into ten non virtuous actions.
And we have ten virtuous actions, ten non virtuous actions. There’s body, speech and mind. There’s three of body: killing, stealing and sexual misconduct. Three of body. Speech therefore lying, divisive speech, harsh words and idle chatter.
Four non virtuous of speech. In mind, there are three covetousness, harmful intention, and wrong view. So, these are called the ten non virtuous actions. We can talk about how the power of the heaviness, what kind of result we’re going to get from these various actions. Because the heaviness or the result is determined upon the volition or the determination, the intention which is made, the strength of the intention when we make an action.
It’s a mental factor. So there are four factors which determine the strength or heaviness of a particular action. So the first is if we apply these four to killing, the example of killing. So, there’s the first factor identifying the victim. Correctly identify, know, if we kill the wrong person, it’s going to be heavy karma, but it’s not going to be as heavy as if we killed the person that we meant to kill in the first place.
That is, we properly identified the victim. You know, we didn’t mean to shoot you you’re out hunting and you shoot a person rather than the deer that you were shooting at, it’s not going to be quite as bad as if you intentionally tried to shoot the human being. You misidentified your victim. Okay? So then we have to form intention to kill.
Second factor. You know, if we if we this involves stepping on insects where you don’t intend to kill, for example. You no intention, so it’s not going to be as heavy of karma if we don’t have the intention to kill. The third is merely actually engaging in the actual act, where We actually follow through with the act. And the fourth is the completion of the act, where the victim actually dies.
So if all four of these factors are present, and we say this is a complete path of action, then we’ve done the action with full, complete awareness, that we’re conscious of what we’re doing throughout and we brought it to completion. This represents the heaviest type of karma that we can create. An example of stepping on killing insects, etcetera, accidentally, you know, we’re going to create it’s a negativity. It’s a negative action. But it’s not going to be as heavy because we didn’t have the intention.
We didn’t identify the victim. We did perform the action and the poor insect died, but it’s not going to be as heavy. So, can also describe the heaviness of a particular karma from the point of view of six divisions. So, as I said, this has a little involved, and I’m not going to get very involved, but to give you a feeling of the possibility of karma from the point of view of nature. Heaviness of the karmic actions from the point of view of nature.
Now, we listed ten non virtuous actions. Within body, you know, the first is heavier than the top one. You know, there were three killing, stealing, sexual misconduct. Killing is heavier than stealing. You know, life is more important than property.
Likewise, within speech there are four. The first one lying is the heavier of the four. Within non virtuous mind, the heaviest is wrong view. By wrong view, that means we hold very tightly to preconceptions about the nature nature of the law and cause and effect, whether there is actually possible to be liberated, views which we are very close minded to changing. We hold very tightly to our own conception.
The second is from the point of view of intention. You know, if our intention is very strong, for example, we want to hurt somebody very much with our words, then because our intention is very strong intention for example, harsh words, I said from the point of view of nature is less strong than lying. But if our intention to hurt is greater, then this would make it more heavy. Our harsh words could be heavier than lying. From the point of view of application this is example, if killing and if we kill in a very painful manner, you know, rather than trying to kill them mercifully very quickly.
So, our application is such that there’s a lot lot of suffering involved, then the karma becomes heavier in the case of killing. And from the point of view of basis, this means that which is killed, for example, it’s considered to be heavier karma to kill a human. You better be careful what I say an insect, okay? It’s worse to kill a human than it is an insect, from the point of view of the basis. From the point of view of habit, that means if we engage in a particular non virtue again and again, it’s going to be heavier through the force of our habit alone.
And through the force and the sixth is from the point of view of antidote that, you know, if you usually don’t commit this particular negative action, it’s going to not be as heavy as if you committed it a great deal. Or just in general, if you’re usually a fairly good minded person, you don’t hurt others, just in general, then, you know, when you do commit a negative action, the force of the karma is less. So that’s some of the divisions of how you can determine the heaviness of a particular karma, particular action, how heavy will be the result. Then there’s the division of karma into propelling and completing karma. Now, propelling karma is the type of karma which throws us into a rebirth.
It begins to ripen at the moment of death. It’s extremely important, you know, which karma ripens obviously at the moment of death. It’s going to determine what type of rebirth we’re going to take. Now, generally the heaviest karma will ripen first, but if we don’t have any particular karma, heavy karma, then the most habitual karma will ripen first. And if there’s no habitual karma, then the nearest karma, the actions which we create the nearest point of death.
This karma, there’s a traditional example which is given about there was a great king by the name of Ashoka in India, and he was a great patron of Buddhism. He built many temples. He supported the monks. He also built many hospitals and roads and helped his people a great deal. And at the moment of his death, all his retinue were around him trying to comfort him at his moment of death.
There was one woman who was fanning him because he was very hot. And though he had led a very virtuous life, he had done a lot of good in his life. At the moment when he was dying, this woman who was fanning him stopped fanning and he became angry at the moment of death. And it said that the cause of this moment of anger, at the very moment of death, he was reborn in hell. We’ve got to watch your step.
Okay, so we have propelling karma, which throws us, and then completing karma. Once we take rebirth in a particular place, there are various situations, various way we lead life in that particular realm. For example, example, we can have a mixture of good, propelling karma and bad, completing karma. Good, propelling karma, be reborn as a human being. Bad, completing karma, be reborn as a human being, as a beggar in the streets of Calcutta.
We can have bad, propelling karma with completing karma. You take birth as a dog. Bad, propelling karma. This dog is owned by a movie star and you get steak every day or whatever you like. That’s good, completing karma.
So there’s a mixture between these two. So, can talk about karma from the point of view of effect. There are three types of effects. There’s the fruitional effect. Then there’s the for example, with the killing.
The fruitional, the resultant effect, the fruitional effect of killing is traditionally to be reborn in hell, whether you believe in hell or not. And then can you imagine, you know, some people, Does hell exist? Is like a dream? You know, if you got stuck in a dream, you know, because you wake up, you have a reference point and you can say, Oh, that was a dream. But what happens if there’s no reference point to come back to?
In a dream you suffer, whether call a dream body a real body or not. Whether you call dream suffering real suffering or not, it’s suffering. If you get stuck in nightmare, it would be a lousy place to end up. For example, you’re dying, you know, if you have some trust in rebirth, and, you know, you’re dying of some disease, you’re dying of have a fever, and you’re very hot, you’re sweating, you know, you have a temperature of one hundred and six, one hundred and seven, you’re dying. If you’re hot, your mouth is parched and dry, you’re burning up.
This fever is burning you up. You just feel burning. It’s like a fire inside of you. And all the only thing you can wish for at that moment is coolness, cold. Just something wants something cold.
And your mind is beginning to disengage itself from the body. It’s beginning to withdraw from the body. The mind is starting to drift away from the body. It just wants to be cool. It just wants to be cold.
It just wants to be cold. And finds itself in the middle of a block of ice for a hundred million years. The second type of effect is effects which are similar to the cause, effects which are similar to the cause functionally. So this would mean in the case of killing, that you’re going to have, you you’re born as a human being, the functional effect would be that you like to kill.
So you join the army, you become a butcher. That is, you perpetuate the same type of behavior again and again and again. It’s a habit. The effect which is the same as it’s called experientially. You know, you will kill it, you kill something in your past lives, you will experience a result similar experientially.
You will have a short life. You will die a violent death. This is the three types of karma. So, we can talk about the Okay. You know, it’s hard to it’s hard to see a relationship between cause and effect with respect when we talk about karma.
But we can begin to see that by creating negative actions, even on a very mundane psychological level, we set aside all these possible future types of results. We create a certain heaviness within our own mind. Doesn’t necessarily have to be the extent of feeling guilty. There’s a certain heaviness, a certain darkness. This in itself represents a type of suffering.
It’s a very real type of suffering that we experience every day. Also this feeling of disharmony, that we’re not working within the actual rules of the law of how it is meant to live a sane and healthy life, if you like. That we’re working under the influence of ego, that we’re simply acting out. We’re out of control. We’re like a slave to ego.
So my point is that even on a very mundane level, people who lead what we say a wholesome life, perform positive actions as opposed to negative ones, I think are happier people. We don’t have to be goody goody about this. But we have to see that if our minds are pure, then everything in our world is going to be pure. And if we treat others with respect, all living beings with respect, if we respect the rights of others to hold on to their property, if we speak words of truth, honest words, then somehow all these things are going to come back to us. People are going to respect us.
People are going to speak honestly and openly to us. People are going to respect our possession. It doesn’t mean that you aren’t going to get ripped off sometimes. But in general, our life is going to go much smoother. I think so.
I think so. So we have to finish off our karma next week. If we can meditate for a few minutes on metta, love. You know, at first it may seem that we’re just doing this simply mechanically. But, you know, we have to begin somewhere, don’t we?
I mean, we can’t begin up here. We have to start where we’re at. And the beginning may involve simply mechanically repeating very beautiful words. Words have some power, at least they used to at one time. Perhaps they’ve been misused and abused so much that they don’t have much power.
But we can begin to give them some power over our mind. So simply repeating these words, getting used to the feeling of these words, getting used to the idea, and then hopefully some sincerity, some emotion will begin to arise out of these words. And then we can go beyond words. Words are for weak minds. We want to get to the actual feeling, the actual emotion, the actual state of mind.
But words can act as a key to help us get there. That’s why prayers, inspirational prayers, books can help us enter into certain states of mind. All these supports, these pictures, statues, they’re just supports helpful to our mind. Minds aren’t particularly strong now. So just by repeating words, we can actually begin to invoke these states of mind that we would like to force to arise naturally.
So we’re going to imagine first ourselves, which isn’t difficult. Think of yourself. You know, you have problems. You have some difficulties. We aren’t basket cases, but we have some difficulties and dissatisfaction.
Perhaps you feel guilty. Perhaps you feel that you don’t deserve to be happy for some reason or another. But in fact, you want to be happy. So whatever you’ve done, you were just trying to find that happiness and perhaps you made mistakes. It’s okay to make mistakes as long as we don’t keep repeating them.
So you can begin by just forgiving yourself and wishing yourself happiness, wishing yourself well. May I be happy. You deserve to be happy. It’s your right to be happy. You are a human being.
You should be happy. Everyone here should be happy. May I be happy. May I be well. May I grow.
And imagine in front of you someone someone about your same age, the same sex, living. A simple wish, just radiate up a simple wish, may you be happy. May you be happy. May you grow. May you be well.
A positive feeling just radiates out to this person in front of you. And then think of a neutral person, a stranger, someone for whom you don’t have any feelings. Imagine them before you. This person wants to be happy just like you and doesn’t want to suffer just like you. Simply wish them well.
Just wish them happiness. Someone who disturbs you, who you have problems with, who you don’t get along with. Imagine that person before you. This person wants happiness just like you and doesn’t want to suffer. Person is trying their There are various methods to find happiness and sometimes those methods conflict with your methods.
But you can’t hold it against that person just because they’re trying to find happiness. Just because they’re mis guided perhaps make mistakes. Try to find some way to forgive them just for a moment and see them as a suffering human being and wish them happiness. Now imagine all three people in front of you, include yourself, and together just radiate out the wish for happiness equally to all four. May we be happy.
May we be well. All the people in the room, just the kind, soft, gentle wish. It’s with all the people in the room. May you be happy.