Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The image of watching a train go by — then suddenly realizing you are on the train, staring out the window — opens this 44-minute talk by Ven Jampa Gendun as an entry point into mindfulness practice. After brief breath-counting instructions, Gendun develops a contrast between the reactive mind and the creative, inquiring mind, drawing on an E.E. Cummings quote about the daily battle to resist social conformity and discover one’s own values. He grounds the Three Refuges in that framework before moving through the Four Noble Truths: true sufferings across three kinds of dissatisfactoriness; true sources via four karma-ripening types (immediate, next-life, indefinite, and lapsed); and how karmic links with Sangha, teachers, and deities such as Chenrezig actively bring latent positive potentials to fruition. Accessible to practitioners at any level.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 1987 08 14 4 NT.mp3
UUID: 3785ed11-9021-49f6-a00b-df97e0663ca4
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Four Noble Truths (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1987-08-14
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.0 minutes
Words: ~5,197
As if we were sitting on a railroad siding perhaps on a bank and we’re watching this train go by, and we’re watching the train go by, and we’re watching the train go by, and then we’re looking out the window of the train looking at the countryside go by. We don’t even know we got on the train and now we’re going through some fantasy memories. We’re looking at something whirling by us. For a while we watched the train and now we’re looking out the window. So by training in mindfulness and awareness, we can simply begin to watch the train go by and realize these are simple phenomena which are arising, abiding and passing away and we don’t have to get involved in the complicated process of thought.
We don’t have grasp at feelings. These again are just phenomena, feelings arising, abiding, ceasing, we develop some equanimity and create some space in our life. We aren’t trying to run away from our problems, our irritations, our difficulties by creating space, by simplifying ourselves a little bit, becoming a little bit humble. We make our complications become a little less a little more transparent. Irritations are simple irritations.
And what were irritations, what were simple irritations before are no longer irritations at all. We don’t even notice them. Just simply through the process of mindfulness of breathing, simply through watching our own patterns of thought, how we react. I like to think that meditation should be the real source of nutrition, spiritual nutrition for us. Like when I was sick, when I was a child, my mother gave me chicken soup.
Maybe you’re a vegetarian, I don’t know. You can imagine good vegetable soup. You drew a lot of strength from that chicken soup when you were young you were ill and made you feel strong. It was a source of nutrition, sustenance. And likewise, I think meditation is quite necessary to strengthen ourselves spiritually and to draw nourishment and learn about ourselves and ultimately to change ourselves.
So we’re just going to watch our breathing for a moment, just for a couple minutes. Don’t be impatient. We’ve talked about possible techniques. These are just techniques. You can use them or not use them as you like.
Whatever you find best for yourself. You know counting on the in breath one, two, three, four, five. Then pause before the exhalation one, two, three, four, five, the exhalation one, two, three, four, five, and the pause. It’s nothing more than that. There’s nothing mystical about it.
Ultimately, we want to. We can do it with all techniques. But in the beginning, it helps mindfulness. Again, acknowledging the in breath, in, out, one, in, out, two. Noting in your mind that you’re breathing, noting in your mind that you’re breathing out, three, four, up to five.
Again, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, one through nine, one through ten, and go back. So, you can do this for a while, and then just go to the general pattern of your breathing. Just watching your breath. And just keep bringing your mind back gently to your breath, the moment that you realize that your mind has wandered, because your mind will wander from your breath again and again. That’s for sure.
But we do it in a bit and we just keep over and over like training a puppy. Keep bringing the mind back to the breath. So, we’ll sit for a few minutes and watch our breath. My own wisdom, my own sanity, my intelligence? Why is it I can’t get in touch with my own sanity, my own wisdom?
Why is it so rare that I feel that I’m acting intelligently, that I’m acting with wisdom? We can talk about two types of mind: reactive creative mind. The reactive mind simply is activated and reacts. You know, you’re walking down the street and you see an advertisement and it says, Buy this beer or this cigarette. And makes an impression on the mind.
It like pushes a button behind that particular type of beer or that particular type of cigarette. But it has more profound implications. How much of our values, how much of our thinking, how much that we believe to be true is our own discovery? Do we actually know for ourselves what is important in our lives or are we merely assuming the values of the society around us, the culture, our peer group? There’s a quote by E.
E. Cummings in which he says, Nobody but yourself in a world which is every day trying to make you somebody else is the greatest battle that we have to fight and we have to fight it every day of our lives. To be nobody but yourself in a world which is trying every day, night and day to make you somebody else. And what does that mean to make yourself, to be yourself, to be yourself? It means self inquiry, determining what is important for me.
What do I feel is important? Determining your own values, your own priorities. It means your own discovery. Most of all our thoughts, our values are coming from outside. We haven’t really considered them.
We don’t quite know why we’re doing what we’re doing. You know people, they go to the right school, they take the right position with the right company, they marry the right person. They have one and a half dogs, two and a half children, one and three quarters cars in the right neighborhood, and one day they think, Well, I’ve got it all. Everything should be right, but there’s something wrong about it all. They have merely accepted the values, the goals established around them.
They haven’t had the character, the courage to determine what is of value for them themselves. That takes a creative mind, one which is willing to go against prevailing thinking, to go against the current of thought. It’s a mind which is willing to take a chance, a risk, to discover what it really holds to be true, and understanding that, being willing to express that in his everyday life. It’s going to cost you. It’s going to cost you in the social world.
It’s going to cost you economically. But in the end, it’s all we can do. Otherwise, we’re just going to be shells of people. People are afraid. I don’t think people realize the extent of fear in their everyday existence.
You take away the car, you take away the husband or the wife, the position, the degree, the status, and what do you have left. Without these things, most people are empty. There’s nothing there. There’s just a shell and people are afraid. So, they have to cling on to these things, and this clinging brings them suffering.
So, a creative mind is an inquiring mind. Creative mind is an inquiring mind. At questions, ask questions, and you wait till you get an answer. You wait and you wait. In silence you wait and some answer is going to come.
You know, for every day of our lives we hold what is important to us before us, our lives are going to be terribly less complicated. We’re going to know our way. What is important for you? What do you feel? You know, someone mentioned the other day that green is coming in this year.
Green is coming in this year. What does that mean for most people? That means for most people working maybe one day, one and a half, maybe two days of every week to make enough money to get a green wardrobe for this year. That’s a big chunk of their life, isn’t it? Now, when they’re wearing this green they’re going to feel very good.
They’re going to think there’s something right about wearing green. It’s really beautiful. Green is beautiful. They will feel that and it is beautiful. Ten years ago, fifteen years ago, if most of the especially the women, I guess the men too, I don’t know if they would have worn what they’re wearing now, they would have dressed the way they’re dressing now.
They would have been laughed at. Think so. Maybe they’re red and green hair, I don’t know. It wouldn’t have been beautiful, but now there’s something right about it. It fits.
If you begin to accept these values unknowingly, it’s not to say that we shouldn’t wear red and green hair or green dresses, but if they are expression of our own tastes, our own feelings, our own values, then there’s a naturalness about them, and they won’t cost us anything. So we can take refuge in this creative mind, this inquiring mind, which is searching for its own truth. It’s what is important for it, for myself uniquely. We can take refuge in the Dharma. If you ask people, Do you want to be happy?
No? They’re gonna say, Yes. Everyone’s going to agree, I want to be happy. And then you ask them, How are you gonna go about doing this? Finding this happiness that you desire, that you want?
Most people are going to be quite hard pressed to give you an answer. They have no method. They might say, Well, I thought about getting a new boat, or, I’ve got this man. If I can only hook him, I think everything’s going to be okay. Perhaps they could come up with something, but perhaps if you pressed the question a little bit they would say, Well, yeah, I don’t know.
I don’t For those who practice, if you ask someone who’s practicing the Dharma, What’s your method? You want happiness. How are you going to go back getting it? They can say, Well, to the degree I lessen my attachment, hatred, ignorance, that much to that degree I’m going to be happier. And there are the methods where I can decrease the power of attachment, hatred, and ignorance in my life.
There are many various methods I can make use of. It’s clear. There’s no confusion. He knows what he’s doing. He has a method, a means.
He knows where he’s going. She knows where she’s going. So they have a real refuge in the Dharma. To take refuge, to lessen, actively oppose afflictive states of mind, it’s very simple. To actively oppose negative states of mind desire, hatred, attachment, miserliness, jealousy, spite, whatever to recognize them and actively oppose them to decrease their force in our lives.
That’s a method of a practicing Dharma. That’s a way to become happy. We go from refuge to the Sangha. The community, you know, it’s very difficult to try to foster a creative mind. As I said, it costs you something in the world, in society.
Society does not hold a creative mind highly. It’s going the other way, the other direction. It wants people to conform because society operates much more efficiently that way. It’s not made for individuals. So we need somewhere, some type of environment where creativity is nurtured like a greenhouse or something while it’s still in its infancy, while it’s still a sprout.
So we create environment. The people that are around us are very much a part of that environment, extremely important to us through their example, through their encouragement, through expressing our feelings, getting in touch with our feelings, relating with others who have the same aspiration as ourselves, a sense of community, a sense of belonging to something bigger than yourself, a sense of, Well, I’m not so weird after all. There are other people who think similar thoughts to myself. I can become a real source of refuge. So the refuges are what protect us from our suffering.
Happiness that we are seeking. All sentient beings are seeking happiness. No one wants to suffer. That’s what it means to have life. So part of ourselves is very much exist in relationship to others.
We can talk about the two bodies of a Buddha. There’s the form body and the truth body. The truth body is the ultimate realization of the potential of one’s own peace. It’s the ultimate realization of our own inner experience, the fulfillment of one’s inner self, if you like. The form body of a Buddha, for example, Śākyamūni Buddha, is the fulfillment, the actualization of our social self, the self which exists in relationship to others.
In this way, the form body and the truth body of a Buddha express the two facets of ourselves, the social self and the individual inner self. Without creating a balance between these two, we’re never going to achieve the wholeness, wholeness, and if you like holiness. It’s very much necessary in our practice to concern ourselves with how we are relating to others. Eventually we must get to the place where we forget all about ourselves. In order to do that, we have to set our own house in order.
Many people have a genuine desire to help the world. They’re very sincere in wanting to help others. The paradox is that in helping others, if we don’t set our own house in order, if we don’t cut through our own confusion, then in helping others we are going to create chaos, more suffering for others. But we can’t wait until I’m okay, more or less, that I’ve cut through my own confusion and then I’m going to help others. We have to work on both levels at the same time.
We have to be creating the causes both for our own happiness, for our own clarity insight, but also creating the causes whereby others can have the same clarity and insight, where others can have happiness, not only myself. This very much must be a part of our practice, creating both the causes for one’s own happiness and the causes of happiness for others. We’ve been talking about the four noble truths. The first teaching that Śākyamūni Buddha gave two thousand five hundred years ago. He talked about suffering first.
To become sincere with the moment, we have to always reflect back on suffering. It’s not a matter of being serious, it’s a matter of being sincere, giving yourself over to what you’re doing. It’s difficult to argue about suffering. It’s our own personal experience. It was the first thing that Buddha talked about.
He could have talked about sunyata, emptiness. He could have talked about the nature of Ātman,, the nature of the world, but he chose suffering as the beginning of the path. So we have to recognize suffering as suffering. That sounds very strange, doesn’t it? We all think we know what suffering is.
But as we’ve talked about before, a great deal of the suffering we call pleasure. It becomes just a matter of a lesser type of suffering. We don’t have to really renounce anything, or if you like, the only thing we have to renounce is the cause of suffering. There are many men who are willing to go to war for a cause and women, too, but there are very few people who can give up cause of suffering. If we inquire, you know, this creative mind, this mind which is constantly examining, checking up, if we inquire within our own experience, What is the source of our happiness?
What is the source of our suffering? And if we’re accurate, if we’re not trying to layer any sort of fantasies on our world, if we’re being realistic, our mind is naturally going to flow in the direction of those sources which actually bring us happiness. And it’s going to start withdrawing from those sources which bring us suffering. It’s quite a natural process of the mind, but it’s just dependent upon examination, inquiring. We don’t have to repress, suppress.
It’s a natural evolution of the mind. But we have to examine, we have to inquire. And we examine and inquire into the nature of suffering. So, the Buddha turned the first wheel of the Dharma. The wheel of the Dharma had eight spokes, the eightfold noble path.
These are the practices. And it had four truths: true sufferings, true sources, true cessation, and true paths to cessation. These happen every day of our life, constantly occurring, true cessation, true sufferings. Cessation, true sufferings. We exercise the path, the Eightfold Noble Path.
In talking about the first of the noble truths, true sufferings, looked at it from the point of view of the four seals. All products are impermanent. All phenomena are selfless and empty. All that is contaminated is dissatisfactory, and nirvana is peace. So from these first three, we looked at the three types of suffering or dissatisfactoriness, the dissatisfactoriness of pain, the usual mental and physical pain that happens to us almost every day.
We can begin to recognize these quite readily. But also we have to examine what we call pleasure and see is it actually pleasure. Does it pass beyond the nature of suffering, dissatisfactoriness? If we examine open mindedly, we’re going to find that most of what we call pleasure is in some way contaminated. Now what do I mean by this word contaminated?
In Tibetan, it means that which brings about a fall. That is to say, that which causes to fall into afflictive emotions. afflictive emotions are the source of suffering. Therefore, which can bring about attachment, anything which can bring about hatred, is going to bring us suffering. Therefore, contaminated.
It’s in the nature of suffering, or it’s dissatisfactory. Now, this is not to say, as I talked about before, that there’s anything wrong inherently in these objects. It’s just that they have this potential, just like fire has the potential to burn us. If we use fire skillfully, it can warm us, we can cook with it, it’s quite pleasant to look at in the fireplace. If we’re not careful, then it’s going to burn us.
So it’s a matter of becoming skillful with the objects we use, developing a proper relationship. This relationship is looked at from the three points of view of dissatisfactoriness. If we think that the world is inherently pleasurable, that merely by manipulating the various objects around us, manipulating the people as objects that we can create happiness, we’re going to suffer because happiness does not lie outside of our own mind. It is not inherent in all these objects which are around us. If we think that our relationships, that all these various objects that we have are permanent, if we hold them, if we relate to them in that way, we’re going to suffer.
All created phenomena are impermanent. All products are impermanent. Your new car, which is shiny and perfect, is one day going to rust and fall apart. Your relationship is going to change. It’s not to say it’s going to get better or worse.
It’s going to change. You’re going to take on different roles, different ways of relating to one another. If you try to stick to one role, hold on to one way of relating, you’re going to suffer. It’s dissatisfactory from the point of view of compositional or pervasive. Why?
Because we have to maintain an ego. We’re constantly having to provide credentials for ourselves, recreating our image that we present to ourselves and to others, constantly having to secure our own ground, our territory, reaffirming our existence again and again and again and again, and it’s a never ending battle. If we relate to the world as if had an essence, if objects had an essence, if people had an essence, as if I had an essence — some sort of fixed identity which is unchanging, not related to that culture, not related to the situation, we’re going to suffer because such an entity does not exist. So therefore, we can begin to relate with the world more skillfully and we won’t suffer.
Such true sufferings are to be recognized. Once we begin to recognize suffering, then we begin to question, What are the causes of suffering? Why am I suffering? We very rarely ask ourselves, Why am I suffering? We’re reactive again.
We merely grab hold of something that brought us pleasure in the past and we try it again. We distract ourselves, try to distract ourselves from our suffering. So we question, Why am I suffering? What is the cause of suffering? In this process of inquiry, first we recognize suffering and we go on to inquire, What is the cause of my suffering?
Which brought us to the second noble truth, true sources. We said in examining true sources that there were two types of true sources, karmic sources of suffering and sources of suffering which are the afflictive emotions. Last time we talked a little bit about karmic sources. Now karmic sources is quite a complicated subject. It has all these subdivisions and categories.
This is only good on the second Tuesday of each week and this is not valid outside of Tasmania. All these details, you know, like in contract law. So, talked about some of the divisions, some of the consequences of suffering to give you a feeling of the nature of karma and the fact that it’s quite scientific, if you like, that it’s a process of cause and effect. You know, we are quite to go along with the cause and effect of the outside world. We’re always going about creating causes that we want to have.
We don’t even question it. You turn the key in the ignition and you expect something to happen. You expect the engine to turn over and then put in and you expect the car to go forward. So there’s infallible, if you like, law of cause and effect, that certain causes bring about certain effects in the external world and we all rely upon these. It’s a matter of scientific method.
But also within our own lives, our actions of body, speech and mind also have effects. They have ethical consequences. Begin to examine the question of why are some people happy? Why are some people suffering? Is it just haphazard?
Is it because they were born in the right family, because God likes them? Is there some underlying effect relationship. So, we can question if in fact by planting an apple seed I get an apple tree and it bears apple fruit. If there’s some sort of relationship between cause and effect, is it possible that happiness, which is in fact an effect, also has a specific cause? Does it follow also a certain pattern that we can rely on that’s just as infallible infallible as the law of cause and effect in the outside world.
So then we present the various types of karma, the ten non virtuous karmas. And we say, This particular non virtuous karma will bring this effect. This particular virtuous karma will bring this effect. It’s difficult to see. We can see what happens when you plant a flower seed.
You get a particular flower in a matter of months. But the effects of actions of body, speech and mind are very the relationship, as I said, to be extremely subtle. We can, to some degree, begin to see the possibilities just in the general atmosphere that we create around us, how people affect us. If someone has a sincere, warm heart, caring, he produces a certain environment, an atmosphere around him who come in contact with him. They can feel this.
We call it vibration. It’s matter of cause and effect the causes of his mind. So we looked at karma, karma which denotes an action as a complete karma, a complete path of karma. For example, identifying the victim, intention to commit an action, actually engaging the action, and the completion. And then, for example, if there’s no intention, for example, we kill something involuntarily, then it becomes very much a matter of our thought afterwards.
We have regret or we don’t care or we actually are happy about it, we determine the consequences of that action. We talked about the heaviness of karmas, different points of view. It’s from the point of view of basis, nature, and there are six types. We talked about the propelling and completing karmas, about the threshold karma at the moment of death. What karma has ripened at the moment of death is going to determine what we’re going to take.
So now we’re going to continue a little bit about karma and talk about the different possibilities of karma, for example, the point of view of ripening. One possibility of karma in ripening is that we can create karma which is going to ripen by ripen I mean it’s going to produce its effect in this immediate life. We create a karma, create an action it has its effect in this immediate life. That’s one type of karma. Another one would be that it’s going to its effect in the subsequent life immediately after this one.
Another type is it’s indefinite karma. It’s not definite at what time it’s going to ripen. And then there’s another type which is called lapsed karma, which is never going to ripen because it’s never going to meet the conditions, the cooperative causes to bring about its ripening. The reason we have to bring this up because it has a lot of consequences on much of what we do, especially in the Tibetan tradition. For example, the lapsed karma in this life when you were born in this life, it’s definite that you had karma to be born both as a male and a female in this particular life.
But the fact is one karma was more powerful, therefore it over outshined the other karma, so to speak, and you were born as a male or a female. You know, it’s like sun out shining the flame of a candle. You can’t see the flame of the candle, you just see the light of the sun comparison. So there are types of karma which become inoperative simply because they will never meet Another class of karma is this indefinite karma. It means it’s not definite as to when it’s going to ripen, when it’s going to produce its effect.
It’s like a store or a pool, a treasure a vault full of indefinite karma. So we can make use of this indefinite karma. In order for a karma to actually bring about its effect, it must meet the proper conditions. Just like if you have a seed, the seed will lay dormant if it doesn’t meet the right conditions, the right circumstances, the cooperative causes. Wheat seeds in the pyramids of Egypt, are three or four thousand years old, and they take them and they put them in some moist soil and they sprouted.
So there were these seeds that were laid dormant for four thousand, five thousand years because they had not met the right conditions, the right cooperative causes to cause them to ripen. Likewise, we have these potentials within our own mind right now. When they meet the right conditions, cooperative causes, they’re going to ripen. They’re going to produce an effect in the way of suffering, in the way of happiness. So, if we can become skillful in how we go about creating conditions to ripen karmas, For example, in Tibetan tradition you see a lot of rituals, a lot of rituals, beating on drums and everything and ringing bells.
What is this all about? They say creating merit, dedicating merit. If we try to create conditions, cooperative causes to ripen karma, We have these various meditational deities, if you like. Chenrezig, who is associated with compassion. Mañjuśrī is associated with wisdom.
You know, we have all these potentials. We have karmas to realize compassion, wisdom. If we develop the conditions, the cooperative causes, we can begin to consciously ripen these karmas within us to actually experience the effects. We can experience the effects if we have developed a karmic link, this idea of a karmic link. If someone has the karma to have money in this life, to make a lot of money, but they also have the karma to have it stolen, on the other hand, someone else has to have the karma to steal that money.
If there aren’t these two karmas working together, someone to have the karma to have their money stolen and someone to have the karma to be able to steal this money, then the theft cannot be brought about. There’s no possibility of a theft. So in this way two people have a karmic link. The karmas work together to bring about a certain effect. Likewise, we can develop karmic links, karmic links with amongst the Sangha, for example.
As I said, it becomes an atmosphere or an environment which begins to ripen certain potentials within us, certain latencies. Desirable effects can be brought about merely by associating within a spiritual community. Likewise, a higher level, by associating with a spiritual teacher, by associating developing karmic links with meditational deities or actual Buddhas, Bodhisattvas. This acts as a method of ripening, of bringing to maturation these potentials that we have within us. It’s all within the law of cause and effect.
It’s not supernatural. It’s not mystical. It’s a matter of merely bringing about effects in a very conscious manner. For example, by calling upon a Bodhisattva, a Buddha. I think it says in the Christian Bible, Knock on the door shall be opened, ask and it shall be given.
Just the asking creates a condition, openness, which acts as a condition to develop a link, to develop a relationship with, for example, a Bodhisattva, a Buddha. The opening of the mind to the possibility of relating and also acts as a condition for the ripening of the karmic potentials that we have, that we are desiring to ripen. When we talk about going for refuge and dedication, we say for the benefit of all sentient beings. It’s always all sentient beings again and again. It is in some small manner a way of developing a karmic relationship with all sentient beings.
We are slowly developing some relationship just by merely saying these words and trying to develop some feeling for what all sentient beings must be like. They say that Śākyamūni Buddha is the fourth universal teacher in this era. So what does that mean? Since there are thousands or millions, infinite number of Buddhas, why do we only say four and we say Maitreya will be the fifth? So during their Bodhisattva training they created karmic affinities or the karmic relationships, the relationship with a vast number of beings, so many that once they become Buddhas, we call them universal teachers because they are able to benefit so many people.
One Buddha may have a relationship whereby he’s able to benefit a small group of people. He has a karmic relationship with a small group of people. Maitreya, for example, and Śākyamūni Buddha through three countless eons of practice created karmic affinities with so many beings.