Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using a pen dismantled in front of the audience, Ven Jampa Gendun illustrates the central point of this 33-minute talk: when we search for the pen among its parts, we never find it — and the self is no different. He opens by reframing renunciation as natural outgrowing rather than suppression, like children who set aside toys without force. He then defines ignorance not as lack of information but as a mental pattern that distorts reality, solidifying the self as objectively existing when it is actually imputed onto mind and body. This concretized ego must constantly reconfirm itself, generating attachment, hatred, and suffering. The session closes with wisdom and compassion framed as the two wings of a bird, followed by a guided metta meditation expanding goodwill outward from oneself to all beings.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 1987 08 25 4 NT.mp3
UUID: c398726f-b9d8-4b88-b364-31ab4c95f150
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Four Noble Truths (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1987-08-25
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 32.7 minutes
Words: ~3,282
You know, the only way we know when we’re suffering is by knowing moments of peace. What we take for peace now, for pleasure now, is purely relative, isn’t it? As you begin, for example, to meditate, then you begin to see that much of what you took for pleasure wasn’t really pleasure. These things begin to fall away quite naturally. Once you begin to experience some peace within your meditation, many of the agitated states of mind, the actions which continually disturb your mind begin to fall away.
The process of renunciation doesn’t mean that we have to suppress anything, that we have to repress anything. This is not a struggle. A wise, skillful practitioner, the mind does not become a battleground between the good guys and the bad guys. That is only the fight of the ego, seeking its achievements, its own goals, using the dharma as a source of spiritual materialism. If you’re skillful, then unproductive, unskillful actions are just going to fall away from you.
Just as you gave up most of your toys that you played with when you were a child quite easily. No one had to take them away from you by force. You didn’t have to sort of go cold turkey when you gave up your last doll or something. One day it just didn’t seem as important to you as other things. We moved on to other things.
We do this in practice by gaining peaceful states of mind, skillful through generating very positive states of mind. Love, if you like, compassion, faith. Your mind becomes a real source of pleasure. And the other things aren’t quite as important as they once were quite naturally. There’s no real struggle involved.
Perhaps initially, I think it’s necessary, that we, in certain areas, for example, killing. It’s best not to kill. Maybe you want maybe you have a desire to kill. Maybe it’s best to not follow that desire. Maybe it’s best to suppress that desire.
So the root now we try to find the root of our problems, the root of our afflictive emotions, that’s the source of our problems. What is the root of desire? What is the root of hatred? It’s ignorance. You know, we can talk about the word ignorance.
Generally, in English, when we talk about the word ignorance, we mean that we mean you don’t know something. You I don’t know what’s behind that wall. I’m ignorant of what’s behind that wall. That’s not quite what we mean when we use the word ignorance. It’s not quite what we’re talking about.
Generally, when we talk about ignorance in the Buddhist tradition, there’s two levels. One is ignorance of karma, the law of cause and effect. Here, we’re not talking about that type of ignorance either. Here, we’re talking about another type. It’s a type, it’s a mental pattern, you know, which distorts or causes mistakes with respect to the way things actually exist.
It obscures reality if you like. One way of talking about the mind is to divide it up into six primary consciousnesses and fifty one secondary consciousnesses. Many, many divisions of consciousnesses. We begin to see them as boxes. There’s faith, intention, intention, concentration, ignorance, desire.
And we think we have all these little compartments in here somewhere, maybe in here, wherever you think your mind is. But this would be this is, maybe it would be more skillful to relate with the mind as simply types of patterns which are reoccurring in the mind rather than specific consciousnesses. And we talked about these six primary consciousnesses, eye consciousness, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind, six primary consciousnesses, and these various classifications of fifty one secondary consciousnesses. You have faith, concentration, intention, intelligence, desire, hatred. So, ignorance is one of these patterns.
If you watch the mind, you’re extremely skillful, a real yogi, you would begin to recognize that there are certain reoccurring patterns of your mind. This pattern you’d call faith. This particular pattern you might call miserliness. This particular pattern we’re talking about is ignorance. It obscures the nature of reality, distorts it, causes us to make mistakes with respect to reality.
Once we understand how the way things actually exist, we’re not going to make these mistakes again. In order to do that, we must eliminate ignorance, this mistaken way of viewing reality. Now, what is reality? It’s a big word. Here we mean, when we say reality, ultimate way things exist.
So, I keep explaining. You know, things have many levels we can discuss them on. This table, we can talk about it on various levels. It’s made out of wood. It’s got two legs and a top.
It’s one way we can begin to discuss it. We can talk about its various levels the way it exists. We can talk about its gross impermanence. This table’s gonna rot one day, and it’s going to become non existent. It’s one level of its existent.
It’s gross impermanency. A little deeper level, it’s subtle impermanence. This table is arising, abiding, and ceasing moment by moment. We can’t see that, can we? Actually, westerners are quite sophisticated in this respect.
We all accept very much this idea of the atomic theory. We’ve been schooled in this, even though we don’t understand it. We look at that table and we realize it’s not quite as solid as it appears, intellectually at least. If you went to a primitive area and you tried to say, This really isn’t solid. It’s made up of all these whirling masses of atoms.
All it is is a condensation, a concentration of energy. There’s probably electrons in downtown Adelaide which are somehow related to this table. This is a concentrated mass of energy. It’s a very sophisticated concept. It would be difficult for someone who has never come in contact with to understand it.
But that is a level of understanding that we can apply to this table. One level, a subtle level, of the way the table exists. Now there’s even a deeper level we can begin to talk about. We could say it’s the ultimate level, if you like, the final level, its deepest mode of existence. We say that it’s empty of true existence.
Empty of true existence. That’s its ultimate level of existence, its ultimate way that exists. You know, you look at the table, it looks have a I want to have a pen. Can I borrow a pen? Pen.
We look at the table, it looks extremely solid. Anyone I can take apart is here. Can I take? Oh, good. Okay.
So, you know, there’s a pin very easily. We all know that. So, there’s no problem. But what we want to know, we begin to investigate what is the nature of the pen. Now, the pin appears to us without any analysis, without investigating its nature, a very solid object. It’s out there from its own side objectively existing, right?
We make use of it, we write letters, but it’s something very solid. We don’t even quite hold that it’s made up of all these whirling atoms. We forget that even. It doesn’t even look at it. It looks like it’s very solid.
It has a very solid look about it. So, begin to analyze what is the nature of the pen. We begin to look for the pen. We begin to see how does the pen exist. There’s nothing up my sleeves.
No sleeves. Oops. Now, okay. We begin to And then we say, well, we look. Is that little plastic thing, is that the pen?
Dennis? He’s not he has not been planted in the audience. Is that the pin? That that the pen? Is that the pen?
Is that the pen? Is that the pen? No. I don’t want to take this apart. If I pulled out that point, would that be the pen?
How about the barrel? That’s the plastic. So, we’re looking for the pin and we see that none of the parts of the pen. We also find something else that I feel like I’m selling something. One of these vegetable slicers or something that every home should have.
It cannot be without. Collection of those parts the pen? Is that a pen? Is that a pen? Can you write with that?
Write them together. So, none of the parts of the pen. The individual parts of the pen nor simply the collection. You’re right, you know. You’re right what you said there.
The simple collection of the parts is not the pen. I can’t write with that. Wow, you got a lot of parts here. So none of the parts of the pen are the pen, nor is the simple collection of parts the pen. But if I We have a part left over.
Must be for my What’s that? Oh, it goes Anyway, I think it goes up there. If I yeah. Obviously, wow. Anyway, it doesn’t matter.
I’ll let you put it back together. Okay, so what is it? Now, I have a pen. Yeah? Make allowances, which I can use to write a pen.
So that’s something it begins to tell us something about the pen. None of the parts none of the individual parts were the pen. The simple collection, if I pile up the parts, is not the pen. But I have a pen. What does that tell us about it when I put them together?
The sum is greater than the part. The sum is greater than the part. So, you know, when I took it apart, you know, I had this pen here and I took away all its parts. There was no pen left over, was there? We went through all the parts and there was no pen left over.
The parts of the pen are not the pen. And the pen is not something other than the parts, is it? Am I following? Yeah. But, okay, what happens when I put it together?
You get it together. Why does it become a it doesn’t does it magically become a pen? It becomes something functional like this one. So it’s dependent upon the mind, isn’t it? Yeah.
So the pen is dependent upon the mind, isn’t it? Mhmm. Right. So it’s not so it’s not out there existing quite as objectively and solidly as we thought before. Because once we begin to analyze and look for it, none of the parts are the pen, and the pen is not something other than the parts, we begin to see that the pen is actually dependent upon the mind in some way.
But we don’t believe it is. This is the function of ignorance. Ignorance is obscuring this simple fact. Now, how does this actually relate to our real lives? We have a mind and a body.
Now we feel it. We have a feeling. This is a very it’s a feeling quality. You must understand, ignorance is not a logical, rational consciousness. Right?
You must begin with this basic understanding. Because what we say will sound very logical and rational, But we will forget it whenever ignorance arises. When we’re thinking very analytically, very logically, or being mindful, then the problems of ego do not arise. Because ego does not have a chance to arise at this moment. But in our everyday activities of our life, ignorance is constantly operating.
Ignorance is not a logical, rational, analytic consciousness. It’s very stupid if you like. Actually, it’s quite skillful, but in a way it’s quite stupid. So it takes the mind and body. We have a mind and body, however you want to conceive it.
Just like these pins. And when somebody says to you, Dennis, pay attention. There’s some reaction there. There’s some feeling of perhaps being attacked. You you’re really stupid.
I’m so fed up with you. I can’t stand you anymore. There’s something very solid and real there. The I is referring to something very solid, isn’t it? I can’t, you know.
Very solid. You can really feel it. Ignorance is operating there. It’s creating something very solid. Concrete.
It’s as if you could point to that I. But when we look for it, we aren’t going to find it. Just like when we look for that pen amongst its parts. None of the parts were the pen. There was nothing left over which was the pen.
Likewise, the function of ignorance is creating a solid self. It grasps at the self. Now, in fact, it is a self. I should add that before we go any further. There is a self which we say is imputed to the mind and body.
Just like the parts of the pen. We put the parts of the pen together and we give the name pen. There is a pen there. The mind organizes these parts and labels pen. We can use a pen, we can sell pens, buy pens, can try to put the pens back together.
You know, it works. There’s really a pen. There’s a pen there. It just doesn’t the way we thought it did. Likewise, with the nature of the self.
We have a self. You know, I’m talking to you, definite. No question. I’m sitting here on this cushion. Dennis is sitting there.
Beth is sitting there, and they’re sitting there, we’re all here, no problem. But when ignorance arises, it begins to, what we say, reify. It begins to concretize, solidify what is merely this labeling onto mind and body as being substantial, real, objectively existing, just like we do with this pen. You have to get a feeling for this. We’ll get a feeling slowly.
What does this mean? I am I so on one level, another level. The various levels we can discuss this on. One level is that you you determine that you have a particular identity, self image. I’m stupid.
I’m a C student. We went through this once before. Have such and such qualities. Qualities. I have them now and I always will have these qualities regardless of my situation, regardless of the culture, regardless of any training, regardless of how well I do on examination, regardless of how people may compliment me on my abilities.
This is me. I have some essence there that this is really me. People just don’t know who I really am. If they knew what a lousy person I was, they wouldn’t go around saying what a nice person I was. They just don’t know me.
There’s some grasping at a very concrete self as a particular type of identity, image within us. All right? So, this is one level we begin to understand how the ego is operating. It’s trying to solidify its existence. The ego is based on a mistake.
It must again and again reconfirm its existence. If the ego was not based on mistaken modes of understanding, then long, long, long ago we would have attained unsurpassed, perfect, complete ego-hood. But we haven’t done it yet. We never will. There’s always a gap.
It always has to be reconfirming its existence because in fact it doesn’t exist the way it appears exist. So we have this identity, this essence that we hold who we are. I am such and such a person with such and such values regardless of my culture, my situations, my environment. If you enhance that image I have, you’re my friend. Come here.
We’ll be okay together. If you in any way, I think you’re going to harm that image, my value system, get away. You’re my enemy. Because of this feeling of a permanent identity, concrete image, we develop hatred. We develop attachments.
And through these, generate negative actions, negative karma, which have the consequences of suffering. This is the root of our problem. We can talk about this on some more level. We didn’t get to so let’s sit and meditate on metta. No.
Said that the, you know, the intelligent practitioner. You know, we talk about this word, bodhicitta, the mind of enlightenment, or what I call it, the awakening heart. That the first he realizes through the force of his realization of selflessness, understanding emptiness, he realizes that there’s no need for our suffering, that it’s needless, that we shouldn’t in fact be suffering. And due to the force of this understanding, he develops great compassion when he sees suffering because he sees how useless, how needless. It’s just based on mistaken consciousness.
He develops great compassion based upon his wisdom. And likewise, because he has compassion, wisdom, and because he has love, wants to help others, he realizes he must develop his wisdom even greater to be able to help others. So wisdom and compassion begin to work together to complement each other. You know, it’s like the two wings of a bird. Without one, without the other, there’s no way it’s going to fly.
So, in our practice, we must always be emphasizing both wisdom and method or compassion, love. They will complement, strengthen each other. So imagine yourself, which is not too difficult. Think about your problems, your difficulties? Do you want happiness?
Why shouldn’t you be happy? You might have made perhaps you made mistakes. But you can regret those mistakes and be friends with yourself. Just accept yourself with a critical intelligence. Accept who you are at this present time.
Be friends with yourself and simply wish yourself well. May I be happy. May I be happy. May I grow. Be friends with yourself.
Wish yourself well. Think of a person about the same age, about the same sex. Imagine them before you. And simply try to generate some sincere wish, some positive feeling. May you be happy.
Just a simple wish. May you be happy. May you grow. May you be well. Now imagine a stranger, someone for whom you have no feelings, indifferent.
They’re before you now. This person wants happiness just like you do. No difference. This person doesn’t want to suffer just like you. No difference.
Just like you. Just like yourself. Exactly. You wish them well. May you be happy.
May you grow. Now imagine someone who disturbed your mind, someone with whom you have problems with. And they’re just trying to find happiness in their way. They are just trying their best. Perhaps they have hurt you.
Perhaps their method of finding happiness has come into conflict with your method of happiness. But you’re just looking for happiness, just trying to find a little happiness. Just for a moment, just for a moment, to set aside this grudge, this hard feeling in your heart to set aside for a moment and see a suffering human being and wish them happiness. Now imagine all three are present in front of you now and wish yourself with them happiness equally. Everybody wants happiness.
Nobody wants to suffer equally. All the people in this room want happiness. Every person in this room is saying something by their presence. They’re looking for happiness. Wish them happiness.
Everyone on the block, no matter what they’re doing, what they’re thinking, they’re all looking for happiness. Just radiate out a wish to everyone on the block. May they be happy. May they be happy. And everyone in Adelaide, all the people running here and there, they’re all running after happiness.
They’re all trying to find happiness. And all of South Australia. Keep expanding your heart, radiating out further and further. May you be happy. And all of Australia.
The whole world. All the beings in the whole realm. Finally