Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Jampa Gendun opens this 25-minute introductory session with a personal story: a painful divorce in Ohio, a move to California’s “spiritual supermarket,” and the discovery — while tending a mountain vegetable patch — that anger and jealousy follow you wherever you go. That story frames the session’s core argument: freedom begins inside the mind, not in changed circumstances. He introduces “refuge” not as a Buddhist technicality but as a universal human habit — the search for what actually relieves suffering — before unpacking the Three Jewels: Buddha as a metaphor for the optimum mode of being already latent in everyone, Dharma as what helps it unfold, and Sangha as the social container for growth. He then argues that widening motivation from self to others is itself a practical strategy for solving personal problems. The session closes with guided breath-counting and a loving-kindness meditation. Suited to complete newcomers.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 1993 08 02 ItB.mp3
UUID: bfc73dc6-d552-46c4-83c1-0d64e59dc337
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Intro to Buddhism (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1993-08-02
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 24.8 minutes
Words: ~3,481
So as I mentioned last week, you know, it’s not so much what we do, but why we do what we do, which is going to determine the outcome, that is to say our motivation, our reasons, our intentions. So initially, it’s it’s quite useful to to get back in touch with where we’re where we’re at. How we A process of redirecting ourselves or reprioritizing, reorientating, getting back with in touch in touch with some values or ways of being which we have found important, something that we can believe in, something which has brought meaning to our life, but which over the course of our our busy lives, having to deal with practical necessities of everyday life, we get out of touch with. So taking the time to get in touch with what is meaningful for me as a very unique and self actualizing individual. What feels right, what feels in in a sort of a and we have to pause once in a while and take a not only in take a look at where we’re going.
You know, there’s a there’s a Chinese proverb. If if you keep heading in the direction that you’re traveling, you’re likely to end up where you’re where you’re headed. And and where are we going with our life and where we would like to go? What is our preferred outcome to the story of the life that we’re telling ourselves? You know, our lives are very much lived out in accordance with the particular story that we have about ourselves.
And quite often our story that we have about ourselves is impoverishing, is subjugating. And so it’s not our preferred story. And getting in touch with our story, and is it the kind of life is it going to bring about the type of outcomes which are which are meaningful, you know, to ourselves as very unique individuals? Not what we have been told that we should be doing or what is valuable, not what we would, would think we should do or we would like that we but in terms of what actually works, it’s very difficult, think, to look at one’s experience. What makes me happy?
What brings me peace? What brings me fulfillment? And to base one’s life upon what works for you. You know, to live in a world which is night and day trying to make you everyone else, and to be yourself in that world is the most difficult battle that we can ever fight. You know, we have to fight it every day of our lives to be nobody else but ourselves.
And we don’t even know what we are, to a great extent. We don’t know what it is that we feel, what it is that we believe. I think it how much do we really know for ourselves? And how much is simply assumptions that we’ve learned along the way, we’ve never really validated within our own experience. And I was talking about the You know, traditionally this process of redirecting or reorientating, you know, what actually works beyond some kind of fiction is the term refuge.
You know, what what actually can solve my problems at a very fundamental level? You know, we all go for refuge. It’s not something eastern. It’s not something which is particularly Buddhist. We’ve been going for refuge all lives, either consciously or unconsciously.
You know, we people go for refuge to to other people, to sex, drugs, politics, to money, power, status. Innumerable possibilities. What what’s gonna take away the pain? What’s gonna bring me some happiness? And somewhat sooner or later, sooner the better, I think.
We have to check up. Is our particular refuge working? Is it is it is it is the payoff coming? Checking out. In in terms, you know, in the the personification, what, the the outcome of the preferred stories, as far as Buddhism is concerned, we call her Buddha.
Buddha is like a metaphor for the optimum mode of being, which we see as available to humanity or to all living beings for that matter. A happy, loving, healthy, sane human being. And so this becomes like a refuge, not to put outside of ourselves, but to one inside of ourselves. And we’re going to talk about a little bit about Buddha nature tonight. It’s very difficult to believe in ourselves, that in a in another order of being, another way of viewing our reality.
To begin to tell ourselves another story about who I can become. And we we have to keep redirecting ourselves And we the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha, the Buddhist within inside of ourselves. And we we we try to achieve that in to express. You know, what our basic intelligence, our our brilliant wisdom by means of Dharma, that which facilitates this process, this unfolding of our the solutions to our problems, the expression of our of our potential, of our capacity within the social context of a spiritual community. And last week, I talked a little bit about, you know, what what we might mean by a Buddha.
But it’s perhaps in more relevant terms, the idea of awakening. You know, the the idea of some kind of direct knowing the way things actually are without any misconceptions, without any mistakes, without any prejudices, without any preconceptions. It’s actually seen with our own experience. Talking about in in terms of the feeling quality of of a burning love and compassion, that all living beings, including ourselves, be happy, but that they not suffer. And in terms of of an inner strength and exuberance, a certain energy to bring this about in fact.
So this is what constitutes awakening. Some kind of direct understanding, wisdom, love and compassion, and creative energy, personal power, inner strength. And and we have to, you know, begin to question. I think I think we should question everything. And I think it’s only burning questions by means of burning questions that we that we achieve, that we arrive at burning answers, the kind of answers which make a difference in our life.
You know, trying to make a difference. Is this kind you know, is what I’m talking about simply some kind of romantic notion? Is it, you know, is it, you know, some kind of a Hollywood production? It sounds nice. You know, this this quality of awakening, this quality of solving our problems.
Is but is it or on the on the other hand, is there something about ourselves within our own experience which which tends to validate what we’re talking about? You know, about wisdom, about knowing things, about love and compassion, about energy. Is there something about ourselves which which affirms that possibility within our own experience? And that we all have some wisdom. That’s some some direct knowledge.
Some experience of the way things actually are. No matter how obscured, no matter how faint that wisdom, that understanding, that direct knowledge may be. We all have that to some degree. We all have some love and compassion. No matter how exclusive, no matter how limited that love and compassion might be, it’s still there to some degree.
We all have some inner strength, some personal power, some exuberance for life, no matter how unrefined, how unspontaneous that energy might be. It’s still there to some degree. So the point I’m making is that the the optimum mode of being, the the optimum preferred story of Buddhism, which we call a Buddha, is not something divorced from who we are at present. It’s not some qualitative difference than who we are now. All with all our hang ups, with all our with all our faults, but with all our excellent qualities.
It’s simply extension of who we already are. And we have to begin to believe in ourselves. I probably mentioned this last week, but I it’s worth mentioning again. If we believe we can or if we believe we can’t, we’re right. And it’s very important that we begin to believe that we can.
That we begin to make some kind of commitment to being all that we can become and having some deep affirmation in its possibility of change. And I’m going to talk about that a little bit more. You know, I guess, you know, if I were to tell you a little bit about myself and my circumstances and how I arrived at where I am now. And the sometimes people think that monks and nuns, they kind of come off the moon. They’re from another planet.
They’re not quite And it would be nice to think that, wouldn’t it? And it doesn’t mean that we have to take any responsibility. You know, when we look at the Mother Teresa’s and the Dalai Lama’s of the world, we can simply think, well, somehow their genes were different, or they had loving molecules or compassion electrons in their brains. There’s something different about them. And therefore, we can it absolves us that they were taking responsibility to change, to grow.
There are different species of beings. But that’s kind of a cop out, I think. It’s it’s a matter of it’s a way of cultivating an an unawareness and escapism, taking up a challenge. Because the the Mother Teresa’s and the Dalai Lama’s of the world, and indeed the Buddhas, of which there are infinite number, were just like us at one point. I feel very convinced that they had all our hang ups, all our problems, perhaps worse.
It could be, probably worse. You know, hatred and spite, miserness, jealousy, attachment, desire, eighty four thousand afflicted emotions. They had them all. But at some at some point, they began to change. They began to grow.
And they began to make a choice of a path with heart. And I think it’s this consistent choice of a path with heart which makes Buddhas and these other beings different than than us. So at some point making, you know, saying, when you get sick and tired of being sick and tired, you make a choice. And it’s the consistent choice which which made them who they are today, which have made the Dalai Lama’s and the Mother Teresa’s who they are today. It can make it’s the way that we can begin to solve our problem.
It’s not at a very fundamental level. You know, these reoccurring patterns which we keep experiencing during the course of our lives. And I was going to tell you a little bit about myself. Just a few minutes. I don’t want to bore you.
You know, I was going to university and this was the United States. And I went through a divorce, which was of no choice of my own. It was one of the most painful periods of my life. And like many people, I dropped out of the university and went from Ohio to California. And Ohio is a great place to be from.
And then I went to California, which is like, you know, it’s like a spiritual supermarket. There’s everything that you could want twenty four hours a day on the shelves. You just go into the spiritual supermarket and there it is. And but they had a they had a very interesting ethos or a new idea, which I had never heard back of in Ohio. Yeah.
It’s revolutionary. It was called doing what made you happy. I never heard this about this back in Ohio. We were behind the times back then. It was a it was kind of a revolutionary thought, what?
You know, this was the time this was back in the early seventies and around the time of the the flower people, Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, and Haight Ashbury, lots of Vietnam protests and things things things like that were going on. And people were talking how how society is repressing us, how we can’t do our thing. There’s all this talk about turning on and dropping out, this kind of thing. And back in Ohio, I never thought about it. Well, you know, people talked about how society is repressing us.
And I don’t feel that. I feel like I’m doing what I want to do. And then it wasn’t until I got to California that I began to realize that I was thinking other people’s thoughts. I was using other people’s values and belief systems. And I was very much out of touch with something very deep with inside myself.
I was acting inauthentically. And so, okay, I’m gonna I’m gonna do my my thing. So like many people, I I grew a long beard and long hair and I dropped out. And I got a little veggie patch up in the mountains in in California. I thought, this is it.
I’m free. Got it made now. And but I began to notice that there were times when when I was angry and I didn’t want to become angry because it made me suffer. And there were times when I was jealous and I didn’t want to be jealous because it made me suffer. I didn’t like to suffer.
There were times when, well, I had attachment I didn’t want attachment because it made me suffer. I didn’t want to suffer. So I began to think, wow, this isn’t working. Know? You know, I’ve, you know, I’ve grown long hair and a beard and I’ve dropped out.
And I’m still not free. And I began to, you know, was I think I was pretty slow, you might think. I began to realize, you know, that freedom is begins and ends within your own mind. You know, it doesn’t you know, you you can run away to the Himalayas as I did, and you still have to take your mind with you wherever you go. You know, it’s not so much the things in the people about us which causes problems, but our opinions about them, the way we view them, the attitudes, the patterns within our own minds.
So I’m beginning to think, well, know, if I’m ever going to be free, if I’m ever going to find myself, if I’m ever going to be authentic, I’m going to have to change. And that change is something which takes place internally, something within our own minds. And anyway, to be continued. And then we can tell you more later on. But anyway, I think you know, to begin to listen to the inarticulate whisperings of our own hearts about what it we can be and what it means to be an ordinary human being with all our problems with the human dilemma, the human condition, and beginning to to seek some other alternative to become all that, you know, that we can be, all that we long to be at some level of our being, if we can stay in touch with that, to get in touch with our own basic sanity.
So this process of reorientation, getting back in touch with what’s going on inside of ourselves, this dimly lit world of our of our inner being. And the focus becomes Buddha, that metaphor for the expression, the personification of all that the flowering of our humanity, of what we all can be. And we achieve it by means of the Dharma. You know, that which is able to that which is able to make the difference. And we have all had the lessons, but we keep missing the experiences.
So it is, you know, the experience is what somehow we have to view the situation so it makes a difference. There’s some kind of movement of the mind. There’s some kind of change. There’s some kind of shift in the way that we appreciate the way that we see things. The difference which makes a difference.
And within the social context of a spiritual community, you know, those those others who like minded others who who have who voluntarily associate with one another, who take as prime values in their life, wisdom and love and compassion and growth. And sharing and supporting, assisting and facilitating each other’s journey along the path. In trying to to raise the level of our motivation, why we do what we do, this this trying, this this this struggle to solve our problems, to find real happiness, We’re raising the level of why we do what we do such that we’re not doing it for our own piece of chocolate cake, but we’re doing it in the development of a social consciousness. That we’re trying to develop for not only for my own sake, but also for the sake of a few others, an an ever widening circle of others. And they’re developing a becoming to an awareness that we’re social beings, that mental health is basically a social phenomenon, that we have to find some skillful way of relating with others in terms of love and compassion, and that we can all achieve the good life together.
But if we don’t do it together, then it’s probably not going to happen at all. So the it becomes a others become a context for what one seeks, the goals that one sets for one’s life, just as in the case of a family. You know, in the case of a family, one has a family consciousness in in a harmonious, integrated, healthy family. There’s a content, you know, that one’s decisions, one’s goals, what one does, is thought of in terms of how it’s gonna affect the rest of the members of the family. You know, just one member of the family, if they’re self centered, completely wrapped up in their own trip, they can ruin the entire atmosphere for everyone else.
But if but but an integrated healthy family, all the way that they begin to perceive their goals, what they want out of life, is seen in the context of how it’s going to affect others, how it’s going to bring happiness to the family. Their happiness, to a large degree degree, becomes just as important as one’s own happiness. One can share in their happiness, as in they share in your happiness. It becomes the extension of our of our being almost. Our our ego boundary incorporates more and more others.
So the motivation behind one’s acting for going to work or cooking a meal becomes not for what oneself can get out of it, but for the happiness of this unit of family which we identify with. And trying to to expand that that unit of identification to ultimately to include all others ultimately. But but making that effort develop this sense of social awareness, this concern for others, and this becomes the motivation behind our practice. And this becomes a very powerful means for solving our own problems and being able to develop the abilities, the skills to be able to help others to do the same. So, okay, that’s why we’re doing what we’re doing.
So we’re going to meditate together. First, we’re going to meditate mindfulness of breathing, and then I’ll lead you through a meditation on loving kindness. Okay? So if you can all take a comfortable but firm posture. So I think I talked about Last week I talked about counting.
So just stay with that, the natural breath. I’m hoping that all of you are familiar with it, either from last week or in general or that you come to learn to meditate at six o’clock with mindfulness of breathing. Now I’ll give some more instructions as we go along. And I’ve talked a little bit longer that I don’t want it to. You have to forgive me.
I used to be a very quiet person. And see, you can change. I’m living proof of it. Okay. So if as I mentioned last week or I mentioned in the six o’clock class and learn to meditate using the technique of counting, just natural breathing, breathing in and out, counting one and out two and out three and out four and out five.
Coming back down to one, one through six, one through seven, one through eight. Okay. And then I’ll lead you through a meditation of loving kindness. So perhaps first get in touch with the body, noticing any tensions or tightnesses, especially around the neck and shoulders. And, bringing your awareness to those areas where you feel some tightness and consciously relaxing, softening.
You can almost feel attention moving down and out of your body into the floor. Your body becoming comfortable. It feels good. Relaxing, softening, feeling the physical well-being. And then bring your mind to the breath.
A gentle, easy, and easy flow of the natural breath. Counting the breath.