Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Opening with a Krishnamurti verse on the sorrow of ignorance and the sorrow of time, Ven Jampa Gendun’s 47-minute commentary explores the two forces behind genuine practice: anxiety about the repetitive nature of our problems, and faith that they can be solved. He argues Buddhism is neither pessimistic nor optimistic but realistic — suffering is a wound that is a mouth trying to speak to us, and ignoring it only drives it underground. The talk moves through three levels of dissatisfaction (physical pain, subtle alienation, and the existential vulnerability of conditioned existence), then turns to the six transcendences — generosity, ethics, tolerance, joyful effort, meditation, and wisdom — as practical means for actualizing the Buddha within. The session closes with a short guided meditation cultivating compassion toward two people the practitioner knows and values.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 LP 1993 04 10.mp3
UUID: 5043dae1-cbc6-4abe-b79d-0ff03113a3de
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Lamp of the Path (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1993-04-10
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 47.0 minutes
Words: ~4,018
To get back in touch, to get inspired. You know, yesterday I was talking about this orientation, you know, this redirecting process where we’re looking, where we’re trying to go to, and traditionally termed going for refuge, something which is going to solve your problems. So this obviously means that we have to get in some degree in contact with our problems and the question of suffering. There is said to be two central causes for why we do what we do, the motivating force. Unless one is motivated, then there’s no there’s no real reason.
There’s no real impetus. There’s no real energy behind what we do. These two basic causes for this continual picking ourselves back up, dusting ourselves off and heading in a particular direction are the basic causes of some type of anxiety and some type of faith Anxiety and faith. Anxiety about the nature of our situation, beginning to confront the reality of our lived experience, you know, beyond our wishful thinking, beyond our preconceptions, beyond our propagandized, the propaganda which is continually being presented to us, that it’s going to be all right mate kind of attitude, but what we actually experience. And so, I’m necessarily kind of confronting some of the issues of our life.
There’s a verse by Krishnamurti. I don’t think, I think sometimes Buddhism is perhaps, when it’s superficially looked at, it’s seen as somewhat pessimistic in the, by the fact that it’s, it does look at suffering a great deal. But I think this is a sign of being realistic. I don’t think it’s either optimistic or pessimistic. Either one is trying to look at the reality of our situation.
But in a way, it is optimistic because it holds a great hope, a realistic hope, that we can solve these problems once we begin to confront them. If we never confront these problems, then there’s really no solution because there’s no recognition of a problem. But that we don’t consciously recognize a problem, it’s still influencing us at some level, perhaps not consciously. It is only when we begin to see clearly that we can really begin to work and solve our problems. So it’s necessary to begin to confront them.
This involves the process of getting in touch with the nature of our situation, which to some degree is dissatisfactory, to a lesser or greater degree. There is the personal sorrow, there is personal sorrow and the sorrow of the world. There is the sorrow of ignorance and the sorrow of time. This ignorance is the lack of knowledge, the lack of knowing oneself. And the sorrow of time is the deception that time can cure, heal and change.
Most people are caught up in that deception and either worship sorrow or explain it away. But in either case, it continues and one never asks oneself if it can come to an end. So, you know, the sorrow of ignorance and the sorrow of time. The sorrow of ignorance is simply a state of unknowing, which is the state of in which we find ourselves in these epistemological areas which are governing our life. The rules by which we conduct our life are somehow pathological or aren’t working or dysfunctional.
And the sorrow of time that somehow time is going to heal all our wounds. I think it may be true to some degree that as time passes, we consciously lose sight of the traumas, abuses, the difficulties that we’ve experienced over the course of our life, but I don’t think they go away. Think we all know this to some degree, that the wounds become unconscious, and therefore perhaps even more difficult to work with, because they are they begin they influence our life in a in very subtle ways in in in indirect ways. You know, that we all carry these wounds within us and it’s necessary to bring them to conscious awareness because simply the process of time is not going to alleviate them, make them go away. It is only insight, a conscious understanding, or working through them.
So, we are involved in these, in the deception that simply things are going to be better, this wishful thinking that without having to confront our issues and work through them, that we can live under the same rules which have governed us, which have determined our actions in the world and the way we view it and relate with it. Still, without any change, things are going to get better. And this is the deception that we live under, that things aren’t going to get better, that we have to change. Change the rules which come in the way we relate with the world, the way we look at it, the way we view it. And we have to change the situation of our ignorance, the sorrow of ignorance.
And we said that this process of going for refuge, going for refuge to something which perhaps offers some real protection, some real possible solution to our problems in terms of the Buddha and the Dharma and the spiritual community in a sense of the Buddha within inside of ourselves and the quality of awakening, the quality of knowledge, wisdom, the quality of love and compassion, and some kind of exuberance, vitality, creative, mental and physical, spiritual energy. Going for a refuge, redirecting ourselves to some quality which already resides within inside of ourselves, That we are gaining some kind of conviction that we all have the seeds of the solutions to our problems with inside of ourselves. That we all have the seeds of wisdom. This knowing the way things are directly without misconception, without bias, without any prejudice. No matter how faint and obscure our wisdom might be, it’s still there to some degree.
We all have some love and compassion. No matter how exclusive, how limited our love and compassion might be, it’s still there. And we all have some energy, some inner strength, no matter how unrefined, how unspontaneous that energy might be. So, the optimism of Buddhism is that each of us has the solutions to the problems of our individual existence with inside of ourselves. And the reorientation process is taking recourse to our own wisdom, to our own love, to our own vital energy as a means to solve our problems.
This reorientation from looking outside to the solutions, the problems of your life and therefore the solutions, but looking internally to the problems and therefore the solutions to the problems of what it means to be an ordinary person. So this motivating force is this anxiety and faith. This anxiety about the continuance, the reoccurrence of all our problems. These themes of dissatisfaction which permeate our life to a large degree. That no matter where we go and what we do, we get a new partner, we get more material possessions, a new house, a new job, another degree, we move to another town.
But still, the same themes, the same problems seem to be reoccurring no matter where we go and what we do. And sooner or later, beginning to see that it’s not so much the things outside of ourselves which determine the quality of our life. That it’s very much our attitude toward them. It’s not the things about us and the people about us which cause us trouble, but our opinions about them which are the root of our dissatisfactions. And taking up the difficult task changing these attitudes.
And the things about us are very much like, somewhat like a knife, in the sense that it’s being neutral. A knife in the hand of a surgeon can be life giving, can be beneficial, useful. That same knife in the hand of a thief can be destructive. Life, it can take life. So the knife in itself is somewhat neutral.
It’s how we make use of it. Our skills and attitudes which we bring to all these situations and people and relationships. So it’s imperative in trying to seek a quality existence that we take advantage of all the possibilities of what goes into making up of the quality of life, both in terms of external factors, relationships with significant and valued people about us, and having all the goodies of life, all the material wonders of the world, you know, comfortable home and stylish clothes, good food, vacations, beautiful places. These all are necessary components of a good life. But these all in themselves, without being conjoined with proper attitudes, are worthless.
They can actually what could be a source of happiness and pleasure and meaning can become a source of complication, source of more problems and suffering. I think that doesn’t I think that’s quite obvious, but sometimes the obvious is overlooked. We have to, in some way, develop more skillful ways of relating to all these things and people about us. And this is comes out of this necessity comes out of some anxiety when we get in touch with our lived reality. Talking about it is continually coming back to the nature of dissatisfaction.
And I don’t think it I think, you know, we can look at Khensur Rinpoche as an example in the fact that talking about suffering doesn’t necessarily it doesn’t add to one’s suffering. There’s a great hope that one can can lead to a solution to suffering. It doesn’t, I read the quote, If one is unhappy, one wants to know the reason why. But it never occurs to one to ask why one is happy. It is therefore unhappiness rather than happiness that causes us to reflect upon our condition.
It is unhappiness that makes us think. You know, the moment we experience pleasure, the mind becomes superficial. The moment it experiences an awareness of unsatisfactoriness, of dissatisfaction, then it begins to question. You know, we never how many people, you know, cry out to the sky, you know, God, why am I happy? And I’m like, me, God?
You know, they just accept it. It’s like, that’s the way things should be. There’s no question about the causes of happiness. But, let them experience a little bit of suffering and then they’re crying out, Why me? You know, there’s something wrong.
You know, we can look at suffering as various attitudes that we can take to suffering. We can see it as an obstruction to life, that something has temporarily gone wrong and we can put it right. Or we can see our suffering as something, as a signal, a sign, trying to tell us that there’s something wrong with the way we’re living our life. You know, the wound suffering is like our truth. It’s a statement about who we are and the way we’re living our life.
The wound is a mouth which is trying to speak to us. And so, have to listen to our wounds very carefully if we’re going to, to be able to hear what they’re trying to tell us. And therefore, we have to become aware of our wounds and our suffering, and then we can learn. All the various levels of suffering, levels of, you know, the simple levels of the suffering of pain, all the various physical and mental pains that we experience every day of our life. All the various more subtle types of suffering, the subtle types of suffering of fragmentation, of alienation, of isolation, of having to guard our territory, reestablish our credentials, the loss of innocence, the seeking of union with ourselves, with nature, with others about us, this constant struggle to find happiness, to alleviate our problems, this constant battle that we are engaged in every day of our life, this ill at ease, this, this something, this sense that something is, is, that we’re, the fear that we’re going to goof up somehow is not going to be right.
The fear of, that the universe is going to swallow us up, that we could go out of existence and be lost. However, you know, all of these very subtle existential fears that no matter what our history may have been, we still have to deal with. To a large extent, Buddhism is concerned with our ahistorical problem. And those problems which, whether you had a good childhood or a bad childhood, you still have. You know what it means to be an ordinary being with an ego.
Sometimes the ego is, in a sense, it’s like carrying a bundle of thorns around on our back. Wherever we go, whatever we do, it’s always stickiness. And to set aside this bundle of thorns. And there’s the suffering of fluctuation, this continual isolation, The very nature of our situation, very nature of our thinking process is such that we are we necessarily within the duality of this relativity we have to experience suffering. We can never know the warmth of a friend without knowing the coldness of an enemy because they only exist in relationship to one another.
We can never know happiness without knowing suffering because they exist in relationship to one another. They both are meaningless without the other. So, this is the situation that we’re in. As long as we remain in this dualistic puzzle of relativity, this in which we find ourselves, life never be quite completely satisfactory. And within the, you know, the suffering of universal conditionality, That means that, I think this means that we are vulnerable.
We are susceptible to pain, to influences beyond our control. I think this is quite evident in the case of a small child. It has no control. It’s hurt. It is susceptible.
It’s quite vulnerable. It’s open to hurts, which it simply doesn’t have the control over these factors. It’s dependent upon these parents, these people about them, and these people about them can hurt him or her. It’s open. It’s acceptable.
And that’s a dissatisfactory situation to be in, but it is the situation we’re in. But the same holds equally true for ourselves. We are susceptible. We are vulnerable. We’re vulnerable to sickness, aging, and death, for example.
We’re susceptible to not meeting the happiness that we want, meeting the undesirable. Once we get something, having it lost, this is our condition, the human condition. We’re vulnerable. We’re susceptible. So, you know, gaining a sense of anxiety about this repetition that this is simply going to continue unless we begin to work through it and begin to change our attitudes and develop more skillful ways of relating.
So, in this process, the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha by means of the Dharma. That is to say that the Buddha withinside of ourselves finds expression, is actualized, this potential. These seeds of wisdom and love and creative energy are watered by the activated by the waters of Dharma and within the social context spiritual community. And it says in the formula for going for refuge, by the means of giving and other perfections. So these are the ways that we can actually practical means that we can begin to act, think and communicate to foster these seeds within inside of ourselves.
You know, the pointing out of six transcendences. You know, they’re often termed six perfections. I think perfect, the word perfection is kind of heavy handed, I think. I think it implies some kind of should. You know, one of our problems is perhaps perfectionism.
It’s a matter of, it’s not so much the actual literal translation, going over to there. It’s our fulfillment or consummation. But more the idea, I’m over here and I want to go over there. So it’s kind of a more like a transcendence our present situation. And these are the practical means by which we can go from here to over there.
We can transcend this situation of dissatisfaction which we are now embedded in all its circumstances. You know, it says by practicing giving any other perfection, the transcendence, those means by which we’re going to go over there, we’re going to be able to go beyond our present situation. Perfection of generosity, you know, becoming open handed about whatever we have, be it material, be it time, it energy, be it knowledge. The transcendence of ethics. So developing a sense of trust in our basic sanity and the basic sanity of others by means of which we can begin to interact and to relate with them non violently.
I think Gandhi was a great exponent of this. He believed in the basic sanity of everyone and he was always appealing to that, to the best part of each of us, of other peoples, trying to communicate at that level, not on the level of violence, not on the level of politics, but on the level of their basic decency as a human being. The transcendence of tolerance, you’re creating some kind of space of understanding whereby we are able to work with our own and others neuroses peacefully, Being able to give their neurosis some kind of space in your own and therefore not getting uptight and finding some kind of accommodation, a way of relating which accommodates our problems, our neurosis, our hang ups, both oneself and others. The transcendence of joyful effort. You know, having tremendous energy and willingness to work for the sake of others.
Having, you know, this brought about through simplifying the focus of our life. Some kind of inspiration to go beyond our emotional complications, our conceptual frivolities brought about through developing some kind of greater vision. You know, it’s probably the great, you know, the talk about the blessings of the teacher of the Lamas. One of the, you know, this is rather profound, I think, subject. And one of the blessings is that they do raise the level of our vision.
They broaden our, help us to raise the level of, of our aspirations, of our goals, of the possibilities of who we are, that we begin to operate on a more refined and more noble. That is to say, they begin to help us to draw upon the finest parts of ourselves, that we develop a greater vision. Developing a greater vision, what was problematic previously becomes less so, And those small insignificant problems that we used to have simply do not exist any longer. That we aren’t so caught up in the minute aberrations of our ups and downs of our life because we’re operating on a greater vision, a higher level. Looking at things with a greater perspective, opening ourselves up to more universal values, going beyond our myopic vision.
Transcendence of meditation. The basic practice, which is a willingness to work with our, work unceasingly with our neurosis and our speed. Meditation is most basically the way we learn about ourselves and the way we, we befriend ourselves. And we, we enjoy being with ourselves and we’re willing to abide with that and work with that situation as arises from moment to moment. Transcendence of wisdom.
You know, some kind of real interest to learn. Learn about yourself, learn about the world about you, the way things really are, you know, beyond our dogmas, beyond ego’s fantasies. So, these are the ways that we can practically begin to exercise our Buddha nature as a practical means to find expression. And we try to raise the level of our motivation for this process such that we’re, you know, the raising of our vision, such that we’re doing it not just for our own selves but for as an ever widening circle of concern, trying to take a greater and greater responsibility until it becomes universal. So, you know, this is the direction that we can orientate ourselves for.
You know, we can’t it’s not that we are to find ourselves wanting because we can’t love all, all of living all of humanity or all that lives, all living beings, but we can, we can begin to orientate ourselves in that direction. Maybe we can go a little bit further, one more step today, one more step tomorrow. You know, that we are, all of us are involved in some kind of journey, whether we’re conscious of it or not. Some people are standing still, some people may be going backwards. Hopefully, we’re all going forward, but whatever we’re doing, involved in some journey.
And it’s simply a matter of aligning our ways of thinking, our ways of communicating and acting in the world, aligning with that path, either as best as consciously as we can. This is the way that we can consciously align ourselves with this evolutionary progress that we’re all involved in. The progress toward some kind of actualization of our potential and the solutions to our problems and being of great use to oneself and others, great happiness, great fulfillment and great meaning in our life. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest assembly. From the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving and the other perfections, may I attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings.
I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly. From the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving and the other perfections, may I attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly. From the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving in the other perfections, may I attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. If you take a comfortable but firm posture, practice mindfulness of the breathing.
And during the course of the session, approximately in the middle, we’ll relax for one minute. And during that minute, it’s not a matter of just allowing yourself to dwell on distraction, but maintain your awareness. It’s helpful if you do this by noting, but to relax, because quite often in effort of trying, we build up some kind of tension, which is counterproductive. So, and it’s relaxing. We can get back in touch with what that sense of relaxation feels like, and we can carry that back into our meditation. So, relaxing, but maintaining awareness.
It’s very useful in that process to use noting, as we did yesterday in the process of choiceless awareness. Just for a moment relaxing, and whatever stimuluses are most prominent in your environment, just noting them, and then going back to the focus upon the breath. So, beginning with the cultivation of compassion and love toward two people that you’re that you like, that you feel good about, but aren’t intimate with. Perhaps a male and a female that you can imagine two individuals who you know and feel that way about, and directing this cultivation toward them. And first, just the, you know, just a friendly, kind, caring thought about them in terms of compassion.
It would be wonderful if you didn’t have any problems. I would like that very much if you didn’t have any dissatisfaction or pain. May you be free. May you not have any problems or dissatisfaction. I’m going to help you, commit myself to working with you to solve your problems, your difficulties.
Be wonderful if you were happy. May you be happy. I’m going to commit myself to working with you to to find happiness. And the way I’m going to express my commitment to you, my concern for your well-being at this present moment is through my meditation. Developing my skills, my wisdom, my love, my ability to be of real use to you so that eventually I can actually, in fact, fulfill my commitment.
And then bring your mind to the breath. The easy, gentle, in and out flow of the natural breath. And if it’s helpful, using the techniques of counting and noting.