Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute talk, Ven Jampa Gendun opens with a doctrinal point that frames everything that follows: it is our habitual attitudes, not external circumstances, that determine whether we experience life as satisfying or painful — a premise he roots in karma rather than emptiness, which he flags for a later session. After reciting the refuge prayer, he leads two guided meditations. The first is mindfulness of breathing with counting and noting. The second is a detailed, step-by-step taking-and-giving practice — inhaling a loved one’s present suffering as black smoke, their future suffering as ferocious animals, and their pervasive dissatisfaction as weapons, each destroying the black egg of self-centeredness at the heart, while breathing out white light as happiness. Suited to practitioners already familiar with basic meditation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 OtE 1991 11 06.mp3
UUID: 5566e765-d57d-40b3-96c4-eecb061f0cf9
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Opening the Eye of New Awareness 1991-1992 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1991-11-06
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.7 minutes
Words: ~3,812
We’ll begin by adjusting our motivation, this continual reminder to ourselves. We are going to be discussing some aspects of karma, actions. One of the ramifications of the implications of the doctrine, the notion of karma, is that it’s very much our attitude toward the objective conditions, the things that happen to us, the situations that arise, the people that we meet, the things that we come in contact with, which determine whether we’re going to experience them as pleasurable or displeasurable. And one of the heart of Buddhism, let’s say the mind of Buddhism, is emptiness, which we’re going to be discussing in a few weeks if I ever get around to it. Anyway, connection with emptiness, Things do not objectively exist.
Things exist, that’s no problem. But they exist in a way that we ordinarily don’t think of them to exist. We have a conception of things to exist out there, very solid and concrete, as if they existed independent of our own minds, of our concepts, of our thoughts about them, of our language. That’s the way we conceive of them and then we work with them on the basis of that misconception. Out of this arises many types of inappropriate ways of relating.
For example, we see pleasure as lying within objects, as if the pleasure were inherent in these objects, or the displeasure, the pain were inherent in these objects. That the pleasure or the displeasure that we associate with these objects is not something arising within our own mind, in connection, in relationship with these objects as being a cooperative condition, but not the main cause. The main cause, as we’re going to be looking at very roughly tonight in terms of karma, is our attitudes, our habitual reactive patterns, the reoccurring ways that we relate with things, that we can see the things, that we organize the world about us, interpret it and thereby experience it. So the significance is that it’s very much more our attitudes than the actual objects that we come in contact with, which are going to determine the quality of our life, our pleasure and pain. And this principle, if we can keep coming back to this, then the practical consequence of understanding this in a thoroughgoing way is that we have to work with our attitude to some degree, that we have to, we cannot avoid it.
We cannot simply hope to manipulate the world, the objective elements and the people about us and to arrange them in some preconceived notion, in some perfect order to find the bliss that we’re all seeking. It won’t work. Even if we were able to do that, which we can’t, but even if we were able to do that, it would still in no way guarantee satisfaction as we’ve all known, as we’ve all experienced. We’ve gotten what we wanted and it turned out it wasn’t what we wanted at all. It didn’t bring us the happiness that we thought it would bring, there was no payoff, we didn’t get what we had hoped for, what we had expected.
Again and again coming back to the simple fact that we have to change our attitudes, views, our beliefs, the basic premises upon which we operate our lives. And this must be taken as equally important component of our life alongside all the various other methods that we make use of to find the happiness that we’re looking for. In terms of relationships and things, jobs, status, money, material objects, whatever. These all can add to our lives. But without the quality of being, appropriate attitudes, the skillfulness of our view and the way that we work with these objects and people and situations.
Without that attitude, it’s never going to bring us the satisfaction that we hope for. It’s never going to bring us the happiness that we’re all looking for. So keeping this in mind, we don’t get so lost in the world, in our various activities, in the pursuit of material things, in the pursuit of significant relationships, in the pursuit of higher status. Because we know it’s interdependent with my own mind, my own attitude, own views. And so I’m going to have to at least work on these two levels.
Working with the objective element, gathering the things that I find valuable, that are significant, that are worthwhile on the one hand. On the other hand, working with my internal basis of happiness, my own ideas, beliefs, my views, the premises in which I operate my life, my attitude. It has to take as equal importance as anything else in our life. So this is this continual reorientation process, redirecting ourselves. We don’t quite get as caught up as we normally do in externals.
We don’t become absorbed in particular. We’re able to maintain some perspective, some space. We don’t get off balance. We can remain centered in some way. And then we can things and difficulties will happen, things will go wrong in our life, that’s for sure.
But we aren’t thrown off balance. We can handle them much better than perhaps we had before. And we can enjoy the pleasures of life to a greater degree than perhaps we had before. So this process of reorientation, recommitment, redirection involves a focusing on the inner principle of Buddha. That is to say, the focusing on the inner goal of our life as being growth, as personified by the paradigm of Buddha, as a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being.
And we take our inspiration from the historical Buddha, the many Buddhas, male and female, who have achieved the actualization of what is simply a potential within us now. And we commit ourselves to the Dharma as the means, the methods. It won’t happen however, as we’re going to look roughly again in terms of karma, karma is quite interesting and pervasive in coming to an understanding of how our mind is operating and how we are to change our minds. But we have these compulsive patterns, and to a large degree, as we all know, when we try to change, when we try to give up something that we have been habituated to, it’s difficult, it requires some energy, some determination, it doesn’t seem to come naturally. And so if we’re going to go beyond our neurotic compulsive patterns, way of life which is based upon hope and fear, expectations and anxieties, then we’re going to have to do it very consciously with great awareness.
And it’s going to require some energy from our side. And the direction that we make use of this energy is to systematically take up these methods, implement these means, both in a formal sense in meditation, but in an informal sense in reflecting upon them during the course of our life, validating these principles so they become something more than mere intellectualism. They begin to change us at a very deep level. There is a turning in a deeper level of our mind because we are beginning to validate, we are beginning to invalidate the mistaken premises upon which we base our life and beginning to validate healthier, more skillful, more appropriate ways of conducting our life. So this is the Dharma, these means, these methods.
And this involves the process of listening, reflecting and then meditating, the final integration process. And this is all done in the social context of a spiritual community. Those who assist us, who guide us, who inspire us, who We are not alone in the sense that we are not the isolated individuals that we usually conceive ourselves to be, that we exist within a we are interdependent with our environment and the beings are part of our environment and those we relate with. The way we think, the way we act, the way we are is not independent of our social life. We are primarily social beings.
And how we interact and influences that other play upon us determines the quality of our mind and therefore the quality of our life. So the spiritual, this is the context in which this growth takes place, this atmosphere of of sanity. And it sort of rubs off on you rather than what normally is occurring during the course of our lives, in the course of our day. So this becomes a commitment. We commit ourselves to the inner principle of growth as personified by Buddha.
We achieve that means by the Dharma, and we actualize it in the social context of a spiritual community. And we try to raise the level of our motivation. That the healthier I become, the more sane, the more loving that I can become, the more I can be able to help others. That once the emphasis becomes other centered as much as possible. And this is the most skillful way which the greatest spiritual masters of any tradition have found I wish to become a happy person.
I go for refuge until I’m 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 the Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, the highest assembly. And the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving and the other perfections, may I attain the state of the Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m 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. Meditation. With the first meditation is the usual mindfulness of breathing. And if it’s helpful, making use of the techniques of counting and noting, if you find it helpful. Let us say counting mentally, the breaths, in and out one, in and out two, one through five, one through six, one through seven, and then noting mentally what the mind is involved in from moment to moment to increase our awareness.
Then we’re going to again practice the meditation on taking and giving. Just to very briefly outline that meditation, it’s the climax of this fivefold meditative technique to open our hearts, to develop an awakening heart, taking and giving. And so we are going to begin by imagining someone who we love, that we care a great deal for, very connected, involved in their life, very naturally. And we imagine them in front of ourselves. Again, if you can’t see them, it doesn’t matter.
The visualization is not important, it is the feelings associated with imagining that person in front of you. And then imagine, think of some difficulty this person may be experiencing presently, either physical or mental, whatever it might be. And then this is the culmination of the previous four contemplations that we have worked through. First, on the basis of equality of self and others, and when we develop an unconditional positive regard. So whoever that being might be, I know that this person wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer just like myself.
I cannot ignore them, I cannot be indifferent. That’s a feeling being there. I’ve cultivated that way of relating to everyone, indiscriminately, equality, equally. And then I put myself in their place. I understand their pain because I’ve exchanged myself with others, I’ve practiced that, I’ve developed empathy, being able to see situations out of other people’s eyes, being able to vicariously experience what they might be going through.
That I’ve done through exchanging myself with others. And then I’ve contemplated the disadvantages of self centeredness, that all my problems, all my difficulties, my feelings of isolation, aloneness, my feelings of these are the direct consequences of self centeredness. There is also the indirect, just the direct, this feeling of fragmentation, having to be on guard, having to prove ourselves, guard our territory, having to the paranoia, the deception, the inauthenticity, are direct products of self centeredness. And then there are the indirect products of self centeredness. All the various unskillful actions that we do have as a primary motivating force self centeredness, killing, stealing, lying, sexual misconduct, all of them.
And so I know this, I’ve experienced this through my meditation to a certain degree, I have a strong feeling that in fact my biggest enemy is my own self centeredness. So there’s this person out there who has a problem and is suffering. And I can empathize with that difficulty. And I go through the process of developing compassion with different degrees. I begin with just a friendly thought, a nice warm feeling, a gentleness.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to experience that? And then I try to feel that as best I can, and I try to strengthen that. And the strength and feeling would be expressed in the words, may you not be experiencing that difficulty, that suffering. There’s a little more involvement, a little more intensity of my feeling toward that person, more caring. And then I strengthen that.
I’m going to take care of you, I’m going to take responsibility for your suffering, I’m going to take that suffering upon myself. And where am I going to put that suffering? I’m going to put that suffering where it belongs, and my own self centeredness. Taking in that suffering in the form of thick black smoke, it comes down into one’s nostrils down, and we can visually imagine that our self centeredness in the form of a black egg at our heart. And then, so this person is no longer experiencing that present difficulty, that present suffering.
But still, they don’t have the counterpart, they’re as if in a neutral state. I want them to have happiness. Why? Because I know they want happiness just like myself, because they’re exactly equal to myself. I know that.
And how would I feel if I were simply in that neutral state when I needed that happiness, I longed for happiness? How would I feel? I could empathize with that person. And I know that the advantages of other centeredness, that all that is worthwhile, all that is desirable, all that is of quality within my existence comes about through going out of my normal usual boundaries, going beyond my conception of self and moving out into a wider sphere of others and sharing in their union and communion and communicating. We’ve all experienced this, so I can validate it within my own experience.
And so knowing the value of other cherishing, I as if transform imaginatively all my body even. As I’ve mentioned, the aspirations of the bodhisattva not only unimaginable but illogical. But that shouldn’t stop us, why stop with rationality? This is an area of feeling of the heart. And the feeling of the heart operates on the basis of belief in meaning, not on the basis of demonstration and proof.
So we can try, we can aspire from a heart, even though it’s illogical, to transform even my body, my positive energy, and all my possessions into a brilliant white light which flows upward and out and transforms into the counterpart of that previous difficulty bringing this person happiness. And maybe this person is sick, previously they were sick and you took on that sickness and now you’re giving them health, well-being, physical well-being. And then you share empathetically in their happiness and the joy that they feel. And again, thinking of some future suffering that this person might go through. Again, taking this on.
Again, giving it away, the counterpart. Again, the general quality of their life, not specific sufferings, but the themes of disappointment, frustration, dissatisfaction, which permeate their life. Get in touch with that, empathize with that, take that on, and then give them away all the various conditions which would bring them to spiritual fulfillment, to psychological peak experience, whatever we might want to call it, where they’re experiencing perfect, complete, eternal peace, and you share in that. And we take on the first in a form of thick black smoke, the present difficulty. The second, future difficulties, in the form of ferocious animals, lions, tigers, kind of just carrying to shreds your own self centeredness in the form of this black egg at your heart.
And the third we take on the form of weapons, daggers and knives and hammers and knives, and completely blow to smithereens, destroy completely this black egg of self centeredness at your heart. Now we’ve done this and it is said that upon gaining acquaintance, familiarity with this meditation, that once you’ve worked with it, then it is to be mounted on the breath. So we begin to do this in conjunction with the inhalation. Tonight we’re just going to practice it. But under normal circumstances and situations you should work with the visualization and developing these feelings until it comes readily.
And then once you’ve achieved that, then mount it on the breath. And this has the advantage that quality of taking on suffering, that is to say the compassionate state, and giving away happiness, that is to say love, becomes associated with our very breathing. Such that even our normal breathing becomes positive. It is as if the quality of the mind becomes compassionate upon the in breath and loving upon the out breath. And this is a bodhisattva, his very breathing, his very breath becomes for the benefit of all sentient beings, is the way that he trains his mind or her mind.
But anyway, we can work with this and try this. Tonight it will be a little bit premature, but it’s worthwhile becoming introduced to it, at least for this first time. So when you take on the thick black smoke, take it in on the breath and then breathe out happiness, the counterpart of that present suffering. And then again, take it on again in the form of breath, the present suffering. So you are completely convinced that this person is no longer suffering and completely convinced that this person has the present counterpart of that happiness.
And then work with the future suffering, and then work with the pervasive suffering. So taking on with the breath, comes up through the nostril and down, and then we breathe out the white light which transforms. Then we take on the suffering and we breathe out the white light. Let me try that. So begin with mindfulness of breathing.
Perhaps first get in touch with the body, if there are any tensions, any knots, tightnesses. And bringing your awareness to those areas and consciously relaxing, softening the muscles, the tightness. Nowhere to go, nothing to do for the next few minutes. Just give yourself over to this process. Relaxing the body.
It as if all the tensions move down and out, almost a physical sensation of all your physical difficulties, tightness moving down and out, and the body becomes comfortable. And bring your focus of your attention to the breath, the gentle, easy, even in and out of the breath. Bring your mind back to the breath. Soft body, gentle breath, quiet mind. Now imagine in front of you someone that you love, that you care a great deal for.
Think of some present difficulties and problems they may be now experiencing. And try to generate just a friendly thought. Wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have that difficulty, problem? Wouldn’t it be wonderful? And try to strengthen that.
May you not have that problem. May you not have that suffering. And then strengthen that. I’m going to take on that problem. I’m going to take responsibility for your difficulty.
I’m going to free you from it. Imagine that difficulty, that problem, that suffering, taking the form of a thick black smoke, and just breathing in naturally. Inhale all their problems, all their difficulties in the form of thick black smoke. It comes down and begins to eat away like acid, at the self centeredness at your heart. Take it in with your breath.
Still they aren’t happy. Wouldn’t it be nice if you were happy? May you be happy. I’m going to make you happy. Transform everything that you have, all your possessions, your body, to create a potential into a brilliant white light at your heart.
And breathe out. It transforms into the counterpart of that previous suffering, bringing them great happiness and joy. Keep breathing out the red white light, bringing happiness until you get a sense that they really are made happy, until you’re convinced that they’re happy. And then share empathetically if you’re happy. Someone you love is happy.
Now think of some possible future suffering, dissatisfaction, mental or physical that they may have to undergo. Something’s bound to come in the future. Wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to undergo that? I wish you didn’t have to suffer. May you not suffer.
I’m going to free you from that suffering. And take on their suffering from the forms of all types of ferocious beasts, which stream upward as you breathe in and down, tearing the shreds of self centeredness at your heart. Taking their suffering until they have no longer any future suffering. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you had happiness. May you have that happiness.
Going to bring you that happiness. Transforming all that is valuable to you, to brilliant white light which goes out with your breath, transforms into future happiness. Again and again, breathe out this future happiness until you’re convinced now they’re happy. And then share in your happiness. Someone you love is happy.
Then think about the overall dissatisfactory quality of their life, the themes of disappointment and frustration reoccurring throughout their life. Wouldn’t it be nice, it be wonderful if they didn’t have to go through that anymore? May you never have to suffer again. I’m going to completely free you from all suffering. Taking on their difficulties, these reoccurring patterns of frustration, disappointment in the form of various types of weapons, knives and explosives, which come streaming up with your breath and down, completely obliterate the self centeredness at your heart, again and again taking on your suffering, again and again destroying your own self centeredness.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you had eternal peace, peace forever? May you have that peace. I’m going to bring it to you. Transforming everything that you hold valuable, that you hold dear, to bring it to white light which goes out with your breath, providing all the conditions, everything necessary for this person to find complete, ultimate peace.