Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A haunting passage from Carlos Castaneda — a lone dog barking at dusk, giving voice to a man’s buried dread of a life unlived — opens this 45-minute session by Ven Jampa Gendun. He uses it to establish the talk’s central argument: genuine spiritual growth requires first acknowledging an honest anxiety about our stagnant patterns, then voluntarily accepting the discomfort of change. He then gives detailed breath-meditation instructions using counting and noting, before launching a new series on equalizing and exchanging self for others, beginning with a guided meditation that invites practitioners to see loved ones, strangers, and rivals alike as feeling beings who, like themselves, simply want happiness. The session closes with a Dalai Lama passage arguing that compassion, not doctrine, is the true essence of all religion.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 OtE 1991 09 04.mp3
UUID: 32f6c101-229b-4117-ac07-e192c9a0492c
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Opening the Eye of New Awareness 1991-1992 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1991-09-04
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.4 minutes
Words: ~4,449
As usual, begin by adjusting our motivation. In this process of redefining our values or getting back in touch with our prime values of life, that those things that we have determined in the light of our own experience and wisdom that are viable for us as unique individuals. And they’re getting back in touch with that which works for us. And this process of redirecting ourselves or reprioritizing our values, reorientating ourselves involves two factors. One is anxiety and the other is faith.
Many of our emotions, is a healthy and an unhealthy counterpart to each. For example, with respect to anxiety, there are certain things which it’s healthy to be somewhat anxious about or somewhat fearful about that are quite reasonable. We can begin to differentiate between reasonable fears and unreasonable fears. Those which are unreasonable, we have to try our best to work through them. Those which are reasonable, we have to respect them because it’s an expression of some type of wisdom.
So this reorientating process arises out of a reasonable wisdom, out of a reasonable anxiety. There’s an anxiety about what? There’s a certain quality to our lives. Life is difficult. I think it’s a great lesson to believe that we aren’t unique in our difficulties.
The very fact of existence is difficult. The process of solving problems is painful, and life is beset by problems. And in the course of our life, that we’re going to have to change. And perhaps getting in touch with the feeling tone of our life, the quality of the patterns which constitute our life. I’ve read this a number of times, for me it expresses the mood of the quality of my life and I think most people’s lives because I don’t think my life is any different than your life, from what I know, from what I see and understand and have spoken to people about.
It’s the dialogue between Carlos Castaneda, a PhD graduate student from UCLA, Los Angeles, and a Yaqui Indian in northern Mexico, a man of knowledge. And they’re standing perhaps — I can only imagine — on a high plateau overlooking a valley. And in the distance, there’s a village. It’s growing toward evening. The sun’s going down.
There’s a gentle breeze blowing, becoming dark. And there’s the sound of a lone barking dog. Carlos Castaneda begins, ‘He paused. The silence around us was frightening. The wind hissed softly.
And then I heard the distant barking of a lone dog. Listen to that barking, Don Juan went on. That is the way my beloved Earth is helping me now to bring this last point to you. That barking is the saddest thing one can hear. We were quiet for a moment.
The barking of that lone dog was so sad and the stillness around us was so intense that I experienced a numbing anguish. It made me think of my own life, my sadness, my not knowing where to go or what to do. That dog’s barking is the nocturnal voice of a man, Don Juan said. It comes from a house in the valley towards the south. A man is shouting through his dog since they are companion slaves for life.
His sadness, his boredom. He’s begging his death to come and release him from a dull and dreary change of life. Don Juan’s words had caught a most disturbing chord in me. I felt he was speaking directly to me. That barking and the loneliness it creates speaks of the feelings of men, he went on.
Men for whom an entire life was like a Sunday afternoon, an afternoon which was not altogether miserable but rather hot and dull and uncomfortable. They sweated and fussed a great deal. They didn’t know where to go or what to do. That afternoon left them with only the memory of petty annoyances and tedium. And then suddenly it was over.
It was already night. In developing this motivation, getting in touch with this anxiety, that unless we change what has gone on in the past will continue into the future. What we’re saying essentially is out of all the various activities which you involve yourself in, all the various methods which you have learned, picked up along the way as means to find happiness to solve your problems, amongst this array of possible means to gain some happiness out of life. One essential component out of all of these out of significant relationships, meaningful work, stimulation, entertainment, is growth. Out of all these array of components, one significant component must be growth.
It is difficult to grow. This process of growth is quite painful. But it may be more difficult not to grow. It’s sometimes said, it’s difficult to be loving all the time. But in the end, it’s more difficult to never love at all.
We have to be willing to accept some legitimate suffering in this process of problem solving. That is to say, voluntarily accept legitimate suffering which is entailed in the process of growth. And we are never going to accept voluntarily legitimate suffering unless we’ve seen the necessity very deeply for ourselves that we have to change. We’re going to change. The situation is going to change.
But it can be simply another repetition of that which has gone in the past. There could be this continual cycling of neurotic impulsive patterns, patterns which have been instilled since childhood from birth, previous to birth. And we’re simply playing out the record. The avoidance of legitimate suffering is the basis of neurosis. And neurosis is painful.
So we have to change and we have to grow. And we have to develop the determination to be free. And we have to be willing to accept legitimate suffering in that process. If we don’t see that if we don’t change, then we’re going to suffer anyway. If we don’t value the if we don’t see the necessity of change over the continuance of our present way of life, if we don’t develop a sense of anxiety about this dissatisfactory, disappointing, frustrating way of existing and continuing, then we’re never going to be able to accept legitimate suffering.
We’re always going to base our life on the pleasure pain principle, which we have done up to now. Whatever is painful, we avoid it. If you want to grow, you have to be willing to enter voluntarily into painful and difficult situations, methods, implementing of means. And this only arises through a motivation by using your wisdom to see the necessity to change, to grow. And this is what this process of motivation is all about.
Getting in touch with our basic values and our basic situation in life and seeing the necessity to grow, to make growth a significant component of your ways and methods to deal with your life, to find the good things that we all want. So in this process, we go for refuge and we reorientate ourselves to Buddha in the sense that we take as our internal principle of growth, as our paradigm of what sanity is about. We orientate ourselves to Buddha, the Buddha within ourselves, someone who solved the problem of ordinary existence. And we go for refuge to the Dharma, the means to help us to grow. And we go for refuge to the spiritual community, those who assist us in our growth, in implementing the methods of growth.
And we seek to raise the level of motivation such that we’re going to grow not only for ourselves, but we’re going to grow in order to help others to do the same. 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. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and highest assembly. And 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.
I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma in the highest assembly. From 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. So we’re going to begin with meditation. And we begin with the simple meditation of mindfulness of breathing. And I think last week I talked about counting.
I? Did I talk about counting? Yeah? Good. So we’re developing in the process of mindfulness.
I don’t want to go over and over the same ground again but I would like to emphasize the necessity of developing an attitude toward what we do. It’s not so much what we do which is our value. It’s our attitude toward what we do, our motivation, The whole complex of intention and the quality of our being that we bring to a situation, which is more important. There’s a story in the movie I liked very much, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Very old, I think.
It was about, anyway, late the early 80s. It was by Ken Kesey, who wrote the book. And in his book, the star was in a mental institution. And these people, they had lost all their will to live. I mean, in the sense that they had become automatons, robots.
And there was no life, There was no exuberance. Everything was going out of them. They had been socialized, institutionalized. They just did exactly what the nurse told them to do. In the bathroom, in the washroom, there was this large porcelain basin.
And it was obviously extremely heavy. And the star of the movie, the star in this situation, So he was taking bets that he could lift this and carry it so far. And everybody was pooh poohing, ‘Ah, you can’t do it, dude, you can’t do it.’ And he bet all his money, every cent he had. And he took his feet and he strained and he struggled. He could see the sinews of his arms breaking out of the flesh, as much power as they could put into it.
And they were laughing at him. And he tried again and they were rolling on the floor laughing more and more at him at a struggle against an impossibility. And he tried once more. Finally, he fell on the floor exhausted. And they all laughed at him.
But he said, at least I tried. In Zen Buddhism, there are four principles. Though all sentient beings are innumerable, I vow to liberate them all. Though the Dharma is immeasurable, I vow to attain it all. If it’s immeasurable, how can we achieve it?
If sentient beings are innumerable, how can we liberate them all? But to try is the point. This is the way we live our life. To say I can do it, to say if it’s possible, that’s not Buddhism. Buddhism is a way of life, an attitude.
So this attitude, in a way — why limit ourselves? The Bodhisattvas have many goals which are completely unimaginable, not only unimaginable but illogical. They cannot be achieved. But that doesn’t stop the Bodhisattva from aspiring to this goal. This is the way of life of a bodhisattva. And this is something which has gone out most of our lives.
Whether we can achieve it or not is not the point. It is the point of trying which makes the difference. So even in the sense of simple minded meditation of mindfulness and breathing, we can bring something to it, an attitude of being, an attitude of presence. Watching your breath is of no great significance. It’s not going to change your life.
But the attitude that you bring to that situation, to that context of watching your breath could change your life, and will change your life. You’re there. You’re in the moment, in the present. For once in your life, you know what you’re doing. You know that you’re breathing in.
You probably never have been that clear about anything in your life. And you acknowledge the fact that I’m breathing in. You’re breathing out and you know that you’re breathing out. And you acknowledge that fact that I’m breathing out. A simple minded way to become sane.
Most of our thinking is pathological. The intellect is an extremely valuable tool in its proper place. But we should have a whole array of tools available to us for different situations, for different purposes. If a carpenter only had a hammer, he wouldn’t get very far. And so we have to be able to set aside the pathological thinking process from time to time and use it appropriately.
We’re going to use during the course of bringing your being to this situation for five minutes of watching your breath, is going to spill over into the rest of your life. You’re going to be there with another person when that person is talking to you. You’re going to be there when that sunset is going down or when you have to do your job, work at your job or cook your meal. There’s a quality to your life. It’s very intangible, subtle, this thing called quality of one’s being, of life.
And we’ve overlooked it. Process of meditation is rerouting our sense of identity from becoming, having, maintaining, using, manipulating, owning to one of being. It’s great just to be. We can survive beautifully by doing nothing. So in this process, technically we’re developing two mental factors, that of mindfulness and awareness.
And to help assist us in the development of this mental factor of mindfulness, we’re using the technique of counting. Simply the natural breath, breathing in, breathing out, counting one, mentally, not verbally, mentally, one and out, two and out, three and out, one through six, one through seven, one through eight, one through nine, one through ten. To help us, we’re going to develop the factor of awareness. We use the technique of noting. Noting is simply mentally noting, acknowledging, reporting what your mind is involved in from moment to moment.
Just gently and quietly noting what is the object of my mind at this particular moment in time. Hopefully it’s your breath. Not hopefully, but anyway. It may be your breath. Most of the time, it probably is your breath.
Breathing in, we know that we’re breathing in. We note. In. Know something and I acknowledge it. I know I’m breathing in.
Breathing out, we know that we’re breathing out. We note out. So now we have this rhythm. Have in, out, one, in, out, two, in, out, three. Now it’s definite that your mind is going to wander, it’s going to be distracted.
The moment you become aware of distraction, simply note without judgment, without finishing the fantasy or the shopping list or whatever it was that you got caught up in. Simply note, hearing. Somebody’s walking around the hall. Your mind wandered off your breath. Ah, hearing.
You’re wanting. You’re not wanting. And it is a thought. You don’t have to identify what you’re thinking. It can be simply an object of your awareness, like any other object.
And you can simply acknowledge it. Thought, thinking, you’re not one, you’re not two, sinking, you’re not one, you’re not your pain in your knee. We don’t have to identify my pain, it’s simply pain. Inout one, inout one, inout inout sinking. So a course of one of these meditation, if it were to be done out loud, run something like, in out one, in out sinking, in out one, in out two, sinking, in out one, in out two, hearing, in out one, sinking, in out one, pain, sinking, pain, pain, and out one, and thinking, and out hearing, pain.
Anyway, all the time you’re aware, you’re there. That’s a great lesson to learn in itself. If you never get to five, it doesn’t matter. That’s fantastic to be there in the present moment rather than existing in the fantasies of the future or memories of the past. And then after so we’ll proceed in mindfulness of breathing, then we’re going to begin a series of mediteachings on one of the two methods for the development of the awakening heart opening our hearts to others.
There are said to be three principles of the path. The path is that which takes you from an ordinary person where we are right now to our paradigm of sanity, this awakened state, this optimum mode of being. And those Three Principal Aspects are this determination to be free, awakening our hearts and the wisdom seeing deeply into the nature of reality. So we’re passing through different mediteachings and there are two methods to develop the awakening heart. This is, technically speaking, an altruistic aspiration to achieve highest enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings, which is a lot to say and it’s a lot to do.
But perhaps we can bring it down to the level of developing some sense of real compassion and real caring for ourselves and other people through this system of what is called exchange of self for others. There are two systems, two meditative traditions. One is called the sevenfold cause and effect instruction, one meditative tradition, and the other is called equalizing and exchanging self for others. And we’re going to go through this series of equalizing and exchanging self for others. It involves a series of meditations based upon developing a sense of equality of self and others on that foundation.
We then go on to cultivate an understanding of the disadvantages of self centeredness, the advantages of other centeredness. Then there’s meditation on the actual exchange of self for others. And then there’s the meditative technique which is a visualization process of giving and taking. We’re going to begin with this meditation on equality of self and others. And it’s a very complicated way of going through this.
There’s the equality of self from others from the point of view of other side, from our own side, from the ultimate point of view. But simply knows, to simplify the meditation, we’re going to look at it. We want to get the sense of the equality of myself and others. That’s all. And it may sound simple minded but it’s not.
Everybody in this room, behind those differences of superficial appearances, male, female, old, young, rich, poor, educated, high educated, exactly like me. I want to be happy. I don’t want to suffer. Everybody in this room is the same way. Rationally, you may agree, but feelingly, emotionally, when you relate with people, you objectify them.
You dehumanize them in order to make them an object of your use. You’re no longer able to see that individual as a feeling being. Even your best friend, even your lover is something for your use, generally speaking. Everything is laid at the altar of our own egos. Everyone has to be dehumanized in order for us to use them.
The moment we remind ourselves that this is a feeling human being, just like myself, it’s very difficult for us to use them, to hurt them. So in order to hurt someone, in order to use them for our own ends, have to desensitize ourselves. We have to dehumanize, depersonalize. We have to make that person into an almost an inanimate object, a form out there for my benefit, for my use. So this is getting back in touch with the sense that all those beings out there have feelings.
And those feelings are just like mine. They want to be happy. They don’t want to suffer. So we’re going to do that. So if you take a comfortable, firm posture, we’ll begin with mindfulness of breathing.
Okay, so I’m using the techniques of noting and counting if it’s useful, if it’s helpful. And think of someone that you love and that you have a very close relationship with. And try to see this person anew. Try to see that they have their own dreams, their own hopes completely apart from you, your interests, that they want to be happy, that they don’t want to suffer. Try to see them aside from your personal interests, your personal needs, or what they can do for you, that their happiness will bring to you, just the happiness for themselves.
They have their own agendas, their own issues, their own struggles, their own hopes, aspirations, just like you. Try to see them anew, out of new eyes, a human being with feelings. Now, if you’re a man, think about women. If you’re a woman, think about men, how they have their unique problems, each to their own. Women have their unique problems.
Men have their unique problems. They want to be happy no matter how you might feel about either of them. They want to be happy. They don’t want to suffer. And if you’re materially well off, think of someone who lives in poverty.
And if you’re not materially well off, think of a rich person. Again, don’t dehumanize them. Just put them in a category. We try to give them a life by thinking they want to be happy. They don’t want to suffer just like myself.
They have feelings just like myself. Think of someone extremely beautiful, handsome. We go beyond that. They want to be happy. They don’t want to suffer.
They’re feeling beings, essentially. Think of someone very powerful to go beyond that. If someone there wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer. A human being. And think about the person sitting near you, next to you, behind you, in front of you.
That person wants to be happier. That person doesn’t want to suffer. It’s a feeling being sitting next to you, near you, behind you. Think of someone who’s giving you some problems, an enemy, someone you don’t like. And just for a little moment, set aside those feelings and try to see someone just like yourself, trying the best they can to get some happiness out of life, oftentimes being very confused about how to go about it and making lots of mistakes.
Just like yourself. Someone there who wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer just like yourself. And then lastly, as best you can, generate the thought, the feeling that everyone, every sentient life wants happiness and doesn’t want to suffer just like myself. We’re all equal. We’re going through His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s book, Opening the Eye of New Awareness.
And in the first chapter, he talks about the need for religion and spiritual practice as the means to find both temporal and ultimate happiness, both in the present and future lives. And we talked about the way in which perhaps spiritual practice can help us with our temporal problems and the ultimate solution, liberation, both in the present. And we talked about some of the proofs for the existence of future lives last week. Talking about the fact that life is difficult, which is a great lesson to be learned. There’s nothing wrong with us in particular. Everybody is very much going through the same things that each of us are going through.
The process of problem solving is painful. And in the course of the source of our problems is our own mind. Religion or spiritual practice is the most far reaching of problem solving methods because it is the most profound means of changing the mind. That’s its function. That’s the need for it as a means to solve our problems through transforming our mind.
In talking about the essence of religion or spiritual practice, there’s another book by the Dalai Lama which is called Kindness, Clarity, and Insight, a group, a selection of his talks he gave in the United States a number of years ago. The development of love and compassion is basic, and I usually say that this is the main message of religion. When we speak of religion, we need not refer to deeper philosophical issues. Compassion is the real essence of religion. If you try to implement, to practice compassion, then as a Buddhist, even if you do not place much emphasis on the Buddha, it is all right.
For a Christian, if you try to practice this love, there is no need for much emphasis on other philosophic matters. I say this in a friendly way. The important thing is that in your daily life you practice the essential things. And on that level, there is hardly any difference between Buddhism, Christianity, or any other religion. All religions emphasize betterment, improving human beings, a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood, love.
These things are common. Thus, if you consider the essence of religion, there is not much difference. I myself feel and also tell other Buddhists that the question of nirvana will come later. There is not much hurry. But if in your day to day life you lead a good life honestly, with love, with compassion, with less selfishness, then automatically it will lead to nirvana.
Opposite to this, if you talk about nirvana, talk about philosophy, but do not bother much about day to day practice. Then you may reach a strange nirvana, but it will not reach the correct nirvana because your daily practice is nothing. We must implement these good teachings in daily life. Whether you believe in God or not does not matter so much. Whether you believe in Buddha or not does not matter so much.
As a Buddhist, whether you believe in reincarnation or not does not matter so much. You must lead a good life. And a good life does not mean just good food, clothes, good shelter. These are not sufficient. A good motivation is what is needed.
Compassion without dogmatism, without complicated philosophy, Just understanding that others are human brothers and sisters and respecting their rights and their human dignity. That we humans can help each other is one of our unique human capacities. We must share in each other’s suffering. Even if you cannot help with money, to show concern, to give moral support, and express sympathy are themselves valuable. This is what we should be.
This is what should be the basis of activities. Whether or not one calls it religion or not does not matter.