Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute commentary, Ven Jampa Gendun presents nine reasons why Buddhist teachings divide into three collections — discourses, Vinaya, and Abhidharma — organized around three obstacles: holding mistaken views as supreme, afflictive doubt, and extreme behavior, each collection being the antidote to one. He cites the Buddha’s goldsmith analogy — test teachings by reason, not devotion — and distinguishes creative doubt, which loosens fixed assumptions about the self, from the paralyzing self-doubt that stalls commitment. He then covers the three higher trainings: ethics as a pragmatic tool to reduce inner conflict rather than moral obligation; meditation that targets the root of ignorance rather than inducing trance; and wisdom that penetrates ultimate reality. The session closes by situating all eighty-four thousand teachings within this structure and pointing to the Lamrim as their condensed form.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 14 OtE 1991 09 25.mp3
UUID: 320f920f-9fbb-4cad-955b-4a4c17cf1136
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Opening the Eye of New Awareness 1991-1992 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1991-09-25
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.3 minutes
Words: ~4,800
These three scriptural collections. There’s three reasons in terms of objects of abandonment, three reasons in terms of training, and three reasons in terms of objects to know. So in total nine reasons why there are these three scriptural collections. So the first of these three reasons is the three in terms of three objects to be abandoned. So we have these three collections of the Buddhist teachings.
There are different ways, different reasons why we make this categorization into three. The first one is three reasons in terms of objects to be abandoned. What are the objects to be abandoned? The objects to be abandoned are the afflictive doubt, extreme behavior, and holding one’s own mistaken views as the best or supreme. Afflicted doubt, mistaken views, and extreme behaviors and holding one’s mistaken views as the supreme of the best. So you know the reason that this comes about, why these are taken as objects of abandonment is because in traveling a spiritual path there are going to be many obstacles.
There are many hindrances in spiritual development. At the very outset if we, you know if we stubbornly hold onto our mistaken views as the best, even if they’re not working. And then perhaps we have a lot of time, energy, emotional investment in our particular way of thinking, our particular view. And even though they might, if they may not be working, we hold on to with our last bit of strength. That if we stubbornly hold on to our mistaken view that way then this will act as an obstacle to finding a way which really works.
We’re not going to be open to the valid method to really deal with our problems in a very practical way. So holding onto what a mistaken view as being supreme, as it actually working when in fact they may not be precludes precludes us from actually acknowledging a work of a path which might help us to solve our problem. So even if one were to find a path, some unmistaken method which really worked, then if we have afflictive doubt, that is if we’re frozen with indecisiveness, if we’re paralyzed, unable to make any sort of commitment whatsoever, then even if we find a path we’re not able to enter into it in any wholehearted manner. There’s always holding back. There’s always a lack of commitment.
So afflicted doubt holds us back from wholeheartedly giving ourselves over to working with the path. So it acts as a hindrance to actually entering into the path even if we find one. But even if we found a path and even if we have come to some sort of conviction that this is workable, this suits me very well and it’s not mistaken. We’ve gone beyond our own mistaken views, we’ve gone beyond our hesitation through doubt and indecisiveness. But even then, if we apply the practices unskillfully, that is to say if we get caught up in extreme behavior then this will serve as an obstacle to actually traveling the path.
So there are these three possibilities in general in working with any spiritual method. That we won’t even look for a path even by holding our own view, our own concept of being supreme even if they aren’t working for us. Even upon one finding some method that might work that actually is valid that we’re going to be indecisive and be paralyzed and actually not commit ourselves to working with this new system and even if we go beyond doubt and decide from it, that if we aren’t able to apply those practices skillfully but we involve ourselves with extreme measures, then all of these serve as obstacles to actually traveling a spiritual path. So each of the three scriptural collections help to overcome the obstacles of finding, entering into, and traveling a spiritual path. So the scriptural collection of discourses, that’s the discourses sūtra is an antidote to doubt.
There are many subjects of Buddhism such as the aggregates that we discussed, the constituents, sources, four noble truths, dependent arising, the stages of the path, the perfections, all of the various practices. These are very clearly set out in the sutras in these discourses. If we’re willing to study them, through studying these subjects we can come to our own conclusions by means of our reasoning and experience as to the nature of our problems and the means of how we can solve this problem. That we can validate that because the path is very clearly set out, all of the subjects, of the topics. And so there’s no need to we clear up our doubt if we’re willing to work at it, to think about us, to use our reasoning, to use our experience.
So it is in this way that indecisiveness and hesitation is overcome. You know if we simply if we don’t involve ourselves, the method especially Buddhism, requires an involvement in the sense that we have to actualize, we have to discover the path for ourselves. We have to rediscover everything that the Buddha discovered for him and herself. We have to make that discovery. The Buddhists do not wash away sins with water nor do they remove suffering with their hands nor do they transmit their realization from their minds to the minds of others.
But by the showing of truth all will be made free. That’s all a Buddha can do. That’s a great deal. By showing you the way things are as clearly as possible, as skillfully as possible trying to communicate that. But there has to be something from the side of the student.
There has to be some work, some involvement, some investigation, some initiative from the side of the student. If We simply, if it were possible it would have been done before. If in fact it were possible that somehow a Buddha could reach in your mind and change it, somehow manipulate it to make it okay. It cannot be done. It’s our own individual responsibility.
And we have to find this key to open the teachings up for ourselves, involve ourselves in investigation. And the Buddha, there’s a quotation from the Buddha in which he said, Oh bhikshus, just as a goldsmith tests gold by melting, cutting and rubbing, so too should a sage accept my teachings after full examination and not just out of devotion to me. So he was the first to say you know I don’t want you to accept my teachings out of devotion to me because that isn’t going to solve your problem. However nice it may make you feel, it’s not going solve the basic problems of ignorance, of attachment, of hatred. There can be no dogma.
There can no we cannot we have to question everything, involve ourselves in analysis in the light of our wisdom. That is how we develop our wisdom by using it, by exercising it. So in terms of doubt there is this positive, neutral and negative doubt. And here we’re talking about afflictive doubt. A negative doubt.
You know to come to doubt whether things truly exist or not, whether there is a concrete solid I, self or not, This is a very powerful doubt. This doubt it is said can shakes the very foundations of ego based existence. You know doubt is, you need to really doubt as to whether this building, whether this table truly exists or not, whether it inherently exists or not, independently exists or not. To have that doubt in your mind is tremendously powerful and it takes a great deal of work to come to that simple doubt. And now we perhaps, if we’re lucky, we have an assumption and we have to go beyond our assumption by analysis, investigation, by question and come to an actual doubt.
Doubt is a very fluid and open state. The mind can go anywhere. It’s not fixed anymore. We are at present running along the lines of grooves of our past pattern, conceiving things to truly existent. And to lift ourselves out of that is ruts, requires tremendous energy and motivation.
But once we create that doubt then the mind is in a flux. It’s pliable. It can be worked. Doubt is a very creative state, positive doubt. Then there’s neutral doubt.
You know I can doubt as to whether the Crows are going to win the premiership next year or something like that. It doesn’t make much difference. It’s neither here nor there. Then there’s negative doubt. Negative doubt actually hinders.
It paralyzes us. It keeps us from wholeheartedly practicing. And thereby it keeps us from attaining our goal. And I think you know when there’s doubt about ourselves, about what we’re doing then there’s very little progress. There’s very little that can be achieved.
And I think we all know this, the feelings of self doubt that we have. There’s an expression in the bible. One’s eyes behold. If if one will we’re always we’re split to finish. We’re always scattered.
We’re always divided within ourselves in whatever we do. We never are able to do anything wholeheartedly. We doubt whether we can or we doubt what we’re doing is really worth the wholehearted commitment. There’s never a wholesomeness about it, a wholeness, a completely giving over. And this limits us.
We never and out of this, nothing of significance is achieved. So the the scriptural collection of sets of discourses helps us to overcome, remove this doubt. Then there’s a scriptural collection of discipline of Vinaya. And this is the antidote to extreme behavior. Essentially, there’s essentially two types of extreme behavior.
One is asceticism and the other one is indulgence. So the scriptural collection of discipline sets out boundaries of behavior so that so that one no longer is subject to to the wild swings of you know it doesn’t matter or I’ve got to do it perfectly or die. This self you know, it’s like creating some kind of discipline and discipline. It’s very easy to twist things into into an unhealthy fashion to make them just another something to beat yourself with or on the other hand, it doesn’t matter at all. You know to try to find some kind of middle road between our habitual laziness, self indulgence, and on the other hand, as extreme extremism that we quite often fall to, I have to do it perfectly.
Giving ourselves a hard time. You know, this, the scriptural collection of Vinaya helps us to develop a disciplined discipline to avoid the extremes of either indulgence or asceticism. In the scriptural collection of manifest knowledge, is the antidote to holding one’s own mistaken views as best as supreme. You know, I’ve said, as I’ve said many times, that we have many beliefs, ideas, notions, views which are in fact mistaken. And these mistaken views and ideas serve as a basis for our many inappropriate ways in relating to the world.
And out of this inappropriate relationship arises disappointment, frustration and dissatisfaction. So, all of this involves conflict, frustration, dissatisfaction. Most of these beliefs, ideas, and views are at present unconscious, not aware of them. So our job is to bring to conscious awareness our mistaken conceptions that we all harbor, that we all have and begin to in light of our wisdom contradict them and transform them. But if on the other hand if we hold what is in fact mistaken, what is a mistaken view to be not mistaken.
If we hold it to be the best view then there’s no hope. Then it’s never going to be transformed and therefore we’re never going to go beyond the inappropriate behavior, thinking upon which it’s based upon. There’s a quotation which reads, These rundown views come from intellectual plague. It must dawn in you that there are huge roving bands of false ideals strangling the world. False religious views, false racial views, false sexual views all abound.
If you don’t see this clearly, you will never understand what you must break free from. So though it’s difficult, we have to always be willing to examine what we hold to be true and be open to the possibility that some of our most cherished but unexamined views could be wrong. And that we this is that we have to have the faith to doubt. As mentioned previously, Buddhism holds that the truth is therapeutic. That’s all we want to know is the truth.
The Dalai Lama has said this. That if science beyond reasonable doubt comes to a conclusion which is in contradiction to Buddhism and that the scientific conclusion is based upon facts and preponderance of evidence that we must abandon the Buddhist view and accept that. Not because it’s science, not because it’s western, not because it’s anything but the truth. The truth is what makes you free and that’s what we want to know whether we, if that comes in the guise of Buddhism or science, plant or whatever. The nature of truth is that the closer that you the more you analyze it, the closer that you come to it, the more obvious it becomes.
So obvious that you begin to wonder why you never saw it before. It was just sticking out there before you like a film that you overlooked it. And the nature of falsehood is that the more you analyze it, the closer you come to it, the more indistinct and unclear it becomes until it vanishes and you see that it is false. You see that it was not the case. So you know we find happiness and freedom in terms of unmistaken beliefs, unmistaken ideas and views.
And we can’t we cannot brainwash ourselves into happiness. This is I think why you know, as I said that Buddhism is very pragmatic and is very concerned about happiness. And it’s saying that there is a way of relating with reality and whatever that might be such that we can find happiness. That’s the value of a correct view. It’s not something that’s it’s not an idle speculation for philosophy but it’s based within our own existential desire for happiness that we have to come to the truth if we want to be happy.
The closer we approximate it to that same degree that much happier, that less suffering we’re going to experience. And this is the rationale behind Buddhism. So in the scriptural collection of manifest knowledge, all the very specific characteristics of phenomena and the very general characteristics of phenomena, for example, of impermanence, selflessness, dissatisfactoriness. These are all very in great detail set out. And this helps us overcome our mistaken view as being the best because we begin to see that some of our views are mistaken in fact.
So these are the first three of the nine reasons for positing three scriptural categories. That each of them acts as an antidote to one of the three afflicted emotions. That the sets of discourses act as an antidote to doubt. The scriptural collection of discipline acts as an antidote to extreme behavior. And the scriptural collection of abhidharma, manifest knowledge acts as an antidote to holding one’s own mistaken views as supreme.
So there’s been the second set of three reasons. Regarding three scriptural categories. So this involves this is done in terms of three trainings: the trainings in ethics, trainings in meditative stabilization and training in wisdom. And usually these are termed higher or special training. Each of these trainings, these three trainings, the training in ethics, training in meditative stabilization and training in wisdom is going to be taken up in turn in the next three chapters.
So ethics essentially is refraining from harming. Harming both oneself and others. It’s a way we can dig into it’s a way of avoiding the conflict with such types of actions precipitate. You know what, one of the characteristics of ego is conflict. One of the essential fundamental experiences of ego is conflict.
And the path is designed to pacify conflict and therefore the basis of all our problems. And we can begin on a course level by involving ourselves in ethics. Again, we are not we do not practice ethics to be good, to be nice people. We practice it as a means to go beyond suffering. It’s pragmatic.
We’re not trying to please anyone in this regard. We’re not even trying perhaps to please anybody else other than to help ourselves solve our problems. It is on this basis that we practice ethics. We have to you know ethics practiced on any other basis is simply going to be another burden for you. It’s going to be a hassle.
You know if we understand what is if we can begin to understand the nature of ego and that ethics is a way of helping us to solve our problems, then we will be naturally inclined to involve ourselves in ethical conduct. Otherwise, it sounds like somebody’s laying a trip on us. Know, the church or whatever. Trying to trying to make us into Good boys and girls. Manageable.
Manageable people. So ethics, it represents the initial stage in creating an atmosphere of harmony. The initial stage in creating an atmosphere of harmony both between oneself and others and within oneself. And trying to create harmony within oneself. And this is becoming more and more apparent in psychotherapy, in contemporary psychotherapy.
That ethics is mentally healthy. There is a basis of mental health to the practice of ethics. People who practice ethics are happier people. Their minds are more at peace. So the way we can begin to find harmony within ourselves, within our mind, between ourselves and others.
You know through training the mind in meditative stabilization depends upon training in ethics. Through ethics the gross internal conflicts of the mind are pacified. We begin to experience some peace of mind on a gross level through the practice of ethics. And dependent upon that gross level of pacifying, this gross conflict being pacified, we can then go on to practice meditative stabilization in which we are able to pacify more subtle conflict within the mind, more subtle disturbances, agitations within the mind. Without first pacifying the gross conflict, the gross disturbances within the mind, there’s no way that we can begin to pacify more subtle disturbances and conflict within the mind which Meditative Stabilization is designed to do.
So on the basis of ethics we can practice Meditative Stabilization. On the basis of Meditative Stabilization we can then go into practice wisdom which is the ultimate means to eliminate completely from its very root the fundamental disturbing factor of the mind, mis-knowledge or ignorance. The misconception as to the nature of reality. This is the source of all our dissatisfaction. So it’s a gradual working down to more subtle levels of conflict within the mind.
Through ethics those conflicts within the mind can be pacified. in dependence upon that we can practice meditative stabilization and pacify more subtle levels of conflict within the mind. And depending upon that we can go on to practice wisdom which is able to pacify the subtle most conflict within the mind. These are the three higher trainings and each depends upon the prior ones. So all of the topics of the three scriptural collections are included either directly or indirectly in the practices of these three trainings.
You know as was mentioned each of the three trainings is termed higher or special. For example, you know, how does this terminology come about? Why are they called higher or special? Within the ethics set forth within Buddhism is said to be higher or special. Because ethics is directly or indirectly brings about benefit to oneself and others.
Ethics brings about directly or indirectly benefit to oneself or others. There are said to be in contrast to this there are other systems of ethics which not only do not bring about benefit either to oneself or others but actually doing harm. For example, there’s some systems of ethics in some Indian religion where they sit between the five fires. You know they sit in a fire in front and back and right and left and the sun over overhead as a means of asceticism. This a practice of ethics.
There are some practices where they stand on one leg for years and years and years until it atrophies and they can no longer walk. And they close their hands for years and years and years and the fingernails grow out the back of their hands. You know the practice of self flagellation, laying on the beds of nails. These are all ethical practices. But it’s said they are, from the point of view of Buddhism they not only are of no benefit, they actually cause harm.
So from this point of view the practice of ethics Buddhism is said to be higher or special in that it only benefits and in no way harms. And the meditative stabilization set forth in Buddhism are said to be higher or special. Because they are not meditation and this is perhaps an attitude of difference which perhaps is useful to look into. That meditation is not an end in itself.. You know when I discuss meditation to beginners, say there’s various motivations for us being here.
From the bottom, from one end of the scale we come to help us to be able to relax. And our minds are agitated. We simply want little peace of mind. Okay, that’s okay. And then there’s the from that point up to we want to use meditation to become Buddha, to become a happy, loving, healthy, sane human being.
And between there there’s all various possibilities running the gamut of motivation possibilities. But strictly speaking, meditation is not an end in itself. It’s a tool. In the sense that it’s not, meditation is not seen as some sort of temporary escape from our problems. It’s not trying to induce some kind of trance state so we can be numb for a while.
You know it’s intended to serve as an antidote to the affliction and misconception. That’s why people meditate. It’s a way of doing rather than thinking about. It’s a way of integrating, transforming the mind. Some systems of Meditative Stabilization serve simply to induce sort of a dull sense of well-being.
And they’re not able to really solve our ongoing problems in any practical way. Because Buddhist meditation is meant to serve as a tool for helping us to work with our problems, they are said to be higher than those systems which employ merely trances, merely trying to induce some of dull sense of well-being that in fact don’t work with your problems in any real practical way. Therefore it’s the Buddhist meditative stabilization that term to be higher and special. Then there’s the wisdom. The wisdom set forth in Buddhism is said to be higher or special because it is able to eliminate the very root of our problem, the misconception as to the nature of the self.
You know many other systems of wisdom though they’re able to explain very well the conventional reality and how your mind might be operating, the world about it. But they’re they they still remain upon the surface of things. They do not penetrate deeply into the ultimate nature of our mind and the world about it. And therefore they do not possess the liberative quality of being able to transform the mind at the deepest seat of the mind at its very root. They’re not able to uproot completely our neurotic compulsive patterns.
They cannot be cured. And that’s where they become well adjusted individuals. Because the wisdom set forth in Buddhism directly directs itself at towards both the conventional level of reality and the ultimate level of reality. It is said to be higher than the systems of wisdom which simply direct themselves with the conventional. The mundane, the superficial.
So in terms of these three scriptural collections, the scriptural collection of the sets of discourses is posited from the point of view of taking these three trainings as its subject matter. So the set of discourses takes these three trainings. Ethics, meditative stabilization and wisdom as its subject. The scriptural collection of discipline is posited for the purpose of achieving the training in ethics and meditative stabilization. It sets out actual practical means.
How I can apply ethics in my everyday life. How I can go about developing meditative stabilization. And then thirdly, the scriptural collection of manifest knowledge, Abhidharma, is posited for the purpose of achieving the higher training in wisdom. Then we’re going to come to the last three. The third set of reasons for positing these three scriptural collections is in terms of objects to be known.
So these are the subjects which are to be known which are explained mainly in each of the three scriptural scriptural categories, collections. The scriptural collection of sets of discourses for the purpose of explaining the means for attaining human life, human existence, a life possessing all of the supportive conditions for carrying out our practice of spiritual practice. And then, and the means for attaining the goal of spiritual life, liberation. This is mainly what is set forth in the scriptural collection of discourses. The scriptural collection of disciplines are for the purpose of gaining actual experience of these means by teaching how to apply these in our ethical conduct which acts as a basis for the realization.
Ethical conduct is the basis for the gaining the realization of a human life and the ultimate goal of spiritual liberation. And then the scriptural collection of manifest knowledge for the purpose of understanding well the meaning of all the various doctrines set forth. So all of these eighty four thousand teachings are set forth are essentially method and wisdom. Means and wisdom. And these all are included in these three scriptural collections.
Discourses and discipline and manifest knowledge. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s the in that sense we’re quite fortunate in that the graduated path, the Lam Rim, is sort of the condensation of these eighty four thousand teachings into a system which can be practiced by one individual.
Think of it in terms of the graduated path, the systematic presentation of initially how we enter into the path and then how it’s practiced and the goal of the path. So by studying, reading about the the graduated path, and practicing that, and it’s like studying, reading, practicing. Essentially, want to you know, it’s good to take this by perspective. We want to develop three things, determination to be free, an awakening heart, and seeing deeply into the nature of reality. So however we all of these teachings, eighty four thousand teachings, they all relate to these three principles of the path, these three central themes of the path.
We have to develop the determination to be free, to grow, or we won’t be moved to do anything. We have to be want to develop ourselves, see the absolute necessity for change. And then how are we to change? What is the direction of our growth? Our growth is in terms of the direction of outwardly opening our hearts to others and inwardly going to the depth of the nature of our mind.
There are many, many, many highly realized lay practitioners living today and in the past who were family, who had a family, supportive family, had a job, shared in business. Now there are many, many, many biographies of great masters who were lay practitioners and had families. So, it’s not, it’s just a matter of inclination perhaps. There’s many lessons to be learned in the context of a family which aren’t available to someone living single and vice versa. You can have the advantages and disadvantages.
And so according to one’s disposition, one’s karma, What to do? Yeah, I guess what you really have to do a rigorous examination of whatever it is you’re doing, whatever it is you’re about and whatever it is you’re studying and looking into. Do you know what I mean? And then I mean for example in have traditionally said that in taking a spiritual teacher there’s an examination process which goes on to ten years. You know you’re watching him.
Does he say what he does? Does he do what he says? What are his students like? You you watch him in various situations and you check up Doubt is generally it’s a mind which isn’t too moving, which is not too pointed.