Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Jampa Gendun opens this 44-minute talk by admitting he has no prepared subject — an audience member suggests “mind and reality” — and what follows is a candid, freewheeling comparison of Buddhist epistemology with Western psychology. He identifies two root errors shared by both traditions: clinging to permanence (illustrated through marriage, relationships, and the denial of death) and the belief in a fixed, independent self. He explains how both errors drive attachment and aversion, and introduces the concept of dependent arising — that pleasurable qualities are projected by the mind, not inherent in objects. Drawing on Maslow, he argues that Western therapy offers practical tools for building the stable ego that Buddhist practice then works to transcend. The talk closes with a Q&A on working with attachment. Suitable for general audiences with no prior Buddhist background.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 1988 03 16 Lade Hall 1.mp3
UUID: 539617fe-aff3-471f-a6e6-a23fb199a036
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Public talks 1988-2010 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1988-03-16
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.6 minutes
Words: ~5,343
I have no idea what I’m going to talk about. I’m open to suggestions. Yes. What what was it? Mind and reality.
Oh, that’s pretty heavy. Who does it in Western psychology? Who does it in Western psychology? Like one of those talk shows. They give you a subject and you have to talk for two minutes without stopping.
I can just give a few ideas off the top of my head about possible parallels and differences between Western psychology. Be little that I know of it, that’s the problem. I’m trying to educate myself since I’ve come to Australia. It was about eight months ago. But I really know very little about what is current contemporary ideas and what is happening in the field of psychology and psychotherapy and even a little bit about Buddhism.
All of the teachings that the Buddha gave two thousand five hundred and thirty one years ago were summed up in the four noble truths or the four therapeutic truths from the Buddhist psychological point of view. It’s becoming one field of psychotherapy that I notice is gaining force in the area of family therapy and using epistemological models. Epistemology is simply the study of the way of knowing or methods of knowing. How do we know and do we know correctly? And this is very much in line with Buddhist thinking.
In fact, it was the Buddhist contention that all our problems, all our disappointments, dissatisfaction, frustrations stem from basic errors, incorrect ways of thinking. And simply by first becoming aware and adjusting our way of understanding to conform to the actual way things are, we can go beyond all suffering. So the more that we attune our mind to the nature of reality, accord our thinking and our conduct and body, speech and mind to keeping with the facts of life, to that degree we’re going to experience less and less problems in our life. Perhaps to some degree we already know this but we have to become more and more conscious of this. So this idea is cultivated through daily practices and meditation.
Now the two errors, the two basic epistemological errors, we all have belief systems, we all have sets of ideas, we all have core assumptions. Most of these aren’t conscious. They’re unconscious or subconscious, whatever you like to call them. We simply aren’t aware of them. We keep more or less putting our hands in the flame thinking it’s going to bring us pleasure.
We can see that this is being a pleasure and then when we experience pain, we don’t learn from our lesson. You know as TS Eliot once said that we’ve all had the experiences but we don’t learn the lesson. And hopefully Buddhism and now very much psychotherapy is trying to help us, is trying to point out the mistakes that we’re making in our behavior, in our ways of thinking, in our ways of knowing and help us not to make the same mistakes again And therefore begin to solve our problems. So the two epistemological errors that perhaps we’re all making to some degree is the one we call ignorance or misknowing. We make it on lesser and greater degrees of our levels.
On the grossest level, not the grossest, on one level. It’s holding that which is impermanent as being permanent. Whether it’s our relationships, whether it’s physical objects, whether it’s ourselves. And as we begin to gain an understanding of and accord our behavior, body, speech, mind with this idea that in fact things are constantly changing. That it’s the nature of things that they flow from one moment to another they don’t remain the same.
That in fact we can begin on the grossest level that we’re all going to die. And we generally cultivate an unawareness of death. We have a feeling, a core assumption that we’re special. Now this we may not acknowledge, but this is the way we’re acting. There’s probably a very big discordance between how we act in the world and the belief systems that we or the principles by which we think we are acting.
One of these is that we’re special in the world. That somehow the universe is going to mete out special treatment. That in fact perhaps everyone has to die. But I’m not going to be the first one for example in this room to die because I’m in some way special. In fact, someone in this room is going to be the first one to die and we don’t know who.
Also we demand that we have one hundred percent guarantee that we are not going to die tomorrow or the next day. We demand that we want to somehow do away with the fact of death because it’s, we don’t deserve it. So we’ve led a fairly decent life. We haven’t hurt that many people that that very much. And it’s very, it makes me sad.
It makes me lonely to think about that. I don’t want anything to do with it. Rather not become involved in it. We deny the fact that death is normal for it. It happens to everyone.
And the fact of impermanency and constant change within relationship and objects. The fact is that unless we are willing to be open to the changing, changes in relationships. For example, a couple, a man or woman, they get married. Initially, it’s probably a very romantic situation. It’s very a great deal of sexual attractions involved.
Eventually, this is going to wear off. So if the relation is going to remain, they’re going to have to develop a new way of relating with one another. They can’t be fixed on some permanent way of relating to one another. They have to develop some maturity. Other more deeper ways of communicating, relating.
If they become fixed and think this is that their this happiness, this bliss that they are experiencing when they first get married, that’s the way it always should be and they hold on to that very much, they’re going to be greatly disappointed. It’s going to hamper deepening in their relationships and they’re going to have problems. They’re going to be disappointed when their mate and they themselves cannot keep reacting or responding with the same intensity and the same patterns that brought them so much bliss before. They’re disregarding the changing nature of themselves and their spouse for example. So these are some gross types of misconceptions that we may have within our belief system.
But the basis, a deeper misconception or error is the belief, the feeling, the sense that we have a permanent, independent, inherently existing self. Based upon this core assumption, this mistaken belief, we engage in actions. And depending upon these actions whether they’re skillful or unskillful actions, we incur a lesser or greater degree of suffering or pain. But we don’t, we’re sitting here very quietly, very peacefully. So this idea of I or self is not very strong at this moment.
Ignorance is not operating. It’s not manifest. Ignorance is a, first we can call it a primary mental factor. But also I can think of it as in a dynamic manner, as being a reoccurring mental pattern which obscures the actual nature of the self. Which arises from time to time.
And we experience it most during emotional states. Get away from I can’t, this feeling, I can’t stand you. There’s a sense at this time when it’s I, I can’t stand you, get away from me. At this moment there’s a very strong sense of some concrete, solid, independent and existing self I somewhere in here, somewhere you could point to it almost. It’s very strong.
And when this arises, if this I is being threatened in any way, we react with hatred, with anger. We want to destroy the object. We want to break off contact with the object. If we have a feeling that the I is being enhanced, we react with desire, attachment. We want to maintain contact with the object and to repeat contact with that object.
All these are the various actions whether which arise from this basic epistemological error. All these actions will have as their consequence suffering. They’re all going to lead to problems. Attachment and hatred are dissatisfactory states of mind within themselves and they have as a consequence as a result further dissatisfactory states. This is another level.
This idea of selflessness of persons is carried even further until we reached the point of the non inherent existence of all phenomena. Not just persons. I think we can develop an understanding of the selflessness of what I’m speaking about fairly quickly I think if we look at it, we study it a little bit and think about it. The fact of having an independent permanent self. The fact is we feel this to exist very strongly.
in dependence upon this we hold on to a permanent identity or self image which we resist to change. To change is to become something else other than you are now. And to be open to change is to be open to the unknown. And we would much rather stay in a secure position of who we know ourselves to be. To stay within this cocoon of self perpetuating patterns, compulsively occurring patterns.
It may be satisfactory but at least I know who I am and I can take security in that. To change means to take a chance and become vulnerable and to we don’t know quite where we might end up. So it’s better to be in a dissatisfactory situation than to risk being annihilated perhaps. We can start to go beyond this and become more and more open to the possibility of change. I think it’s interesting when perhaps criticism in a way many years ago, I think about eighteen years ago, was in a group therapy.
And the leader of the group kept saying why aren’t you children, why don’t you change? He was talking to the other members of the group. At that time I thought it was rather unfair of him. I don’t, for some reason I sympathize with these other people. He was more sane than that too because I think it’s tremendously difficult to change.
It takes a great deal of self motivation. And what are you going to change to? Are you going to have it all mapped out for you? I’m going to become much more loving and much more open, much more assertive type of person. We would have some sort of models, sort of image of what that must be.
So more or less we’re trying to fit ourselves into some preconceived straight jacket which is probably impossible. It discounts our uniqueness of all the millions of parameters that go into change that we can somehow as if we can control one factor out of all the myriad factors that make up an individual personality. And say I’m going to change this to x. I’m going to take this factor y and I want to change it to x without in isolation, without considering the whole texture of this person’s personality. But if we can get some feeling for selflessness, then in fact there is no permanent independent existing identity.
There never has been, so we grasp to it. Then we can open ourselves up to more and more change. We can begin to direct ourselves. Through developing a goal, whatever the goal may be. If we decide the goal as wisdom, as method.
Method is usually denotes skill and means, the ability to help others along with the creative energy, the spontaneous actions in the world. So we’re talking about the goal of Buddhism which we’re directing ourselves along, is to develop the understanding of the way things are, reality, to develop love and compassion, and to act upon this in the world skillfully. This is the direction of change that we’re going. Now each person is going to find his own unique actualization of his own potential. We don’t think when we become Buddhas, that is when we reach this paradigm of what it means to be an actualized human being, we don’t become automatons.
We don’t become robots. There are as many types of Buddhists as there are individuals. So we’re not trying to fit everyone into same patterns, the same preconceived notions of the way people should be. Only to develop qualities which are already within us. Which are more or less to a large degree lying dormant.
But which time to time do break through. So we’re not trying to superimpose any preconceptions of why people should be. We’re working with the way people are making use of their latent abilities, latent qualities like as if they had seeds or within them already. We can do this by beginning to overcome this epistemological error of conceiving of an independent, a permanent, an existent cell. Now this can be carried on further as I was saying to the fact that everything is dependently existing though it doesn’t appear that way.
So we get into the area of the fact that things appear one way and they exist another. As we begin to understand that we can’t quite believe our senses. And this is quite difficult because if we can’t believe our senses, what can we believe in? So we have to begin to rely more and more on our mental consciousness, on our understanding, our logic, our rational mind, but also our intuition and experience. This glass of water.
If I’m thirsty, for example, it looks very pleasurable to me. It looks as if the pleasurable quality of that water is coming from its own side. If the property of that water that it can bring pleasure. Obviously, we can begin to find parallel examples in our lives with any type of pleasurable object. For example, a man, he sees a woman, he sees that there’s bliss within that or the woman sees bliss within a man.
And they fail to recognize that this is merely being imputed, designated, labeled upon this object for various reasons, cultural reasons, social peer, reasons of our predispositions from our childhood, even from past lives that we habitually conceive of this object as being pleasurable. And by labeling it pleasurable, we then are attracted to it. When we begin to understand that all phenomena are merely imputed by conception. Extremely difficult concept. This is the most, for me, I think in general, the most difficult concept within Buddhist epistemology.
All phenomena are imputed by conception. Nothing exists from the side of the object. So we take a very practical aspect of this back to the woman. The pleasurability is being projected from our own mind. The woman or the man can act as a condition whereby we can experience blissful states when in fact the bliss is within our own mind.
We associate this bliss with the object and thereby seek to attach ourselves to it. Maintain contact and repeat contact again and again. If we can begin to understand this very deeply, obviously we’re going to begin to break up our attachment. We’re going to see that we have all the potentials within our own mind, within our own self. Where happiness and satisfaction.
There’s nothing outside ourselves which is going to bring us either pleasure but again suffering. We begin to take responsibility for our lives and this becomes an ultimate idea of karma. The essence of karma is taking responsibility both for one’s own happiness for one’s own suffering. And in fact, we aren’t victims. By seeing deeply into the nature of reality, we can very deeply come to the understanding that we are making ourselves happy.
We are making our own suffering. And therefore, but we’re still moved to work in the world because we’re developing love and compassion. That’s one epistemological error. Another basic epistemological error is the efficacy of self-cherishing, the effectiveness of exaggerated self concern, selfishness.
We have the belief that I have to get mine, that we first attitude. Somehow we don’t have feelings of, not somehow, there’s very good reasons, but feelings of impoverishment, insufficiency. We see happiness outside of ourselves. Therefore, don’t have the sense that things are going to come to us naturally, that we’re going to have to go out and drag them into our own territory. To bring this about, we’re quite willing to objectify other people.
We’re quite willing to manipulate reality in any way in which we see that it’s going to bring us the happiness that we’re seeking. That is we’re going to dehumanize other people, make them into objects. And we’re going to be constantly involved in appropriation and manipulation. This very process brings on dissatisfaction, suffering. It’s always carrying around.
The world becomes a threat. There’s never a sense of one’s rightful place in the universe. But in fact, we feel that we have to gain our place in the universe. We have to make sure that we get ours. But in fact, it’s the basis of Christianity, the basis of Buddhism, perhaps the basis of all religions, that by in a healthy manner, placing others before ourselves, that in fact we’re going to experience all the happiness that we had ever hoped for.
This is very difficult to see, isn’t it? It goes very much the grain. It goes very much against the grain of traditional western thinking. The work ethic. So it has to be borne out from our own experience.
When are we actually most fulfilled? When are we actually experiencing the great moments of peace? So we begin to understand these are the two basic epistemological areas I think we’re involved in. The work of Buddhism to correct these misunderstandings. And it seems to be that on the road to these we can make use of any methods which are helpful.
And within Western psychology, I think that there are a number of useful methods. But I haven’t had much of an opportunity to really go into them. In order to be somebody, in order to transcend the ego, I think I remember many years ago I read a quotation by Abe Maslow, who was one of the the leaders of the third force psychology in Palo Alto, California where I live. And he said for Westerners, and I don’t know why he made the differentiation between Westerners and Easterners, I have an idea, It’s just conjecture. First we have to have a stable ego before we can transcend it.
So in Buddhism there are methods for stabilizing the ego, I think. We can talk about Buddha nature, that we all have this potential, that dynamic quality of the mind, that our personality is not fixed. We have no fixed identity, no permanent self image that we can change. That is that basic idea of the possibility of change and developing openness to change. That however we may perceive of ourselves to be at this moment is not in fact who we actually are.
It’s just our conception. It may in fact be coinciding with our behavior, it may not. But that doesn’t matter if we can change. We can become anything that we want to be. So this idea of beginning to feel good about yourself that I’m a potential Buddha.
Now within Buddhism, have the path of Tantra which is very much involved in developing, improving our identity. We have the feelings that we’re limited, that we’re kind of low. We usually have a very negative self, limited self identity. So we use the meditation on oneself as a deity, the divine celestial being. A meditation or deity who we identify with.
Now of course, there presents a problem in this. If you just go around and you say, I’m enlightened being. You just get a bigger ego, don’t you? And it’s of no benefit. We don’t need bigger egos.
So this idea of deity yoga, identifying with enlightened states, enlightened qualities, wisdom, love, compassion, spontaneous actions in the world benefiting others, has to be done in the context of selflessness and love and compassion. The goal of Deity Yoga is to become a Buddha. A Buddha is someone who has found inner peace and works in the world to benefit others. That’s what a Buddha is. If you want to become that, then you must develop wisdom and compassion.
Your motivation must be compassion and love for others. Therefore, if you’re going to use the process of Deity Yoga, of Tantra, then it must be motivated by compassion for others. If it’s not, it won’t work. You will not get the results. If the cause is not present, you cannot expect to gain the effect.
One of the causes is compassion. So you engage in the training, the practice of Deity Yoga based on the motivation of compassion. But that in itself is not enough. There must be the condition or the context of selflessness and understanding that in fact we have no permanent fixed identity independently existing. Without this, you’re merely going to put a new costume on the old ego.
You’re just going to change the clothes on your doll no matter what it might be. It might be a Superman costume. But you haven’t really changed because you’re still holding on to a fixed identity. You’re just adding new delusions to what’s already there. If we can develop a very fluid state, a very open state of mind where we lessen that grasping for a fixed permanent identity, even momentarily, during that moment some openness, fluidity of our identity, of our self image.
If in motivated by compassion we identify with enlightened qualities of these various meditational deities, then there can be real transformation very quickly. So motivated by compassion within the context of understanding of selflessness, identifying with enlightened qualities, possibility for real transformation. So these are the possibilities within Buddhism. Think what we can work with especially is developing the healthy ego. Ego is kind of a nasty word in Buddhism.
But I think we’re going to have to talk about, we’re going have to introduce the idea of a healthy ego. As Maslow said, we have to develop a healthy ego before we can transcend it. If you think you’re the lowest thing on earth, if you think you’re worthless, no good, then what possibility is it to consider the possibility of loving others if you don’t love yourself? In many ways we can say that loving others is an overflowing of the love that we feel for ourselves. And this is a very healthy love in Western culture.
We use the word love very loosely, don’t we? We love McDonald’s hamburgers. I love to hit you in the face. In Buddhism, it’s a very simple, friendly kind of wish. May be happy.
There’s no you know, band orchestra comes out of the sky, floats down with the violins playing. Essentially, no. I mean, you’d be happy. I would like to see you happy. Compassion, meaning not suffering.
A very simple kind of friendly wish. So we have to develop good feelings about ourselves. We have to wish our own self happiness. We have to wish our own self not to suffer. This may sound simple minded, but I don’t think it is.
I don’t think many of you actually ever wished that you were happy. I think you try like hell, but you may basically think that you don’t even deserve to be happy. It’s quite possible. I don’t know. I’m getting into areas of psychology which I’m not very good at.
So we have to cultivate a sense that I deserve to be happy. Why not? I have my rightful place in the universe. I’m a human being just like everyone else. I have potentials, qualities, and I want it to happen.
Whatever I did in the past, okay, that’s finished. I can regret it and determine not to repeat it again. However, I may conceive of myself, whatever identity I may hold, that’s not who I am. I can become anything I want. Why should I be happy?
Feeling good about yourself. I think here is where Western psychology has a lot to offer. Because I don’t think from the traditional Buddhist point of view, now by Buddhist point of view, only know a little bit about a very small area of Buddhism, that is Tibetan Buddhism. And we think Tibetan Buddhism are very narrow confined area. They often begin with Buddha nature.
Buddha nature is quite a profound subject. To understand Buddha nature you have to understand emptiness. But this is the way they would begin to have one appreciate this great potential that you have of who you could be. That you have this quality within you now that you don’t need anything else. No one has to give it to you.
No one has to pray for it. That you have essence. The enlightened essence within the enlightened seed within you right now, each person in this room. We can begin to appreciate that but it’s not very solid for us. It’s not something really real which is going to motivate us to make use of that quality, that potential.
We have to begin at least because if I say, poor me, I’m a miserable wretch. I can’t do anything right. I can’t even live without another person. I can’t get myself up in the morning. How are you ever going to realize that this far reaching quality of Buddha nature, this potential to be a perfect human being?
I think it’s almost impossible to ask anyone that. So we have to become grounded in something more solidly in the here and now. And this is I think very much where Western psychology can be a great benefit to us. Simply developing a stable, healthy ego. Developing good feelings about who we are.
This is the area that I hope to work with, that I’m trying to learn about. There is practical exercises in developing, for example, self esteem. Developing good feelings about yourself, a healthy ego, and a worthwhile person. It’s too easy to misuse spiritual path as a means to avoid confronting the reality of yourself in your situation. For example, Buddhism patience held very highly in Buddhism.
Tolerance, patience. But there’s nothing spiritual about allowing yourself to be exploited, for example. And sometimes we allow ourselves, Buddhists especially, to be exploited on the pretext that we’re being patient. Underneath we know that we’re not being patient. We’re just afraid.
We’re afraid to say anything. We’re afraid to do anything about the situation because we don’t feel perhaps we’re worthy. We don’t have the collective certainty of our qualities. So we can easily misuse religion, Buddhism, whatever spiritual path. We probably won’t if we feel good about ourselves.
And so I think the various techniques available in the West can be a great agent, great benefit, great help in bringing us to the place where we develop a healthy ego. You have to be somebody before you can be nobody. Most of us aren’t anybody quite yet. So we can become somebody. I think Western psychology has great excellent practical methods which I’m and some of my other people at Buddha House and I know many people in general are working with.
But I’m not sure if within Western psychology, after we develop the healthy ego, whether they can go beyond that to transcend the ego. I don’t know. But I know they can bring us to this point. I have a feeling that they can help us. And they can also begin to point out the epistemological errors that we’re making.
I know I began to read a book, it’s called Rational Therapy I think. Rational Emotive Therapy. The blurb on the back of the book said he thinks everybody in the whole world is goddamn out of their mind. That they’re all thinking crookedly. And I think he’s right and I think Buddhism would agree with him that most of our thinking is incorrect.
Most of our core assumptions, belief, even on a very superficial level of everyday interacting with other people and how we think. We’re making lots of errors. We have lots of mistaken assumptions That we’re somehow special, that we’re not going to die, or maybe sometime in the far distant future that somehow it’s important to get mine first. That there’s an independent, existing self sufficient self. Many, many, many, many.
We have to really uncover these. These very psychological methods I think can be a real help to begin to clear away some of the overgrowth that we get down to the root of our problems. So it’s not much to do with Western psychology, isn’t it? I don’t know very much about Western psychology. But I think there’s some areas that we can work with.
I know there’s some people, it has a brilliant, I mean as far as I’m, it’s kind of silly for me to speak about Western psychology when we have a number of individuals listening who are quite expert in this field. So we can either, perhaps we could, if you have any questions about what the possibilities of Western psychology and the spiritual path, how they might tie in together perhaps we could have a discussion, some questions and answers. Could more than not direct some of these questions toward them, more of the psychological aspects. Questions, we could direct them toward them and get their comments. I’d be very interested in myself to be honest.
Or if there’s some questions relating to Buddhism, I’d be quite happy to try and answer those. So we can leave it at that, I think. We can meditate. Do you have any questions? Maybe if you have questions from a Western psychology point of view, I’ll point out a few people and maybe we can address the question to them.
I think I would be interested. But if on the other hand you have some questions about Buddhism, they’re easy ones and maybe I can. Do You think attachment’s a bad thing or a good thing? The Dharma is something good, but some attachment might be good. For example?
What would be a good attachment? Think we have enough suffering. I mean, we did better off without suffering. That sounds good. Yeah.
Anyway, by the working through attachment, you don’t have to try to change it or Different methods for working with attachment? Yeah. Anything particular that you’re attached to? Women, sex, drugs, alcohol? Attachment to one’s body?
The general attachment would be, you know, we have contact with a particular object. We wish to maintain contact and repeat contact with that object together in the future. So this is basically what attachment is. The desire to maintain contact and repeat contact. This is a dissatisfactory state.
Trying to hold on and to repeat. So we can work with this state in a number of different ways. As you, first off, perhaps whatever the type of afflictive emotion desire, hatred, miserliness, jealousy, spite, any of the afflictive emotions, we call them afflictive emotions or delusions or whatever. We have to recognize or become aware that they’re dissatisfactory. Otherwise we’re not going to be motivated to try to go beyond this.
It seems that many people cultivate, for example, low levels of desire over short periods of time. For example, stimulate themselves sexually. They find this pleasurable. So we have to become a little more aware of what are desirable states, what are dissatisfactory states, and what are peaceful states. Unless we actually have some sort of standards to work with, we’re not going be motivated to go beyond all attachments.
We’re going to see some types of attachments as being