Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Jampa Gendun opens this 47-minute talk with a vivid image: the person who drives to the beach, gorges on junk food to escape depression, and ends up fat and sunburnt — a portrait of how compulsively we “take refuge” in transitory pleasures. He then outlines the two causes for genuine refuge-going — anxiety at recurring patterns of dissatisfaction, and faith in one’s own capacity — before concluding his exposition of Śāntideva’s method of equalizing and exchanging self with others. The bulk of the session covers equality of self and other from conventional and ultimate perspectives, the self-defeating logic of self-cherishing, and a Thomas Merton quotation framing the exchange not as self-denial but as ego redefinition. Śāntideva verses and a role-playing practice across three categories — beings we see as inferior, equal, or superior — close the session.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 1990 08 28 Equalizing and Exchanging Self for Others.mp3
UUID: bca3ab8a-4952-4f04-b472-2cdf933bbbdc
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Public talks 1988-2010 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1990-08-28
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 47.5 minutes
Words: ~5,737
The phrase taking refuge is borrowed from its traditional context, the often repeated Buddhist declaration of faith in the teachers, teachings, in the spiritual community. I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the Dharma. I take refuge in the Sangha. To make the point that taking refuge in momentary transitory pleasures is something we are doing all the time with an almost religious fervor and conviction.
For example, one day we think, oh, I’m so depressed. I think I’ll go to the beach. So we drive to the ocean, jump in the water, play around like fish, and then lie down to fry in the sun. When this becomes worrying, we think, I’m hungry. Where does the refreshment stand?
And we stuff ourselves with as much junk food as possible, hoping to find some satisfaction in the ice cream, popcorn, coke, chocolate we are devouring. We take refuge in these things as a way out of our depression and boredom only to end up fat and sunburnt. When when Buddhism speaks of taking refuge, it is emphasizing the importance of breaking out of this desperate, unfulfilling search for dissatisfaction, for satisfaction. Taking refuge involves a changing of our attitudes. We cease to be tossed this way and that way by the changing fortunes of our life and gain the space to become to begin tapping our inner potential.
So, you know, the the continual recommitting ourselves to the internal goal of our life being awakening, Buddha. By means of the Dharma in a social context of Sangha, there are said to be two reasons for two causes for going for refuge, two reasons for going for refuge. One is anxiety and the other is faith. And anxiety is when we talk about beginning to see the reoccurring patterns of our life that no matter what we’ve tried, the various means and methods that we’ve made use of, they haven’t seemed to be working. You know, we we change partners, we change jobs, change geography, But the same same difficulties seem to be reoccurring, the same problems.
And we begin to become anxious. The the reason for going for refuge, for committing ourselves to our own mental development is not to alleviate this particular problem or this particular difficulty, but the the theme of our life, the motif of dissatisfaction which permeates our very existence. These reoccurring patterns dissatisfaction, of disappointment, of frustration. And when we begin to take some kind of perspective on our life, we begin to see that the same problems continually keep reoccurring, perhaps in a slightly different guise, but essentially the same. We become very anxious.
How about this? Though in fact things may be okay now, we can suppose there is an underlying anxiety that as if the situation is just waiting to arise again, waiting for the right conditions to be there and the same we will go undergo the same suffering as we have been doing throughout our lives. This kind of this vague sense of uneasiness. Sometimes it’s called fear, but fear is rather more specific. It’s an anxiety, a vague notion of unease which permeates our existence.
This is the first cause of going for refuge. The second is faith. And within Buddhism, are various types of faith, various levels of faith. And based upon seeing that we have the capacity to solve our problems, that is to say, upon our own reasoning, on our own experience, on our own intuition, intuition, that we have gained some conviction in our ability or innate sanity that we can solve our problems. And the ultimate solution to our problems, the ultimate refuge is our own Buddhahood.
Anything less than that is temporary. It’s not to say that we don’t take refuge in those about us. That’s not to say that we don’t take refuge in the Buddhas outside of ourselves. But as the Buddhist themselves have said, that they cannot remove their suffering your sufferings by moving their hand across you nor remove your sins by washing away with water nor can they give you sort of a realization transplant. All they can do is show you the truth.
All they can do is teach the Dharma. And it’s up to you to make use of this method to experience the teachings and integrate it into your own mind as a solution to solve your problems. And doing this in the social context of support amongst those who like minded individuals who have voluntarily made a choice of taking awakening as a central principle in their life, who support one another and guide one another, teach one another, inspire one another, cry on each other’s shoulders, whatever is necessary to help us along our journey to solving our problems, to becoming awakened. And to continually recommit oneself, to re prioritize, you know, in the in the course of our daily life, we become very confused. We sort of lose sight of where perhaps our real happiness ultimately lies.
And perhaps we begin to take refuge in, at best, temporary refuges, but at worst, causes for the suffering. And so we have to pause and take stock and again commit ourselves to our own awakening. 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 listening to the teachings, 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, the highest assembly.
And the virtuous merit that I collect by listening to the teachings, may I attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly. And the virtuous merit that I collect by listening to the teachings, may I attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. So we’re going to conclude the discussion of the second of the two major systems for the development of the awakening heart. The first being the sevenfold cause and effect method which has a transmission lineage from Śākyamūni Buddha to Maitreya, Asaṇga, down to Atisha.
And the second which we’re presently discussing, the exchange equalizing self with others which has a transmission lineage again from Śākyamūni Buddha to Mañjuśrī to Śāntideva who is the author of the root text which is the source of the the textual source for the practice of exchanging equalizing self with others. This is all in order to develop an awakening heart. The awakening heart, bodhicitta in Sanskrit, sometimes called the mind of enlightenment, the spirit of enlightenment, the will to enlightenment. The unconditioned intention to help all sentient beings to free from suffering. And the concomitant will to extend oneself to bring this about in fact.
It’s a it’s a commitment to a more universal perspective. Giving up of our localized approach and seeing ourselves as something greater than just myself. As we’ve pointed out, whether it be in terms of the lofty lofty vision of Śāntideva where he sees each sentient being as a limb of this great being of sentient life, or simply being an integral part, a vital part of the community of humankind, or simply and minimally as part of something more than just myself. Now gaining at least that much perspective, that much broadening of our approach. You know, trying to make this thick membrane of our skin encapsulated egos a little more permeable to practice a softer individualism.
We began this process with the development of equality of self and other, both from the conventional point of view and from the absolute point of view or the ultimate point of view. From the conventional point of view from the side of others, essentially that all sentient beings want to be happy and don’t want to suffer just like myself. No difference whatsoever. That no matter what the superficial differences may be, essentially everyone is just like myself. To that same degree they want to be happy, to that same degree they don’t want to suffer.
No one gets used to suffering. Though we might like to think so, it would perhaps might make life easier on us to think that way. From the conventional point of view, from the side of others, all sentient beings want to be happy just like myself. They don’t want to suffer. From my own side, to recognize the equality of sentient beings in their kindness.
Though all sentient beings are not kind in the same way, they each are kind in their own unique way that both that all three of my friends, strangers, and in fact, my enemies. Each are contributing to my temporal and ultimate welfare, and therefore, by being kind. And I ran across a a quotation, you know, which from by Kahlil Gibran talking about how we can develop an appreciation, you know, a valuing. I I call this word, valuing. You know, we’re trying to develop an unconditional positive regard.
Unconditional in a sense that we extend this regard to all three categories of beings, friends, strangers, and enemy. Unconditional. It’s extended to all three of them. And it’s positive. It’s simply not an indifference, a neutral feeling, but it is a cathexis of valuing, a feeling of importance of appreciation, appreciative awareness.
And Kahlil Gibran said, I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind. Yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers. And there’s a person who is able to even able to appreciate those who have been unkind. You know, that’s a trained mind, someone who is able to appreciate all the various categories of individuals, who is able to value all the various categories of individuals, developing an unconditioned and importantly positive regard to the extent that we begin to like people. And then from the ultimate point of view, seeing that these categorizations are ultimately arbitrary and changeable, that we are pre-consciously creating these categories and then unwittingly acceding to them and responding with the emotions of attachment to my friend, indifference to the stranger, and aversion to my enemy.
And therefore, with such a way of an imbalance of mind, there’s no way that we can develop an unconditioned positive regard. There’s no that we no way that we can develop an awakening heart. And understanding that these these are simply categories which are being created out of the mind themselves. They do not exist objectively from the side of the individual, from the side of the person. That they are relative, changeable, and arbitrary.
Based upon that development of equality amongst others and between self and others, we then begin to begin to investigate within our own experience, by our own reasoning, intuition, the disadvantages of self-centeredness and the advantages of other centeredness. The disadvantages of self centeredness and the advantages of other centeredness. Again, trying to see with our within our own experience where our greatest moments of of fulfillment, meaning, joy have occurred during the course of our life. And where, in fact, has most of our misery come from? You know, how can we tracing the evolution of our problems back to this demon of self centeredness, self-cherishing, exaggerated self concern.
The that all of these various feelings that we experience out of our self centeredness, feelings of alienation, fragmentation, feelings of of having to keep up a self image, of having to maintain our territory, of being on guard, of defensiveness, of competitiveness, of self consciousness, which almost as if never leave us. A feeling of antagonism between myself and others. Last week I was talking about the, you know, self centeredness as a ultimately self defeating because the self exists in relationship to others. And self centeredness places that the the absolute value upon oneself and fails and sees the self as being some kind of separate entity apart from others. And in the course of bringing you know, everything is laid at the altar of one’s own ego.
It is held as absolute importance above all, its happiness, its well-being. In other words, it’s inconsistent with the reality of our situation, self centeredness. And then with respect to other centeredness, so where in fact is most of our happiness coming from and just within our own experience in terms of of, you know, being carried away with the aesthetics of music or art, being carried out of yourself, finding union, emotional union with the beloved on the level of intellectual truths, universal qualities. Finding, you know, deep senses of communication, sense of feelings of communion with others, of community with others when the barriers between self and others are are momentarily dissolved. And there’s a deep oneness with others, a deep sense of empathetic joy with others.
And all of these begin to point that up to the value, the self authenticating value of other centeredness and the self-defeating fetishism of self-centeredness. But, you know, trying to see the self centeredness is self defeating. It’s inconsistent with the way things with the reality of our present situation. But again, with with respect to other centeredness, you know, I I touched on the fact of that we cannot we have to question the notion of self denial and self sacrifice with respect to other centeredness. That sometimes without the correct understanding, without the correct motivation, self denial and self sacrifice can simply be self centered ness but in a more religiously or socially acceptable guise.
You know, we’re all supposed to be good Buddhists, for example, and we’re always we’re all supposed to put others before ourselves. And it’s but how are we to there is a problem. There is a real existential problem. How are we to this transcend this antagonism between myself and others which exists in the real world? You know, if I can use a male I’ll use, you know, the a wife comes home from work, and her husband’s been slaving at the stove all day.
And she comes in and says, I’m tired. I I just wanna I just wanna rest. And but he says, dear, you said you would take me out tonight. You know? What are we to do in these situations where one’s needs and another’s needs seem to be in conflict?
Almost every day, this occurs. Your needs of your children and your own needs. You have real healthy needs. Your children have real healthy needs. Sometimes these needs seem to be in conflict.
What are we to do? You know, the the the wife can say, okay. I’ll put your needs above mine. I’ll go out with you. She falls asleep at the movie or something like that.
She just has a rotten time. Or he says, okay. Forget it. Never mind. He says, I’ll we’ll do what you want.
What to do? You can’t it doesn’t seem like they can do both at the same time. So let’s compromise. That sounds okay. But your life becomes a compromise, doesn’t it?
It seems like that’s that isn’t that is a mature way to to begin to work at the problem, but that is only a superficial mature way. Immature way would be said, I want my needs now met only. You know? May first, I, I, I, my wants, my needs. But then we begin to take into consideration others’ needs, and we say, let’s compromise.
We’ll go out this time. We won’t go out this time. The awakening heart is the means whereby we can transcend this existential antagonism between self and others. We can find peace. It’s the appropriately skillful way of developing a relationship with the world.
It’s the way we can integrate our in a unique individuality and our relatedness to the world. Where, you know, I said I I said, self centeredness is seeking happiness for oneself alone at the exclusion and expense of others, and it’s self defeating because one exists in interdependence with others. And we don’t look very deeply at our situation. And it’s like it’s it’s like, you know, in a very microcosmic perspective, perspective, if you had a you have a family and you have to you’re a part you’re an integral part of something bigger than yourself. I mean, everyone must feel this to some degree or the family will be unhealthy.
If when one member of that family, if one of the spouses is totally selfish, wrapped up in themselves, then the family is not a unit. It doesn’t work. It’s unhealthy. So, you know, we you feel yourself part of something. But the but even then in this microcosm of a family, there were constantly arising situations when you as a unique individual have your needs and you as in your relationship to that family have their needs, and there’s going to be this constant conflict.
If if one can develop other centeredness where one’s happiness includes the welfare welfare of others. And this is the way to resolve this conflict. One’s needs become simultaneous, concordant with the needs of others. And then we can’t it it come the solution comes after the problems will simply cease to arise. It’s not that we have this problem and then I’m going to develop other cherishing and then it’s going to alleviate that problem.
But simply the problem will no longer arise. You will no longer begin to see yourself as being in conflict with others’ needs. Others may look at you and say, you know, you’re such a wonderful giving person. You’re always fulfilling the needs of others, and you don’t you aren’t even aware of it because your needs have become the needs of others. You know, we don’t thank ourselves when we feed ourselves lunch.
What a great person I am for giving myself food. And if we can begin to see ourselves as something larger than ourselves, then there’s no there’s no sense of of the self denial, self sacrifice. We’re just feeding ourselves and giving to others and fulfilling the needs of others. We find peace in our relationship in such a type of way of relating with others. The advantages of other centeredness and the disadvantages of self centeredness.
And this actual exchange of self with others. Quotation from Thomas Merton, a an American Trappist monk who died in Thailand a number of years ago. Alright. Talking about the now the actual exchange of self with others. It is hard to really love others if love is to be taken in the full sense of the word.
Love demands a complete inner transformation. For without this, we cannot possibly come to identify ourselves with our brother. We have to become, in some sense, the person we love. And this involves a kind of death of our own being, our own self. No matter how hard we try, we resist this death, we fight back with anger, with recriminations, with demands, with ultimatums.
We seek any convenient excuse to break off and give up difficult task. We have to become in some sense the person we love, and this involves a kind of death of our own being, our own self. So the Christian Thomas Merton was a trappist monk, so I can only guess what he might have meant. But the death perhaps of what he is talking about is the death of the self, and this self is the self of self centeredness. That this death of our exaggerated self concern and becoming that which we love.
But with every death, there is there is a concomitant birth. So here the birth is of other centeredness. We die to our own self centeredness and are born to to other centeredness, to of concern for others. So that is to say, a redefinition of our ego, of our ego identification. This is the exchange of self for others.
We you know, I don’t become you and you don’t become me, but I exchange my attitude of my present cherishing of myself for the cherishing of others. This is the exchange of self for others. Simply, you know, others become gain the same importance which we now place upon ourselves. This is what is going to lead to an awakening of our hearts. This this quality of an awakening heart, it is it is that which carries us to enlightenment.
And by enlightenment, simply most, of being a healthy person, a mentally well adjusted individual, happy, sane, healthy human being. That’s what we you know, we can say that we can say that about what we mean by enlightenment. And this is what carries you there, this awakening heart. You know, people exhaust themselves trying to find happiness. They they cry, they steal, they sweat blood, sweat, and tears, they they kill, they do meditation courses, they attend teachings, They get degrees.
They travel. They go to rock concerts. They go to the Grand Prix. But still, you know, we have to ask. They do I mean, they they do everything imaginable and unimaginable.
And still we have to ask, are are are they happy? You know, and when we talk about happiness from the from in this context, I think from the Buddhist point of view, you know, what is the overall quality of your life? You know, everyone experiences difficult situations from time to time, unhappiness, frustration, pain. But the the overall quality, the taste of your life. You know, basically, you a happy person?
Do you feel fulfilled? Do you feel like your life is meaningful? Do feel good about yourself? Content. So, you know, we have to begin to understand our problems and our problems of self attachment, our problems of anger, our problems of confusion, our problems our ego problems.
An awakening mind is born out of this awareness, out of our wisdom. And we begin to understand our own problems and where they’re coming from. And we you know, trying to look at our problems on more than our usual superficial level which we normally use to deal with them. You know, he’s my problem. She’s my problem.
I’m too fat. I’m too ugly. I don’t have enough money. I don’t have a degree, enough education. I don’t have this possession or that possession.
I don’t have that social status, that level. If we don’t if we stay on this level of dealing with our problems, we’re never going to be able to find a solution. You know, I I don’t know if I used this analogy here. If I did, excuse me. But it’s as if we have lost the key to our house and we lost it in the front yard, but we just mowed the lawn in the back and the grass in front is very deep.
So we look in the backyard because it’s easier to look there. But that’s not where you lost it. And no matter how long you look, you’re never going to find it there. You have to look no matter how difficult it might be, the place where it’s possible to find it, the place where you actually lost it, The place where the solution lies. And that’s in the front yard.
You know, you’re going to have to look in for that key in this difficult circumstances even though you might not like it. Otherwise, there’s no solution. There’s no hope. You know, likewise, the very fact that our whole life, we’ve been making all this effort, all our tears, all our worries. And the quality of our life probably hasn’t changed all that much.
This is, you know, perhaps our life is still permeated with dissatisfaction. So this is a sign that maybe we’re looking in the wrong place. If we’re intelligent, we can begin to to see the significance of our continual suffering, that our suffering is a kind of truth for us. It’s a kind of intelligence for us. We perhaps we haven’t really found the the true cause of our difficulties and therefore have been unable to find the true solutions to it, Our difficulties.
So this isn’t, you know, a simply an intellectual process. It’s concerned with our, you know, with the with our everyday life. People sometimes people say to me, you know, I have this problem. You know, can you give me a solution to my problem? The Buddha can’t even can’t give you a solution to to your problem.
You know, what to say about me? And, you know, I used that that quotation at the very beginning. The lords of the sages, subduers do not wash away sins with water nor do they remove sufferings with their hands nor do they transfer their realizations to the minds of others, but by the showing of the truth, all will be made free. And the very first teaching that the Buddha taught was the truth of problems, the truth of dissatisfaction, the truth of suffering. You know, the Buddha said, I taught I teach nothing else than suffering and the cessation of suffering.
I don’t teach philosophy or religion, the truth of our problems. So initially, the the Buddha said, look at your problems. And this is the way we have begin by confronting our problems, the reality of our life, and beginning to discover to their evolution, where they’re coming from, the source, the origin, the cause of our problems. Only in that way can we come up with a real lasting solution. And if you’re constantly checking up in your everyday life the cause of your difficulties, where your problems are coming from, then you’re always going to be learning.
You’re always going to be growing. You won’t keep making the same mistakes again and again and again and be able to solve your problems. Otherwise, there’s no hope. You make yourself tired with all your efforts and it’s of no avail. So, we’re talking about an awakening heart as a way to help us solve our problems, our ego problems, our selfishness problems, our me first, my, my, I, I, my want problems.
So the, you know, the awakening heart is not some extreme emotional trip. You know, where you get overwhelmed with the thought, oh, all sentient beings are suffering. I have to free them all. I have to free you know, very I have to free all sentient beings. You know, first becoming aware of our own problems and and aware that others share the same situations that we’re involved in and beginning to understand the evolution of our own problems and the evolution of our own happiness.
Through this process there will naturally arise a more and more concern for the happiness of others. Now, becoming more concerned with others, we begin to notice that we have fewer problems, fewer and fewer difficulties. That we find a release from attachment, less anger, less confusion. So one can actually experience this for themselves by this awareness that one is a happier person with fewer difficulties. One becomes one’s own inspiration to dedicate oneself more and more to others’ happiness, having seen it experientially as a way to experience happiness yourself, being wisely selfish, to take more and more responsibility for the happiness of others.
If you want to solve the world’s problems, you have to put your own house, your own household, your own individual life in order first. That is somewhat a paradox. People have a genuine desire to go beyond their individual cramped lives to benefit the world. But if you do not start at home, then you have no hope of helping the world. So the first step in learning how to rule is learning to rule your house household, your immediate world.
There is no doubt that if you do so, then the next step will come naturally. If you fail to do so, then your contribution to the world will be further chaos. Presently, we are limited in some degree or other in our abilities to help others. Now how can we help all sentient beings when we can’t even help ourselves? We can’t, but we can we can set our direction.
You know, I talked about this, the Zen monk Ryokan. The Buddha is your mind and the way goes nowhere. Don’t look for anything but this. If you want to go north and you point your cart south, how will you ever arrive? We want to go north.
We want to go toward the awakening heart. And we can consistently Though we though we cannot We don’t have the provisions for the journey. We don’t have the the vehicle for the journey. We can consistently point to that direction and begin to learn about that direction and begin to construct the vehicle and begin to stock up on provisions for making that journey. You know, determine in yourself to develop ourselves more and more.
More wisdom, more skill and means. You know, if I grow, then I can be a benefit to others. If I don’t, then I’m no I’m no I’m not only am I of no benefit to others, I’m not even of any benefit to myself. So this becomes more and more the motivating force behind our actions. Now this this consistent redirectioning of yourself, reminding yourself.
That’s all. So it’s this this motivating force which will carry us to awakening, will help us to reach the north. Having that intention, I want to develop an awakening heart. I want to be a more loving, compassionate person, that inspiration, that intention, and then working at it, developing, growing. So it’s with this motivating force, with this intention that we begin to exchange ourselves with others.
And from Śāntideva’s text Engaging in Bodhisattva Deeds. If I do not actually exchange my happiness for the sufferings of others, I shall not attain the state of Buddhahood and even in cyclic existence shall have no joy, let alone what is beyond this world. By rejecting the method that establishes both foreseeable and unforeseeable joy, I cast magnificent delight completely aside and then because of inflicting misery upon others and confusion I seize hold of unbearable pain. If all the injury, fear, and pain in this world arises from grasping at self, then what use is this great demon to me? If I do not completely forsake it, I shall be unable to put an end to suffering just as I cannot avoid being burnt if I do not cast aside the fire.
Therefore, in order to allay the harms inflicted upon me and in order to pacify the sufferings of others, I shall give myself up to others and cherish them as I do my very self. So what, as I mentioned, what we’re seeking to exchange is the object of our cherishing, the object of our concern. You know, rather than our our present cherishing only ourselves, we are trying to cultivate the attitude of cherishing others, exchanging the attitude of self for others. So this, as I mentioned, in terms of Tom the quote by Thomas Merton, this requires an inner transformation. We have to become in some sense the person that we love.
You know, we’re trying to develop a new perspective, trying to see the world, including ourselves out of the eyes of the beloved, out of the other person’s eyes. Now we’re trying to identify with their feelings, their situation. We put ourselves in the other person’s shoes. We play a role. There’s an there’s an American Indian expression, you know, don’t judge another person till you walk a month in their moccasins.
Now how does it feel to be that person in their situations, with their feelings, their environment, their relationship? Trying to go beyond our own, our present narrow perspective to gain a multifaceted view, the flexibility of mind to see situations in the world out of other people’s eyes. You know, normally our self-cherishing attitude leads us to categorize people into groups. Those who are inferior to us in some ways, those who are equal to us, and those who are in some ways superior to ourselves, some way better than ourselves. So in establishing these categories toward those who we see as inferior, we develop arrogance.
Toward those who we see as peers equal to ourselves, we develop a sense of rivalry, a sense of competitiveness. And toward those who we see as our superiors, we develop senses of jealousy, envy. All of these states of mind cause immediate and long term suffering. So through this role playing, Śāntideva shows how we can make use of these present natural unskillful tendencies as a of the mind to train ourselves in developing an awakening heart. And so in this process of actually the actual exchange of self for others, we we play a role.
We imagine as if this person were I and transforming, taking on that person’s feelings and the other person becomes ourselves. And we do this with these three categories of individuals. With those who in some way we feel superior, to those we feel equal to, and those with respect to whom we feel in some way inferior. You know, through training in this exchanging of self for others in this way, our present self centered attitude is is destroyed and love and compassion, other centeredness, the cherishing of others begins to rise. There is a natural tendency of of of our self-cherishing to categorize, to compare, and with the result in emotions of arrogance, envy, and competitiveness, rivalry.
And with such feelings toward beings, there’s no way that we can begin to to develop this unconditional positive regard for them all. You know, they become either objects of our pride or objects of our fear. And in such a case, there can be no real love. And we can take You know, developing the flexibility of mind. Know, we are habituated to seeing the entire all our situations.
We we know no other reference than our own egos. Everything is taken from the perspective