Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Framing the ego as a compulsive, self-perpetuating feedback loop that blocks all growth, Ven Jampa Gendun opens this 69-minute public talk by introducing the four immeasurables — love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity — as both antidotes to specific afflictive emotions and as mutual correctives. He maps how each quality, left unchecked, degenerates into a shadow form (love into clinging, compassion into helpless despair, sympathetic joy into selective self-satisfaction, equanimity into indifference), and how the four hold one another in balance as a system. A Carlos Castaneda story about a lone barking dog on a desert night captures the texture of a life stuck in repetitive dissatisfaction; a desert fathers parable illustrates how responding to others’ needs draws out inner strength we did not know we had. The session closes with a guided three-stage cultivation of love and compassion — from a gentle friendly wish, through active aspiration, to committed intention — beginning with oneself and expanding outward. Accessible to general audiences with no prior Buddhist background.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 12 1991 05 26 Four Immeasurables.mp3
UUID: b608e9e8-4f92-4bab-be60-8db9332b8118
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Public talks 1988-2010 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1991-05-26
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 69.0 minutes
Words: ~8,004
A complex reoccurring pattern, compulsive pattern. It’s a negative feedback system, a self perpetuating negative feedback system, which tends toward the reenactment of what has gone before. Going through the same cycles again and again and again, the same modes of relating, the same way of reacting to what has gone before. And therefore, this obstructs the reconstitution of our being, that is to say, change, growth, transformation. In opening up to others, participating in the lives of others, is the means to begin to overcome this defense mechanism of ego, this tendency to repeat what has gone before, these compulsive patterns.
Each of these four immeasurables is an understanding, in a way, you know, kind of wisdom. And the ego is founded upon closed minded ignorance, closed minded ignorance. Ignorance, you know, this has many levels and many explanations. But one simple level, not simple, but useful way of looking at it, is the factor which tends to ignore anything which it sees as a threat to its own evolving ego. It’s an ignoring, a moving away, a discounting.
Anything which it sees as a to itself, to the evolving ego, into our own self referencing approach to life. Negative feedback system, the way we relate with the world. Ignorance is a basic misunderstanding of the nature of ourselves, the nature of our world, and how these two relate with one another, ourselves and the world. As long as we relate to others in terms of hatred instead of love, in terms of cruelty instead of compassion, in terms of jealousy instead of sympathetic joy, in terms of attachment rather than equanimity, there can be no deep understanding. There’s no turning about at the very depth of our consciousness, no great discovery, no profound growth, as long as we continually react in this way.
Because we’re reinforcing the very basic structure of ego, which is a resistance to growth, which in itself is a resistance to change, to transformation, because it only knows patterns. It only knows what has gone before and the perpetuation of those patterns. There’s no change. It is fear of an open and fluid way of relating, essentially. Separately, each of the four immeasurables is a catalyst for growth.
Each is a specific antidote to diminish the power of specific negative patterns of ego. But there is also an internal relationship, balancing relationship between these four, between love, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity. Love, as I mentioned, is an affirmation of another’s value and worth, actively concerning yourself with their happiness. Feelings with a strong, effective tone, emotional overtone, easily turn into the negative counterpart. So love can easily degenerate.
This valuing of another and actively concerning yourself with their welfare, this valuing of another, holding another highly, can degenerate into a negative counterpart of clinging. That is to say, love may turn into clinging where the other person is no longer valued for themselves, but is valued for the happiness that this person can bring me. The person is still valued, but the value is not for themselves inherently worthy of one’s love, of one’s caring and concern, but now the value becomes self referential of what this person can do for me, with how much happiness this person can give me, which is our general type of love or valuing. I don’t call it love. It’s clinging.
We value that person. We still value that person, but now it’s in terms of myself. What they can do for me? So love can degenerate. This valuing can degenerate into a self referential valuing.
It becomes clinging. But this tendency of the degeneration of love is countered by compassion, where people are seen not as mere objects for our own pleasure but as feeling beings. When we see a being, we see a form. But actually, if we can begin to see a feeling being, there’s a being which this being is suffering, and one develops a strong wish to free them from that suffering. So this valuing of others for what they can do for ourselves is countered by seeing others in terms that they are a suffering being, And out of this develops a sense of wishing that they be free from suffering.
That is compassion. But compassion may turn into an overwhelming feeling of helplessness and despair. You know, Oh, there’s so much suffering in the world. I just can’t do anything about it. It’s just too much.
So this is countered, this potential for the ego to fixate, on compassion, and degenerate it into a sense of despair and helplessness is countered by sympathetic joy. We’re rejoicing in the happiness that beings do experience, empathetically sharing in the happiness that beings, in fact, do experience. So it takes us beyond this sense of despair that may out of compassion. Sympathetic joy. But sympathetic joy, you know, the ego is very clever.
It’s terribly intelligent. It can incorporate almost anything into its structure, and it’s constantly trying to do that. Sympathetic joy can turn into vicarious self satisfaction, simply focusing on the happiness of a few to the neglect of most people. You empathetically share in the happiness of those, and you simply begin to become myopic. You no longer look at the situation of many, of their actual plight.
So this tendency to narrow down our focus of this degeneration of sympathetic joy into only focusing upon the happiness of a few nearest to ourselves is countered by the development of equanimity. You know, the not holding oneself close and others distant. Every being wants to be happy. No being wants to suffer whatsoever. And based upon this very basic fact of life, then we have an equal concern in caring for all, regardless whether they are sources of happiness or sources of suffering.
We develop a sense of being equally concerned, equally caring, no matter whether they are sources of happiness for ourselves or sources of suffering. You know, it’s not to say that the idea of equanimity is not to say that you treat everyone the same. You know, you don’t have to invite the postman in for supper or something like that because you do your husband or your wife or whatever. But you can develop a sense of equally concern about their welfare, a sense of equality. But even this equality can turn into apathy.
You know, there’s simply unfeelingly regarding all people the same and remaining indifferent. Everybody’s the same, but I don’t care. They’re not concerned with their needs. So this tendency of equanimity to degenerate into indifference is countered by love, affirming their value, inherent value of another, and actually concerning yourself with their happiness. So in this way, not only are the four immeasurables specific antidotes to love is a specific antidote to hatred, compassion is a specific antidote to cruelty, sympathetic joy is a specific antidote to jealousy, Equanimity is a specific antidote to attachment.
Not only are each of these four measurable specific antidotes to specific afflictive emotions. But through their interrelationship, they cannot be negatively fixated on by the ego, where they degenerate into mere sentimental impulses, which would be counterproductive to growth. Love in the Buddhist, let’s say the great vehicle, Buddhist sense of the word, is only love when it’s felt impartially, impartially for all sentient beings. Love is only, you know, that is to say with equanimity. Compassion is love’s response to the suffering of others.
And sympathetic joy is love’s response to the happiness of others. In the West, is often said that we can learn to love many by loving one. And this may, in fact, be true. But we can only begin to love one perfectly by seeking to love all. But, you know, we have to begin somewhere, so we begin with imperfectly.
We begin trying to develop some love, some compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity toward ourselves. And then we begin to extend it to others. No matter how imperfect, no matter how exclusive and mixed with attachment our love might be, We can work with that, and it’s useful. You know, if I am only for myself, what am I? If I’m not for myself, who will be?
And if not now, when? Or as one of my teachers said, When are we ever going to learn to fly? So, you know, that’s my talk on the Four Immeasurables. So I thought it would be good to reflect upon these for a few months in meditation. Each of these has three levels: immeasurable compassion, immeasurable love, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.
We simply, like, for example, as a basis illustration, taking love and simply developing a friendly thought. Wouldn’t it be nice? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people had happiness and the cause of happiness? Wouldn’t it be nice? It’s kind of like, that’d nice, wouldn’t it?
And it would be nice. Kind of a nice, soft warmth begins to be generated. It doesn’t, you know, we’re not this is not a heavy duty kind of thing. You know, we don’t have to wrench our hearts all of a sudden. We might do harm to ourselves.
But just kind of a friendly glowing ember kind of thing. It begins to generate some warmth. Wouldn’t it be nice wouldn’t it be nice if, you know, my father, my family, some of my neighbors, wouldn’t it be nice if they had happiness and the causes of happiness? Just a friendly gesture of goodwill. And once we can do that, then we can begin to raise that, you know, blow on the ember to make it flare up a little bit.
We can begin to think, may they be happy. A little more involvement, a little more determination about it. Something, a little more energy. May they be happy, and may they have the causes of happiness. And when, maybe, maybe have it.
And then once we can develop that, we can begin to raise that. I’m going to help them find happiness and the cause of that happiness. Something like that. So I thought, you know, we we’ll just go through love and compassion. Okay?
And we first, we’ll begin with ourselves. And then we’ll go through these three. First, on love. And then we’ll go through with respect to someone other someone else, you know, some other individual or group that you have a natural feeling, good feelings toward. And then on your own, you can begin to expand this into immeasurably.
That’s what the word immeasurable means, to extend it to immeasurable number of beings. And then we’ll do it also with compassion. So I think it would be useful. So if you can just sort of try to get into the feeling, give over to what I’m saying. And the words are just fingers pointing.
They’re not to be hum get hum up in. You know, if someone points at the moon, you don’t look at the finger, you look at the moon. So try to just get into the the words are trying to our arrow is trying to point to something, the feeling. Love is not the word. The words I love you is not love.
Love is a state, a state of being, a state of mind. And this is what we’re working with, with our minds, with our feelings, with our hearts. So if you take a comfortable posture, we’ll just go through some of these states perhaps, and try to give yourself over and develop them. And beginning with yourself. First, developing love, befriending yourself.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I was happy and had the causes of happiness? Wouldn’t it be nice if I was happy and had all the causes of happiness? Be kind to yourself. We’re going to strengthen that. May I may I have happiness and the causes of happiness.
Let’s strengthen that. I will help myself to have happiness and the causes of happiness. Try to really mean it, you’re really going to work for yourself. Help yourself. Now, let’s choose someone of the same sex, someone that you have some naturally caring for, but of the same sex as yourself.
I’m going to try to generate these feelings toward this person. Just the first, the friendly thought. Wouldn’t it be wonderful? Wouldn’t it be nice if you were happy and had the causes of happiness? And then strengthen that.
May you have happiness and the causes of happiness. I want that for you. And then finally, I’m going to help you find happiness and the causes of happiness. So stop there. But this is the way we can begin to cultivate these four immeasurables.
First, developing them with respect to yourself, and then with objects which we naturally can have concern, involvement, caring for. And then begin to expand toward those we have less involvement, those we feel neutral, indifference toward, and ultimately our enemies, immeasurable number of beings immeasurable number of beings, and going through the four immeasurables in this way. Does anyone have any questions, anything they’d like to share, any ideas? So we’ll stop there, and we’ll dedicate the positive energy that we create. Dedicating it for the benefit of others.
Then it doesn’t become chocolate cake for our own egos. It doesn’t become some complicating factor in our lives. May I quickly become an awakened spiritual teacher and lead each and every sentient being to that enlightened realm through these skillful actions. May the supreme jewel of the awakening heart that has not arisen arise and grow, and may that which has arisen never diminish, but increase more and more. We begin by adjusting our motivation.
Whatever we do, whatever activity we might be involved in, it’s not so much the action itself, it’s the intention behind the action which determines the quality of the result. Therefore, just listening to these simple minded words that I might be able to express tonight are going to be of any benefit. From your side, it’s very much dependent upon the quality of the motivation for listening. Anything that we do, if we have a beneficial intention, whether it works or not, whether we make mistakes or not, we have done our best. We don’t have control to the degree that we might like, but we can at least develop some sort of beneficial intention, some quality motivation, some healthy attitude toward what we’re doing.
And then this is enough in a way that we can expect of ourselves. So in the terms of developing a healthy attitude, we generally turn this going for refuge. But refuge isn’t necessarily a particularly Eastern idea. We all have been going for refuge all of our lives to something or other, something which we conceive of, which we feel is going to solve our problems, all the very everyday problems that we’re confronted with. So the idea of going for refuge is simply a reorientating process, a reevaluating, reprioritizing what it is that actually helps me, what it is in my own actual experience, a way of my own reasoning, my own intuition, I conceive of, which I have decided in the light of my own wisdom, the light of my own clear states of mind, really works for me as a very unique individual.
During the course of our lives, during the course of having to deal with the practical necessities of our everyday life, we quite often lose sight of our central values, the ways in which we have seen that our life has meaning, that has purpose, that we find some kind of fulfillment, we find happiness, essentially. It’s easy to get caught up in lots of side trips. So the idea is, in going for refuge, to reevaluate, to take stock, and get back in the direction of your highest ideas of what actually works for you, what you experience in your own life. It’s been the methods to find real meaning, real happiness, whatever. So in terms of Buddhism, but perhaps universally, It’s a realignment of our allegiance to growth.
We have to grow. We have to develop ourselves. We have to change. This has to be kind of a central focus of our life. If we don’t change, if we don’t grow, then things are going to be very much the way they have been.
We are very much bound to repeat the same mistakes. We are going to be very much caught up in these reoccurring compulsive patterns. And this requires some sincerity, some getting serious with the present moment. We have a sense that even if we don’t do anything, things are going to be better in the future. And this is one of our fundamental delusions, because they aren’t.
This is not a cynical view, but it’s a realistic view that we have to create the causes for happiness if we wish to experience those results in the future. And the causes of happiness, we have to find out where fundamentally they exist. If we see our problems outside of ourselves, we’re always going to be looking for the solutions at the same place. So there has to occur as sort of a reorientation. We begin to see that in fact causes of our problems are within ourselves.
That’s therefore where we can begin to find the solutions to these problems. If you’ve lost the key to your front door, and though the grass might be shorter in the back, in your backyard having just mowed it, you think, well, look for it in the backyard. It’s easy to look for it there. But that’s not where you lost it. No matter how easy it may be to look, there’s no hope of ever finding Even no matter how difficult it might be, we have to look at the place that we lost the key.
Likewise, no matter how difficult it might be to deal with our internal problems, that is the key to the opening the door of happiness. That’s the solution to our problems. Therefore we go for refuge to our own self, our own basic sanity, our own wisdom. No matter how obscure and faint that wisdom might be at time, it’s still there. And we go for refuge to our love and our compassion, no matter unrefined, how mixed with attachment, how limited, how exclusive that love and compassion might be, it’s still there.
And we go for refuge to our own energy, exuberance for life, no matter how unrefined, how unspontaneous that energy might be. So that is to say, we go to something which is innate within ourselves as a means to solve the basic problems of our life. We determine to grow, to develop these qualities. But we try to raise the level of our motivation for this turning inward for our own development. One of our basic problems is that we’re completely caught up with our problems, that others are just like ourselves.
Everyone wants to be happy, that no one wants to suffer, that everyone shares in the same universal condition as we ourselves do. And hopefully, as may be pointed out in the course of the talk tonight, one of the most skillful ways that we can hope to develop ourselves is by taking responsibility for others. Taking responsibility for others helps us learn to be able to respond to others. Taking responsibility for others, we begin to develop ourselves for benefit of others. To be able to respond means that I have to be able to give something.
I have to be able to do something. In order to be able to do that, I myself must grow. Otherwise, it’s hopeless, isn’t it? Do I have the ability? The more I develop myself, more I grow in my love, my wisdom, my energy, the more I’ll be able to respond, the more I’ll be responsible for others.
I’ll be able to take the responsibility for others. And so this is the attitude, the healthy state of mind which we seek to generate before undertaking an activity. That realignment, this reorientation, to refocus the central principle of our lives as being awakening, our own Buddhahood, by means of the Dharma, the techniques, the methods, the truth, whatever, which helps us to achieve, actualize our own Buddhahood. And we do this within the social context of a spiritual community, the Sangha. And we raise the level of our motivation such that what I am doing, I am doing it for the sake of others.
And then whatever we do, whether it turns out as we might like it or not, is somehow, somewhere along the line, going to reap great benefit, not only for ourselves but for others. We can sort of have that faith, that conviction, and we can begin to relax. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, the highest assembly. From the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving and the other perfections, may I attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly.
From the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving and the other perfections, may I attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly. And the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving and the other perfections, may I attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. Four Immeasurables. Immeasurable love, immeasurable compassion, immeasurable sympathetic joy, and immeasurable equanimity.
This was the poster which was advertising this evening’s talk, reading the blurb, the little advertisement from this poster. We are attracted to our cocoons, our selfishness, and we are afraid of selflessness, stepping beyond ourselves. So in order to overcome our hesitation about giving up our egocentric world, in order to commit ourselves to the welfare of others, some kind of change is necessary. The four immeasurable, immeasurable love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity are the catalysts of change. Opening up and responding to the needs of others is the way of overcoming our cowardice, of summing up the inner strength necessary to crawl out of our cocoons and fly.
So in order to fly we have to grow some wings, the two wings of a wise heart and a loving mind. This is the integration and the actualization of our intellectual and emotional potential. They use this image within the great vehicle of a bird. In order for a bird to fly, it has to have two wings. Without one, it can’t fly.
Therefore, it’s necessary in developing a holistic approach to ourselves, developing all our potential, all our capacity, is that we must be concerned not only with wisdom, uprooting the basis of our problems, that is to say ignorance, but we must also develop our hearts. We must develop emotion there. That is to say, we must grow in love and compassion. We must develop an awakening heart. So it’s necessary to develop ourselves emotionally, necessary to develop ourselves intellectually, to develop wisdom, compassion, and love.
But without first developing a determination to be free, there’s no way that we’re ever going to fly. Why should we take up this difficult task? Why do I need to grow? So before we can develop immeasurable love, immeasurable compassion, immeasurable sympathetic joy, equanimity. For others, we have to begin with ourselves.
What do you say? Immeasurable, immeasurable love, immeasurable compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. In learning to love others, we have to learn to love ourselves. In learning to love, we have to learn to understand ourselves and others. Love is another name for understanding.
Understanding is another name for love. There’s a paragraph by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese monk who lives in France, talking about love and understanding. Suppose we have a son who becomes an unbearable young man. It may be hard for us to love him. That is natural.
In order to be loved, a person should be lovable. If our son has become difficult to love, we will be very unhappy. We wish we could love him, but the only way we can is to understand him, to understand his situation. We have to take our son as the subject of our meditation. Instead of taking the concept of emptiness or some other subject, we take our son as the concrete subject of our meditation.
We don’t blame our son. We just want to understand why he hasn’t become like that. Through this method of meditation we find out all the causes near and far that have led to our son’s present state of being. The more we see, the more we understand. The more we understand, the easier it is for us to have compassion and love.
Understanding is the source of love. Understanding is love itself. Understanding is another name for love. Love is another name for understanding. There are many types of love, many degrees of love.
Especially in the English language, the word love covers many, many, many areas. We have love for spouse, love for our children, love for our parents, love for our country, love for Colonel Sanders fried chicken. It covers a great number of emotions. The degree from simply wishing a friendly wish that others be happy up to the willingness to take responsibility, to help others to be happy. And by love, mean the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nourishing one’s own or another’s growth.
The will to extend oneself, to make effort, to work, to nourish one’s own or another’s growth. So therefore, is a matter of will. It’s not a feeling. One actively chooses to love. One actively chooses to make effort at helping someone to grow, then this is a very active way of expressing our love.
And we have to begin to choose to love ourselves. That is to say, simply we have to begin to choose to make effort to make ourselves happy, to grow. And if we begin to see that it’s necessary that we grow, it becomes the central focus, as I mentioned in helping to determine our motivation on why we’re doing what we’re doing. It becomes a fundamental necessity. When you become sick and tired of being sick and tired, you will find a way to get well, that when you begin to acknowledge the high degree of unmanageability of your life.
We have to become sincere in the moment. But more than that, simply most because we want to be happy. We don’t want to suffer. We have to acknowledge that fact. That’s the most basic human fact of all sentient life.
And the fact is we’re suffering, whether we want to use that word or not, the basic human condition. Things aren’t what they quite could be. There’s a sense of lack or dissatisfactoriness about our life. And we’re not basket cases. I’m not saying that.
There’s a beautiful description of my a description which catches the tone of perhaps the quality of many of our lives. It’s in a book by Carlos Castanada, who at the time that he wrote this book was a PhD candidate at UCLA in the United States doing research in the probably maybe northern Mexico. He was interviewing an old Yaqui Indian who was a man of knowledge. And his name was Don Juan. And Don Juan and Carlos Castaneda are in the desert of probably northern Mexico.
And it’s drawing toward evening. The sun is setting. And it’s probably very silent, very quiet. And they’re standing on a high plateau, and in the distance there’s a village, and there’s the sound of a lone barking dog. And Carlos Castaneda speaks first.
He paused. The silence around us was frightening. The wind hissed softly, and then I heard the distant barking of a lone dog. Listen to that barking, Don Juan went on. That is the way my beloved earth is helping me now to bring this last point to you.
That barking is the saddest thing one can hear. We were quiet for a moment. The barking of that lone dog was so sad and the stillness around us so intense that I experienced a numbing anguish. It made me think of my own life, my sadness, my not knowing where to go, what to do. That dog’s barking is the nocturnal voice of a man, Don Juan said.
It comes from a house in the valley towards the south. A man is shouting through his dog since they are companion slaves for life. His sadness is boredom. He’s begging his death to come and release him from the dull and dreary chains of life. Don Juan’s words had caught a most disturbing line in me.
I felt he was speaking directly to me. That barking and the loneliness he creates speaks of the feelings of men, he went on. Men for whom an entire life was like a Sunday afternoon, an afternoon which was not altogether miserable, but rather hot and dull and uncomfortable. They sweated and fussed a great deal. They didn’t know where to go or what to do.
That afternoon left them only with the memory of petty annoyances and tedium. And then suddenly it was over. It was already night. Our lives are based upon sets of ideas, upon systems of beliefs, upon core assumptions. To the degree that our paradigms of reality, our models of reality, are in accordance with the way things are, then we will experience satisfaction.
Our expectations will be fulfilled. To the degree that our models of reality, these beliefs, ideas, assumptions that we have about the world, ourselves, and the way to relate with the world are in disharmony or in discord, are not in agreement with the way things in fact are, we will experience dissatisfaction, disappointment, frustration. So in one respect, when we talk about the determination to be free, the determination to develop oneself, is the determination to begin to transform these beliefs, our ideas, our ways of thinking, our models, into models which fit the world, which correspond to the way things actually are. We have to come in conformity with reality rather than living within the primary delusion of ego’s fantasy. Ultimately, we have to see the absolute necessity to identify and uproot the two most basic distorted conceptions under which we live, upon which we base our entire being.
These are egocentricity. This egocentric approach to our lives in the way that we lay everyone and everything at the altar of our own ego. And the other is self grasping, a mistaken conception as to the nature of ourselves, conceiving ourselves to be unchanging, independent, permanent beings. These are the most fundamental distorted conceptions that we base our lives upon. Out of these arise all the various other lesser types of distortions, misconceptions, afflictive emotions, and therefore all the various feelings of dissatisfaction, frustration and disappointment.
Essentially, what we are saying is that we are stuck. We’re bound up in reoccurring compulsive patterns. These patterns are dissatisfactory. Beginning to identify this fact, beginning to acknowledge this fact, recognize this fact, and summoning forth the energy to develop the skills to begin to uproot them, to become unstuck. The psychology of misery is the pathology of epistemology.
The psychology of misery is the pathology of epistemology. That is simply that our unhealthy ways of knowing has led to all our problems, all our suffering, all our dissatisfaction. That we know things wrongly. It’s pathological. It’s unhealthy, the way that we view the world, the way that we approach the world, the way that we view ourselves, and our relation between those two.
A life based upon misunderstanding is doomed to suffering, is doomed to pain. That the only real method to go beyond our pain, our fear, our anxieties. We have this sense of lack. We have a sense of fragmentation, a sense of inauthenticity. We have to maintain a self image.
We have to continually be re establishing our credentials. We have to continually be struggling for union with ourselves, with the world, with others. We have to continually bear the burden of ego, bear the burden of loss of innocence, of having to guard our territory. The only real way to go beyond all of these difficulties, all of these problems, these neuroses, this pain is to grow. There’s no choice to go beyond that which has been occurring in the past, to transform.
To grow, specifically in love and wisdom, that’s what we need to grow in, to develop these two wings in order to fly, in order to actualize our potential, in order to solve our problem, in order to become a happy, loving, healthy, human being. Acknowledging our pain, we can begin to love ourselves. We can begin to actively extend, make effort to nourish our growth. That’s what I mean by love. To begin to care for oneself, to be gentle with one, to make friends with oneself.
We don’t want to suffer. And no matter how unworthy you may feel about yourself, you still don’t want to suffer. And you’re deserving of your own love, your own compassion. You know, you deserve it. We cannot earn love.
It’s our birthright as long as we’re born into suffering. Understanding ourselves, we can begin to understand others, and we can begin to truly love others. It’s because we don’t understand ourselves that we find it difficult to understand others, and it’s because we don’t understand ourselves that we don’t love ourselves, and we don’t really love others. So it begins by acknowledging our own pain, acknowledging that we choose to grow. We make that choice, that active participation in our own evolution, the solving of our problems.
Acknowledging our pain is to choose to help ourselves to grow. Acknowledging others’ pain is to choose to help others to grow. I’m talking about helping others in a way of working with others. If you want to solve the world’s problems, you have to put your own household, your own individual life in order first. That is somewhat of 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 own 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.
So it’s not that we are to forgo helping the world, but we must understand that it’s only to the degree that we ourselves have developed in wisdom, that we ourselves have developed in love, that we’re going to be able to make a real contribution to the world. Otherwise, it’s very much like the blind leading the blind. We don’t quite know where we’re going or what we’re doing. We may have sincere intention, which is quite necessary. It’s quite useful.
It’s quite laudable. But we have to be able to respond to the needs of others. And therefore, we to develop the ability to be able to respond. We have to develop ourselves. You know, it’s very much perhaps that if someone needs a heart bypass operation and you know first aid, you can only hold their hand and wish them well, which is significant.
We should do what we can, but at the same time it could serve as a motivating force to go on in your training and be able to develop the skills where you can begin to fulfill the needs of more and more people on a more and more profound level. On the way to developing love, on the way to developing compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity toward immeasurable beings, we have to begin with one being, our self. We have to love ourselves in the sense of befriending ourselves. And wishing ourselves well, and extending ourselves to actualize that wish, to nourish our own growth. We have to have compassion for ourselves because we are suffering and we don’t want to suffer.
We have to be gentle with ourselves and kind with ourselves and actually make effort at alleviating our suffering. Your love is the wish, it’s extending to bring happiness. Compassion is the wish, the effort to free from suffering. And we have to have sympathetic joy for ourselves. And we have to celebrate in our life’s victories, in our effort, rejoice in our achievement.
We have to affirm our own basic goodness, take joy in ourselves. And we have to find some kind of serenity, some kind of calmness about ourselves, an equanimity which accepts all the various parts of ourselves, even the parts that we don’t like, that rather not see, that we’d rather not acknowledge. And by accept, I mean to accept our present selves for what we are. It’s not to say that we aren’t going to work to change. We have to.
And that there are perhaps undesirable factors in our mind. But couldn’t be any other way considering our history, considering our conditioning. Everything that we’ve experienced up to now has made us who we are. It couldn’t have been any other way. And we have to accept who we are presently.
If we don’t learn to accept ourselves, we’re never going to really become intimate with ourselves. That is to say, we’re never really going to understand all the various parts of ourselves. There’s going to be some parts hidden that we won’t be able to see because we’re prejudiced against ourselves. We’ve already decided. We have prejudged ourselves.
We’re not going to simply dwell in equanimity and look dispassionately at who we are at present, accepting ourselves with equanimity, with a sort of calm serenity. And then we can begin to know all of the various parts of ourselves, the good along with the bad. And we can work toward change. If we can do this, if we can develop love and compassion and sympathetic joy, and equanimity toward ourselves, then we can begin the difficult task of developing the same attitude toward immeasurable other beings. There’s a beautiful quotation by Albert Einstein.
A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from a prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Mental health is ultimately a social phenomenon.
Part of our problem, part of our neurosis is, as I mentioned before, that we’re so completely caught up in our own problems. Part of our problems is that we only see our own problems. We’re completely absorbed in my own problems. We have developed tunnel vision. So, we’re beginning to widen the scope of our perspective, of our vision.
Though growth is essentially an individual task, it’s something that we have to do for ourselves. No one can do it for you, no matter how much they may love you, sincerely how much they may care for you, your parents, your children, your spouse, whomever. But it occurs as an authentic response, not only to our own needs, which are limited and exclusive. If we simply respond to our own needs, and our needs are limited and exclusive, then this will lead to only a partial and narrow growth. But growth, in its broadest sense, occurs as an authentic response to the needs of others, which are unlimited, which are universal.
And this responding, being able to respond to their needs, leads to complete and all encompassing growth, complete and all encompassing actualization of a complete potential. And this is why the basis of all spiritual growth is love and compassion. Opening up and responding to the needs of others is the way of overcoming our cowardice, our inertia, our stagnation. It’s the way that we can begin to summon up the courage, the energy necessary to crawl out of our cocoons and fly. We live up to our need.
Our only limitations are those we acknowledge. And we set very definite limits upon ourselves, whether we’re aware of these or not. I can do this and that, no more than that. And this is simply our own conception of our own potential. It has nothing whatsoever to do with our potential and fact.
And it’s only by out of necessity that we go beyond our preconceptions of our limitation. There’s a story about, I think it was in a book called The Desert Fathers, a translation of sayings by Thomas Merton. And there were two desert fathers living in the deserts of Egypt. They were both quite renowned, but one was particularly renowned for being quite stern. When people came to confession to him, he gave very harsh penance for them to carry out.
So those people who were of sadomasochistic would go to him. On the other hand, there was the other father who was very gentle, very tender, very lenient, so those who were kind of indulgent and would go to this other gentle father. But anyway, they lived fairly close to one another, perhaps a two day’s journey from one another. And it so happened that approximately at the same time, they both had some doubts as to their vocation arise in their mind. They had, what do they call it, a dark night of the soul, some questioning about their vocation, about whether their calling was right.
They thought they had heard of each other, they thought, I’ll go visit that other father, I’ll talk over my problems with him. They had this synchronicity or whatever. They had this idea at the same time. So each of them set out on a journey toward the other’s cave. And there was a stopping place midway between the two caves, and they stopped there for the evening.
And the gentle father, he came upon the, what’s the word, harsh father. He said, I’m on my way to such and such a father’s cave. Do you know the way? Harshfather said, Yes. He said, You know, I’ve been having many doubts about my vocation.
I’ve had this huge struggle in my mind about what I’m doing, and I’m going to him in the hopes that he can renew my faith, that he can renew my courage. And the harsh father said to him, I know this harsh father. I’ll take you there. So the next day they set off on a journey, they went to the harsh father’s cave. Finally it dawned on the gentle father that this, in fact, was the very father that he had set out to meet.
And the harsh father said to him, You stay with me a while. And so the gentle father stayed with the harsh father for almost one year serving him, praying, listening to all the various teachings that the harsh father gave, listening to the various advices that he would give to individuals who came seeking him. And after about one year, gentle father went to the harsh father, and he said, You know, I feel much better. I think I have regained my faith, my conviction. I have regained my calling.
I am back on the path. I feel this is my vocation. And now I’m going to go back to my cave. And I want to thank you for all that you have given me, all that you have done for me. But I have one question in my mind, you know?
The night that we met out on the desert one year ago, and why didn’t you tell me that you were the father that I was looking for? And the harsh father said, You know, that night that we met, I was just like you. I had many doubts. I was beset by unrest, struggle within my own soul. I had lost my vocation, my calling.
And the gentle father said, Why didn’t you tell me that night? Why didn’t you tell me now? Why didn’t you tell me that night? The harsh father said, At that moment, one of us had to be strong or we would have both been lost. Setting aside one’s own needs, though they may be great, Being able to respond, we draw forth courage, we draw forth strength that perhaps we weren’t aware of, that we begin to tap into a reservoir which is normally unavailable to ourselves in our own egocentric I, I, I, me, me, me approach to the world.
To the degree that we seek to respond to the needs of others, to that same degree, this reservoir of inner strength, of inner wisdom is going to be made available to us. Taking responsibility for others is the most skillful way that we can begin to develop ourselves. Altruism at present is the most effective way to find mental health available to us. In order to take responsibility for others, we must be able to respond to their needs. Ultimately, we can only do that through growing, through developing ourselves.
So it becomes the fuel of the rocket. The rocket is wisdom, but the fuel is love, concern. Choosing to develop oneself in order to be able to respond to the needs of others, and we grow strong. You know, how many parents, for example, have gone beyond the limited and narrow conception that they had previously of themselves, of their egocentric conception of themselves in responding to the needs of their child. They were able to do things that they thought they could have never imagined they could have done.
They’d probably rather not, if they were honest, but they do it. It’s still the same. They respond. There’s a being there who needs them, who’s dependent upon them, who’s calling out to them. And they drag themselves out of bed in the middle of the night, and they respond.
They find some strength somewhere. Most parents, I think, would be more concerned for their child when it was sick than if they had that same sickness themselves. Even in our general selfishness and our self centeredness, there are moments when another individual is able to elicit in us the capacity to reach out towards a deeper and wider dimension, temporarily abolishes our limits, temporarily abolishes our isolation, our loneliness, our skin encapsulated ego. This self imposed isolation that we usually dwell upon. We participate in the life of another person, And we draw on our resources of inner strength, caring, wisdom, skill.
And to participate means not only to it means as much to give ourselves to others as it means to allow others to enter into ourselves. The way that we can bring about these moments of participation in the lives of others, of giving over our lives to others, of involving ourselves, concerning ourselves with the lives of others. It’s through these thoughts, these feelings, these attitudes of the four immeasurables, immeasurable love, immeasurable compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. The structure of ego is in itself a resistance to change.