Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using the image of a swimmer frozen on a diving board, Ven Jampa Gendun frames this 45-minute talk around a single challenge: why we cling to the cocoon of selfishness even when we sense a better way is possible. He argues that Western individualism is self-defeating — genuine social consciousness dissolves the conflict between self-interest and others’ welfare, making them identical rather than opposed. Drawing on contemporary biology’s tentative findings about a gene for altruism, the family as a working model of shared identity, and the Dalai Lama’s phrase “wisely selfish,” he makes the case that love and compassion — not willpower or wisdom alone — are the only catalysts for full human actualization. The session closes with a guided meditation: first cultivating compassion toward a loved one, then settling into mindfulness of breathing.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 HoM 1993 10 20.mp3
UUID: dcc73f2a-18de-4a42-b30a-cbe5508a26bf
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1993-10-20
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.0 minutes
Words: ~5,152
Anyone have any profound realizations they over the break they’d like to talk about? Sure. So we begin as we usually do. Yeah. This continual process of redirecting ourselves, reorientating, getting back in touch with some of our most deeply cherished values that which brings meaning to our life.
There’s getting back in touch with our better judgment. There’s principles and guidelines that we’ve knowingly or unconsciously established for ourselves that we like in our better moments to live our life out of it, serve as an expression about the type of person that we like to be, the preferred way of being, our preferred outcome of our lives. It’s a never ending process, isn’t it, that we have to keep coming back to ourselves and what works for us, what has meaning for us, what brings a sense of fulfillment and purpose to our lives. And we continually get out of touch, you know, involved and absorbed in the seemingly practical necessities of life. We we get out of touch.
And so this and we we as if we live in a trance for long periods of time. And our values can be distorted. We can lose sight of what is actually important in a very very mundane sense. People, relationships, ways of being, which if we were to consider, if we were to stop and think about them, we would be much we would much prefer to to serve as a basis for our life, a way of expressing who, in fact, we would like to be. But we don’t always act in those ways of being.
We often get out of touch. We get caught up and we get lost and we have to wake up again. So this continual process of trying to wake up again. Now the we we we take as a personification or a metaphor. A Buddha.
Something which symbolizes for us all that we can become, all that we would like to be. The most noble possibility of our human potential in terms of both our experience of of well-being and peace, but also in our ways of relating with others, the ways of being in the world. So this becomes this the continual refocusing on our inner Buddha and trying to actualize, to to make what is in fact merely a potential present an actuality, you know, a a reality through the Dharma within the social context of a spiritual community. And we’re trying to continually raise the level of motivation why we do what we do and the the the the intention behind our practice. And initially, we have to be realistic and and think of terms in terms of to a great extent, we’re selfish, and we’re just simply trying to get some happiness.
But that that’s quite acceptable. You know, that’s that’s a necessary point in in our path of development to work through. But it is it’s not an end in itself. You know, that the universal vehicle, the type of the way that we’re trying to work with our mind is trying to look at our experience in a very holistic fashion, you know, understanding the nature of who, in fact, we are. And I think in to a large extent in the West, but also in terms of what is what is called the individual vehicle or the or the lesser vehicle or the Hīnayāna, there is an extreme of individualism.
And this is not to say that we cannot be unique, self actualizing individuals. But this tends to to overlook, to disregard, to not understand that basically we are social beings. And that perhaps the extreme of individualism is in the end self defeating and trying to experience the type of life that we would rather if we could become aware of our preferred outcomes. You know, the trying to level raise the level of motivation, why we do what we do, why we go for refuge to the Buddha within us, inside ourselves, why we are trying to travel a spiritual path, why we are trying to solve our problems at a most basic level, trying to raise the the level of motivation such that we’re doing it not just for ourselves, not just for our own piece of chocolate cake, but for an ever widening circle of others. And so this involves the the development of an awakening heart, the development of love and compassion, the development of a social consciousness.
I think this is perhaps the the the answer to our self defeating extreme of individualism. To begin you know, it’s not as if we have to go through some mental gymnastics in order to to feel ourselves as being compassionate people and act in a compassionate manner. You know, it’s a matter of of cultivating and development and thinking about these issues and using the tools the thinking tools which Buddhism and indeed other types of other religions supply us, that we will we will change. And at present, there seems to be an inherent conflict between self interest and other interests. You know, by conceiving ourselves as isolated individuals, that it seems as if there’s an antagonism between getting mine and getting it and foregoing my pleasures, my wants, my needs, and answering the needs of others, responding to the needs of others.
And it seems, you know, that we can’t this is our reality. There is this this seeming conflict and antagonism between self interest and other interests. And and I think it is only through the development — this is an expression of our individualism, I think. Because I think through the development of a social consciousness, our values change, our goals change, what we see as a good life changes, that all of our values and goals and the good life are seen in the context, are seen in a social context. Our own interests and other interests become one.
Others interests are our interests, and our own interests are an expression of the ways that we can bring about others others’ interests. And this is the only way we can overcome this seeming conflict, this antagonism, this insoluble puzzle of relativity between self-needs and others’ needs. And it is only through the awakening heart. Other way otherwise, we’re always going to be going, you know, somewhere along the dualistic continuum of selfishness and self sacrifice. You know, the the Bodhisattva doesn’t sacrifice anything in terms of forgoing their own happiness, in terms of forgoing their own evolution, for in forgoing their own goals that they’ve set for themselves.
They see that others by fulfilling other interests, their own interests are automatically being fulfilled. That other interests are their interests. And their own interests are other interests. They they become identical. There’s a resolution of the antagonism between self interest and other interests.
And, you know, it’s it’s simply a a matter of forcing ourselves into some, you know, some kind of prescriptive mode of being, specifying that we should act in such and such a way. But thinking about these issues and working with them, you know, reflecting upon them. And I think there is will definitely be an evolution. There’s some movement, some coming to harmony. You know, this is like in a a a family situation.
If there’s going to be harmony, mutual caring, a sense of well-being within the family, There has to everyone there is a sense of that there is one is a part of something larger than an individual person. One is a part of a family, and one’s goals and the good life, and what what one is seeking. Even on a very mundane level, our thought of in the context of of the family, one has a family mentality, a family consciousness as it were. You know, if if parent were to go to buy something, is it well, if I buy that, then my child or my partner won’t be able to buy that. So everything is being able to see, all the even in a very trivial seemingly trivial expressions.
Everything is seen in the in the with this in the context of this awareness of other. In this in this sense, a limited sense of family. And one if one person in the family simply is selfish, who simply goes is out for their own welfare completely at the expense of others and all the harmony, all the all the sense of mutual caring, the sense of trust and openness that can be accomplished within safe environment is lost when everyone has to protect their self interests as it were. So, you know, if we can begin to cultivate this sense, you know, we don’t have to force ourselves into a straightjacket of having to do good, you know, as a prescriptive way of being, you know, that Buddhism says we should be kind, we should be compassionate. We can see that it is in our own self best interests to cultivate such a way of being with others in the world and to work with the methods.
And there are things will evolve quite naturally, our values, our goals. What we see as a good life will more and more be seen in the context of a social consciousness. The awareness of others in terms of how it’s affecting others, how it’s affecting our environment. Obviously, the world has to move toward that direction, and it slowly perhaps is, That we are not these isolated beings that we usually conceive ourselves to be. That this is an optical delusion as it were.
Here, we are part of something greater than ourselves. And and the awakening heart is a psychological expression of that basic understanding that we are something greater. We are part of something greater than what how we normally conceive of ourselves to be. And in fact, we aren’t these isolated beings, but we’re part of this great being of sentient life. And over and above that, we cannot divide sentient life from non-sentient things, that they are as if mutually interdependent, are a unit.
One cannot be divided from the other. If we destroy our environment, we destroy ourselves. And that this is interlocking web of interdependent phenomena, events, things. In order to overcome selfishness, it is necessary to be daring. It is as though you were dressed in your swimsuit standing on the diving board with a pool in front of you.
And you ask yourself, now what? The obvious answer is to jump. That is daring. You might wonder if you will sink or hurt yourself if you jump. You are attracted to 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 privacy, in order to commit ourselves to others, welfare, some kind of leap is necessary. This leap is the cultivation of the awakening heart, and the the awakening of our hearts to others. The overcoming of our of our our hesitation about giving up our our cocoon of of our egocentric world and committing ourselves to the welfare of others, committing ourselves to developing social consciousness making that commitment and moving in that direction. And that means understanding that mental health ultimately is a social phenomenon, that we are social beings. I think this I think that’s important.
I think it’s becoming, you know, that we we we inherited a great deal of obstacles through a lot of misinformation in in over the course of our Western history. You know, the the whole idea of the the Darwinian notion of survival of the fittest has slowly been overthrown. That in fact, there are some thinkers now in contemporary biology who think that there may be a gene for altruism. That that’s that that beings may that there are social groupings which only survive by being mutually useful to one another through a it is the group which survives. And so, you know, there are there are instances where where individuals take on roles where they put themselves in danger for the sake of the group.
You know, when this whole this that goes totally against the the Darwinian notion of survival of the fittest that, you know, that in fact, it is the group. There may be a sense of group consciousness even amongst, you know, within these social beings, in these groupings. You know, I think the one example that comes to mind is that there are certain herds of deer that there’s when they see a danger approaching, the others will run, and a few will remain behind to protect, to slow up whatever danger it is to to defend the herd. You know, it’s a it’s it’s a sense of altruism, isn’t it? A beneficial intention toward others.
And then maybe this is projecting human values upon animals. So I I think you have to be careful. But I think it it maybe it can be used as an example of how we as humans have gone astray, that when in fact we are social beings. You know, the the growth is essentially an individual task. It occurs as an authentic response not only to our own needs, which are limited and exclusive, leading to to to only our to only a partial a partial and narrow growth, but as a response to the needs of others.
And the needs of others are unlimited and universal. And this leads to complete, all encompassing actualization of our entire potential. You know, this is why it’s said that it is only the awakening heart which can act as the catalyst. That means, a method whereby to actualize our fullest potential of a human being. There’s no other method.
There’s no there’s no amount of willpower. There’s no degree of wisdom, understanding, which can bring about this end. It is only the power of compassion and love, which can overcome the barriers of within our mind, the obstacles to realizing our completest potential. You know, the to the degree that we have to be that we take responsibility for others, we develop the ability to be able to respond. We we we draw upon our own resources.
We find means to to be able to fill the needs of others. And this is this is like the the motivating force, the catalyst, the the power, the force behind our spiritual path, our spiritual growth. In a way to within Buddhism, the path is constituted of what is called method and wisdom. Method and wisdom. It’s like the two wings of a bird.
Wisdom, most basically, is what we’ve been what we have been looking at and we’re going to continue to look at the wisdom understanding emptiness, the ultimate nature of reality. Method takes many forms, but the most profound of methods is the awakening heart and love and compassion. And somehow we have to you know, the the the two aspects to who we are as human beings in terms of our self. There is a there is a our our inner self, that our private inner lived world, which is our own inner lived experience, which is inaccessible to others. And then there is our outer self, our social self, our self which exists into relationship to others.
And being for self and being for others. And our being for self, our inner lived experience is brought to fulfillment through wisdom, through overcoming ignorance, which is the basis of all suffering. We experience inner peace. We go beyond suffering. But just that would be simply to fall to the extreme of individualism.
We have to we we exist in relationship to others. We are social beings. We are bonded to others through our through our dependency upon others. We have to find some appropriate way of relating with others, To take our rightful place as as a as a limb of this great being of sentient life. The most appropriate, most skillful, most profound way of relating with others we call love, compassion.
It is it exists in relationship to others. You know, this this it is a fulfillment of the social self, that self which exists in relationship to others. So, you know, this is you know, what we’re talking about is is meant becoming a healthy person essentially. So I think this is indicative of the of the of the way that we have to work with our mind. If we begin to look at our our lived experience in terms of these two aspects of our self, that we want to find inner peace.
So we have to go beyond the afflicted emotions which disturb the natural peace in the mind. But we also have to find some we can’t live in isolation from others. You know, the traveling the spiritual path is not the mere gaining of realizations in isolation from others. But it is it is it occurs within the context of others. And if we’re going to have to relate with others, then we’re going to have to work at the most profound methods in working with others and relating with others, and that’s the development of love and compassion.
You know, trying to understand if we have to keep working with these methods, you know, every each day, each each week, each month. Just keep bringing the mind back because, you know, we otherwise, we’re going to get lost in in in thinking that we can avoid working at this fundamental level and we can actually find some long lasting happiness and profound peace. You know, all the blood, sweat and tears that we’ve expended over the course of our life up to now, to what avail? It hasn’t brought the the lasting happiness and fulfillment and contentment and meaning that we’ve all been looking for one way or another over the course of our life? So, you know, that we no matter what we do, you know, we we we want to experience the good life and there are many components to the good life.
And I think a part of those components is material things, you know, having having a comfortable home, a nice car, stylish clothing, good food. This but additionally, this is not a this is not enough. And we have to recognize, we have to keep bringing ourselves back to the fact that we have to develop some inner peace through overcoming the afflictive emotions. And we also have to find a profound and meaningful way of relating with others in terms of development of love and compassion. You know, keep coming back to this.
If if in fact you can validate this within your own experience, within your own understanding, then keep redirecting, reorientating oneself back to this basic necessity. If understanding our own pain, acknowledging our own pain, we begin to understand ourselves. And beginning to understand ourselves, we can begin to love ourselves, take our pain seriously, and sincerely work with the methods to solve our problems at perhaps a more fundamental level than the means we’ve been using hitherto now. But I think I think even this is quite a liberating fact in our life. And that somehow we we are terribly lonely people isolated from one another.
We our pain isolates us from one another. Somehow, we think that that it’s only me who’s uniquely experiencing this confusion, these difficulties, these problems. But once we begin to understand the nature of our situation, the human dilemma, we can begin to understand that it’s it’s pervasive to all ordinary human life. And even that, I think, has a liberating effect. And I think it’s the basis for compassion and love.
You know that this is the human condition that we’re that we found ourselves in. This is the given in dealing with this fact. Understanding this situation and but not stopping with yourself, but understanding others too are in the same situation as you are in. You know, this as Thich Nhat Hanh says, The the the more we see, the more we understand. The more we understand, the easier it is to have for us to have compassion and love.
Understanding is another name for love. Love is another name for understanding. And there is You know, we we we I think sometimes, you know, we look at the Dalai Lamas and the Mother Teresas and the Mahatma Gandhis of the world. And we don’t see them as ever having experienced almost a discouragement, that they had to work through in the course of their spiritual development in opening their hearts to others, that or that they didn’t have moments of despair and frustration. We somehow, you know, in between our preoccupation with materialism, I think we have the conception that maybe they they are inherently compassionate people, that they’ve always been that way.
They didn’t have to to work through their own selfishness and their own difficulties to to be the people that they became. That somehow perhaps even more so that they have, you know, compassionate electrons and loving protons and awakening molecules in their brains. There’s something like, you know, they’re qualitatively different than ourselves. We can’t conceive of ourselves expressing another way of being other than who we are now. And this is a great tremendous limiting factor in our lives.
You know, we didn’t know who or we didn’t know what we would be ten years ago, the types of thoughts, our present beliefs. You know, didn’t perhaps constantly change or direct our evolution over the last ten years, but we’ve changed none nonetheless. Maybe many of our core assumptions and basic beliefs are have remained fairly constant, but there’s been some difference, some changes in our ways of thinking and relating with others and our ideas and understandings. And what if we were to begin to direct, to actually begin to continually orientate around certain valued principles or ways of being, certain guidelines in our life, like wisdom, like compassion, you know, understanding, taking responsibility. I guess one thing that I I guess I would like to emphasize is that we will change, And we can direct this change.
And as I’ve often talked about this this fact this stuff of mind is is open ended. It’s dynamic in nature. According to our skills and the effort that we make, we can shape the stuff of mind like clay into to any desired shape that we want. We can make of our mind, you know, a magnificent Michelangelo Madonna and child. Oh, we can can make of our mind an ashtray.
You know, it has that pliability, that flexibility, that openness according to our skills or lack of skills, according to our effort or lack of effort. So, you know, no one’s asking us to be superhumans or saints. Right. But just simply to, you know, just exercise choice in terms of continue this continual orientation, making small choices, seemingly insignificant choices toward the type of person that you would prefer to be be to become. And in terms of the Buddhist context, the the choices in in terms of wisdom, love, and compassion.
And then, you know, maybe it’s hard to see our change because we we become acclimated. Yeah. You know, by what I mean by acclimatization is and I just recently went to, Queensland, and there there was an abrupt change of weather, so I wasn’t acclimated. I I noticed the the differences in temperature. But here, it’s slowly becoming warmer.
Eventually, it’s going to become warmer. Right? It’s slowly becoming warmer. And we don’t we don’t notice it becoming warmer. Day by I mean, by minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.
Because it’s a gradual process. We don’t you know, the the it’s only it’s only by seeing our something in relief, in contrast to something other, that we can begin to that becomes apparent, that we discern what it is. But when things when the whole environment and oneself as a part of that environment are gradually moving, you know, are gradually changing, then we overlook what we have in fact accomplished, where we’ve actually moved to. And we have to look back and say, oh, it’s which is difficult in terms because we often our memories are not photographic. They’re quite selective and distorting to what we were five years ago or ten years ago.
And try to say, yeah, have changed. I have moved toward the in the direction that I would like that I prefer to be, the type of person that I want to become, you know, and taking some inspiration from that, becoming your own inspiration in what you have accomplished. The Dalai Lama talks about us being wisely selfish. And it’s if if we can you know, I think Buddhism lays great stress upon our the fact of our basic sanity, that we have some kind of brilliant wisdom. We have the resources.
If we avail ourselves of that wisdom, of that sanity, of those resources. Resources. If we don’t, it is as if it doesn’t exist, but it does. And if we if we if we, you know, we are intelligent beings. We will it is innate to our very being that we strive for happiness, that we we move away from suffering, which that which we conceive of as suffering.
So if we continually try to look within our experience what is in fact bringing us happiness, what in fact actually works, what doesn’t work, what in fact is bringing us suffering, then our own innate intelligence will move us, will help us to evolve to ways of being, ways of thinking and communicating and acting in the world, which will reflect that understanding of what brings happiness, what causes suffering. We don’t have to force ourselves. We don’t have to to manipulate, perform some kind of mental gymnastics, repress, coerce, do violence to our being if we use our intelligence, if we use our our resources. From the point of view of Buddhism, the truth is therapeutic. It’s liberating.
And whatever it is, that’s what we want to know because that’s what will ultimately bring us our happiness. That will ultimately free us from all our suffering. So, you know, we Buddhism places tremendous responsibility upon our upon ourselves to think, to act wisely, to try to understand, to to to use our intelligence, you know, to draw upon our resources. And one of the most profound means that we can draw upon our resources is taking of responsibility, not only for ourselves, but for others. Then we’re then we then we are forced to go beyond our preconceived limits of what you know, there’s acknowledged limits that we’ve created for ourselves.
And then there’s definitely some kind of change, you know, that we’re going to change in the direction of our preferred outcomes. So all all along, you know, making this developing some kind of life plan for yourself in the sense of, you know, getting all the good things of life to material things and relationships work, play. But all along, providing the space and time and energy to work on this fundamental level, to all along keep reorientating your direction of your life to preferred outcomes and ways of being. And then you don’t need to worry. Things will go well.
You can begin to relax. So the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha, which is actualized by means of the Dharma. In the social context of a spiritual community. And we try to raise the level of our motivation for our practice, what it is that we’re doing to include an ever widening circle of others. I go for refuge and to enlightenment 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 attend to the Buddha be able to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly. In the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving and the other perfections, May I attain the state of the Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly. In the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving the other perfections, may I attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings.
We’re gonna begin with our meditation, and we’ll proceed with cultivating as our motivation the development of love and compassion and taking as an object for the cultivation of love and compassion someone that you’ve that you feel naturally close to, that you love, that you care a great deal about. And imagine that person in front of you, and will develop the levels of love and compassion toward that individual. And then taking that as motivation, we’ll go on to meditate on the mindfulness of breathing. And then we’ll meditate on perhaps overcoming helping to overcome some preconceptions in this identity that we have fixated upon about who, in fact, we are and trying to develop a more flexible, open minded conception about other possibilities that of who we might be. So if you take a comfortable, firm posture, Thinking of someone that you love or that you like, and imagining that person in front of you.
If you don’t if you can’t see them, it doesn’t matter. Just feel that they’re there. Begin by developing compassion toward this person first with a simple friendly thought. It would be wonderful if you didn’t have any problems. If you didn’t suffer.
I would like that very much. And strengthening that. May you not have any problems. May you not suffer. Strengthening that, I’m going to help you.
I’m going to commit myself in working with you to solve your problems, to go beyond your discontentment, disappointments, and frustration. And cultivate love to this person. First with this simple friendly thought, it would be wonderful if you were happy. I like that very much. May you be happy.
I wish you great happiness. I’m going to help you Commit myself to working with you and finding happiness. And the way I’m going to express my commitment at this present moment is through my meditation, by developing my skills and my abilities, my insights and compassion. And eventually, I can be of real and practical and profound benefit to you. I can really help you.
And bring your mind to the breath. It’s a gentle, easy, in and out flow of the natural breath.