Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Starting with the provocative claim that attachment is a barrier — not a deepener — of genuine intimacy, Ven Jampa Gendun uses this 36-minute talk to build equanimity as the psychological ground for cultivating the awakening heart. He unpacks why our feelings toward friends, enemies, and strangers rest entirely on selective memory and arbitrary labeling rather than on who people actually are. A step-by-step meditation follows: visualize a friend, an enemy, and a stranger, then deliberately recall counter-memories to loosen the fixation. He extends this analysis to group conflict — the war in Yugoslavia, Cold War enmity — as evidence of what happens when humans relate to labels rather than to living people. He closes with a Lama Yeshe quote framing equanimity as better medicine than therapy. Suited to practitioners already familiar with Lamrim-style contemplative practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 HoM 1993 02 24.mp3
UUID: 3ec0f4ba-f068-40f1-b45e-5c6c8bf30d0e
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1993-02-24
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 36.4 minutes
Words: ~4,248
Previous actions, these predispositions within one’s own mind which tend for you, which predispose you to organize, to interpret your reality in a positive manner. A piece of chocolate acts as a cooperative condition, as a catalyst, as a stimulus for that way of interpreting, organizing your reality And thereby to experience pleasure and respond to it. It has nothing to do with the desire for chocolate. It has nothing to do with attachment to joy. So the difficult, simple but difficult point which is being made here is that in all our various enjoyment of fulfillment, whatever meaning we derive from our relationship does not depend upon attachment to the other person.
Developing equanimity or non attachment towards a friend, for someone who you feel deeply for, will not cause you to care for them any the less. I think we feel love, and caring, it’s so inextricably mixed with attachment. There’s a sense that if I lessen my attachment, I’m going to lessen my love, my caring, the closeness of our relationship, our intimacy. The attachment on the contrary is actually a barrier between deepening one’s love, deepening one’s intimacy. Because with attachment we have various types of emotions with perception and patterning which are associated with that attachment and therefore with our likes.
We begin to restrict others. We begin to confine others to live up to our expectations, to suddenly pressure others, to coerce others in various ways, in a direct indirect way. And therefore there’s no freedom and there’s no way of allowing the other person to be who they are. We simply are impressing the patterns in the heart of who we want them to be. You we simply are projecting onto them who we need them to be out of our attachment, out of our desire.
So the development of equanimity, the sense of non attachment, allows the opportunity to really to love in a non-referential manner, in a non aggressive manner, to really be able to care for others in and of themselves for what they are, not what they can do for you. The focus of what we can get out of them. And developing equanimity in the sense of non hatred towards an enemy does not mean that we have to invite our enemies over for dinner. That we have to, you know, but that we have the flexibility of mind that we can toward them, toward those people who we presently feel aversion for, that we can allow the possibility to cease relating to them on the basis of ego’s projection. That we can see the possibility of a potential out of another way of relating.
We fixate upon our label, categorizations of these enemies as if they were permanent and existed from the side of the object. We hold to that view extremely tightly. So the idea of equanimity is opening up to the possibility, though this person may appear to you as an enemy, that there is a possibility of change and moreover, this appearance. That is to say, you’re labeling of this person as an enemy. And all the association, emotional associations that go along with that aversion, hatred, anger are simply arbitrary.
And with respect to a stranger, instead of relating with them in a confused manner, not knowing whether we should have aversion for them, not knowing whether we should have attachment toward them, whether we should like them or dislike them. The development of equanimity means that we even open to the potential of a meaningful relationship without any sort of preconceptions as to its nature. So the idea of the development of equanimity does not make us unfeeling robots reacting mechanically to others. Some people will continue to bring us pleasure, others displeasure, and still others neither pleasure nor displeasure. But we are creating this space to relate with others in terms of themselves and not in terms of our projections of harmony.
Whether we see them as enhancing our existence or threatening our existence. What we’re doing is preparing the psychological ground to cultivate love. Love for all others, which is an attitude which is devoid of attachment and aversion. So within the within the context of the seven cause and effect instruction, Equanimity is this uneven minded attitude, an open, fluid attitude toward others that is free of attachment and aversion, that is holding some close and others at a distance. So in its actual cultivation.
In the beginning in the meditation process we begin by imagining in front of ourselves three different types of people. The classifications, the categories that we fit everyone into. Imagine on our right someone that we feel very close to, on our left someone we dislike, someone feel distant from an enemy. And in the center we imagine a stranger, someone we have a sense of indifference, neither like them nor dislike them. So you know, with these visualizations, it’s not so important that we see clearly, but it’s helpful.
But it’s more important that we have, we generate the feelings, the emotions which correspond to the three different categorizations of people. Each of these people will arouse a very different distinct feeling in us. And toward the friend we’re going to develop, we’re going to have a sense of attachment, toward the enemy, a sense of aversion, and toward the stranger, a sense of indifference. Now first we focus our mind upon a friend, a person towards whom we have a, we generate a sense of attachment. And we allow the feelings to arise with respect to them.
All our warmth and caring, all our affection, our good feeling, our closeness, remembering all the kindness that this person has shown. You want to share your being with them, their being. Something about them is very inviting. They have they they almost have a sense of glow, a glowing quality, very attractiveness and lovability about them. Then we’re going to analyze.
We’re going to analyze this feeling that we have towards this person and its appearance, how they appear to us. What is the basis for this feeling that you have, that you generated toward this friend? It’s probably that when you think about them, you selectively remember and focus upon instances where they’ve helped you, where they’ve been kind to you, where they’ve shown affection to you or or to someone that you love. Something that they’ve done for you which enhanced your well-being or the well-being of somebody that you love, somebody that you also that you’re close to. They praised you, they they helped you, they gave you something.
They cared. They showed concern whether you were happy or whether you were unhappy. So beginning to cite these various reasons, why do you feel this way toward this person? But beginning to understand that our memories are not photographic plates of our history, that we have very selective memories. And beginning to purposely, you know, we can honestly, if we honestly searched our memory, could we find times when they acted contrary to our present, to these various memories, remembrances that we just recall?
Were there times when they acted unkindly to us, coldly to us, hurtfully, uncaringly? Times when they acted as if they didn’t like us at all? If we continue to reflect upon this way, to remember those instances when they acted in the very opposite manner, the person in front of you now will no longer appear quite as comfortably. They won’t be able to comfortably put them in the category of friends. They don’t quite fit in that category any longer.
They don’t quite have that same glow of lovability that they once appeared to be. They know how to quite touch your heart, if they did. And somehow can again. So the person in front of you has not changed at all. But your feelings towards them have, your attitude towards them have.
Simply by shifting your focus of your memory, by selecting, by reselecting the types of memory, the memory contradictory past instances which are normally forgotten, which are normally discounted, which are normally excluded. They appear quite differently to you. This demonstrates that how arbitrary and changeable our feelings and attitude actually are. Just by the selectivity of our memory, we can change the labeling process. We can change our feeling, we can change our attitude.
So on basis of selected instances, we label this person, friend, lover, mate, pardon, whatever. And we fixate as if on that label, as if this person is always this way permanently and will always be this way. Moreover, it’s not something we’re upon them, but it’s something that exists from their own side. They’re always going to be the same and this is their inherent quality about them. And we’re not even aware that we’re supplying this categorization, this label.
It appears that this person, you know, when when we think of them in a loving way, they can exude a a sense of lovableness from themselves, from their own side. And we’re responding to that lovableness about them. It appears that that we have discovered a friend rather than having created a friend. Labeling this person as friend and holding tightly to this label, we continuously relate with them in terms of our label, in terms of lovability of being a friend. So this prevents us from seeing them in a balanced fashion, in a realistic way.
It prevents us from valuing them in and of themselves. What we see is our own projection. It prevents us from appreciating them from their own self. You see only what they are for us in terms of what they’ve done for us. That’s why we think they’re lovable.
That’s why we’ve given them that label because they’ve done something for us. And out of this, what we’re made out of them in bringing them brings with it unrealistic expectations and all the inevitable disappointments and dissatisfaction and frustration and friction, conflict. Now if we focus upon the enemy, allow all the feelings that we have with regard to them to arise. With this person, their coldness, their distance, all the resentment that they have, all the hurtful things that they have done to us, all the hostility that we fear. And your enemy appears to view the sense of repulsiveness.
Coming from their own side, something about their being which is despicable, which is unpleasant, unlikable. Now you know we analyze, why do I feel this towards this person? Why do I have this feeling? This attitude. Why does that person appear that way to me?
What is the basis for this feeling? It is because we selectively, again the word selectively, we remember and focus upon those times, those instances when this person acted unkindly to you, when they hurt you, when they harmed you, when they didn’t give you what you wanted, what you thought you deserved, they took something away from you or or these apply to someone who is close to you. They hurt someone who is close to you, they harmed somebody who is close to you. They put you down, they hindered you from getting what you wanted. They didn’t care whether you were happy or sad, for some reason.
But you know, are these reasons in fact arbitrarily remembered. And if you were to search, if you were to honestly search, couldn’t you find instances where this person acted in an opposite manner? When they were kindness toward you and a warm, caring manner, when they felt that they liked you. If you can’t or if you can’t, then imagine a situation where this person acted in a kind manner towards you. When they helped you in your need.
And they said something which was very caring, very helpful. And watch their appearance change. We can almost see the label being dissolved, of enemy, of someone who is to be avoided, of someone who is to disliked. This repulsive quality begins to dissolve, and the label, we cannot comfortably project this label of enemy on them. It’s not that we are to fool ourselves. The point is that what we’re seeing is our own labels being projected.
It’s not that we are to fool ourselves. There are some people who it’s best to avoid. Some people do harm. But we don’t have to label them enemy. We can and then fixate upon that label with all the associated emotions being brought in the play.
But we can, you know, if we’re going to label it all, we can at least not try to hold so tightly to that label of enemy. That we can allow the because understanding the arbitrariness and the ease of changeability of this labeling process allow the potentiality that an enemy could easily turn into a friend. You know, we don’t hold grudges as tightly as we did. We don’t fixate upon the repulsive quality as tightly as we did. There’s a loosening of one’s heart.
There’s a fluidity in a way of relating. And it’s not as if you’re trying to brainwash yourself and you’re thinking that your enemy is your friend. But we don’t have to hold on to that that label, that categorization of enemy and all that emotional baggage that goes along with that labeling process. And this is how the world relates with one another. This is what’s going on in Yugoslavia.
They aren’t looking at other human beings. They aren’t killing other human beings. They’re killing labels which have been projected on other human beings. They couldn’t do it if they saw each other as human beings, feeling beings. They want to be happy and don’t want to suffer. They see Serbs and they see Croatians and with all the emotional baggage which goes along with that labeling process, these categorizations they’re making and that’s what they’re killing.
And they’re holding and fixating upon these labels and all the all the emotions, all that they’ve been taught, conditioned to believe about Croatians, about Serbs, about Muslims. And that’s what they’re destroying, is the objects of their own projection, their own hatred, and holding on tightly to these projections. Know, some kind of ability to see through this labeling process and not to fixate upon and to see its arbitrary quality so that it’s more easily worked with and we don’t fall prey to it as readily. What is the difference between someone who who gave you a gift yesterday and slapped your face today as opposed to someone who slapped your face yesterday and gave you a gift today. Now objectively, they have both those two individuals have done the same thing to you.
They both slapped your face. They both gave you a gift. But we’re going to relate with them in very different ways. The only difference is a matter of time and the labels that we’re going to apply to them. One is going to be labeled as enemy.
One is going to be labeled as friend. And it is the respective selectiveness of our memory and therefore our labeling process. Now we can focus our mind. Objectively, they’re the same, but we don’t use that rationale as the basis of how we relate. We relate on the basis of our categorization in terms of selective memory.
And we hold on to those labels, those ways of categorizing and all the various emotions which are associated with those particular categories. Now we focus upon the stranger in the middle allowing all the feelings associated with this person to arise, mainly the feeling of indifference, a sense of unrelatedness, a sense of boredom. This person doesn’t have any effect on my life. It doesn’t matter whether they’re there or not. They seem to have sort of a they do some kind of neutral quality.
They appear neither attractive nor unattractive. So then we analyze again these feelings and this appearance. Now what is the basis for for this feeling of indifference that you have toward this person? Most simply, it is because we can remember no instance when this person helped me or or hindered me, whether they helped or hindered someone who I’m close to. And it’s as if their life doesn’t make any difference to mine or to those who are close to me.
And therefore, we call them a stranger and then all the other various emotions, associations that we have towards strangers go along with that. All our beliefs, all our ideas that are associated with strangers. Then imagine a situation where this person helped you. You were involved in some kind of difficulty. This person came along, maybe you had a flat tire.
That person is no longer able to be categorized, labeled as a stranger. They don’t quite they don’t fit comfortably into that label, with that label. So, you know, they can no longer appear neither unattractive nor attractive. You know, a simple gesture, a simple word can cause us to open up, can cause us to relabel, recategorize that person from strangers to friends. So, you know, it doesn’t take, you know, if we can develop the flexibility of mind where we don’t fixate upon these labels, but we’re open to the potential recategorizing.
And also not fixating upon these labels of friend, enemy, stranger that we develop a more even minded attitude understanding the arbitrary quality of this labeling. We should proceed in our meditation by substituting for a friend, other friend, other enemy, other stranger. All the various possibilities of categorizations that we’re constantly making. All the various groups that we feel close to, that we feel this group is on my side, club, my religion, my country, the citizens of my country, my race. And then we have all these groupings that we can now feel they’re on our side.
And then there’s the other side. The other race, the other religion, the other group. There’s labor, there’s management, there’s hippies and rednecks, there’s the right and left, blacks and whites. Extending this to include ultimately every living being as the object of our meditation. You know, playing with these various categories.
You know, like up till recently, there were there were the Russians over here and the Americans over here. And then, you know, in all the various emotions that we associate with that, you know, these are the enemy. We don’t see people, you know, mothers and fathers who care about their children, who only want to be happy. We see Russians, we see enemies, and all the various emotions associated with enemies. And that’s the way we relate with them.
And that’s the basis of war. That’s the basis of conflict, relating on the basis of our projection, not people in and of themselves who they actually are. So developing this quality of even-mindedness beyond our projection. This is not to say that we aren’t to use these categories, these labeling process. These categorizing labels are necessary, useful.
They are symbols by which we can communicate and we can think about the world and we can deal with the world. But they’re only that, they’re only symbols. The map is not the territory. They’re only convention. They aren’t real people.
They aren’t like handy references if they can be used. But they are not flesh and blood people with feelings. You know, with all their very unique hopes and dreams, very good points and their bad points, unique individuals. So the practical consequence, I’m going to finish in just a minute the practical consequence of this meditative process is that we begin to loosen up our rigid fixation in these various stereotyped categories and all of the emotional associations that go along with these categories, of these individuals, these various groups. We develop a we begin to to relate with people in a more fluid and open manner of equanimity.
Relating with people in and of themselves, each with their unique hopes and their dreams, each with their unique style and their, the unique good qualities and bad qualities, seeing people for in and of themselves. This is the way that we can have an even minded attitude toward them, free of attachment and aversion. Tight, you know, holding on to those we have attachment for, pushing away those we have aversion for, giving others a sense of distance. In this way we begin to prepare the ground for the nurturing of awakening heart. One last quotation by Lama Yeshe.
Meditating on equilibrium is the best way of producing good mental health. Instead of paying a hundred dollars an hour to a therapist, meditate on equilibrium. Close your eyes and ignore all physical sensations. Abandon the five sense perception and allow yourself to sink deeply into the intensive awareness of your mind experiencing equilibrium. You will definitely become more balanced, open and peaceful.
After ten minutes of this type of meditation you will come out into a different world. The more we train ourselves to see the basic equality of everyone having overcome our habitual tendency to stick them rigidly into categories of friend and enemy and stranger, the more our heart will open, increasing immeasurably our capacity for love. By freeing ourselves from prejudicial views, we will be able to appreciate fully that everyone without exception wants and deserves to be happy and wishes to avoid even the slightest suffering. Therefore from the basis of equilibrium we will be able to cultivate universal love, compassion and eventually the full realization of bodhicitta, The opening heart dedicated totally to the ultimate benefit of all. So the equanimity is like preparing an even minded ground upon which we are going to construct the awakening heart.
Having this equal minded attitude which is free of aversion, keeping some at a distance, and attachment drawing others near to you. I guess in summary, the point that’s trying to be made here is that it allows for a real possibility of loving another human being in themselves, who they actually are, as opposed to our projecting categories, as opposed to our labeling them, and all the emotions, our associations which go along with our labeling process. That these categories of friend and enemy and stranger are arbitrary and easily changeable. And at least trying to develop a flexibility of mind where we don’t force people, We don’t hold on to these categories as tightly as we have up to now, but we allow for the potentiality of a more beneficial and caring way of relating, Seeing people in and for themselves. They want, who they are, and what they want out of life, and who in fact they are.
Trying to see people trying to see the people who are there in front of us, not our not what we want to see, not what they can do for us, the people in and of themselves. They’re connecting up at that level. I think we’ll stop there. I would dedicate the the the creative potential that we accumulate in this way. The meditation is to visualize before you a friend and then an enemy and a stranger.
And if one has a mate, someone that you love, it’s not remembering the ways they’ve hurt you in the past is Generally, try always to remember the positive things that people do for us. But here, it’s very useful to see them for who they really are. In remembering the difficulties that we feel that they caused us, even perhaps that we can appreciate their humanity a bit more rather than seeing them simply as our partner. And maybe we can see our partner or our intimate for the first time, you know, how to to see them anew. People in and of themselves who want to be happy, who don’t want to suffer. I remember thinking of my mother as a child and thinking that she was that she was simply there to make me happy.
And I thought that was the only job in life. And to there was some period of time coming to understand that she had her own life. And she, from her own side, though she devoted a great deal of her time and energy to to my welfare, from her own side she wanted to be happy. Just like myself and she didn’t want to suffer and see, you know, as a human being in that way, aside from being my mother, that she was a human being who wanted to be happy, and opening up to her for a few minutes. So I think that we can open up to the humanity of our husbands or our wives or partners as a means of enriching the relationship.
Another perspective on who they are that perhaps we overlook, since we see them generally only from our own perspective, in terms of our own projection, the labels that we apply to them as being my husband and my wife, but not being in and of themselves. humans who want to be happy, just like ourselves. 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. May that which has arisen never decline but spread and increase more and more.