Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute talk, Ven Jampa Gendun opens with a precise diagnosis: the two “perimeter walls” trapping us in recurring dissatisfactory patterns are false hope — expecting improvement without changing the rules of the game — and illegitimate fear of the unknown that resists voluntary growth. Against these he sets two antidotes: a productive dread of falling into the same hole yet again, and faith in one’s own basic goodness. He then traces how training shifts the center of gravity from self-interest toward other-interest, until in the bodhisattva ideal the chance to give produces bliss rather than sacrifice. The session closes with a guided meditation: practitioners first evoke an emotional state to identify the solid, independent-seeming “I,” then search for it through the body’s earth, water, fire, wind, and space elements.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 HoM 1993 08 18.mp3
UUID: 861a2dac-e0f8-42cf-b1d8-a1594bc8fd7e
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1993-08-18
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.0 minutes
Words: ~4,858
Reorientating, getting back in touch. Here, I I, I think perhaps the two primary delusions which keep us, stuck, which prevent us from from growing, from changing are our hopes and fears. This is the kind of the the perimeter walls of the the prisons in which we all live, in which we all exist. I think hope. By hope, I I mean here a false hope or, I might say, an illegitimate hope.
I hope in the sense that things are going to get better, you know, that that the rules, which are governing the situation, the the the, the plot of the story of our life can remain pretty much the same. But somehow there’s going to be some unexpected twist or some kind of dramatic turnaround somewhere along the line. We’re not quite sure how. Maybe divine intervention. Maybe a new drug will come on the market, chance, something, some unknown, some factor which isn’t quite spelled out clearly or seen clearly.
But there’s a great hope. You know, it’s like, wishful thinking, I guess you’d say, that something better is gonna come along. But even though the same types of patterns keep reoccurring, even though our thinking remains very much the same, even though our attitudes never change, that somehow things are going to get better, even though the rules of the game remain consistent. That somehow, you know, above all of this, there’s an expectation or holding out, hope against hope that things are going to get better. A false hope, I think, a legit illegitimate hope.
It doesn’t it it is illegitimate. It’s a false hope, and it is a primary delusion which keeps us locked into, these reoccurring dissatisfactory patterns because as long as we hope that something is going to happen, that we don’t have to take responsibility to make it happen, that we don’t have to begin to determine our preferred story of life and begin to take up the task of performing that preferred story to, express, in fact, translate what might be, only an idea into some kind of reality into into practice. We never take up that. We never have to become serious or sincere about change, having to to, take up legitimate suffering, go through some difficulties to change. But also, the complement to this false hope or illegitimate hope, I think, is illegitimate fear.
Anything that which is perceived as to a threat to our to our present identity or ego identity, anything which is seen as a threat to the security from which we get out of that, the threat of the unknown. You know, the change involves, we can’t quite know all the specific details of the outcome, all the particularities. And not knowing what change may involve, there’s a resistance. There’s always maintenance of the status quo. We take refuge in what what what is or what has been rather than what can be.
And so there’s, you know, there’s a fear against which prevents us from entering into change voluntarily. So I think it is these two which are the primary, you know, the the perimeter walls, which keep which govern which govern our lives, which keep us locked in to these dissatisfactory patterns, which very much constitute our lives. The hope, an illegitimate hope or a false hope that things are going to get better even though the rules of the game remain very much the same, that something will come along. We’re not quite sure what, but we hold out hope. And the other is fear, simply not the resistance to change itself, the resistance to growth.
It’s an unknown. And and as I mentioned, terms of this process of redirecting or reorientation, there are two basic causes. The first is a sense of anxiety or dread. The second is faith. So I think it is this dread or this anxiety where we begin to you know, we looked at this this autobiography in five verses where this person kept walking down the same street and falling down the same black hole again and again and again.
And we begin to discern some patterns in our life, some reoccurring themes. Yeah. The certain problems seem to occur again and again. Despite our changing, our manipulation or working with the outside world about us. And there begins to develop some kind of dread.
You know, not this time again. I’ve been through this one before. Not not again. Just kind of that. And, you know, one says, I’ve fallen down that black hole enough.
And so this dread, I think, or an anxiety begins to overcome false hope. You know, this this hope against hope, This this wishful thinking. You know, when we get sick and tired, we’re getting sick and tired, and we’ll find a way to get well. This is dread. I don’t want to go through this again.
I’ve had enough. One begins to the dread overcomes the false hope that things are somehow going to get better by themselves without our having to do anything about them about it. You know, I think the second of these two causes for for redirecting ourselves is this process of of reorientation or going for refuge. That’s traditionally termed as faith. And faith helps us to overcome fear.
You know, faith in ourselves that we have the basis for transformation, that we that we, in fact, can change. Faith in the methods of change and faith in the, the outcome of change. That’s enough change or growth is concomitant with a more satisfying, fulfilling quality of way of being, way of life. You know, we we can’t quite quite be sure of all the details on the other side of that change, of that transition. But we can have faith it’s going to go well.
And so voluntarily entering into change, taking up the difficult task, overcoming one’s fear or resistance to change. So I think that these two, developing a sense of anxiety, I’m getting tired of walking down the same avenue, falling in the same hole. And I I felt in some kind of realistic dread about these reoccurring themes in our life. But also developing the faith and one’s own basic goodness and the possibility for change and the methods of change. And the goodness of life in general.
That life is simply not a bitch and then you die. But there can be a radically radical alternative to our present mode of being. We can begin to rewrite the script of our life. Begin to tell another story of the person that we’d like to be, and begin to perform that story, overcoming the inertia and the fear and the false hope which prevents us from living the life we all could live, the life of what is personified as the Buddha, this happy, healthy, loving, sane human being. So in this process, the the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha.
The the the metaphor for the the the outcome of our preferred story, however we may conceive of it. We actualize. We we begin to, translate our preferred story by means of methods, the truth, the teachings, the Dharma, the the way in which we begin to actualize the person who we want to be, who we feel at some level of our being that we know we know it can be. And this occurs within the the social context of the spiritual community, those who facilitate the performance of our preferred story and those who authenticate our story, our preferred story, which all takes place in trying to raise the level of our motivation such that we’re not doing it simply for ourselves, only for ourselves. We’re trying to develop an ever widening circle of concern for others, why we do what we do.
And I think sometimes this is a process. I think we have to look at it in those terms, in that there is a time element which is integral to growth. We aren’t you know, we don’t have to force ourselves into a particular preconceived way of acting or being, some kind of straight jacket. You know, it may appear at times it may feel at times that that the that the traditional teachings are trying to take our happiness away from us. You know, there’s some old men who who are just trying to take away our pieces of chocolate cake.
But if we think about it, you know, our happiness, that which we conceive of of of as happiness, has changed over the course of our life. Know, what we what we conceived of of as happiness when we’re children is very much different than what we what we now presently conceive of as happiness. You know, there was a time when we just wanted a doll or or a car, a toy car. And that was that was like a something which we really valued, something which really we really wanted out of life. But as we grew older, we set us set aside the toys of our childhood.
And our conceptions about what the good life was about began to began to change. And likewise, you know, I think in terms of development of caring for others, in terms of widening our circle of concern for others. You know, it is a movement of a a shift of our psychological center of gravity from self centeredness to other centeredness. But it is more than that. It is beginning to conceive of one begins to, one’s goals, one’s values, what the good life is about, begins to be constructed out of the context of a social awareness, a social consciousness.
You know, at present, we we will always have conflict. We cannot avoid it between self interest and other interests. And the way that this this, is resolved and peace ultimate peace can be found is when other interests are our is our interests. And when our own interest is other interests, they become one. But this is this is a process over time.
It is just like in the, in a family, developing a family consciousness or family awareness. You know, that in a harmonious, healthily, functional family, there is a sense of what one’s goals and one’s values, what one wants, is somehow always seen or evaluated or derived within the the context of what is helpful for this family. What is going to be of use? What is going to bring the family as a whole happiness? One’s one’s goals in life become very much conditioned by one’s being in a family.
One sees the world, evaluates it, sets goals. One is motivated in terms of being a part of something. One is no longer a sense that one does not set one’s goals as an isolated individual, but in terms of the welfare of the family as a whole. And we can simply extend this. We can we can have, as it were, our chocolate cake and eat it too.
Because our our values will change over time if we train our mind. We don’t have to force, we don’t have to, as it were, as I mentioned previously, somehow put ourselves in some preconceived modes of interacting with others. We can, to a large extent, be ourselves. And that will will be good enough, quite good enough, if we’re training our mind. Because more and more, what we ourselves want will be, more and more part and parcel of what will be a benefit to others.
They won’t be they’ll they’ll they’ll they’ll reach a point when they will become identical. In the case of the bodhisattva, someone who has completely awakened their hearts to others, they are well aware that whatever they do for others is benefiting themselves. And whatever they do for themselves is benefiting others. The two are become one. There there there is There’s a bringing together of both self interests and other interests.
So, you know, I think it’s quite it’s not unreasonable to to think about awakening our hearts. It’s not something other otherworldly or something which we need to seeker superhuman sacrifice. Or I think it simply needs some transcendental common sense. Alright. And it needs some kind of practice and training.
Hence, you know, we can always be acting out of what will bring us happiness. But that what that happiness will will more and more be a happiness in which will involve the lives and the the world of others. We can have our cake and eat it too. You know, we can can have our happiness and be of tremendous service to others and bring bring be bringing them happiness simultaneously. And I think this is what the, you know, the basic motivation of the universal vehicle is perhaps all about.
And if this is the only way that we can resolve this this seemingly irresolvable conflict between self interest and other interests, when it when the two become one, when other interests and self interests become identical, then there’s no problem. Then there’s no sacrifice. You know, they say when when the bodhisattva hears someone say, please give, they’re filled with bliss, literally with bliss. You know, that’s here’s a chance to give. You know, the chance to make happy, and that’s what makes them happy.
That there’s a bit there’s been a a a in their conception of what happiness is about. That’s all. Their happiness and happiness in others are are seen as as identical. And they do they are happy. I mean, they’ve experienced bliss when somebody says, please give.
It’s not that they they don’t have to sacrifice. They don’t have this the sense that I’m giving up something. I have to go through this difficulty. They’re happy. So I think it’s it is a matter of not leading a life of self denial or self sacrifice, but training our mind to think in these terms, developing our social conscience to a greater and greater degree.
In terms of our hopes and fears, you know, the the realignment of our allegiance from a life based passively based upon hopes and fears to one which actively chooses growth out of our sense of dread of these reoccurring patterns, but also one out of great faith in ourselves and our own basic goodness and the goodness of life and the possibility of another order of being. I I hope that I don’t know if I made sense or not. You know, the see, we can change. What we what brings us happiness has changed over the course of our life, perhaps, really quite naturally, perhaps. We can direct that change in the in the sense we can direct determine what will make us happy.
We can begin to redefine what our goals, what the good life, what we find value, what is meaningful, purposeful in our life. We can determine what makes us happy. And if that redetermined happiness can be such that it is also identical with the welfare of others, then this is the best of all possible worlds. And there’s no there’s no one who doesn’t you know, if if your greatest happiness in life was to help others, you’d be the most you’d be the most popular person on the block. No question.
Everybody likes people who who is interested in their happiness. And if that if that makes you happy, then there’s only profit. There’s only something there’s only goodness. There’s only some, benefit both for oneself and other that can come out of that type of mentality, that way that view of life and those types of goals. So we’re trying to reconstitute you know, we we still experience happiness.
Nobody’s nobody’s trying to take our happiness away from from us. We just have the ability and directing ourselves to redefine what we will conceive of happiness as happiness. If we can redefine our conception of happiness such that it includes others and their welfare, then that’s the best possible outcome. That’s one of the best stories that we can begin to tell ourselves about our life, both in terms of ourselves and others. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest assembly.
From the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving any 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 highest assembly. From the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving any other perfections, may I attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. I go for a refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly. From the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving any other perfections, may I attain the state of the Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings.
So begin, meditation by, you know, choosing as an object toward whom to develop love and compassion someone you’re who’s not immediately, you’re not particularly intimate with, someone slightly outside of your intimate circle of relationships, but someone who you like, who you care for, but not intimately so. Then we’ll meditate on mindfulness of breathing, and then we’ll meditate on a type of meditation on selflessness, on the nature of the I or the self. Begin this meditation by invoking a sense of I, a sense of self. And so as I’ve talked to some lengths on, we’re not interested at present in the I which we can analytically demonstrate in terms of the the five aggregates, terms of the body and mind, the the I which talks, which meditates, which walks, which drives cars, which has various experiences of life. So, you know, we’re we’re not, you know, in in in interested at present in an intellectual analysis of the nature of the eye.
We’re interested in the eye which arises as an emotional response when we become angry, when we become sad, jealous, when we have great desire, filled with pride. All of these moments, there appears a particular type of I. This I, as we’ve talked about, its predominant characteristics are that it appears unitary, partless, a homogenous mass, whole. It appears to be unchanging. It it’s not undergoing some kind of transformation from moment to moment.
It appears to be independent, isolated from the body and mind, not dependent upon conditions, society, culture, any effect or outside of itself. You know, when when we say things like, you know, I hate you. I can’t stand you. I that I appears. That I appears to us in a particular way.
We want to try to to identify that I within our own experience. So the the first part of this meditation will involve inducing either through your imagination or by memory. You know, thinking of some difficult situations and, you know, you were you were walking up to see walking up to the, on the stage to receive the Nobel Prize, you fell flat on your face. You know? I don’t know if that’s ever happened to you, but anyway, I remember, Ngari Rinpoche, who was the Dalai Lama’s brother, used to be in the used to be in the paratroopers in the Indian Army.
And he, he said, you know, jumping out of an airplane is a great vehicle to identify this eye. As you just jump out here, this eye looms appears very huge at that moment, very solid, very clear. Using either using your imagination or your for some experience, try to evoke an emotional experience and try it’s this is difficult. It’s not easy to in invoking this emotional experience, a small part of your mind is acting like a spy. Just takes some some degree of subtlety and tries to observe.
What does that I look like? I am the why that’s I’m so you know, I’m afraid. Oh, what’s gonna happen? I’m gonna I’m gonna die. I’m I’m gonna die.
What is that I? While it’s undergoing that emotional experience, that I which arises, which has this fear about dying. What does it look like? You know, is it short or long? It green or orange?
Is it changing, unchanging? Is it independent or dependent? What does it look like? What does what does it feel like? What does it taste like?
Try to identify. If you if there’s awareness with this spy, if it’s too powerful, it will interrupt the emotional experience. You won’t be able to maintain the emotional quality of the experience. If it’s too too subtle, if it’s too faint, they’ll just get caught up in the emotion. You won’t be watching the eye.
It’ll overcome that sense of that awareness. So there’s a there’s a there’s a skill which has to be developed in being able to maintain an emotional experience while at the same time a corner of your mind is trying to be aware of the subjective, experience of this emotion. That I, which is afraid. I’m afraid. You know, just trying to evoke, trying to get a feeling.
So it’s a it takes some training, some getting used to this, to working in this way. Then we’re going to look. So first, we want to identify this eye. If we don’t, this is the most important part of the of the process. Once we’ve identified what it is that we’re looking for, then we’re going to look for it.
And the place that we’re going to look for it is over here, somewhere around the body and mind. That’s where it appears. It appears somewhere around the body and mind. So we’re going to look to see if, in fact, we can find such an eye which appears between those emotional experiences. And tonight, we’ll go through the body and looking for the eye.
And the way we’re going to proceed, looking for the eye in terms of it of our body, we’ll look forward in terms of the four elements, earth, water, fire, and wind energy. So, you know, beginning, you know, having identified, having some sense, some feeling with what that eye looks like, then we’re we’re going to look for it where it appears in the body and mind. First in the body, beginning at the very tip top of your head, at the hair on top of your head. First the first the earth elements, all the solid dense parts, all the hard parts, you know, the part parts which have formed, the organs, the bones, the teeth, the hair, the muscles, all those solid parts, the tissues. And working your way down, you know, as you come across an earth element, you know, a bone, a tooth, a muscle, an organ, is that the eye which appeared which appeared to me?
Is that the eye that I saw? Do you know first, you know, is is the brain solid, fleshy part. Is that the eye? Is that what appeared to me, you know? Here’s I’ve got a I got, you know, it’s like, one of these, you know, you see on television these these detective series where they you know, they’re hunting for a criminal, and they’re walking around with a picture of him.
Have you seen this person? You know, we’re we’re out we’re this is the manhunt, wanted felon. We’re looking for this person in New York Police Department, something like that. And so you they’re going and walking around with this picture. So you have this picture of what you’re looking for, this this good looking, solid, concrete, independent, unchanging eye.
And you’re an investigator, a detective. It’s a it’s a brain. It’s not it. It’s not it. Going through the teeth.
Now, you can go back and you put a line up. I’ve been watching too much television. Walking working your way through the body, comparing, carrying your I don’t know what they call that. Anyway, It’s the wanted poster with the picture. And then again, with the water element, all the fluids, the liquids in the body, the urine, the saliva, the blood, the mucus, all the flowing stuff that’s in the body working down through.
Again, carrying your your wanted poster, comparing, checking up. And the fire element, the warmth, the heat of the body, the temperature of the body. Is that the eye? Is that the soul? Then again, working down through the body, the the wind energy element, the respiration, the inhalation, exhalation, the nerve, the energy coursing through the body, along the nervous system.
Is that that the eye, the self, that appears so vividly, so clearly when during these emotional responses? Then the space element, the hollow parts, the cavities within the body working your way down. Sometimes I feel like I’m a hollow stomach, you know, when I’m really hungry. Not not what’s in there, but the hollow part itself, the cavity itself. Is that the eye of the self?
Is it working? No. So we you know, then we look, is there anywhere else in the body? Have I have I overlooked anything that that could possibly be the eye? And the point of view of the of the, I guess, what the cosmology of Buddhism, everything is constituted of six elements.
Earth, water, fire, wind energy, space, consciousness elements. You know, just like in, how do think in Western Western chemistry? I think I don’t know how many elements there are now on the periodic chart. I think last time I heard there were about a hundred six, hundred eight, something like that. That all of matter is simply a combination.
Everything, tables, houses, people, flesh, it’s all simply a common recombination of different proportions or different structures of these hundred and eight elements, hydrogen, oxygen, etcetera. Likewise with Buddhism, that everything in the universe, everything is composed of a combination and different proportions of these six elements. So and these first four elements, earth, water, fire, wind energy elements, are, the the material elements. They’re on the material side. And there’s the space element Okay.
And then the conscious element on the mental side. So first we’re working with the material aspect to ourselves, the body. If if the self is within or is the body, we should be able to find it, having covered these. It’s you know, we have to come to some definite conclusion. I haven’t overlooked the self.
It it probably exists in the body, but there’s some in some way which is unknown to me at present. Some strange kind of way which which I’m not familiar with. We we have to overcome that that doubting tendency. We have to come to some really firm conclusion. If I if it exists within my body or it is the body or a part of my body, I would have found it.
I didn’t find it. Therefore, it is not my body, it’s not in my body, it is not a part of my body. We have to come to really a firm, definite conclusion about that. Then we’ll then next week, we’ll continue with the we’ll work with the mind. We’ll analyze the mind and see if we can find the eye there.
So let’s try that. So if you take a firm, comfortable posture. I’m thinking of someone who is not who you don’t have an intimate relationship with, but but that you like, that you care about, that you feel good about, imagining that person in front of you. Again, if you can’t see them, it doesn’t matter. Just feel that that person is there.
And developing first compassion. It would be wonderful if you didn’t have any problems, you’re free from all dissatisfaction, disappointments. May you be free of all your difficulties, all your problems. I’m going to help you. I’m going to commit myself in working with you to solve your problems.
And cultivation of love, beginning with, it would be wonderful if you were happy. I would like that very much if you were happy. If things went well for you. May you be happy. I’m going to help you commit myself to working with you so that you can find happiness.
And the way I’m going to express my commitment to you at this present moment It’s through my meditation, my developing my skills, my ability, my love and my wisdom, then eventually I can be of a real, practical, significant benefit in fulfilling my commitment to you. Bring your mind to the breath. Just a gentle, easy, and natural flow of the natural breath. Begin the meditation on selflessness.
So using either your memory or your imagination, try to evoke an emotional experience. You can use your imagination trying to imagine what it might be like to jump off out of a plane or or your memory thinking about some fear.