Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The legend of Śāntideva — an idle monk at Nālānda University whose peers built a stairless throne to humiliate him, then watched him float up to it and slowly rise into the sky while teaching — opens this 40-minute session by Ven Jampa Gendun on the second bodhicitta tradition: equalizing and exchanging self for others. He outlines the five-step sequence drawn from Śāntideva’s Engaging in the Bodhisattva’s Deeds, then focuses on the first step, seeing our common humanity. Three stark scenarios — a doctor favoring attractive patients, a relief worker in Somalia choosing who to feed first, a Nazi-era boxcar — expose how habitually we rank others by appearance and wealth rather than need. Gendun distinguishes this practice from neutral equanimity: it cultivates active, unconditioned positive regard, and draws a sharp line between compassion and pity — “one part arrogance, one part sympathy.”
File metadata (for organising)
File: 16 HoM 1993 03 31.mp3
UUID: b104f218-6995-4a4e-9d51-473e7f9fa768
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1993-03-31
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 40.1 minutes
Words: ~4,686
This outward broadening of our horizons to include more and more individuals in our life and our sense of well-being and concern. And the counter movement toward understanding the nature of ourselves going in-depth inwardly, understanding the nature of our mind, and seeing the nature of that it’s empty of inherent existence. As a foundation, a necessary prerequisite, developing the determination to awaken and the determination to be free. And there’s the determination to find another way. We’d have quit falling down the same holes all the time to learn and to change. So we’re looking at the second of these three fundamentals, Awakening heart, bodhicitta, opening our hearts to others, development of the love and compassion.
And as has been explained, there are two meditative traditions. The first, which we’ve which we finished last week, is the seven cause and effect instruction, which has a lineage of transmission from Śākyamūni Buddha, the historical Buddha, down to various individuals, most predominant, most prominently, Maitreya, Asaṇga, Atisha, and the non broken lineage down to our present teacher today. And then the second of these two meditative tradition equalizing and exchanging self for others, which has a teaching lineage from beginning with Śākyamūni Buddha again to Mañjuśrī and to Śāntideva, Atisha, and again down to our present teachers here today. These are unbroken lineages of instructions, techniques, methods, for actually awakening our heart. That the loving degree of love and compassion that each of us have is not a matter of chance.
It’s not It’s not in written haphazardly, it is based upon previous predisposition and that we can direct, we can actually employ methods to cultivate more and more love and compassion. These are skills of the mind, patterns of thinking, ways of relating, which can be heightened, which we can develop purposefully, and making use of these two meditative traditions. So we’re going to begin tonight discussing the second of these two traditions, equalizing and exchanging self with others. So it consists of a series of meditations. The first one is developing a sense of equality between oneself and others, so equality.
Then secondly, looking at the disadvantages of self centeredness. Thirdly, looking at the advantages of other cherishing. Fourthly, a meditation on the actual exchange of self for others. And then fifthly, a visualization technique which brings all of these together, combines them all into a single practice, that of taking and giving. So these have been taught to you and had been served a great benefit in awakening others’ hearts.
But there’s no reason that we there’s no reason that it can’t work for our own. You know, that these individuals who we so highly regard, both as the historical individuals, these great masters, past masters, but also those individuals that we presently conceive for ourselves, people like Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, our various teachers. And they are not qualitatively different than ourselves. As I say, often say, that somehow the Dalai Lama and the Mother Teresa’s of the world simply don’t have compassion on account of eleven extra awakened molecules in their brain. Somehow their brains are somewhat different than ours, that they have gone through a process of development, that they have moments of discouragement, moments of failure, making mistakes, that having worked through this, these difficult moments, having consistently trying to implement some means, however diverse a means might appear to ourselves superficially, they arrive at their present state.
And there’s no reason why we ourselves cannot do the same. That the mind is open ended, it’s dynamic by nature. Let me say it’s changeable and we can direct it in any way that we make the effort and that we have the skill. We can make of our minds a sculpture of the Michelangelo, or we can make of our minds an ashtray, and the stuff of the mind, the clay of the mind. It’s workable.
It’s not fixed. It’s not inherently fixed. It doesn’t have any intrinsic qualities that determine once and for all who we are, what we can do with our mind, who what we can do with our mind. Other past masters have done the same There’s no reason we can’t take inspiration from their example. The Buddhas and the happy, healthy, loving, sane human beings are not qualitatively different than ourselves.
It’s simply a matter of quantity. There’s no unbridgeable gulf between this individual who we hear, who we respect, who portrayed in this painting and ourselves. No difference whatsoever. Simply removing various afflictive emotions, various dysfunctional patterns from the mind, and you have a Buddha and so on. Buddha nature is there within us all, just waiting to be discovered, to find expression, to find a way to actualize itself as others have been able to do.
And there’s no reason why we can’t do the same. As I mentioned in looking at the teaching lineage of this meditative tradition for the awakening of the heart, equalizing and exchanging self for others, passed through Mañjuśrī to Śāntideva. And the source of the main source of this teaching is from a book called Engaging in the Bodhisattva’s Deeds, Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, written by Śāntideva. It is probably the most important book within universal vehicle Buddhism outlining the means for awakening the heart, the means for following the life conduct, the way of life of a Bodhisattva, someone who is heroic, a warrior with respect to awakening, with respect to enlightenment. Know, Śāntideva wasn’t always extolled as the great master, he in fact was.
Śāntideva and I have one thing in common. That he was renowned as, he was actually given the epithet, he who has the three realizations, eating, sleeping and defecating. He he in the eighth century and the state of the one of the greatest Buddhist Buddhist centers of learning that ever existed in history was at Nālānda University, which is near Bodh Gaya in modern day Bihar. And he wasn’t very respected by his fellow monks. Matter of fact, as I just said, all he did was sit around and eat and sleep and defecate.
And they were quite ashamed of him actually. He was kind of bringing the tone of the monastery down. And they thought about, well, we’ve got to get rid of we’ve got to get rid of Śāntideva. And they they wanted to find a way that he would voluntarily leave the monastery. So they they they came up with an idea, let’s ask Śāntideva to give a teaching.
We’re going to ask him to teach the entire path of the Buddhist sattva with the means of the style of life of this individual who has awakened their heart. And they thought he’ll be so embarrassed when he gives this teaching. We’re gonna invite everybody. You know, all the monks from the monasteries, the neighboring monasteries, the lay people, and he’ll be he’ll make such a fool of himself. He’ll be so ashamed that he’ll, you know, he’ll leave the monastery with his tail between his legs.
Kind of self shame. To add to his embarrassment, they built a huge throne, and they didn’t supply any steps. There were no stairs to get to the throne. So came the day of this great teaching. Thousands of people gathered about to hear Śāntideva’s teaching.
And he walked up to the throne and he floated up. He softly lighted up on his throne, upon his cushion. And he began to teach the teaching which eventually became the text called Engaging in the Bodhisattva’s Deeds. And when he got to the ninth chapter, the ninth chapter is on wisdom. It’s on the nature of reality.
He slowly began to rise off his feet higher and higher and higher, higher and higher. Gets higher and higher to the sky. And when he got to the tenth chapter, the final chapter, all they could hear was his voice, and he never came back. So they got what they wanted. In the end, they never returned to Nālānda.
So we left with this book with ten chapters called The Engaging in the Bodhisattva’s Deeds, which is the source text. Though the lineage comes from Bodhichitta itself, the means, the meditation, the way of thinking and instruction are very clearly and systematically set out in Engaging in the Bodhisattva’s Deeds by Śāntideva. Quoting from a verse by Śāntideva. And first we’re going to talk about equalizing self and others. First of all, I should make effort to meditate upon equality between self and others.
I should protect all beings as I do myself because we are all equal in one in pleasure and not wanting pain. So equalizing self with others is like the foundation, just like in the Seven Cause and Effect instruction, equanimity was the foundation. Likewise in this meditative tradition, equalizing self with others. There’s a difference in the quality of these equalities. In the seven cause and effect instruction, the type of equanimity that we’re seeking to develop was a type of even mindedness which was divorced from feelings of attachment and aversion, holding some close and others distant.
So it is a neutral quality, which is a non biased quality with respect to others. So it’s more neutral. Here in development of equality of self and others, we’re trying to develop an unconditioned positive regard. So it’s not only a sense of equality directed toward others, unbiasedness, that there’s a sense of involvement. One actually has a concern for others looks upon others in a very positive sense.
So it’s slightly different. I think this will become more clear. In developing this equality of self and others, we are trying to see the common predicament of our life, our common humanity. You know that the core core of a human dilemma amongst us all, everybody in this room is equal. You know, a way to talk about equality of self and others, it’s almost simple minded.
But it seems like a lot of it what Buddhism means to point out, lot of what Buddha pointed out is in fact self evidences but it’s necessary that if you continually point it out. It’s like transcendental common sense. Actually common sense isn’t very common, isn’t it? In a way, but these simple facts are to be pointed out again and again and habituated, integrated into our normal thinking, the style of our thought. In developing this determination to be free, we begin to confront our dissatisfaction.
When we develop this determination to awaken our feelings of dissatisfaction, our frustration, our various disappointment. We begin to understand our self, which is tremendously important in the sense of what is it I need, what is it I want. Most of us probably don’t know. Finding out what it is about ourselves. The understanding that others are just like ourselves, that they want happiness, that they don’t want to suffer.
Exactly, no different than ourselves. Basically their needs, basically their needs and their wants are exactly, pretty much same as our own. The details might be different, different strokes for different folks, the superficial differences, but basically the coordinates amongst us all. You know, our common shared predicament of what it means to be an ordinary human being. All of our needs and wants, they are no different, equal.
You know when we look at other people, we’re looking at them on a superficial level and we feel that rich people, beautiful people, famous people are happy. There’s something in us which conceives if you watch the Academy Awards, all these beautiful people, happy people, famous people. There’s a sense of power to powerful people, rich people. It must be happy. There’s some part of it which has this association with that type of individual.
Somehow they do not suffer, that we dismiss that aspect of who they are, that quality of humanity that we all share in. And therefore it becomes terribly difficult for us to develop compassion for such individuals. How many people develop compassion watching the academy work last night? Well maybe you could. Some of it was pretty sad I must admit.
But this is just dream. As long as a person is bounded by ego, there is suffering. As long as the person is controlled by attachment, anger, jealousy, delusion, there is suffering. As long as the person is in prison, lives under the influence of fear and hope, there is suffering. No matter how rich, no matter how famous, no matter how powerful, no matter how beautiful, however much they may be lacking nothing on the outside, there’s distress.
There’s some level of dissatisfaction, frustration, disappointment in their life. They’re just like me, basically, just like myself. On the one hand, if we look when we look at the at the poor, when we look at the needy, if our basis for relating is not the essential equality of ourselves and others, of our equality of them and ourselves, then we can easily mistake pity with compassion. Pity is one part arrogance and one part sympathy. When we don’t dwell on the commonality of our experience, of our essential equality, then we have a tendency to devalue others, to make them into objects who are doing good too.
Know, good down to another as if to an object is a little spiritual than a benefit. It’s a little dire both to oneself and the other. You know there’s a feeling of superiority, a sense of self righteousness. One is saying I feel better than you. I feel warm and comfortable.
I feel safe and good about myself and what I can do for you. With such an attitude, beneath the superficial help that we may be able to bring to others, that we might be able to provide, we are inducing the recipient of our help to feel worthless, to feel more worthless than they may already feel. To look upon ourselves as good and themselves as bad, as ourselves as the expert and themselves as being insufficient. It’s difficult for someone who is in need of help to struggle against the pressing intention of someone who is trying to undermine them by doing good to them. No one needs us to feel sorry for them.
I know in my studies of family therapists that the client is in a very terribly vulnerable position. They’re saying I have a problem. One is in a position of power, and one is, if one doesn’t respect, if one doesn’t, one can easily misuse that situation of power, the dynamic, such that one can make the superficial level of help that one may be able to provide, one may be undermining their own feelings of self worth actually might be in effect causing them a lot more harm than good. I remember Mother Teresa saying, know more than anything, there’s an expert on beggars, there’s an expert on the poor. More than anything, more than your money, the poor want your respect.
That is they want to be treated in some way as equal. They need that. Without this sense of equality of self and others, without appreciating our common humanity, the common experience that we all share in, we will forever remain indifferent to the vast, vast majority of people in the world that we meet every day. We will be unable to see how our existence is bound up with the rest of our lives. We’ll be unable, impossible to see the interdependence of our life.
It’s as if these people don’t exist. The vast majority of the people don’t exist for us. We feel unrelated. The isolation that we feel, the sense of separateness that we feel is a product of this optical delusion. Our sense of separateness is a product of this skin encapsulated ego in which we’ve all imprisoned ourselves in.
So the insight to be gained through the practice of equalizing self and others is that essentially the happiness and the suffering that others are in no way different than our own happiness, are in no way different than our own suffering. The purpose of meditating in quality of self and others is to develop the mind that seeks the happiness and the elimination of other suffering to the same degree as one seeks one’s own happiness, the elimination of one’s own suffering, to that same degree. To that same degree that we’re willing to work to gain our own happiness, to eliminate our own problem, we’re willing to work to help others to be happy, to help them to solve their problem. This is unconditional positive regard. No matter, you’re unconditioned in the sense that it’s not determined on the basis of how they are treating us.
We take control, we decide, we empower ourselves. Regardless, I wonder you give me a gift or whether you take something away from me. I still respect your humanity. I still see the bodhisattva at all times is focused upon the good nature of the individual. We talked about at all times trusting in the basic sanity of oneself and that person and relating on the basis of their basic sanity, their basic goodness.
And they’re trying to communicate, to open up some kind of lines of transmission between their own basic goodness and the basic goodness of the individual. Over and above the waves which appear on the surface, but at the depth within the ocean of that individual, where there’s the core of who that being is trying to relate on that level. Which I think what comes to mind is Mahatma Gandhi. He was always trying to appeal to the best of people. He wouldn’t allow himself to get caught up in the static.
He always tried to listen to him in and what people were about. Now to there are ego centered approach is in context with the reality of our situation. Rather than devalue or objectifying others, we’re seeing them as formed beings. We have to begin to see them as feeling beings. When we look at others, we’re talking about this sense of separateness that we have of self and not self, other, self and other, in this absolute boundary, demarcation.
When we view others, what we see initially is a form being, we see an object. We don’t go beyond that and see there’s a feeling being. There’s a being with aspiration, with dreams, with hope, with discouragement, with longings and sadnesses. And it’s almost like we don’t have the time to do that. We we can’t keep our hearts open to that degree.
We can’t keep feeling we’re in too much of a hurry, there’s too much to be done. So we just we we have to look at people as objects. We have to, you know, that’s to some degree. In the capitalist system, you we won’t get into it. I mean, we’ve we’ve become robots to some degree.
How do the people how do the people in the factories feel? What are they dreaming? Does the employer care? You know, it would be difficult to concern ourselves with these ways of looking at individuals. This person wants to be happy, doesn’t want to psychologically like myself.
But we we devalue them, we make objects into them as if we have no feeling. And this and when I say this, I I would say, you may say I don’t I don’t look at people that way, I know they have feelings. I think this is only upon reflection that you will look at. I think if we will look at our actual experience and maintain awareness upon contacting individuals, we see unfeeling objects, forms out there which are to and we’re all relating, you know, what they’re doing, their way of acting, their existence in terms of our own welfare. Now what can I get out of this?
What does this mean to me? And I suppose, for example, that you were a doctor and you walked onto a ward where there were a variety of sick people somewhere. Amongst these sick people were rich people, poor people, beautiful people, unattractive people, educated, uneducated, young and old. You walked under this ward and you had certain skills, certain abilities. But when you begin to look at around at the room, these different individuals who you’re going to work with over the course of that day, Now what would be really your initial gut reaction?
Who are you going to concern yourself most with? Who are you going to treat first? Who are you going to speak softly to and use all the extent of your skills? Who are you going to spend the most time with, be the most concerned about? I think if we checked out, it’d be something on the level of the most beautiful, the rich, the educated, the young.
These are valued. There would be a natural tendency to, because we concern ourselves most with them. But in fact, they all need your services equally. They all are equal in need. There’s no difference whatsoever.
It’s because we have this way of initially reacting that we have that others are basically a source of conflict and frustration for us. Because it isn’t they are treated as simply as objects for our own ego gratification. And that it is because of this that we feel so very unloved, that we feel so very isolated and unable to love. You know, you went to a starving country, say we went to Somalia, and you went there with relief supplies, and all of these various people lined up, All of these people starving, in need, hungry. But some of them reacted very differently.
Some of them were very patient, humble, said please, smiled. Others were very rude, very demanding, obnoxious, rough, unpleasant. Who are you going to give A to first? What would be your natural, instinctive inclination? And those who are most grateful, those who are most patient, or those who are giving you a hard time.
And then they’re all starving, they’re all dying, they’re equally in need, they all equally want to be happy, equally don’t want to suffer. But we are going to discriminate in accordance with our own petty needs for our own self-aggrandizement in some way. In the end, they are not beings to us, just means to camouflage our own inner feeling of poverty and insufficiency. Maybe you’re you’re in nineteen forty two in Nazi Germany and you’re you’re awakened in the middle of the night. Your whole family are thrown out on the street loaded into trucks.
Now you have one of the clothes that you’re wearing on your back, and you’re transferred to to some boxcars, and you’re sealed up with a few hundred other people. And you ride for days and days and finally you’re let out. And then you’re placed in a line into a large building. And then the door opens and some of the people go in and the door closes and the line is slowly shortening and the people never come out. Now all these varieties of people, people you’ve never met, but there are people who have loved ones, beautiful people, educated people, rich people, poor people, uneducated people, ugly people.
And who are you, you know, people who simply need a smile, a gesture of kindness, a bit of caring, a cuddle, Your mind is shortening. Who are you going to take to yourself at that moment? Who would you naturally incline? Those who have brought you pleasure over the course of your life? Those who are beautiful, those who are rich, those are educated.
But don’t ignore the the unlovely. Those have little little work in terms of our usual social value. Do they need carry any of the less? Does a poor person need care any less than a rich person? Is an ugly person in less need than a beautiful person?
Does an uneducated person suffer less than an educated person? They would like to think differently. That’s our habitual inclination. Is to dismiss them, not to acknowledge their need, their longing, their dream, their hurt. We would like to make them into objects so we don’t have to be concerned with them.
And the line shortened. And no matter who they might be, what appearances they may have, they’re all coming closer to the death. You know, it’s such a time how we’re going to react. You know, if if we if we only draw the beautiful to ourselves, the lovely, the rich, the educated. If we only, if we push away the different, the enemy, the stranger, the ugly, the poor, uneducated, This demands that we deny reality.
And it demands that you harden your heart, that you reject your own wisdom, that you act inauthentically and you start shrinking. That’s a necessity. So we’re looking at, you know, in all of this, we’re looking at the equality of others from their own side. The equality of others from their own side. No matter who they might be, exactly equal, wanting to be happy, not wanting to suffer.
When I first began talking, I was talking about this process of aligning ourselves with our own Buddha nature, Which is to say that finding the context in which we can authentically respond to our deepest values. Authenticity, to heal the split between our inner values and how we react in the world, how we relate with the world. There’s a schism, there’s a rupture in our being at some level. And in order to resolve this distress, to heal this split, we must begin to act authentically. To act authentically is to act in harmony with our most deeply shared value.
If we deny the humanity of others, then we have to turn our back on our own basic sanity because it is the reality of the situation that these people, whoever they might be, want to be happy, that they don’t want to suffer. And if we have to deny that fact, we are turning our back on truth, our own basic sanity. And we are driven to a sense of neurosis. So next week. So this is looking at equality from the terms of others.
Next week we’ll look at equality in terms of our own side. Equality from your side and that all beings, whosoever want to be happy, don’t want to suffer. And looking at the reality of that, you know, all the people that you’re going to meet tomorrow, the people on the bus, the people in your office, your children, they all want to be happy and none of them want to suffer equally. You know, to acknowledge that and whatever that might mean in your life to be willing to live with that. Then we’ll look at equality in terms of our own side and then equality in the ultimate sense.
So I’m gonna stop there. We are going to dedicate the merit. The creative potential. I think creative potential I think it has many meaning, but one of them is, one meaning which I think it probably has creates the opportunity to align ourselves. It is the force by means which we can align our way of being with our Buddha nature, our most deeply cherished value, our basic sanity, our brilliant wisdom. It is some kind of creative power which brings about this alignment, which allows for it to begin to express itself, manifest itself more and more in our being in terms of our thinking, our communicating and our acting.
May I quickly become an awakened spiritual teacher for each and every sentient being, leading them to the enlightening 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 and increase more and more. Thank you. Would you like to get a cup of tea and have a discussion?