Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” opens this 46-minute talk by Ven Jampa Gendun, who uses the poem to frame a central question: how do small, barely-noticed daily choices determine who we become? He argues that hope and fear keep us cycling through the same patterns no matter how often we change jobs, partners, or cities, and that real practice begins in trivial moments — illustrated memorably by which piece of chocolate cake you reach for. Going for Refuge to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha is then recast not as formal recitation but as this constant reorientation in everyday decisions. The session closes with guided meditation: cultivating compassion toward someone you find difficult, mindfulness of breathing, and a step-by-step exchange of self with others.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 17 HoM 1993 06 02.mp3
UUID: 9baafbd4-001f-4980-9611-311508ff2d6b
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1993-06-02
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.9 minutes
Words: ~3,234
Redirecting ourselves, getting back in touch with those values which we have, at some time in our life, found to be of great meaning, that we have great belief in. Getting back in touch with what is important to us as very unique individuals. I’d like to read a poem by Robert Frost, an American poet. It’s entitled The Road Not Taken. I’m talking about perhaps, I don’t know, but for me, that we are continually presented with choices in the course of our life.
Perhaps for various reasons, circumstances, we’re not able to exercise our freedom to choose and we aren’t able to make use of our discretion. But in those more the seemingly insignificant choices that we’re daily confronted with, we can begin to choose. And how are we going to choose in terms of what values? What are we going to use as our standards which are going to help us decide? Because whether we’re conscious of it or not, whether we’re aware of it or not, we’re continually making choices.
And quite often, or perhaps more often than not, these choices are not in our own self best interests, as we’re trying to understand in our studies, in our practice. The Road Not Taken. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both. And be one traveler, long I stood, and looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth. Then took the other, just as fair and having perhaps the better claim, because it was grassy and wanted wear, though as for that the passing there had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay, and leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first one for another day. Yet knowing how how ways lead on ways, I doubted if I would ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence. Two roads diverged in a wood.
And I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. So, you know, trying to think for ourselves, to be no one but yourself in a world which is night and day trying to make us everyone else, is a is a very courageous struggle that we’re all involved in to a lesser or greater extent. And not only do we need courage, but we need awareness in knowing what works for us within our own experience. What do we really believe in? What are our self developed, autonomously derived priorities in our life?
And then being able to be mindful of them and all the various seemingly insignificant choices that life is continually bringing us and choosing that path which is right for us. You know, the path which is perhaps the path which leads on to a difference, making a difference a difference in our life. You know, we we you know, quite often I talk about the primary restriction which governs our which restrains us, governs our life, which keeps us within these reoccurring neurotic patterns are our hopes and fears. The hope in terms of wishful thinking that the rules which govern the situation, govern our lives, without changing them, that things will somehow get better. And fear is simply a resistance against anything which seems to be a threat to one’s immediate well-being.
One’s immediate grasping for pleasure, or fame, or gain. So there’s no long term view. There’s no willingness to work through the difficulty. No willingness to confront problems. And on the one hand, on the other, there is simply the wishful thinking that somehow, we’re not quite sure how.
But things will get better, things will change. There’s a great hope that tomorrow will be a sunny day, without our having to really work at the means to create that sunny day, to make things better than they were today, to change ourselves. And so, within the within these parameters, these these standards by which we we lead our lives under the influence of nothing ever quite changes, nothing you know, that’s the these reoccurring patterns keep presenting themselves throughout the course of our life. You know, we we perhaps move to a different place. We perhaps find another partner.
We get another job. We keep changing all the various variables about us. But the rules which govern the quality of our experience of those variables remain the same. And therefore, our experience remains very much the same. And we continually experiencing the same problems again and again and again.
Hoping things that will get better, but fearing to make the change. To work to confront the issues and work through the problems. And therefore, this is the way we pass our life. So I don’t you know we can’t perhaps make it’s not perhaps realistic or practical to to make dramatic changes over the course of our lives. But we we can make small choices.
We can take the road, you know, when there’s a significant fork, a possibility of two alternatives which are presented to us, even in seemingly insignificant events. You know, we’re talking about the development of an open heart, the development of other centeredness. And even if it were to, you know, if there’s two pieces of chocolate cake and one is slightly bigger than the other, there’s a possible choice that needs to be made in which one you’re going to take on yourself. Which which one is going to lead you down the road, which you have your own self best interest, which is going to lead you toward that person that you would ultimately, in your own, in terms of one’s own preferred story, rather become. And so you make the choice in that life.
And an insignificant and very seemingly insignificant event becomes a way of life. And our lives to a large extent are are made up of myriads of infinite insignificant events. Very few dramatic moments in the course of a of our lives. But it is these insignificant events which constitute our life. And it is the choices that we make which are going to determine the quality of our life.
So we we begin to shift our allegiance throughout all of this process of thinking, listening, meditating, practicing, contemplating. A shift in allegiance from a life which is passively passively led on the basis of hopes and fears to one which is actively based upon choosing to grow. That’s the path I want to take. And trying to see how that expresses itself in practical the practical applications in my everyday life. How what are the small insignificant choices that I’m making every day of my life?
Hundreds and thousands of small insignificant choices. How can I find this determination to be free? How can I make this this seeking to open my heart? How can I express it in terms of these insignificant choices? You know, that’s, I think that is the terms of real practice.
I think meditation, mean listening, involving ourselves in gathering information, you know, finding out new ways of being, which perhaps weren’t known to us before or weren’t clear in our own minds. Reflecting upon them, clarifying, finding the meaning, whether they are authentic, whether they are in accord with our own experience, whether they are valid, testing whether our own methods of determining whether things are valid or not are are in fact correct. And then this meditation, this integration, becoming used to new ways of thinking, new ways of new, you know, alternative ways of being, looking at things, viewing things, interpreting. And then this, but we have to somehow integrate this with our everyday life. And then you know it becomes Then the process becomes an expression of our life.
It’s not something other than our lived experience. This process of listening, of reflecting, and meditating. It becomes an integral part of our life. Our life reflects this process and our process this process of listening, reflecting and meditating reflects our life and what we’re about. We try to, you know, to focus in terms of our the outcome of our preferred story, the type of person that we want to be.
In all these significant insignificant seemingly insignificant choices that we have to make. And we call that Buddha. We call making this choice of perhaps choosing that smaller piece of chocolate cake. Not forgoing chocolate cake, but choosing choose perhaps choosing the smaller one. That’s going for refuge to Buddha.
And they’re finding the way to express one’s basic sanity, one’s love and compassion, and one’s wisdom within seemingly insignificant events. And going for refuge, this idea of redirecting ourselves, reprioritizing our values, though perhaps it’s useful to do it formally. If it’s have any real meaning at all, the going for refuge has to be a natural part of our everyday being. And choosing this piece of smaller piece of chocolate cake is the way if we go for refuge, is the way that we are really beginning to, in a very profound manner, to solve our problems. It may seem almost laughable, but it is indicative of a real style of a way of being, which can lead us to the ultimate solutions to our problems if it’s not there then there’s no practice So the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha.
And this inner focus is is expressed in choosing Buddha, choosing our the Buddha within inside of ourselves. You know, all these choices that we are making hundreds and thousands of time each day. And we seeking to actualize, to help us to to be able to perform our preferred story the way that we would rather choose the methods are the dharma. And that style of life, that way of being, that seems preferable in some ways to us, which will lead to a quality way of life, which lead to a which, you know, in terms of moving away from attachment to openness, miserliness to generosity, from hatred to love, from self centeredness to other centeredness, from unknowing to wisdom, That which helps us to provide expression to our preferred story, to actualize the person that we want to be, Buddha, to help us to make these choices. And And then finally, the social context of the spiritual community, those who support this way of being, this style of choosing.
And if we if we we have to actually make use of who we are and what we know, Or it is as if we didn’t have it. You know, if we have we have money, it’s necessary that we make use of that money, or it’s as if we didn’t have it. We may feel, maybe there may be some degree of security, some sense of well-being in knowing that it’s there. But if we actually have freedom, then we have to exercise freedom. Or it’s as if we didn’t have it.
So if we have some wisdom, we have some love and compassion, we have to actually express it, modes of of ways of relating in which our wisdom and our love, our fine expression, are actualized. And the context in which this is most able to be supported, this way of being, is in the social environment of a spiritual community, which, you know, we’re finding out to, to some degree within our own experience. Those people who help us to to perform our most preferred story, who help us to to overcome the fear of opening up and letting go. And we try this process, why we’re doing what we’re doing, what we’re about in our life. We try to raise the level of motivation such that we’re not doing it for our own self concern solely but trying to ever widen our scope of our concern to include a greater and greater number of other in our life.
You know, why we’re trying to express Buddha, why we’re why we are trying to practice the Dharma, why we seek out like minded individuals within the spiritual community in order that we can not in in in itself but so that we can be of greater service to others. And in that way serving ourselves. That we can develop development of a social consciousness and being able to see these choices that we’re making in terms of how they are influencing our social environment, the ecology of the beings about us. And then we become our way of being becomes integrated into a larger pattern until it becomes we become part of the limbs of this great being of sentient life. So the focus of our life becomes Buddha, the Buddha within the side of ourselves, which we actualize by means of the Dharma within the social context of the spiritual community, in raising the level of our motivation such that we are doing it not just for ourselves, but for the sake of an ever widening circle of other.
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 a 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. 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 am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly.
From the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving and the other perfections, may I attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. So we’ll begin with meditation and adjusting our motivate our motivation through cultivation of compassion and love. And we can choose as an individual toward whom to develop these these states. Someone we don’t get along with very well. And there’s perhaps not an active argument at the time, but a feeling of uncomfortableness around the particular person.
And we’ll try to work with that individual trying to develop these particular states. And as sincerely as possible, as genuinely as possible, trying to open up to a different way of looking, relating with this this particular person. Then we’ll meditate on mindfulness of breathing, and then again exchange of self with others, try imagining various individuals in front of ourselves, and as best we can, putting ourselves in their place. And how would it be to be them trying to feel their feelings, think their thoughts, and then look at look at the world out of their eyes. Putting yourself in their situation as best you can.
And it’s sort of re identifying what it might be to be in their situation. Sort of stepping out of one’s habitual patterns of viewing the world and thinking terms of one’s own circumstance, image, image, and trying to, to some degree, try to experience how the world might be for them, how they might be feeling experiencing the same situations, Trying to understand them a little bit better. So if you take a comfortable, firm posture, making in the course of mindfulness of breathing, if it’s useful, making use of counting and noting. And toward the end of the of the of the mindfulness session, it might be useful to set aside counting and just stick with the noting, and then also set aside the noting. So thinking of someone that you’re having some difficulties with, just a sense of uncomfortableness, perhaps no great argument, no anger, hatred manifested.
Just you just don’t feel comfortable around this person. And imagine that person in front of you as best you can. It doesn’t if you cannot see them, it doesn’t matter. Just feeling that that person is there. And first developing compassion toward this person initially with a simple friendly thought.
It’d be wonderful if you didn’t have any problems. That would would be good. I would I would like that very much if you didn’t suffer. I wish you didn’t suffer. I wish you didn’t have any problems.
May you may you not have any problems, sufferings, any difficulties. I’m going to help you commit myself to working with you and helping you to solve your problems. We’ll cultivate love toward this person. First with a simple friendly thought, it would be nice if you were happy. I would like that.
May you be happy. I’m going to help you to commit myself to working with you to find happiness. In The way I’m going to express my commitment to you at this very moment is through my meditation, my developing my skills, love, my wisdom. Then eventually, someday, I’m going to be able to be of significant benefit. I can really help you and fulfill my commitment to you.
Then bring your mind to the breath. Easy in an outflow of the natural breath. So we’re going to begin with someone that we love, but someone of the same sex. So thinking of someone that you care a great deal about or close to, but someone of the same sex as yourself. Imagine that person in front of you.
We to put ourselves in their place, feel their feelings, think their thoughts, look at the world out of their eyes. How would it be to be them? And look back at your former self. What is it that you see, that you feel? Do you experience a sense of warmth, of friendliness that you’re that you understood and cared for, that you’re valued, supported.
And express what it is that you feel that you see when you look back at your former self. Then think of an acquaintance, someone you’re not particularly close to, but someone perhaps you work with, that you meet quite often. You’re liking for them, but you’re not particularly close. When it’s best you know them, put yourself in their place, Taking their thoughts and feeling their feelings looking at the world out of their eyes. How would it be to be them?
And then looking back at your former self, What is it that you feel that you see? Feel an invitation to closeness, a sense of competitiveness, of indifference, connectedness, feeling of alienation. Express what it is that you see, that you feel to your former self. And then think of a destitute person, perhaps living on the street, sleeping in a park, with no money, no friends, cold, hungry? How would it be to be in such a position?
How would it feel? Look at the world out of their eye. Look back at your former self. What do you see? What do you feel?
What do you see when you look in your the eyes of your former self? Is it pity, fear, compassion, caring, indifference? Express what it is that you see, that you feel to your former self. And then finally, of someone you’re having some difficulties with, problems you’re angry at. Put yourself in their position.
Look at the situation out of their eyes. Try to feel how they are feeling.