Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A Thich Nhat Hanh parable about a woman who chants the Buddha’s name a thousand times daily for ten years yet stays bad-tempered — until a neighbor’s prank reveals she has been practicing for quantity, not quality — anchors this 45-minute session and drives its central argument. Ven Jampa Gendun uses it to insist that motivation, not accumulated repetitions, determines whether meditation transforms anything. He then leads a three-stage compassion-and-love meditation directed first at oneself, building from a simple friendly wish to a willed intention to an active personal resolve, and introduces mindfulness of breathing as the anchor practice for the series. He closes by previewing the course text: Tsongkhapa’s fifteen-verse guide to the awakened heart, awakened mind, and will to awaken.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 HMA 1996 04 30.mp3
UUID: 014133bd-d473-4346-ad6d-87aa33a23e02
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1996-04-30
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.6 minutes
Words: ~4,979
Trying to live out the the finest story that I could ever hope to tell myself about myself. Not just my own narrow needs, just not just my own limited wants, but for an ever widening circle of others. And if we can do that, if we can begin to feel that, then we’ll change. Then there’s going to be some evolution, some movement of the mind. We’re going to pass we’re going to move beyond the barriers, the resistance, fears, and begin to some degree find some solutions to some of the fundamental problems of our life in a realistic and and a significant way for ourselves.
Then we begin to live our refuge and become the style of a life. So this is summed up. There’s these sheets in your in your prayer book. So, you know, I talked a little bit about Buddha. And next week, we’ll talk a little bit about Dharma, a little bit about the spiritual community as alternative refuges for ourselves.
So there’s a there’s a yellow sheet, I think. So if you’d like to recite, the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha, which is actualized by means of the Dharma within the social context of the spiritual community, And try to raise the level of your motivation why we’re doing what we’re doing. Why am I going to go for refuge to Buddha? Not just my own narrow needs, but for everyone in a circle of others. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge into awakening.
Through the creative potential, my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings. Let’s try the second verse. The Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge into awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of the Buddha for the sake of all living beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge into awakening.
Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma. May I achieve the state of the Buddha for the sake of all living beings. And we’re going to meditate as part of the each evening. And maybe I’ll read you a little story. Again, it’s it’s a question of motivation.
And there’s nothing particularly magical about meditation. There’s there’s nothing inherently beneficial about meditation, even Buddhist meditation. It’s very much again dependent upon our motivation, why we’re doing it, and how we implement the methods of meditation, and if we implement them with understanding. There’s a story that I’d like to read to you. It’s by a Vietnamese monk who now lives in France by the name of Thich Nhat Hanh.
And they’re trying to get across the idea of to ensure, you know, we only have so much time. We only have so much energy available to ourselves. Make sure that what we do, that time and energy that we are that we do put in, it’s worthwhile, that we get something out of it, that it’s useful. There’s a story I would like to tell you about a woman who practices the invocation of Buddha Amitābha’s name. So Buddha Amitābha is is one of the, you know, of infinite Buddhas, but a very significant Buddha, especially in many of the types of Buddhism called Pure Land, but also within the Buddhist Tibetan Buddhism.
The invocation of Buddha Amitābha. She is very tough, and she practices the invocation three times daily using a wooden drum and a bell reciting Namu Amitābha Buddha. Namu Amitābha Buddha. Namu Amitābha Buddha. This is a practice reciting this.
And Namu means homage, homage to Amitābha Buddha for one hour each day. When she arrives at one thousand times, she invites the bell to sound. In Vietnamese, we don’t say strike or hit a bell. Although she has been doing this for ten years, her personality has not changed. She is still quite mean, shouting at people all the time.
A friend wanted her to teach wanted to teach her a lesson. So one afternoon when she had just lit the incense, invited the bell to sound three times, and was beginning to recite Buddha, he came to her door and said, Mrs. Nguyen, Mrs. Nguyen. She found it very annoying because this was her time of practice.
But he just stood there at the front gate shouting your name. She said to herself, I have to struggle against my anger, so I will ignore that. And she went on, Buddha. Buddha. Buddha.
Buddha. Buddha. The gentleman continued to shout her name, and her anger became more and more oppressive. She struggled against it, wondering, should I stop my recitation and go out and give him a piece of my mind? But she continued chanting.
And she struggled very hard. Fire mounted in her, but she still tried to chant. The gentleman knew it, and he continued to shout, Mrs. Nguyen, Mrs. Nguyen. She couldn’t bear it any longer. She threw away the bell and the drum.
She slammed the door, went out to the gate, and said, why? Why do you behave like that? Why do you call my name hundreds of times like that? The gentleman smiled at her and said, I just called your name for ten minutes, and you were so angry. You have been calling the Buddha’s name for ten years.
Think how angry he must be by now. The problem is not to do a lot, but to do it correctly. If you do it correctly, you become kinder, nicer, more understanding, loving. When we when we practice walking or sitting, we should pay attention to the quality and not to the quantity. If we practice only for the quantity, then we’re not very much different from Mrs. Nguyen.
I think she learned her lesson. I think she did better after that. So, you know, again, it’s a you know, it’s just a a moment of real profound awe or inspiration, a real profound insight of faith can be transformative. It’s definitely not the quantity. It’s what we bring to the situation, the quality of our being, the wholeness of our being.
So trying to to bring, you know, to to You know, we do everything in a very fragmented sense, don’t we? Here we’re trying to do something holy. Something with the and with a sense of quality. You know, we’re trying to create the ecology of mind and and space for something new to occur, some change, something that hasn’t been before to be born, a new idea, a new way of being, other feelings, productive states of mind to come about. We have to change.
That we we have to create the the internal context, the atmosphere, the ecology of mind for change to take place. We’re going to do that again by adjusting our motivation. We’re going to work with different individuals over the course of the evenings together in cultivating compassion and love as our motivation for our meditation. And I mean, we’re going to it’s hard to love, isn’t it? It’s hard to feel that in a true sense of really wishing others to be happy.
You know, how can we wish wish all sentient beings to be happy? You know, I think we could end up very much like the person says, oh, I love sentient beings. There’s just people I can’t stand, or my my next door neighbor. You know, we have to begin with many, many, many individuals, and then we get a sense of what others might be like, what all sentient beings that we are continually talking about for the sake of all living beings, for the sake of all living beings. It’s like as I’m concerned as abstract entity which has no connection with these people, this person, and this person, and this person, and this person.
Don’t like this person. I wish they dress up, maybe that person. I don’t like the smell of their breath. You know? But all sentient beings are okay.
You know? There’s something disconnected between the two. So if we can work the other way perhaps, we can work from the from the many individuals to the all. Maybe that’s a more realistic approach. So we’re going to work through a spectrum of individuals, beginning with with those toward whom we can most readily develop love and compassion.
Hopefully, we can begin with ourselves. You know, if we can’t, you know, in the sense of love, wishing ourselves happiness sincerely, in the sense of compassion, wishing ourselves to to not suffer and not to have any problem. You if we can’t wish that for ourselves sincerely, you know, knowing our own difficulty, knowing our own problems immediately, directly with our own lived experience as we do, how can we ever hope to develop a sincere, stable, powerful, love and compassion for others knowing only their difficulties vicariously, secondhandedly? No. We can’t.
It would only be a romantic notion. It wouldn’t have the power, the transformative power necessary to change our minds, to begin to act as a as a means to help to break out of our our rigid exaggerated self concern, our self centeredness, to begin to develop, you know, go beyond our parochial vision, to begin to open our minds to a greater world, this great being of sentient life that we are a limb of, that we are a part of. I don’t think it would. So we’ll begin with ourselves, and then slowly, we’ll work through various individuals over the course of the evenings. And and, you know, being realistic, we have to act there has to be some movement of the mind.
You know, words you know, the word I love you is not love. Love is a feeling. It’s it’s an ineffable state of mind being out of heart. You know? But words can approach.
The words are like arrows and like like a finger pointing at the at the picture. You know? Don’t get hum up in the finger. This you look toward what is being indicated by the finger. And likewise, with our meditation, even those which use you know, which we have a lot of conceptuality, a lot of thinking involved.
The words are to help to invoke states of being, states of mind, to take us to that place and then to jump off into that, you know, that wordless realm, the realm of of simply being love rather than thinking about love. So we actually have to find you know, this is the one of the skills in meditation is actually to find the keys to provoke these states of mind which are being pointed to, to use your imagination, your history, your own lived experience, and able to begin to skillfully evoke these productive states of mind. You know, the word meditation simply in Tibetan is gom, and gom means to get used to. It’s not very mystical, is it? It’s not very otherworldly.
To get used to to get used to productive states of mind, more skillful states of mind, such that they become our second nature, actual nature. So in this you know, we’re going to first develop compassion. Okay? Toward in this session together, first using ourselves. Imagine yourself in front of yourself as best you can.
You know? It’s not necessary that you’ll be able to visualize clearly or concretely, but just have a sense that you’re there, feeling that this person is there, in this case yourself. And beginning with the simple wish. There are different levels of intensity of compassion and love. Beginning with the with the the simple, you know, caring thought.
It’d be wonderful if you if you didn’t have any problems. You know, can you actually feel that genuinely for yourself? It would be wonderful. I would like it very much if you didn’t have any difficulties, if you didn’t suffer. I wish you didn’t suffer.
You know, can you go beyond the words and actually feel that towards yourself? Can you can you be, you know, can you be that much caring towards yourself? I wish you didn’t have any problem. And try to intensify that. There’s some kind of will involved.
May you not suffer. You know, like like a like, you know, like a ruler or a king. You know, whatever you decree happens. Let it be. You know, like, you’re really getting you’re starting to get involved.
Before, it’s simply for any for any kind of caring wish or thought. But now you’re you’re getting involved in this person’s life. May you be happy. And sometimes you take you’re kind of taking some kind of definite definite position of what you want. Let it be.
That may you be happy. And then finally, going beyond that, intensifying that to some kind of resolve. I’m going to help you. You know, I’m going to to commit myself, take responsibility for working with you, to to help you to be free of your suffering, to to work with your problems, and really getting involved in this person’s life. And then the same with love.
Love is simply, you know, is is a mind directed in terms of happiness? Again, toward yourself. Again, with a simple friendly thought, it’d be wonderful if you were happy. I’d like that. Can you really genuinely feel that toward yourself?
You know, many people for many people this is a revolution here. They’ve never thought to do. They’ve never even considered the fact, hey, I do want to be happy. I’ve never thought about that. And begin to actually direct that feeling towards yourself.
It’d be wonderful if you’re happy. I I would really like to see you happy. I wish you happiness. Intensifying that. You know, some kind of a will becoming involved in that person.
May you be happy. Let it be so. Kind of intensity of being behind it. May you be happy. And then finally, intensifying that with a certain degree of resolve.
I’m going to do something. I can’t sit here apathetically and simply wish or or will it to be. I actually want to do something. In fact, you know, these are levels. And perhaps we can’t get to that gen that third level genuinely, sincerely.
But we can work toward that. And we can the mind can actually begin to become authentic in that respect. And there can be some kind of correspondence between these words and what the mind is actually feeling. And then trying to sense when you’re not feeling and you’re only thinking, and and go back to something which is more which is actually more of it bringing about some movement of your mind, which is actually provoking some sort of state for yourself in terms of this object, in this case, yourself. I’m going to help you.
I’m going to work with you. Now I’m gonna commit. You’re my responsibility. You know, can you feel that? Even towards yourself.
I’m gonna work with you in finding happiness. And the way I’m going to do it at this present moment, the way I’m going to fulfill my commitment to you that I’m that I feel at this present moment is through my meditation. You know, by developing my skills, my my abilities, eventually, even if it’s only indirectly present, eventually, I can be of real, practical, significant benefit. I’m doing this meditation for you. You know?
I am, really. You know? Maybe it’s going to be somewhere down the line, a hundred lifetimes, a million lifetimes. But this in some way, in some indirect fashion, if I can develop my skills, my ability, my personal power, some wisdom, some concentration, whatever, If I can only develop myself, then I can do I can actually bring about my resolve. I can actually take responsibility for you because that’s what I want.
I’m doing this for you. You know, can can we do that? And then you then there then there’s a then there’s a possibility for the meditation to be transformative. If nothing else, you know, if nothing else, with that motivation, it can only serve to help you solve your problems. It can only serve you to to help you to to develop yourself and your abilities.
Otherwise, we don’t know. We can’t be sure whether our time on our time on our cushion has been worthwhile or not, whether perhaps we’ve only deluded ourselves more or not, whether it simply extended our our our ego problems more or not, supported our our maintained our difficulties or not. We don’t know. We can’t be sure. But we can be sure if our motivation is correct, that whatever follows out of that, whatever issues from that state of mind can only help us to solve our problems, can only help us to be a greater benefit to both ourselves and to others.
Having done that, then we’re going to do mindfulness of breathing. So each evening we’ll do a session of mindfulness of breathing together. And I’m going to explain a particular technique of mindfulness of breathing. And then on various nights, we’ll combine that mindfulness of breathing practice with a particular meditation, whatever we’re looking at in terms of the heart and mind of awakening, the three principal aspects of the this graduated path toward awakening, various meditations on valuing our human life, on death, on karma, on the human condition, suffering, on love and compassion, the ultimate nature of reality, the ultimate nature of the mind, and then various you know, these will vary each of our units together. So first, working with our motivation again in terms of development of love and compassion, then a session of mindfulness and breathing, which I’ll explain, but I think I’m running a little bit late as usual.
And then we’ll many of the nights, then we’ll do another meditation. No. Try no. It we’re trying to accustom our mind. No.
If we if we keep provoking these positive states of mind, these skillful states of mind, then we become skillful positive people. There’s not there’s not something other than that. You know? Somebody who’s a loving person is someone who has a majority of loving thoughts in their mind, who acts in loving ways. That’s nothing more than that.
There’s nothing inherently lovable as aside from the way that the predominant patterns of thought and the predominant modes of acting in their lives. And if we can do this, if we can continually habituate our our minds to positive ways of being, positive ways of thinking, then we become positive people. We develop positive lives, more skillful people, more skillful ways of life. We become happier. Life is no longer problematic for ourselves.
No longer as the world is not as dysfunctional as it was. You know, this this is you know, this is aside from all of the other ways and methods that you have to work with to find a good life with yourself. I think this has to be an integral component, you know, of working with your own mind. In a way, the various people and things and situations, in a way that we can are are neutral. You know, like a knife.
A knife in the hand of of a surgeon can be life enhancing, can save life. That same exact instrument, that same exact article, thing in the hand of a thief can be destructive, can destroy life. The same article, but dependent upon our our our ability, our our attitudes, our our skills, our lack of skills, and relating with that person, that thing, that situation is going to determine whether that thing, that person, that situation is going to act as a source of comfort and well-being, whether it’s going to enhance our life, bring about the good life, or whether it’s simply going to be destructive, whether it’s going to destroy our life, whether something going to be a cause of pain in our life. Depending upon our our ability in interacting with it, our attitudes that we have for it, the way that we relate with it. It’s all the mind is the determinant of all things.
You know, the the mind is in its place and is able to make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven. And so we’re working with the primary determinant of the quality of our lives, our own mind. So by all means, you know, have meaningful relationships with significant people, others. You know? Have an interesting job, a job that provides you with all the material necessities of life, that stimulates you, that that you feel good about productive work, that you can take a sense of healthy pride in.
You know, have a cheerful home that that you enjoy being in and coming home to, and the surroundings, you know, leisure pursuits, hobbies. You know? All of these are components of the good life, but they all exist within the context of our attitudes towards them, how we view them, our abilities or inabilities to to to work with them and to to make use of them them in a skillful manner. So have all of these good things, but additionally, set aside some space and put some energy into working with the primary determinant of the quality of your life, your own mind. Then we can get what we want out of our life.
And maybe we will progress. Something will change. Something will become for the better in our life. Okay. So we’re gonna do a mindfulness of breathing.
And I’m gonna talk about mindfulness of breathing. Maybe just for now, yeah, just keep bringing the mind back to the breath, you know, focusing upon okay. I just I’m it’s natural breathing. Okay? We’re not trying to make the breath longer or shorter.
We’re not trying to adjust in any way. Whatever the breath is there, that’s the one we’re going to work with. And simply, you know, keep bringing the mind back to the breath again and again and again. I guess maybe I’ll just say a word. I guess, you know, this is another just I’m not gonna talk about the technique.
I’ll talk about that beginning next week, the actual technique of mindfulness of breathing. But just the approach to to meditation or spirituality or I guess life in general. Is that somehow we have to set aside our self-oppressive approaches that we normally bring to all our various activities. And meditation is to help us. You know, meditation is the way that we express our compassion for ourselves in a very realistic fashion.
You know, we all have some wounds that we’re trying to heal, and we don’t need to create more wounds for ourselves, hurt ourselves any more than we already have been hurt. So we have to be gentle with ourselves. We need a discipline for sure. I mean, almost anything worthwhile in life to achieve requires some kind of discipline. But it has to be a gentle discipline, some kind of gentle discipline.
And the causes have to accord with the results that we’re achieving, that we’re seeking to achieve. We we we can’t simply do more violence to ourselves and hope to achieve anything good out of that. We have to be able to develop a skill in approaching the activity of meditation in such a way that it enhances our well-being. And it’s not just another means that we could find ourselves wanting, another something which we can find ourselves lacking, insufficient, that we can beat ourselves over the head with as we do with most things in mind. You know?
There’s no there’s no meditation gene that I know of. Maybe they’ll be able to, you know, maybe they’ll be able to, what, splice it in one day when they find it, and then we can automatically know how to meditate. We sit down and we automatically go into some profound state of meditation. But as far as I know, there’s none at present. So there’s no reason why we should know how to meditate or why we should be good meditators or what that whatever that might be.
You know, more than anything, to approach meditation as a sense of getting to know ourselves, as a sense of befriending ourselves. You know? The the world demands that we, to a large extent, externalize ourselves. We have to deal with the world in all its in all the very practical all the various practical fashions that we do. So so meditation is like revolt against that.
It it’s getting it’s like turning our attention toward our our dimly lit inner world to get to know ourselves, how our minds are operating. You know, we don’t operate our minds very well because we don’t know how they operate. The last frontier is our own mind. People know more about Especially too, I think, in western science, isn’t it? They probably know more about the other side of the moon than they do their own minds with inside themselves.
So getting you know, if we can if we can have that sort of orientation, we’re getting to know ourselves. We’re beginning to to begin to expose some of our ego games, begin to cut through them through the practice of some kind of disciplined investigation. We’re not trying to hear mystical om, so you see cutter by Simply to help us begin to solve our problems. Another tool for us for ourselves to develop and find the good life for ourselves, working with our own minds. So anyway, I’m gonna talk a lot more about meditation.
But I want to give you some context, some atmosphere to place it in. That is a way of being kind to ourselves, developing another skill for yourself that help you to solve your problems. That’s all. Would you like to stand up for one minute, and then we’ll sit down? And we’ll try this.
Okay. Shall we try? So I’m going to go through the technique of mindfulness of breathing and various other types of meditation and also posture. The mind and the body are interrelated. They’re interdependent.
So the posture does make a difference in the quality of the state of our mind. So just for now, just taking a purpose of a stable posture, a sense that you know what you’re up to, that you a sense of groundedness, solidity. And then we’re going to begin by cultivating compassion and love. This case, we’re going to begin with ourselves. So imagining yourself in front of yourself.
If you can’t see yourself, it doesn’t matter. Just feel that you’re there. And begin by generating a simple friendly thought towards yourself. Be wonderful if you were happy. I would like that very much.
We’ll begin with compassion. It’d be wonderful if you didn’t suffer, if you didn’t suffer. I wish you didn’t suffer. I wish you didn’t have any problems. I wish very much that you didn’t have any problems.
Can you direct that feeling towards yourself? I try to intensify that sense of compassion, becoming more involved. May may you not suffer. Let it be so. May you not have any problems.
I’m trying to intensify that compassion. I’m going to help you. I’m gonna commit myself in working with you to solve your problems. Take responsibility for your suffering. This person in front of you is suffering.
They need your help. We’ll cultivate love toward this person, in this case, ourselves. Again, beginning with a simple friendly thought. It’d be wonderful if you’re happy. I like that very much.
I wish you happiness. Intensifying that love. May you be happy. I’m gonna help you. I’m gonna commit myself in working with you so that you’ll find happiness.
The way I’m going to express my commitment to you at this very moment is through my meditation. I developed my skills, my ability, my understanding. And eventually, somewhere down the line, I can be of real and significant benefit. I can really do what I want for you. This is for you.
I’m gonna do this for you. And then bring your mind to the breath. Just the easy in that flow of the natural breath. Bring your mind back to the breath. Bring your mind back to the breath.
And slowly become aware of your body, your sensations, your bodily posture. Get in touch with your body. And then in a very relaxed and easy manner, just become aware of what’s going on about you. There’s no hurry. Just take your time.
According to the schedule, now is the time that the talk would begin. So obviously, I don’t manage time very well, do I? We’re going to be looking at I call the heart and mind of awakening, the three principal aspects of the path. The awakened heart, the awakened mind, and the will to awaken. And we’re going to be using as a basis for our discussion together a very short text.
It’s only fifteen verses long by the, as I mentioned, by the fourteenth century yogi scholar, Tsongkhapa. I think we’ll begin we’ll begin next week, if that’s okay. It said that for perfect action, there are three characteristics which are necessary. One is our motivation, why it is what we’re going to do, what it really is we’re going to do, and the action itself, and finally the dedication. And then, you know, we we created something for ourselves.
Some kind of positive.