Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using personal pain as a doorway to compassion — “may your pain be my pain” — Ven Jampa Gendun opens this 15-minute session with a vivid mind-training image before pivoting to introduce the Seven Cause and Effect Instruction, a lineage running from Śākyamūni Buddha through Asaṇga and Atisha. He lays out equanimity as its foundation — even-minded regard free of attachment and aversion — then walks through the seven sequential steps: recognizing all beings as having been our mother (or primary caregiver), remembering their kindness, gratitude, appealing love, great compassion, intense resolve, and the aspiration to full awakening. He pauses to address a common worry — that releasing attachment will damage close relationships — arguing instead that non-attachment deepens rather than erases intimacy. A clear overview for those new to this framework.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 HMA 1997 04 30.mp3
UUID: 53a00138-5502-412a-8be4-0be2171816db
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1997-04-30
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 15.2 minutes
Words: ~1,942
I wish more my my pain were that. You know, may your pain be my pain. You know, let let this pain that I’m experiencing be enough for us all. I’m going to commit myself. I’m going to do something about it to ensure that it is.
And and actually imagining in that circumstance, in in the throes of your difficulty and your pain. You know, but this is really a great test in mind training, isn’t it? It’s really going to be complete reversal of the shutting down of the isolation of the narrowing of our attention upon ourselves at that very moment, contradicting all the all the habitual reactions that we normally display whenever we undergo difficulty. To use that very pain to open up to the world, to develop compassion, to destroy our own self centeredness at that very moment. May it be enough.
I’m going to take all your pain upon myself. And actually imagine that the pain of all of those ten thousand out there is coming upon yourself. I’m experiencing it for this. I’m when I’m experiencing, I’m experiencing it for the sake of these ten thousand. So, you know, it’s this in it’s in this way, our suffering can and difficulties can become utilized as a part of our path, as a part of our growth, and that they become meaningful.
They can be transformed into a means of awakening our hearts to others. So this is a part of the area of mind training. So, you know, whatever happens to us can be we can we can be adapted to part of the spiritual path. We’ve said that we’ve talked about the the first of these two meditative traditions, equalizing and exchanging self with others. And we’re going to begin to look at the second of these two meditative traditions.
It’s called the seven cause and effect instruction. It has a lineage. It is an unbroken transmission of the teaching from students from teachers to students. They became teachers to their students. That that these methods have been worked with and have been used as a source of as a means of realization for twenty five hundred years.
And this particular lineage or transmission comes from Śākyamūni Buddha to Maitreya and down through various Indian masters, such masters as Asaṇga, Atisha, and down to our present day teachers. So there’s an unbroken lineage and some kind of energy of realization which has been transmitted in uninterrupted manner down to ourselves to this very day. So there’s sort of there’s sort of an inspiration, some sort of blessing that comes with this to become part it. There’s like there’s a there’s a there’s a a matrix of discipline, of a way of thinking which is which we are becoming part of, that we are entering into. The seven cause and effect instruction is based upon the fundamental realization of equanimity.
So the foundation of the seven cause and effect instruction is equanimity. It’s an even minded regard toward others, divorced of attachment which holds some close and aversion which holds others at a distance, pushes others away. So that’s kind of like the foundation, even groundedness. And upon that we then go on to develop these seven cause and effect instructions. There are five sequential causes bringing about two results or two effects.
That’s that’s how it gets its name. Seven cause and effect instruction. Five sequential causes bringing about two effects. And the first of these so the five sequential causes are first recognizing all living beings as our mother. A challenge.
So we’ll get to that. Remembering their kindness, developing a gratitude which wishes to repay their kindness. Fourthly, appealing love. Fifthly, great compassion. Out of those five causes we develop, as we did with the equalizing and exchange of self with others, an intense resolve.
Out of that intense resolve we awaken our hearts. Maybe I’ll just maybe I’ll just give an overview and then I won’t actually begin equanimity tonight just to give you coming attractions. So we’re we’re trying to develop a a foundation. You know, right now we have we have partiality. We have biases in our way of relating.
We do have love and compassion but our love and compassion is almost inevitably mixed with attachment. So if we’re if we’re going to develop a universal attitude, toward others, which is fundamental to the awakening of our heart, know, we can’t awaken our heart to you but not to him. You know, it’s there’s something wrong with that way of thinking, with that that approach. If if we’re going to love in a true sense of what is meant here, it’s a love which is like the sun. It radiates in all directions.
It shines on everyone and everything. So we but at present, our our love and our caring are very much biased in nature. They’re always mixed with attachment. They’re directed toward those who we call friends and we call loved ones who someone who does something for us. That is someone anyway, we’re going to discuss this at length.
And we withhold it toward for those who are strangers or enemies, those who are who we feel indifferent to or we actually feel an aversion toward. It. If we are going to develop an awakened heart, we have to develop an unbiased even minded attitude. I know there’s there’s some and we have to refine this. We have to look into this, analyze it carefully because because our love is usually mixed with attachment, there is, most people’s initial reaction is when they hear that the idea of working out of attachment, that it is developing a type of even mindedness which isn’t involved in attachment.
They think that somehow this is going to destroy their relationship because most of us don’t distinguish between attachment and love. And beginning to see that joy and the happiness and and the all of the positive qualities that we derive out of our relationship are derived out of the quality of love. And they have nothing to do with the attachment. So on the contrary, not only will our relationship not be destroyed by by by moving to a, you know, going to develop an attitude of non attachment, it would, if anything, enhance our ability to love, to become intimate and connected and communicate and and give that person a space to be themselves and yourself, to be to each of ourselves to grow. That if anything, it would only enhance our relationship.
If there’s nothing to be afraid of in the development of love and compassion. On the contrary, there’s every reason to be afraid if we don’t. It might be difficult. It is difficult to to love others, but it’s even more difficult not to love anyone. So it’s worthwhile.
Anyway, so this on this foundation where we have, you know, we’re not going to become indifferent robots. As if, you know, the idea of equanimity is not indifference. We’re we’re opening up the psychological space whereby we can develop a universal love and compassion toward all. But it has to be universal if it’s to be at all. So on this foundation of equanimity, an even minded attitude toward others which is divorced of attachment for some, holding some close, aversion for others holding them at a distance.
We then go on to develop the seven cause and effect instruction. First developing, recognizing all living beings as our mothers. So, you know, this is the model that’s used within the Tibetan not the Tibetan, but the Indian Buddhist tradition. This is the the model of mother and child as probably being the most profound of relationships that we experience, that normal that human beings normally experience. And we’ll we’ll discuss this also, you know, don’t like doing much.
They have a hard time with them, please. That seems to be the reality of our life. So, you know, maybe we don’t we maybe we can’t use that as a model. But some primary caregiver, whether there’s a sense of bonding, a real sense of connectedness, using that as our model, you know, what works for ourselves. Here we’re trying so you want to develop that same sense of connectedness, of intimacy with every living being, recognizing that they all have been our primary caregivers, if you like.
Use the modern day jargon. At some point in our in our in our beginningless lifetimes, you know, we’re trying to establish that type of relationship with every living being, that sense of connectedness. Then remembering the great kindness of these mothers or primary caregivers or whoever, maybe an uncle that was very kind to you when you were growing up or an aunt or whatever. It doesn’t matter. Just so we have some model to work with and some some feeling of a type of relationship that we’re trying to relationship that we’re trying to extend to the way we label with all others.
Remembering that great kindness and then developing a sense of gratitude. You know, the world has I’ve been embraced and I would like to give something back. With developing a sense of wishing to repay. Then developing a sense of what is called appealing love or sometimes attractive love. Where, you know, I mean, all of these beautiful people out there, these mothers that have been so tremendously kind to you, you know, you you see them and they appear very appealing to you.
You know, it’s like you just they’re like a like a like a it’s like a mother looking at their little child when it’s playing. Oh, isn’t it? You know, they’re captivated. Every little thing that little Joey does, so wonderful. That kind of, you know, look at these lovely beings, all these, and they’re appealing to me, just captivated by them.
They’re so beautiful. That kind of quality. And then and then a great great compassion, which is, you know, I can’t it’s just, you know, how can I ever stand to see them suffer? I can’t. Going on to develop an intense resolve to actually do something, to remove their suffering, to bring them the happiness that you truly want to see them experience.
And then the determination to become a Buddha and the aspiration to develop yourself as fully as possible in order to to be of practical benefit, the development of the awakened heart. So we’re going to work through those steps, developing a foundation of equanimity, recognizing all living beings as having had a meaningful relationship with ourselves as our mother should like or whatever. Extraordinary type of relationship. Remembering the qualities of those relationships that we’ve had. Developing a sense of gratitude, wanting to give back something for all that’s been done for you, appealing love, and this appear very beautiful in your eyes, great compassion which can’t can no longer bear their their continued suffering, the human dilemma in which they all exist.
Developing an intense resolve, I’ve got to do something. I can’t I can’t it’s not enough just to have compassion. I have to to do something in practice. And then finally, the awakened heart, which is the aspiration to become a Buddha, which is what we practice for. So anyway, we’ll we’ll we’ll begin this next week with the foundation of equanimity So we can dedicate the positive energy that we have created, you know, give it some kind of a direction.
First, beginning with the the long life prayer of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.