Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Jampa Gendun opens this 45-minute session with a guided compassion meditation, using a guitar-tuning analogy — too tight agitates the mind, too loose brings dullness — to help practitioners find the right internal pitch. He then turns to a verse from Tsongkhapa’s Three Principal Aspects of the Path that calls on “fortunate ones” to listen with a clear mind, and spends the bulk of the commentary unpacking what that phrase actually demands. He introduces three pot analogies for unproductive listening (the covered pot, the leaking pot, the dirty pot), three recognitions that prime genuine receptivity (seeing oneself as a sick person, the teacher as doctor, the Dharma as medicine), and the four reliances — on teachings over personality, meaning over mere words, definitive over interpretive meaning, and non-conceptual over intellectual wisdom. Pitched at practitioners at any level who want a practical framework for deepening how they receive teachings.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 HMA 1996 05 15.mp3
UUID: 157d52dd-4b62-4da9-83f4-57c490625838
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1996-05-15
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.4 minutes
Words: ~4,207
Too tight or too loose. So beginning, you know, to adjust one’s mind. If you if you if you tighten your mind, if you push too hard, you you excite yourself. Maybe some people would like to excite themselves, but you’ll agitate your mind. On the other hand, if you allow your mind to be too loose, you’ll either lose the object or you’ll begin to experience a sense of dullness in your mind.
Won’t be any clarity or sharpness in your focus. So it’s a very it’s like, you know, like coming to the the the process is like beginning the the part of adjusting or tuning the guitar. You usually go too far up, and then you come back down a little bit too low, and you begin to go up. Maybe just slightly too high, and then slightly too low, and then finally you get the exact pitch right right where you wanted it. Something like that.
So likewise with this, how we’re going to work with our mind. We have to become sensitive and skillful in working with our mind, neither allowing neither oppressing ourselves, getting uptight and tightening, putting too much pressure, nor allowing ourselves to be too lax, being too loose in our approach, finding some middle place, some right tuning for our mind. So let’s try that. Take a comfortable, firm posture. And we’re going to focus again on the development of compassion and love on someone who you haven’t meditated on before, an individual who is slightly outside of your immediate circle of really close partners or family or relatives, someone that you like, someone who’s very appealing to you, that do care about in some way, but not in a terribly close way.
But you’d have a sense of liking about them. They have an appealing appearance to you and some kind of natural caring about what happens to them, whether they’re suffering or not. So taking a firm, comfortable posture and first getting in touch with the body, noticing any tightnesses or any tensions, Bringing your awareness to those areas. And then consciously relaxing. Just feeling the tension moving down into the ground, out to your body.
Your body becoming soft, relaxed, comfortable. Certainly pleasure begins to pervade your body. It feels good. It’s a nice place to be. I’m thinking this person that we’re going to cultivate some compassion towards.
Someone slightly distant, but still someone you care about. Imagine them in front of you. Just feel that they’re there. Be wonderful if you didn’t have any problems. I wish you didn’t have any problems and suffer.
Maybe not, sir. I’m going to help you, work with you in going beyond your problems and suffering. The wonderful view of happiness. I wish you happy. You be happy.
I’m going to help you commit myself in working with you to find happiness. The way I’m going to express my my commitment to you at this very moment is through this meditation. If I can develop my mind, my skills, my ability, And, eventually, I can be a real and significantly very practical benefit in fulfilling my commitment to you. I can really do something for you. In some way, somewhere down the line, this meditation is going to benefit you.
I’m doing this for you. Somewhere. Then bring your mind to the breath. Just be easy. Gentle in and out flow of the natural breath.
If it’s helpful using techniques of counting, noting the breath. If you’re counting the breaths, stop counting. If you’re noting, continue to note. If you’re not noting, note your breath. Stay in and out of the breath and any distractions.
Note the breath. We’re going to practice choiceless awareness. Allow your mind to become involved in any object that naturally tends toward. Don’t direct your mind, but continue to note. Soft gentle noting from moment to moment.
What is your mind involved in? What is its object? Hearing or thinking or smelling? One to moment. Stay awake.
Stay alert. Keep watching. Keep watching. Stay alert. And bring your mind back to the breath.
Bring your focus back to the breath. And spend it. Become aware of your body, your posture, your sensation. And a gentle and relaxed manner. Start becoming aware of what’s going on about you.
Just take your time. So, looking at three principal aspects of the path by Je Tsongkhapa. The Will to Awaken, The Awakened Heart, The Awakened Mind. So we’re progressing through the The first of three overall divisions of the of the text, the the prologue, and then which has the preliminary of offering of praise, then a pledge to compose the work, and the verse we’re going to look at tonight, encouragement to the student.
Whereas, that’s the third verse. No, the second verse. Whoever are not attached to the pleasures of mundane existence, whoever strive in order to make leisure and fortune worthwhile, whoever inclined to the path pleasing to conqueror Buddha, those fortunate ones listen with a clear mind. So this very much is a restatement of three principal aspects of the path, which the first line itself, homage to the foremost holy lama, can be interpreted as, you know, whoever are not attached to the pleasures of mundane existence.
You know, those who really want to awake, what what can we say? Those who really at a at a really deep level of their being want to change because they’re tired of suffering, and they see the necessity for it. And it’s not a matter of intellectual curiosity or academic pursuit. It’s an existential necessity. Just as much as we feel a necessity to eat, some individuals have the determination that they want to be free.
Free of these these reoccurring compulsive dissatisfactory cycles of mind and body, which we’re very much caught up in. They want to awake, awaken from the sleep of ignorance. Whoever strive in order to make leisure and fortune worthwhile. You know, what is we we going to talk about this subject, freedom and fortune that we all possess, but which we all take very much for granted. And what is what is the is the most that we could hope to do?
What is the greatest use that we could put to this this window of opportunity which our human life affords us. How is it that we can make our life most valuable? I think Buddhism would say, and I think most of the great masters of all religions would say, to learn how to love and how to develop compassion. So this represents the second principal aspect of the path, the development of the will to awaken, the development of the awakened heart. And then finally, whoever inclined to a path pleasing to the conqueror Buddha.
So, you know, this is the significance of those who, you know, having seen that the basis of our problems is ignorance. And by ignorance I mean the type of ignorance which is misconceived the nature of reality, the nature of the I, the nature of the self, the nature of everything about us. That this is the root of all our problems. Without developing the wisdom, understanding selflessness, understanding emptiness, I’m always going to have problems. You know, no matter what I may do, no matter where I may go, no matter who I may know, I’m always going to suffer in some manner or another.
It’s always going to be dissatisfaction in some form or other in my life until I uproot the basic cause of my suffering, that is the ignorance, until I develop the wisdom of emptiness, which is the antidote to ignorance, that is to say until I develop the awakened mind. So those individuals, you know, those who really want to awaken I’ll I’ll share a little story about awakening. Awakening. It is said that soon after his enlightenment, the Buddha passed the man on the road, who was struck by his extraordinary radiance and peacefulness of his presence. The man stopped and asked, my friend, what are you?
Are you a celestial being or a god? No, said the Buddha. Well, then are you some kind of magician or wizard? Again, the Buddha answered no. Well, my friend, what then are you?
The Buddha replied, I am awake. And so, you know, those who who want to awake, awaken both their their hearts and minds, their hearts to and the world about us, and the pain, the suffering about us as a motivating force behind our activities and being in the world and awakening their their mind so as to not only go beyond their own suffering, but develop the necessary ultimate skills to be able to help those suffering about us. Those individuals should listen with a clear mind. And that’s what we’re going to talk a little bit about tonight. What it means to listen with a clear mind.
We’ve talked about listening in terms of the context of this threefold activity of listening, reflecting, and finally meditating. And it’s these are, like, to to to for our our progress to to be ensured to work. They have to it has to that our meditating has to be integrated with the with listening, with reflecting. And our listening has to be and reflecting has to be integrated with our meditation. And this They all have their proper place.
They’re all essential components in the development of the mind. So we are to listen. But Tsongkhapa says to listen with a clear mind. What does he mean by a clear mind? So this is usually, you know, traditionally presented in terms of three analogies and three recognitions.
Three analogies. They use the analogy of a pot and three d recognitions, and and we can gain some appreciation of how to create the the internal context, the mental mindset whereby listening can be most effective, most productive. So for example, unproductive ways of listening. The first unproductive ways of listening. The first is likened to a pot with a lid on it or maybe or sometimes it’s said to be upside down.
You know, the the this is our minds are constantly distracted. You know, our our minds are allowed to wander. We simply aren’t listening or our minds are full of preconceptions. Our minds aren’t open. Our mind which is continually distracted or wandering are full of preconceptions.
There’s nothing that you can put into it. You know, it’s like this pot that has a lid on it or a pot that’s upside down. There’s nothing which can be poured into it. It’s closed, at least temporarily. So this is the first of what might be called an unproductive way of listening.
The second is a pot which which has a hole in it. You know? Whatever is poured into it doesn’t remain. It runs immediately out. So this is like, you after a teaching that we’re unsure of what was said.
Nothing has been retained. There’s no factor of mindfulness. There’s holding on to the significance and the words of the teaching. And then finally, the third pot is one which is dirty. So whatever is poured in dirty pot is immediately polluted.
This involves, by way of analogy, listening with various prejudices. Know, not listening to what is actually being said and evaluating it by means of one’s reasoning or one’s experience, but looking at it filtered through our preconceptions, you know, in terms of our hidden agendas, our projections, associations. You’re trying to look at it in terms of what’s wrong. You know, always think of this line from a song by Simon and Garfunkel, you know, all lies in jest when a man hears what he wants and disregards the rest. And we just listen.
We just pay attention to what fits into our our agenda, our preconceived notions, and we we don’t listen to the rest. So in this way, everything becomes polluted. Everything in some way is defiled. It doesn’t it’s not it’s an unproductive way of listening. And so these are the three analogies and pots in terms of unproductive ways of listening.
Then there are what are called the three recognitions. The three recognitions, you know, are intended to assist us into opening up to help and to change. And trying to encourage us to try to see the personal relevance of what’s being said. Like something a good listener a good listener is someone who does some work from their side, who’s actively participating in this process of communication. And there’s a context in which this can best work.
I read a quote, you know, trying to get these three recognitions in some kind of positive context, but because if if not, it can sound somewhat negative. Yes. We can have some kind of resistance to what is being gotten at here. James. James, this is a quote about William James, the American psychologist of the later part of the nineteenth century.
James says that we have to face the fact, the very simple fact, that some of the ableist, most creative, most productive, and profound people in all Western culture have been extraordinarily disturbed. Such people often pass through severe disturbances and actually conquer them to some degree. Their own personal journey of development began with an acknowledgment of suffering and the lack of meaning of life, which the rest of us are not quite so sensitive to. When, for example, we read the lives of some of the greatest teachers and practitioners of Buddhism, the Mahasiddhas, time and time again we see them at the end of their rope, razors at their throats, on the verge of suicide and suffering intensely with the endless quality of this question of the meaning of life, in a state of cataclysmic nihilism. And then a teacher appears and says, perhaps the Dharma can help you.
This seems to be repeated. This seems to be a repeated theme that constantly is going on in people who have the courage to ask this question and acknowledge their own suffering. The question which was being asked is, you know, what is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of of this all? And at some point, we begin to really question what it is we’re doing and where we’re going.
You know, what what has it all been about? This seems to be a repeated theme that constantly is going on with people who have the courage to ask this question and acknowledge their own suffering. And I think that’s how I think it’s quite he said that we should try to be aware of suffering every day. And I think that’s a that’s a quite useful advice. Not only for our own you know, because it keeps our minds at a more profound level.
It keeps us life becomes serious. I don’t mean solemn, but it’s serious. That we we take the question of suffering and happiness with a greater concern. Don’t deal with it in a superficial fashion. The life histories of all the religious leaders have pointed to this kind of crisis, that there is a flashpoint of suffering.
Because of that, there is an opening up to some quality of path and a personal development in our lives. And beyond that, there is the development of some usefulness to other people as well. So, you know, putting this, what are called the three recognitions, in some kind of perspective. The first of these three recognitions is to recognize ourselves as a sick person. Now immediately, there’s some kind of resistance in our mind when we hear that, to recognize ourselves as a sick person.
But importantly, there’s a vast difference between being sick and being helpless, being powerless. Without admitting, acknowledging the high degree of unmanageability in our lives, the feelings of alienation, of imprisonment, of meaninglessness in our lives. Then there’s no opening up to the possibility of some kind of cure, some kind of change. There’s just this smug complacency that I’m okay. And we can spend the rest of our life trying to prove to ourselves that I’m I’m okay, knowing full well at some level of our being that we’re not, that things aren’t okay.
You know, as we said last week, you know, I’m not okay and you’re not okay. But that’s okay. But to admit that, that, you know, the truth of the overall predominant quality of our lives, suffering, begins to open ourselves up to alternative possibilities of change. You know, that we end this self deception about ourselves, you know, that and, you know, the type of self image that we might like to have about ourselves is that I have it all together when in fact we all know we don’t. But it’s not something which can be readily admitted, which can be made public.
It’s like an open secret that nobody talks about. So, you know, and we spend our lives, you know, in speed and distracting ourselves and various means of self deception, ways of numbing ourselves to the pain without ever having to acknowledge it and begin to deal with it, its cause, that we’re healthy enough to suffer. If you’re not healthy enough to suffer, you die. If you’re not healthy enough to be sick, then whatever it is, the illness may be, it kills you. But we are healthy enough.
And more than that, we’re healthy enough to acknowledge that we’re not well. So acknowledging that we’re sick. But again, being sick is not to be helpless, is not to be powerless, is not to be without resources, is simply to acknowledge the state of our, the quality of our existence. The first recognition, to acknowledge oneself as a sick person. The second recognition is to acknowledge the Dharma, you know, recognize, to acknowledge the teacher as the doctor.
Most Westerners are willing to put their physical well-being into the hands of someone who has a medical certificate on the wall, unquestionably. But they find it difficult to admit in a mature way that someone may be more skillful in the ways of the mind than themselves, that someone might have more insight into the actual means of finding happiness than themselves. You know, we all have our various methods. We have our beliefs and our means of solving our problems and finding happiness. And though our within our own experience, many of our beliefs and many of our methods are found to be invalid.
They simply don’t work, we still self righteously pig headedly hold on to our our our beliefs, our ways as if we knew best, obstinately holding on to to to the way that we’ve known in the past. You know, we find it difficult to admit that someone else’s diagnosis of our problems and their prescription for the cure might be more applicable, more valid, more skilled than our own. So opening up to that possibility that someone and here we’re talking about a qualified teacher, a lama for example. They may be actually more knowledgeable, more skilled in the ways of the mind in how to find happiness, how to solve the problem of suffering. That they may, in fact, might be able to be a doctor for ourselves.
And then finally, the third recognition is to recognize the Dharma as the medicine, the path that can help us to actually cure our ills. You know, without actually But the thing about it is, just like in medicine for physical ills, we actually have to put it in our mouth and swallow it. We have to take the medicine before it can ever cure us. No matter how potent, no matter what a great wonder drug it might be, if it sits on the shelf, it’s never going to be of any benefit to ourselves, no matter how potent and powerful and miraculous it might in fact be. And likewise, with the Dharma, to begin to recognize it as a medicine, we actually have to swallow it.
Take it. I don’t mean swallowing. That is that we actually have to put it into practice. You know, there’s no we can’t just think about it in terms of what a miraculous medicine it might it must be. We actually have to ingest it into ourselves for it to have a new effect.
So, the three recognitions: to recognize ourselves as a sick person, to recognize the teacher as the doctor, and the Dharma as the medicine. Tsongkhapa is talking about listening with a clear mind. So, what does it mean to listen? To listen within the context of these threefold activities of listening, reflecting, and meditating. In terms of a clear mind, in order to listen effectively to the teachings, we have to try to focus on what’s being said, try to retain what’s being said, and not distort it.
And we have to come to the teachings with a certain degree of humility. Come to the teachings with a certain openness, but with dignity. You know, I have some problems, and I have the resources to solve those problems, but I could use some help. And I’m willing to listen. And if I hear something which I found useful, then I’m going to, in a in a in a realistic fashion, apply it, make use of it.
And this is what Tsongkhapa means by listening with a clear mind. It’s clear in our own minds why we are here, what we are doing, and what we can legitimately expect. But if we were to go on, and I’ll just go through this quickly, you know, I think there’s another area of listening. In the context of even listening with a clear mind, we must understand how to listen so that to ensure that the teachings are not allowed to become a dogma. By that, I mean, they lose their abilities to actually bring about what they are meant to bring about.
That is to say, to liberate our minds from our problems, to transform our minds. Some we have the teachings this is the purpose of the teachings, of all the teachings. These are these are called the four reliances. The reliance to the first is to rely on the teachings, not on the individual giving the teaching. Okay?
Rely on the teaching, not on the individual who is giving the teaching. That’s the first reliance. Second reliance, rely on the meaning and not on the word. I’m gonna go through this and explain it briefly. Rely on the meaning and not on the word.
Thirdly, rely on the definitive meaning. Rely on the definitive meaning and not on the interpretable, the interpretive meaning. Rely on the definitive meaning and not on the interpretive interpretive meaning. And then, fourthly, rely on non conceptual wisdom, not on the wisdom of the intellect. Rely on non conceptual wisdom, not on wisdom of the intellect.
So this first one, you know, rely on the teachings, not on the individual giving the teaching. You know, rely on the message of the teacher, not on personality. We shouldn’t blindly accept what is being taught simply due to what due to who it is that’s teaching. No matter how illustrious, how famous, you know, how highly thought of, we are to critically examine the teaching. The teaching should stand on its own right, on its own cogency.
You know? It is the truth of the teaching that is all important and never the personality of the teacher. You know, this is the point we’re trying to that’s getting across here that’s going to run through all these four reliances is that the purpose of the teachings is to liberate our minds. That is its ultimate aim. Anything short, anything less than that, we have demeaned the teachings.
We haven’t we aren’t the teachings aren’t being seen appropriately as to their potential. You know, the Buddha said, the Buddhas do not wash away sins with water, nor do they remove suffering with their hands, nor do they transfer their realizations to the mind of others. But by their showing of the truth, all will be made free. So the showing of the truth. This is why the Buddha taught, communicated the ideas, the insights which arose within in him in order to liberate others for no other reason.
Not in order for us to be good boys and girls, not in order to manipulate us, control us, not in order to fulfill any needs other than to liberate ourselves from our own problems, our suffering. This is the essential purpose of the teaching. So the Buddha himself so, you know, we are to look to the teachings, not the personality of the teacher. Because the teacher can’t liberate you. You know, you may develop a very profound devotional personal relationship with the teacher, but that is provisional.
That is a means to an end. It’s not the end in itself. The end is liberation. The Buddha himself said when he was passing into