Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Jampa Gendun opens this 28-minute session with a precise distinction between guilt and regret — only one of which belongs in dharma practice. Guilt collapses action and person, generating a sense of intrinsic defect; healthy regret targets the action and its roots in ignorance and attachment, leaving one’s fundamental worth intact. He then develops the power of repudiation — the first of four opponent powers in purification practice — illustrating karma’s delayed ripening through a vivid analogy: three diners share a meal at a run-down Indian restaurant; one drops dead, one writhes in pain, and the third, still feeling fine, grasps that his own suffering is simply not yet due. A quote from Lama Zopa on why minds stall despite years of practice, and the image of a scorched seed that cannot germinate even in ideal soil, drive home why purification must be heartfelt to work at all.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 HMA 1996 10 30.mp3
UUID: 9b377462-4239-4c10-b59c-c50cce5b7c57
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1996-10-30
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 28.0 minutes
Words: ~4,354
Contrition: developing regret toward our past unskillful action. So maybe it’s important when we differentiate between regret and guilt. Big difference, isn’t it? Especially in its irrational instances, guilt can be a terribly destructive force in people’s lives. Guilt is not dharma.
In the case of guilt, the the, you know, guilt surroundings and past negative action that we’ve created, the total focus is upon the person. We you know, the upon the not upon what was done, the action itself, and maybe its deeper causes. There’s a sense that the person that we as a person are somehow a failure for what we have done. You know, we don’t see our this this inappropriate behavior as just that. We made a mistake, you know, because but a way of acting which is somehow harmful to ourselves or to others, nothing more than that.
You know, rather, our actions are seen as as expressions of some kind of intrinsic defect in who we are as a person. Our very nature is kind of we are a failure as a person. There’s something wrong with us. This terrible we do these terrible things, and we we must be essentially terrible people, and we feel badly about who we are. We we we’d rather not do these things, but we it seems as if there’s something wrong intrinsically with ourselves.
We are to blame for this intrinsic negativity, this defect in our character. There’s something wrong with us basically, and we feel guilty about it, who we are as a human being. So in in in contrast to these notions of guilt, this this sense of guilt, In developing a sense of regret, we’re concerned with what we have done, the action itself. No matter how bad we may feel about it, that you know, no matter how bad we may feel the action was, We still are not judging ourselves for the action. You know, no matter how bad the action was, we are not bad people.
We we are we are people with problems. But but we are not those problems. The problem is the problem. The problem is attachment. The problem is hatred.
The problem is is jealousy or pride, wrong views, you know, all these various dysfunctional patterns in our mind. The basic problem is ignorance. That’s the basic problem. And we are none of these problems. We are not the patterns.
So it’s a matter there’s no. It’s not a matter of judging ourselves, but having some regret about what the action the action is a reflection of our problems. These problems are dysfunctional patterns within our mind. We are not the problem. We are not the dysfunctional patterns within our mind.
We have those dysfunctional patterns, but we are not them. So so when we when we come under the influence of these dysfunctional patterns, of these destructive patterns of mind, we act in ways which are neither in our own or others’ best interests, and we make mistakes in what we do. We harm ourselves. We harm other people. So it seemed you know, looking at it in this way, begins to seem reasonable and and and productive to regret this.
You know? But there’s there’s nothing to feel guilty about. You know? We added one and one up to make three. And no matter you know, we we made a mistake.
And no matter you know, our our mistake might have had disastrous consequences, which sometimes people’s mistakes actually do, and we can sincerely sincerely regret that it ever happened. But even such a mistake in no way reflects who we are as a person. I think there’s a big difference to be made there, isn’t there? And I think this is one of the really skillful techniques, psychological techniques involved here, that we don’t mix ourselves up as a person with these negative patterns. We we as we’re we can it’s we begin to externalize them, and we begin to see these dysfunctional patterns and ourselves as as different entities.
And we can begin to place the blame where the blame is deserved upon these dysfunctional patterns, and we begin to repudiate. We cease to identify with these negative patterns, but we don’t judge ourselves as not a worthwhile person. And it’s I think it’s a healthy healthy way to begin to work with our mistakes and the negativities within our mind. With regret, we we rationally acknowledge our mistakes as mistakes, and we emotionally experience a temporary loss of self esteem. We don’t The point is, important point is, we don’t deny it ever happened.
We acknowledge it happened, and we try we stop trying to justify ourselves, that it was somehow right, it wasn’t right, which we stopped trying to rationalize that somehow it was okay to do it. It wasn’t okay. You know, we we we are being honest with ourselves. It was wrong. There’s no evasion.
There’s no self deception, but also there’s no self judgment in our wholeness. We’re not calling ourselves into question as worthwhile people doing the best we can, but we’re confronting our past actions. And in the in the context of understanding our present limitations, realistic limitations, we assume legitimate responsibility for what we do, you know, for what we have done and the possible consequences. And we repudiate the action. Repudiate means to to to I don’t want to identify it with any longer.
I don’t want to be a part of it any longer. That’s not the type of activity I would want for myself. These aren’t the states of mind that I would that I want to be associated with, that kind of moving away, disassociating yourself, the idea of repudiation. So we repudiate that way of acting, we cease identifying with it. We begin to place some kind of space between ourselves and those particular patterns, and it begins to have some kind of negative connotation to it.
We we take less and less recourse automatically to those ways of acting, those habitual patterns which are in some way destructive. Okay. And to some degree, we we have we have begun to understand that these past unskillful actions, whatever they might have been, they’ve deposits they’ve deposited some kind of negative karmic latency within our mind. When these latencies, when they’re in our mind, when they meet with the with the appropriate activating condition, we will, in a manner in accordance with the past action, suffer its effect. And we don’t want to suffer.
I mean, that’s the reality of our you know, our that’s the bottom line of our experience. We don’t want to suffer. You know, this idea of regret that there’s an antidote which which kind of gets at it, I think, in a in a very this whole notion of what how we’re working with this. You know, it’s I don’t know if many of you have been to Indian restaurants. And if you’ve been to India, an Indian restaurant, you’ll be able to identify with this antidote.
You know, quite often they’re pretty sleazy, I guess you could say, pretty run down, pretty pretty dirty. So you can imagine three people go into a rather sleazy Indian restaurant. And Indian restaurants generally quite often, you know, you share a meal. And that is you get a you share a bowl of palak paneer palak paneer, is the name? Spinach cheese.
You know, you get a bowl of spinach and cheese. You get a bowl of of dal lentils. You get some you get some rice, maybe some chapati’s flatbread. You get some carrots and peas, and maybe some aloo mutter, peas and potatoes. I’m getting hungry.
Some some curries here, you know. So you got all these dishes, and you’ve got your empty plate, and you got your chapatis, and so more but the idea is I’ve gone through all that. You’re you’re sharing the same food. You know, it’s not as if each person orders a separate dish for themselves. It’s it’s a shared meal.
So these three people, they just went to this rather sleazy Indian restaurant, and they had this this Indian meal together, and they they shared it. And they and they walk outside, and immediately one of them drops over dead. And and and then all of a sudden the second person starts rolling around on the ground writhing in pain. And the third person, he’s standing there watching. This one dropped over dead and this the second one’s writhing in pain.
And and presently he feels fine, not feeling any any difficulty at all. But he begins to to think in his mind, you know, well, that person just dropped over dead. That person is in tremendous pain holding their stomach. Like, that shit was that food we just ate. And there begins to to, at some very deep level of his mind, begins to take this thought begins to take shape.
Although I’m feeling fine at present, my time is coming, and there develops a huge sense of regret about having eaten that food. So that’s somewhat the nature of our present situation. We’re feeling fine, more or less, you know, but there is something coming, some kind of consequence that we can rely on that we’re going to experience by the appropriate conditions. And we can we know we have these negative factors within our mind. We’ve created negative actions in the past, killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, divisive speech, you know.
All there is past negative factors that we’ve been involved in have laid deposited some kind of negative residue within our mind. They’re there waiting for the appropriate condition. It’s just a matter of time. And it develops a sense of regret. I wish I hadn’t done that.
You know, just like this person, I wish I hadn’t eaten that food. In in all of this, there’s no one meting out reward or punishment. No is sitting in judgment on ourselves. We are not made to suffer for our negative karma but by our negative karma. We’re not made happy for our our positive karma, all the all the good that we’ve done in the past, but by that positive karma that we’ve created in the past, simply by the process of law, of cause, effect.
You know, we in this sense, you know, we deserve all the happiness that we experience. We’re in no one’s debt for the happiness that we we go through. We created the causes for it. It’s not that you cannot be appreciative for other people acting as cooperative conditions, but you you can you can have the sense that I created the substantial cause for my present well-being. But if we’re going to accept that, we also have to expect to accept the adverse of that.
There’s nobody to blame for our suffering but ourselves. You know, it’s not to say that we allow people to walk on us, to use us for doormats. We don’t allow those cooperative conditions, but we can understand whatever suffering that we go through, we’ve created the substantial cause ourselves. Otherwise, there’s nothing that anyone could do to cause this suffering. A Buddha cannot suffer.
I don’t care whatever they might do to him or her. They no longer have the causes within their own mind. They’re gone. Therefore, there’s no possibility of suffering no matter what type of external conditions he or she might meet with. But there’s still one further reason why we can generate so we’re trying to develop a realism sense of regret.
In all of this, it cannot be it’s not a matter of of it is our minds which have created these karmic latencies, and it is only our mind which can begin to purify them, to remove them from our mind. And therefore it cannot be done mechanically. You know, there’s no dispensation that we’re looking for. There’s no there’s no secret mantra. It is something which only our mind can create the conditions to and we have to be very skillful, and we have to be very genuine with with these with these methods.
There’s another reason that we can generate generate genuine regret beyond the future sufferings that that these negative latencies within our mind are going to bring us. The negative karmic latencies presently in our mind obscure the clarity of our mind. Presently, they hinder our present development. I read a This is a quote by Lama Zopa, who I hope many of you had the opportunity to meet a few weeks ago when he visited Adelaide. What is the block?
Why is your mind not developing? This is very pertinent for me. He’s always talking to me. What is the block? Why is your mind not developing?
Why are you not getting better and better? Over many years you have been listening, reflecting, and meditating on the path. You have heard and read many times the most profound secret tantric teachings, especially of Maha Anuttara Yoga, highest yoga tantra. You have done some retreats, but your mind is still the same as before. A rock that has been under the ocean for many eons is still hard, with only wetness on the outside, no wetness inside.
There is no change. Nothing goes inside. Your mind is like this, not having any change, any development, any realizations of the path. Nothing of what is mentioned by Buddha in the text of Sūtra and Tantra is being actualized in your mind. This is all because of not having done powerful continual purification.
Your mind is blocked by these heavy collections of the various negative karmas. So, you know, we don’t want to suffer. We want to be happy, but we have within our minds at present the dormant causes for suffering, which were placed there by our past unskillful actions, these are mistaken past actions. We want to grow, and we want to develop ourselves in whatever way, both for ourselves and for others. We want to solve our problems and be able to help others, to solve theirs, to be of greater use to others, to be have skills in helping others, to solve their problem.
But as long as we have these obscurations, these obstructions, these negative latencies within our mind, we never will. The negative karmic latencies presently within our mind themselves, aside from having the future suffering consequences, hinder our present development of our mind. So we’re looking at it not only with future difficulties which these negativities are going to bring us, but also in terms of our present development and what we’re going through now. I wish I had never done that. You know, we’re talking about just some type of real genuine sense of regret.
Can we generate that? You know, I did it and it was wrong. You know, we quit denying that it ever happened, acknowledge the fact that we did, that it was wrong, we quit trying to rationalize and justify ourselves in some way, and we begin to acknowledge or to have some kind of regret around it. It was really a mistake. I wasn’t thinking straight.
I I wasn’t aware. I didn’t understand. I was so angry. I was so attached. I was so full of pride.
I was so full of jealousy. You know, it’s understandable that I did it when I look back on it, but I but I don’t want to suffer, and I don’t want to keep these negative latencies to keep me from from growing, to I don’t want them to keep me stuck as I am. You know, I’m sorry I ever did it. I I can’t undo the past, but I can wish I hadn’t. I regret that I did.
And it’s it can that’s I’m just verbalizing the mental thoughts of possible reflecting a state of regret, what it might look like in a healthy way. You know, the power this this is the power of repudiation. It is the most important of these four powers that we’re going to go through. It is the first of these four powers. It’s especially effective in weakening and finally destroying the ripening effect of unskillful actions. Ripening effect, if you remember, was generally of generally of two types.
One was propelling. That was throws us into a rebirth, and we think we’re going to maybe we’ll talk about that in the future. But also completing karma, that which finishes out our overall patterns of experience in a particular realm. So this has the power of repudiation is most effective in weakening and, if possible, destroying the ripening effect of past negative actions. But, you know, if we don’t develop a deeply felt genuine regret for a negative action, there is no way that we can purify them.
We created them, and it is only we who can get rid of them. There’s no magic involved. It’s all a matter of psychological processes of the cause and effect within our own minds. There is no other way. There’s a quote by the Buddha where he says, from the fruits of past harmful intentions one cannot one can be saved neither by ethics nor by study.
One can be saved neither by meditative concentrations nor by staying in a hermitage nor can one be saved by charity or making offerings to the Buddhas. There is no other way than reasoned, healthy sense of regret. And this applies to accordingly to all of these four powers. Though they are effective methods in weakening and finally destroying the negative karmic latencies within our mind, there is nothing supernatural about them. There’s nothing magical about them.
They, like all things, operate within the restrictions of the law of cause and effect. Even the Buddha is not able to transcend the law of cause and effect. To be effective they cannot be applied mechanically or thoughtlessly, but only with in a heartfelt way, in a deeply felt way. To that same degree the purification will take place. You know, we can bring about a internal condition through the application of these four powers, which such that they are more powerful than the than the the complementary condition which would have caused the karmic potency to be activated.
We’re trying to create an inner condition which is more powerful than the possible activating external condition would have been. Then the karmic seed will not ripen, or if ripens the ripening effect will be ameliorated, let us say, will be lessened in some way. So this is analogous to, for example, if we scorch a seed and merely like putting a seed just in fire very briefly. The seed remains. The seed in our mind is still there.
But but just like a scorched seed, even if it’s placed in water and soil, all the proper conditions are there, it won’t grow anything. No result can arise from it. Why? Because its ability to germinate has been destroyed. Likewise, if we can create a condition whereby even though we meet with the types of conditions which would have ripened this seed in our mind, the viability, the potency has been destroyed.
It can never ripen. The second, you know, the second form where we can begin to weaken. So that’s if we actually destroy it altogether, the viability of the seed. You know, we no longer if if we can lessen the viability of the seed, of the karmic latency. For example, you know, the the for an example, the effects of a of a karmic latency, which would have brought rebirth in, say, an unfortunate type rebirth, can be experienced in the course of this life in terms of a simple headache.
Simple unpleasant feeling can be a way of ameliorating that same karmic latency. That is to say, it will ripen to that lessened degree, whereas if it hadn’t been lessened, it could have actually thrown us, the mind, into a type of unfortunate rebirth. Or even if we were to take an unfortunate rebirth, the period of time in such a state would be lessened in one way or another. You know, it’s like it’s like taking it’s like plainly taking a seed and putting it in poor soil. The plant is stunted.
It doesn’t grow very well. So that would be the quality of ameliorating or or lessening the karmic consequences. You know, we have to, you know, one of the I’m gonna stop in just a minute. Just you know, what the there are many tenet systems or philo philosophic schools within Buddhism. And the highest school, which is called the Consequentialist Middle Way school, in in looking about in the nature of of dependence, that all things are dependent.
And just like, you know, light is dependent upon dark. If there’s no dark, then there’s no light. If there’s no short, there’s no long. If there’s no tall, there’s no low. There’s no high, there’s no low.
That their existence, they have any meaning. They depend upon one another. Generally, when we think about cause and effect, we think, oh, well, effect depends upon the cause. The result depends upon the cause. That’s that’s generally the way we think of cause and effect, and that’s quite right.
But they would also add, the the cause depends upon the effect, that without effects there are no causes. They wouldn’t they wouldn’t just like if there’s no high, there’s no low. So so when we say that negative karma are the causes of suffering, they are not inherently so. They are not there’s not something about them which makes them destructive and negative by their by way of their own nature. If we if they if they do not present if they do not bring about a result, then they are not the causes of suffering.
That’s not in their nature. They’re only they’re they’re being the causes of suffering is dependent upon their actually bringing about a suffering result. So they aren’t inherently, though, that way. So if we can change the conditions whereby they never bring about result, even though by name we call them negative actions, they aren’t necessarily bringing about they aren’t necessarily inherently they aren’t negative inherently negative actions, and they don’t necessarily have to bring about a negative result. So by means of the the point is that the future is open ended, that existing within our our within the future exists as present potentialities within our minds, you know, extending from the past with awareness.
And we have all of these possible possibilities of karma’s ripening. You know, it is not a linear process. There there are all there there is a variety of possibilities, and we can begin to intercede. We can begin to influence which of these karmic possibilities ripen and which we don’t which don’t. There are only degrees of probability and not certainty.
The future is open ended. The past only comes up to the present. And that’s that’s the one of the notions which is in contemporary physics, particle physics, of the uncertainty. You know, if you if you look back, then there’s a causal chain, which is and there’s a certainty there’s a certainty that this had to happen, it had to to the sequence of causes and conditions of causes and effects, it had to arrive at this state. But the future only exists as probabilities.
You can’t be sure which which way this this atomic particle is going to travel. There are only degrees of probabilities. There’s a certain degree of uncertainty. So likewise, which the the quality of our future is still open ended and is not predetermined. And we can begin to intercede into which of these conditioning factors are going to play a greater proportion in in our experience and which are not by you know, by this process of intervening.
And one of the skillful methods is by applying these four opponent powers. You know, with awareness and with determination, we can begin to shape the course of our future, you know, our the events and our experiences that we want that we go through, you know, what we call our lived world. You know, making use of these four powers is one way of committing ourselves to actualizing the fullest potential, you know, of our world, what we can get out of it. So by means of a strong and continual application of these four opponent powers, not only is the karmic seed weakened, but eventually it can be completely destroyed and eliminated from the mind. So anyway, that’s the first of these four powers.
We’ll go through the remaining three powers next week, the power of repudiation. So one way that we can avoid destroying the positive karmic latencies that we’ve created, which are present reside within our mind, is through dedication, a heartfelt dedication. When we dedicate, there is an aspiration towards an object that becomes associated as an internal factor with that particular potency within our mind, with that latency. You know, we can dedicate towards many things, and sometimes it’s necessary to dedicate toward temporal things that is of use. But we can also try to keep in mind that to dedicate beyond the level of chocolate cake and see something perhaps a little more profound and deeper.
In the land encircled by snow mountains, you are the source of all happiness and well-being. Powerful Chenrezig, Tenzin Gyatso, please remain until the end of cyclic existence. May I quickly become an awakened spiritual master and lead each and every living being to that awakened realm through these skillful actions. May the supreme jewel of the awakened heart that has not arisen arise and grow, and may that which has arisen never diminish but increase more and more. So if you’d like to get a cup of tea, we’ll have a discussion.
Otherwise, have a good week. Okay? Thank you.