Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A concentration camp selection line — strangers, enemies, and loved ones all queued toward the same door — is the arresting image Ven Jampa Gendun deploys to open this 33-minute session on equalizing self and others. He works through the first three of nine analytical points from the conventional perspective: every being, regardless of appearance or status, equally does not want to suffer; every being equally wants happiness; and every being equally lacks genuine freedom from suffering — including the famously wealthy. A parallel hospital-ward thought experiment asks whether a doctor would give the abusive patient and the agreeable one equal care. Gendun also draws a careful distinction between compassion and pity, warning that help given to another as if to an object carries hidden arrogance, and cites Mother Teresa: the poor want respect more than money. Suited to practitioners already working through this bodhichitta series.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 HMA 1997 01 29.mp3
UUID: de33cf49-3f6f-4472-a557-39827c19e3b4
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1997-01-29
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 33.0 minutes
Words: ~4,865
I’m quoting verse five from the eighth chapter. First of all, I should make effort to meditate upon the equality between self and others. I should protect all beings as I do myself because we are all equal in wanting pleasure and not wanting pain. So, you know, in developing the will to awaken, we confronted our dissatisfactions, our our frustrations, all of our disappointments, you know, the truth of suffering in our life. And we we begin to try to access what it is that we really want, what is it that we really need.
You know, understanding our ourselves in this way, we can we can begin to look to others. We can begin to extend the same types of understandings that we’ve developed with regard to ourselves to others. Without having understood this with regard to ourselves, we’re never going to be able to understand it in any real way with regards to others. Know, that all other living beings are more than not, are just like ourselves. We all share in the human dilemma, more or less.
Superficially, there there are differences, but basically, we’re all very much the same. That basically, their happiness and their wants and their needs are very much the same as our own. Not much not much different. So the insight to be gained through the practice of equalizing yourself and others is that essentially the happiness and sufferings of others are in no way different than my own happiness and suffering. That the purpose the purpose of meditating on the equality of self and others is to develop a mind that seeks the happiness of all others and their separation from suffering to the same degree as we now work to gain our own happiness, to remove our own suffering to that same degree.
In other words, to develop an unconditional positive regard, extending equally to all living beings, an unconditional positive regard. Whatever the super different, our regard for them is not conditioned by the superficial differences, either with respect to their qualities or who they might be, but also in terms of how they relate with us. It’s unconditional, and it’s positive. So the method that we’re that we use is in examining the, in coming to this understanding, in the development of this unconditional positive regard is to is from the both the conventional and the ultimate point of view. And from the conventional point of view, that again is divided in two, from the from the side from the from the side of others and from our own side.
So we’re going to look at the equality of self and others from a conventional point of view, from a from what we might say is a a relatively superficial point of view and from a more profound point of view. Within this relative point of view or this this conventional point of view, we’re going to again divide that up, in that we’re going to look at the equality of self and others from the side of others, and the equality of self and others from our own side. So we have three divisions. Each of those is going to be has three parts. So I’m making a total of nine parts.
So we’re moving through this this systematic way of breaking down our deeply held misconceptions about the nature of the experience of others in terms of suffering and happiness. In other words, trying to penetrate or gain some kind of insight into the the the reality of the felt of experience of of ourselves and others as being equal. And we’re trying to approach it in as many ways as we can from different directions, trying to find something that works, something where the penny drops for ourselves. So first, you know, from from the conventional point of view, from the side of others, trying to see from their side. You know, we begin with the fact that all beings, whosoever desire not to suffer.
You know, again, you know, this I think we would all agree upon that. We could take a vote and I’m sure it would we could develop we could have some kind of consensus on this. You know, that premise may seem quite obvious, but when we but when we stop to consider it but the trouble is we don’t stop to consider it. We don’t behave emotionally in our life as if that were the case. We work on other premises.
We have to begin to acknowledge this fact, that there are different levels of psych cognitive awareness, and we we opt, you know, intellectually and rationally, we operate on one level, on certain premises. But emotionally, and this is where most of our life is lived out, on the basis of we we use make we use other premises, other systems of belief, other ideas. And one of the and here we have we’re trying to break those down, to break break through those. That from their own side, from their own side, from the side of all these people in this room, on your part, on my side, I’m included in this, is I don’t want to suffer. You don’t want to suffer.
That’s from your side. And we’re equal. All all all of you are equal in that. All of us are equal in that. So to illustrate, and this is, you know, trying to evoke some emotional feelings around this.
You know, images are made use of, you know, for example, and this is it can be a very powerful image that imagining that that you’re living in Nazi Germany, you know, maybe nineteen forty one, nineteen forty two, during World War two. And you know, it’s it’s the time of of the Holocaust. You know, you and you’ve just been woken up, been thrown out of your bed in the middle of the night, and you’re, you know, you herded out your door along with your family and put onto waiting trucks, and there’s soldiers all around with machine guns and shouting orders and dogs. And you have almost you have just the clothes that you were wearing while you were sleeping, maybe a few value valued possessions that you were able to grab as they as you were thrown out to your door. And then then you spend it wretched day upon day in a boxcar of a train.
And then the the train comes to the railroad siding, and you’re all herded off, and you’re all separated into various categories and different lines. Some of you are in this line waiting, and there’s this door at the end, and some people walk in that door in small groups, and you don’t see them again. And you look about you and all the various people in this line, all of you standing there, and, you know, there’s a variety of people. Some of them you actually know, that they were some of your neighbors, some of your friends, some of them are your loved ones. Some of them are simply acquaintances, but most of are probably strangers, maybe a few enemies that you recognize amongst them.
And some are some of them are rich, obviously. Others are are poor. Some are educated. Some are uneducated. Some are quite beautiful, physically handsome.
Some are quite repulsive perhaps. But no matter who they might be, you know, in terms of their appearances, in terms of their status, terms of their relationship to you, these small groups, they go into that door. The door closes and they’re not seen again. You know, at such a time, you’re standing in this line with this variety of people, in this chaos, in this this nightmare that that you’re living out? You know, who are you going to comfort?
You know, who will you who will you draw near to you? You know, who will you who will be the the who will naturally be the center of your attention, your concern? You if look at all of these faces of these people in this line, they’re full of fear, full of pain, confusion. None of none of these people want to be living this nightmare. None of them at all.
None of them want this pain. None of them want to die. They all are the same in that exactly. No difference whatsoever. Maybe, you know, maybe in such a situation, maybe just a few words from yours, a word of kindness, a gesture of caring, you know, going out to another human being in this real time of need.
But which one? You know, are their hearts any different? Are somehow some of them are immune to what’s going on? Do some of them not suffer as in a different way than others? Do some of them invite suffering?
You know, they don’t mind suffering as it were. You know, are there some who don’t need love, who don’t need caring in such a situation? Or somehow, you know, the enemy, somehow the uneducated, the poor, the the the unattractive. Do they need caring any of the less than the rich and the the beautiful and the educated. Somehow it’s okay for them because they’re poor.
It’s okay for them because they’re unattractive. It’s okay because they’re uneducated, because they’re enemies that they suffer. They don’t mind it as much. It doesn’t hurt them as much as it does my loved ones, the beautiful, the rich, the educated. You know, how can you can you deny their reality, You know, their their their humanity, their their their common vulnerability to what’s happening.
That they, in fact, are exactly the same in the desire that this nightmare be ended. They don’t want one more moment of suffering. They don’t want one moment of pain or confusion or fear, just like everybody else. There’s no difference whatsoever amongst them, no matter what the superficial differences in their appearances may be, and the nature of your relationships with them may be. You know, to to draw our loved ones near ourselves, you know, to the friend, the beautiful, the educated, and to neglect and push away the enemy, the stranger, the the unattractive, the the poor.
And it is to not deny their reality. That’s some kind of hardening of your heart. You know, that that to deny the truth that they equally do not want to suffer. You know, who’s whoever they might be, it’s you have to you have to harden your heart in some manner, in some way. You have to reject your own conscience, your own truth about what is actually going on and what those people are experiencing and feeling.
The fact is, the fact is, the truth is, the reality is that nobody wants to suffer. Not just the people you love, not just the people who who appear beautiful to you or that you hold in high esteem or the educated, the rich, the famous, but all of it. That’s the reality. So we’re looking at from that point of view, and then going beyond our the fiction that we create, and trying to see what is the truth of the situation that from their own side, all of the people and all of the people in this room, those are the appearances aren’t vastly different, are exactly alike in that simple fact of not wanting to suffer. And we look at the so that’s the first part from the point of view of others, that no being whosoever wants to suffer.
The second part of this division is the complement of the first, that all beings are the same in desire and happiness. So, you know, trying to you know, we have to we have we have to understand that we have some we’re working on some mistaken premises, and our emotional life is based upon this. And it’s it’s we’re relating with in an in an unskillful, inappropriate manner, a dysfunctional manner, which brings nothing but suffering to ourselves and to others. And that the truth is therapeutic. If we can begin to cut through our our misconceptions and see the reality of the situation and begin to relate relate with it in a more appropriate, more skillful, then it can only be a benefit both to ourselves and to others.
And this is the premise of Buddhism, that the truth is therapeutic, that it is it is liberating, that it can only bring about the welfare of both ourselves and others. And what is the truth in terms of their suffering? They’re all exactly alike, though we don’t treat them that way. The complement of this is that they’re all exactly alike from their side in wanting to be happy, that they all desire equally to be happy. So, you know, suppose that you were, you know, again, an image using our imagination that that you’re, you know, that you’re a doctor, that you have some real medical skills, and that that that you walk on to a ward of where full of sick people.
Some of the some of them are male, some of them are female, some of them are attractive, some of them are unattractive, some are, again, educated, uneducated, some are some are quite compliant patients, some are quite abusive, some are rich, some are poor, some are famous, some pretty ordinary. You know, what is your natural reaction? You know, if you were if you were to be able to put yourself imaginatively in that situation, how would you naturally react to each of them? You know, would it simply be variations on the theme of attraction and aversion attraction and aversion and indifference? You know, but but from their from their point of view, from their side, what is their reality?
You know, what we see is our own fantasy world, you know, that this is the primary delusion in which we live in. They all want to be well. That’s why they’re there. You know, they all they all are the same in their desire to experience well-being again. You know, for some, this might mean to to go home, back to their families again.
For some, it might mean to get back to work, to get back to their leisure time enjoyments, to play, you know, whatever it might be, to their hobbies, just just to feel good again. We all know what that is like, to be able to enjoy our life. The point is that they all equally want to be happy and and experience well-being. But which of them are you going to attend to first? You’re this doctor with these skills, these abilities to alleviate pain and to bring some kind of well-being.
Now which are you going to spend the most time with? Know, this what we have to ask us on, who would you, in fact? And and you know, trying to get it go beyond your own self deception and get it to what you actually might feel about such a situation. Who are you going to actually care the most for? You know, the beautiful one?
The rich one? The agreeable one? You know, are you going to to are you free to give that fat woman over there as much attention as that beautiful woman over there? Are you going to expend as much energy with that poor patient over there as that rich man over there? That charity case over there?
Are you going to be able to to expend as much of your skills and your time and your caring to that abusive patient that gives you such a hard time as you would this compliant patient, this agreeable patient, the one that smiles all the time and shows such great gratitude to you for all that you do to that patient? Are you going to be able to have that same concern, expend the same amount of energy and time and care toward both of those types of persons? Why not? They they are equally looking to you, equally. Even that abusive patient and this compliant patient are equally looking to you to bring them well-being again.
You’re looking to your skills, you know, your time, your energy, your caring, they they all equally have the natural feeling of wanting of wishing to be well. You know, do we see their reality from their side? So the the the fact is, you know, the reality is, and we’re trying to get in touch with this and feel this, is that everybody, whosoever, you know, the beautiful, the ugly, the rich, the poor, and the educated, uneducated, the people we love, and our enemies, all equally want to be happy. No difference in that. And then the third part of this division from the, you know, from the side of others is that they’re all beings desire to be happy.
They desire happiness. They are all the same and lacking real happiness and genuine happiness. And we’ve talked about this when we talked about the nature of suffering. Real happiness and true happiness. And there are all these people, you know, all these people in this this room here tonight, and all these people on that ward, and all these people standing in in that line in the concentration camp, and they all none of them though none of them want to suffer, they’re all suffering in some way or another.
They all suffer. You know, when when we look at others other people superficially, we tend, for example, to to assume that the rich people, that famous people, that powerful people are all happy people. And we do this unthinkingly. This is my point. It’s not rational.
But emotionally, we we come to these relationships with this mindset That somehow these types of people, the rich people, you know, the the Packers, the Murdochs, whosoever, that somehow the beautiful people, the powerful people, you know, the people you see on the Academy Awards, the people. You see winning, you know, in sports, you know, winning gold medals or whatever, envying those people, at least envying those for a moment or two, that somehow that they don’t suffer, that that because of who they are or what they possess or what they control or what they’ve done or what they have, that somehow they’ve transcended the basic problems that you and I are experienced, are forced to go through, the basic problems of conditioned existence. You know? And and therefore, it becomes difficult for us to really develop any compassion for them. I mean, how many people develop compassion for for Rupert Murdoch, Carrie Packer.
You’d have to think about it for a while, wouldn’t you? I was trying to think of the idea. Who’s the who’s the owner of Microsoft? What’s his name? Guys worth thirteen billion dollars.
Poor guy. Sad, isn’t it? Anyway, it’s difficult for to really to arouse compassion for such people because unthinkingly, we assume that they that they with what they have or what they control, who they are, the status or for whatever reason, that they’ve transcended the basic problems of human existence, the human dilemma, the ones that we’re stuck with. But this is just dreaming, isn’t it? You know, when we begin to think about it, but we don’t think about it.
As long as a person is under the control of karma, there is suffering. The suffering of mental and physical pain, the suffering of change, the suffering of universal conditionality, we we’ve talked about that. You know, as long as a person has attachment, has anger and ignorance in their minds, they are suffering. I don’t care whether they’re Carrie Packer or Bill Gates or whosoever, If they have attachment in their mind, if they have hatred in their mind, if they have ignorance in their mind, even with thirteen billion dollars they’re suffering. They are not free.
They are they do not have they have not solved the basic problems common to us all, the deeper, more fundamental problems. And they are moreover continually creating future sufferings for themselves, No matter how rich, no matter how beautiful or how powerful they that they appear to be at present, they have not gone beyond suffering. They’re just like ourselves in that way. Different circumstance, but in in a deeper manner, they’re just like ourselves. You know, also, when we look not just at these exceptional positive cases, you know, people are rich and educated and whatsoever, know, powerful famous.
But even when we look at the the poor and the needy, and if if the basis of our relating to them is not one where of essential equality of them and ourselves, then we can easily mistake pity for compassion. This is very that’s those who involve are working in the caring professions have to be mindful of this. You know, pity is one part arrogance and one part sympathy. You know, that when when we lose sight of the commonality of our human experience, of our of our essential equality, we have a tendency to devalue others and make them into objects of our doing good. Yeah.
But but good done to another as if to an object is of very little spiritual worth. There’s a feeling of superiority, of self righteousness about what we bring to the situation. You know, we are saying, I feel better than you. I feel warm and good about myself what I’m able to do for you. You know, with with such an attitude, beneath this superficial help that we may be able to to provide, we are encouraging that person, you know, the recipient of our help to feel worthless, to feel more worthless than they may already feel about themselves, to see us as good and themselves as bad.
You know, it’s difficult for someone in need of help to to struggle against the pressing attention of someone who is undermining them by doing good to them. And no one needs us to feel sorry for them, to do good to them as if to an object. You know, Mother Teresa once said that the poor are more than your money. They want to they want your respect. And she’s an expert on the poor, I think.
I I guess what that would mean is more than that, they want to be treated like equals. And without and without a a sense of equality of self and others, without appreciating the the the common core humanity of us all, what it means to be a human person, you know, our our shared experiences of life, we’re always going to remain indifferent to the vast majority of the world around us. You know, we as we, you know, we go through our daily life, you know, all the practical, necessary, and not so not so not so necessary activities of our everyday life. Know all that we normally do, and there’s a vague awareness that that maybe you get from the television, maybe you get from the the news, just gossip, you know, that you heard from somebody, that there’s suffering going on out there somewhere, out there in the world somewhere, that but it but there is that there’s a background pain in the world. Sentient beings are hurting somewhere, but not here.
You know? It’s out there, Africa or Bangladesh, Bosnia, But not here, where it would have to concern me, where we’d have to concern ourselves, where it would have some kind of effect on my life. It would it would kind of invade my island, which I’ve, you know, created for myself, my island of indifference. And that’s and and those remaining few, and those those people we don’t like, our enemies, you know, who we see as sources of problems for ourselves, who who are obstacles to our happiness in some way. You know, if we could and this is a quote: if we could read the secret histories of our enemies, we should find in each person’s life sorrow enough to disarm all our hostilities. You know, those people we want that we hate, that we could want to hurt in some way or another. If we could but you know, live look at the world out of their eyes and live you know, there’s a there’s a American, Native American Indian expression, you know, don’t judge a person till you’ve walked a month in their moccasins. If we could but feel their feelings and think their thoughts and live their life for even perhaps a day, I don’t think we could hate them any longer. You know, we couldn’t see them as objects of to be destroyed in some way or another.
This is from a quote from the Offering to the Spiritual Master, the Lama Chöpa, a ritual practice that is quite often practiced here at Buddha House. There is no difference between ourselves and others, none of us wishes even the slightest of suffering nor is ever content with the happiness that we have. Realizing this, we seek your blessings that we may enhance the bliss and joy of others. You know, rather than devaluing and objectifying others and seeing them as foreign beings.
You know, this is what we could get a sense of how we actually emotionally relate with others, our initial perception of others is in terms of their physical presence, that they are form, as if matter, that they are object-things. And we we might be able to move beyond that and and move to the core of that there’s a feeling behind being behind that matter, that form. But the initial impression, the perception is of a form being. Somehow for our use, or maybe just remaining totally indifferent to them in one way or another as if they don’t exist, or maybe even harboring some kind of hostility toward them. If we can begin to see them as essentially most importantly human beings, living beings are essentially the most feeling beings, and this is our primary quality about ourselves.
As individuals who who are valuable in and of themselves, beings who all naturally want to be happy, and who do not want painful feelings, who only want happy feelings. In other words, we should recognize in every other human being the same nature, the same needs, the same rights, the same destiny as ourselves. The plainest summary is to treat other men as if they were men, not to act as as if I were alone a man, and everyone else, every other human were an animal or a piece of furniture. But I cannot treat other men as men unless I have compassion for them. I must have at least enough compassion to realize that when they suffer, they feel something as I do when I suffer.
And if for some reason I do not spontaneously feel this kind of sympathy for others, then I must do what I can to learn how. I must learn to share with others their joys, their sufferings, their ideals, their needs, their desires. I must learn to do this, not only in the case of those who are of the same class, the same profession, the same race, the same nation as myself, but when men who suffer belong to other groups, even to groups that are regarded as hostile. So, you know, that’s the first of the three points from the conventional point of view from the side of others, that, you know, everyone is exactly alike in want not wanting to suffer, and trying to break through this conception that we harbor that, in fact, this is not the case because it is. That everyone from their own side wants to be happy, and trying to break through that misconception that this is not the case because it is.
And then finally, you know, realizing that though they want not to suffer, though they want to be happy just like ourselves, and what we’ve seen for ourselves in developing the will to awaken, they don’t have the happiness that they want, that they too, just like ourselves, are suffering. So we’ll continue on next week, okay, with these nine points. So we’ll dedicate the creative potential that we’ve accumulated. And we did part of our dedication, our traditional re dedication is just toward this development of the awakened heart. 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 the awakened realm through these virtuous 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. Would you like to get a cup of tea?