Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. “If I am only for myself, what am I?” — Ven Jampa Gendun uses that borrowed question to anchor this 45-minute session’s central argument: that genuine well-being cannot be found in isolation from others. Drawing on Abraham Maslow’s distinction between deficiency motivation (avoiding pain) and growth motivation (actualizing potential), he maps a three-stage evolution of spiritual motivation: first confronting one’s own suffering honestly; then developing growth motivation aimed at personal liberation; and finally expanding that motivation to encompass all beings — the bodhisattva’s orientation. He explains how great compassion protects against the seductive pull of solitary liberation, distinguishes the private and social dimensions of the self, and closes with guided meditation using breath-counting and choiceless awareness. Suited to practitioners already familiar with basic Mahāyāna concepts.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 HMA 1996 05 22.mp3
UUID: 2521f345-9945-4b0f-9a99-eb6cd9f8168a
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1996-05-22
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.4 minutes
Words: ~6,045
So begin as we as we usually do in terms of adjusting our motivation, this process of bringing ourselves back to to what is uniquely important to each of us, what makes a difference in our lives, what makes our lives worthwhile. This process of of reorientation, redirecting redirecting ourselves. Seems like it’s quite necessary, doesn’t it? We’re continually getting out of touch and losing sight of what is our priorities. And somehow we we have to continue to take the time to check up with ourselves and readjust our priorities, make sure that the direction that we’re headed, the overall way in which we’re expanding our life’s energies and time is where we want to go.
You know, we’ve been talking about this in terms of going for refuge, the notion that where we are investing our life’s energy, our life’s time, what constitutes our life, where our treasure lies, where does our heart lie, and beginning to check up to see if in fact our particular refugees, the place where we’re investing all our resources, is actually bringing us what we want. In terms of an alternative possibility from the point of view of Buddhism, what might be seen as an ultimate types of refuge rather than superficial or temporal are the Buddha, the Dharma, and the spiritual community, you know, as a means of alleviating our fundamental problems and actualizing our fullest potential, and all that it could mean to be a human being and all that we could ever hope to be. And we said that there were two basic causes. You know, there’s a cause. It doesn’t happen by chance.
It’s not haphazard. It’s not doesn’t occur by grace or by miraculous means. I think that’s that’s just that’s worth considering. If we want to achieve something, if we want to be something, then find out what is the cause of it and begin to employ the means to create that cause. Make use of some kind of method.
Otherwise, it’s more than not wishful thinking. We might be terribly sincere, but sincerity is not enough to find what it is that we want. We have to employ our intelligence as well. And we talked about the two fundamental causes that we have to begin to employ, that we have to create to achieve the result, this refuge that we’re trying to actualize within ourselves and in our life, and those of faith and those of anxiety and fear. But there’s a third cause.
In addition to anxiety and faith as the two main causes for going for refuge, There’s an additional special cause for going to a very special refuge, and this is for a very special individual, someone who’s seeking a very special goal. This causes the fear of solitary liberation, and it is the fear of the bodhisattva, who is seeking the goal of unsurpassed, perfect, complete, awakening, enlightenment, Buddhahood. And his refuge, or her refuge, for this fear of solitary liberation is great compassion. There’s a phrase, there’s a quote, If I am not for myself, who will be? If I am only for myself, what am I?
And if not now, when? You know, we have to be for ourselves. Who who can we expect? We’ll be on our side if we are not on our own side, if we are not our own ally. But we can’t stop there.
You know, if I’m only self for myself, what am I? We’re not much different than an animal. On the whole, can say that animals are very much for themselves. And if not now, when? You know, when are we going to begin to begin to place the foundation beneath the castles of our dream, the type of life that we would like to live, the way we would like to be in this world.
The nature of the path that we’re that we are traveling is determined very much by where it is that we want to go. Now what is our desired destination? That place where our treasure lies? You know, what is it that we hope to find in our refuge? And this in turn is determined by our motivation.
The why behind our going. You know, why this treasure? Why this particular refuge? What’s in it for you? Why why are we traveling the spiritual path at all?
You know, why are we expending our time and energies in this way? You know, what is the intention that lies behind our journey? Feeling that psychology had concentrated too much on human weaknesses while neglecting strength. Abraham Maslow, maybe some of you are familiar with Abraham Maslow. He was a significant figure in what was called the third force psychology in the United States.
He died about nineteen seventy one, I think. Abraham Maslow sought to round out the picture by studying emotionally healthy individuals. He regarded human nature as basically good, but saw the innate tendency towards growth and self actualization as rather weak and fragile, easily overcome by social pressures. Maslow distinguished between deficiency motivation, in which individuals seek to restore their physical or psychological equilibrium and growth motivation in which individuals seek to go beyond what they have done and been in the past. People may welcome uncertainty and increased intention and even pain if they can see it as a route toward greater fulfillment than their human potential.
So, you know, if we follow this lead in this thinking, likewise we can begin to distinguish two overall types of motivation which lie behind an individual’s effort in traveling the spiritual path. The why behind our going for refuge. One is deficiency motivation which is essentially orientated toward the negative avoidance of want and misery, both physical and mental, in some specific future state of existence. On the other hand there is growth motivation which is toward the positive attainment of health and well-being in general. But additionally, you know, so okay, we have these two types of motivations and I think it’s necessary to consider them because I think it’s a necessary process that we have to work through in developing our motivations.
I don’t think we can go from A to C without passing through B. I think that’s emphasized to a great extent in the Buddhist teachings. But we have to begin to discern the overall structure of the path. Beginning with the deficiency motivation, which is aimed at what would be termed or seen as a negative avoidance, something that you don’t want to occur in the future. You know, these holes that we keep falling in that we’ve talked about before.
You become sick and tired of being sick and tired. Become sick and tired of falling into the same damn hole again and again and again. So you develop a deficiency in motivation, a motivation whereby you want to avoid these these possible pitfalls again in the future, and the elimination of mental and physical pain of one nature or another in the future. But, you know, that in itself is not all that we could be. It’s not all that we could hope to achieve in our life, the quality of our existence as human beings.
We can go beyond simple deficiency motivation and begin to develop the quality of growth motivation, where we begin to seek the attainment of some general overall health and well-being, the realization of our potential, the actualization of all that we could be, you know, a sense of connectedness and meaningfulness and purpose and quality in our life. But even within this quality of growth motivation, there is still two further levels that we can look at within this structure. There is motivation which is primarily directed towards our own growth, you know, intended for our own sakes, the motivation which is primarily intended for ourselves and our development of our own sense of health and well-being. In other words, the intention behind our efforts to grow can be either there is a sense that I myself want to achieve a general quality of health and well-being. But we can go beyond that and we can develop a growth motivation which is primarily intended for the sake of others.
In other words, the intention behind our efforts to grow can either be to achieve the health and well-being of what is called a lesser awakening, what is called individual liberation for ourselves alone, where it can be intended to achieve the health and the well-being, but importantly, the abilities of highest awakening. That is to say complete Buddhahood for the sake of all others. So we’ve gone beyond simple deficiency motivation, the negative avoidance of painful states in the future either physical or mental. But we developed a growth motivation. We want to actualize our potential and we want to make the most out of our life, what it could be.
And that growth motivation can be intended primarily for ourselves, liberation, our own lesser awakening, or it can be intended for the sake of all living beings. And thereby we have to develop abilities whereby to help them to achieve their liberation, to achieve their well-being. Thereby our intention is to achieve a higher awakening, a Buddhahood. So a bodhisattva is such an individual. A bodhisattva is someone who is heroically dedicating their lives to the attainment of highest awakening.
And this is exactly what the word bodhisattva means. Sattva, literally translated means hero. A hero with regard to bodhi, meaning awakening, enlightenment. So there is only one so this is a heroic individual who is trying to achieve complete highest awakening for the sake of all living beings. And there’s and there’s only one thing that this individual fear, and that is the self absorption absorption of their own solitary liberation.
You know, it’s an awakening but a lesser one. And what is it that protects? You know, a refuge is something which protects ourselves. And it protects ourselves from some type of fear. And what is it that protects the bodhisattva from its fear of the self absorbed oblivion of their own solitary liberation?
It is great compassion. It is great compassion that protects the bodhisattva from the seduction of withdrawing from the world of others into the isolated realm of their own solitary peace. That’s very seductive, isn’t it? When everything is going well we begin to quite there’s a tendency to become complacent, to find that’s enough, to begin to even to question, you know, what more could I want? Even with regard to ourselves, let alone with others.
You know, the point that’s going to be made is in terms of the difference between what we can make out of our lives. Maybe not even in terms of these these ultimate goals of Buddhahood or highest awakening or less lesser awakening, but just what it means to be a healthy, happy, loving, sane human being in the direction that we might have to go in order to achieve that end, you know, to creating that orientation in our lives. And if we look at the primary quality of ourselves, you know, that is something about our actual lived experience. There are two aspects to ourselves. What constitutes the dimensions of our lives?
On the one hand, there’s a private aspect of ourselves. You know, the the that part of ourselves which is inaccessible to others. You know, that that is lived out through our own inner experience. You know, our private self, the the the eye of experience, the the the eye of the inner experiential dimension of life. And more or less, it’s a part of ourselves with which more than that cannot be made known to others, Our own inner lived world in which we exist, a part of ourselves that exists.
On the other hand, there’s the social aspect to ourselves. You know, that part of ourselves with which is lived through our shared relationships with others. You know, our social self, the eye of our relationships, the eye of relation, the eye of our outer social dimension of life. You know, that part of our self which is constituted out of our relationship with the world and others. So, you know, there are these two aspects to our being, to our dimensions of life.
From the holistic approach of universal or the great vehicle, the Mahāyāna. And by holistic I mean that approach to being which tries to take into consideration the totality of who we are, the total dimension of ourselves. You know, something which provides for the whole of ourselves, not just certain aspects of ourselves. So, you know, hope hopefully, looking at something which which takes into consideration all the many aspects and facets of ourselves, we could say as holistic. And from the holistic approach of the universal vehicle, the lesser vehicle, generally termed the Hīnayāna or individual vehicle, is seen as falling to the extreme of individualism, an imbalance in the emphasis between these two aspects of ourselves which fails to take into account that we as human beings are social beings.
That if we are to be happy, healthy, loving, sane human beings, then we must not only make effort in finding some kind of inner experience of peace, but we also must make effort in finding some some way of skillfully relating with the world about us, some way of connecting with others which in which that our very interdependence with others entails demands of ourselves. There’s some something some meaningful way of relating with others, some skillful way of relating with others that we simply cannot strive continually for some experience of inner peace. This would only this only would take into consideration one facet of ourselves, one part of our potential. It wouldn’t take in the totality of who we are. That essentially that, you know, if we just bring this down to a practical plane for ourselves, that mental health is essentially a social phenomenon.
That it’s not to be found in isolation from the world of others, you know, in the solitary acquisition of realization for ourselves. You know, that we are social beings. So somehow, you know, the the way that we expend our energies, the direction of our efforts and our goals have to take into consideration these two aspects of ourselves. Not just finding the chocolate cake for ourselves, but finding some way to help others to find their chocolate cake as well. It seems that the most skillful way that we could lead our life in terms of finding the utmost quality in our life.
So the universal vehicle, like any authentic spiritual path, necessarily begins with ourselves. It begins with our own self interest. That’s where we’re at. That’s you know, we can’t escape that fact. And it’s quite necessary to begin there, start where you’re at with our own self interest.
But it doesn’t stop there. Ultimately, it ends with others. You know, the initial focus of the universal vehicle in the Mahāyāna is upon the individual, you know, our personal problems, our own suffering. You know, that’s where it all begins, with the beginning to acknowledge the quality, the overall quality of what what it means to be an ordinary human being in which we all participate. You know, it’s been we’ve expanded and it’s a life long struggle against acknowledging the texture of of our lives, of denying and rejecting, struggling against this quality, which has caused us more than not to continue to in our suffering, in which we have never had to confront the issue of what it means to be an ordinary being and begin to confront the issue of suffering and loneliness and, you know, the alienation and defensiveness and the struggle for union with with oneself, with others, with the world.
You know, all of what it means to be you know, it’s it sounds like it’s, you know, whatever you want to call it, you know, this quality of our quality of our existence. At some point, it seems like it’s necessary to to you know, whether you whether you accept it as part of the human condition or not or whether you acknowledge it or not, whether whatever name you want to give it. You know, there’s a tendency to that we have to in our society to not to read too readily admit it. That we it’s like suffering is like an open secret which we don’t talk about. Or if we talk about it, it’s sort of talked about in a kind of coded language so that we don’t have to face what its implications are.
But it’s the reality of our experience. The overall under you know, the overall felt experience of our life is suffering. It’s not to say, it’s not to be cynical in suggesting that there is no happiness in life. But happiness isn’t the problem. Suffering is the problem.
So the focus is upon where our problems are in terms of the causes of our suffering and beginning there, you know, and with our personal problems and suffering. But you know, if we never developed a deeply felt and consistent attitude wishing ourselves to be completely free of our suffering, to find well-being for ourselves, you know, how could we ever genuinely wish it for others? And then how could we ever really love others? How could we ever really develop a stable and powerful compassion for others when we haven’t even begun to love and have compassion for ourselves? And in knowing our own suffering directly as we do, and at best only knowing others suffering vicariously, secondhand.
If those beings have never before even dreamt of such an attitude for their own need, for their own sake, how could it never arise for the sake of others? So the universal vehicle, just say Buddhism is asking us first to confront the issue of suffering within our own life. You know, there’s nothing wrong with any of us. It’s you know, there somehow suffering has an isolating quality. And it somehow and there’s a sense that if I only had it together, I wouldn’t be suffering.
There’s something particularly wrong with me if we admit our suffering at all, if we acknowledge our suffering at all, you know, if we stop speeding and stop acting and distracting ourselves from ourselves. You know, if we confront the the overall quality of our lives, we still come down to the fact that if life should be otherwise, then it is. But that’s not true. Suffering is the mark of ordinary existence, of ego driven existence. There’s nothing particularly wrong with any of us that a good bit of wisdom wouldn’t cure the wisdom of understanding selflessness by which we can go beyond our ignorance.
We begin there and develop a sense that I want to be well, that I want to eliminate my own suffering. And what this what this means practically is that if universal vehicle first asks us to raise our level of our motivation from one of deficiency motivation, you know, the elimination of relatively superficial problems and the gratification of short term goals. It says there’s more to life than that than these superficial happinesses which we’re continually struggling for. The achievement of short term and the gratification of short term goals and the removal of our superficial problems. To one, it says, okay, you know, we’re very modest people.
We don’t ask very much of life, it would seem. And the Buddhism is asking, say, there’s more to life than we can ask for. There’s there’s more to life than we’ve experienced hitherto now. You know, to begin to develop a motivation of which is primarily growth motivation and initially for our own sake. That the elimination of superficial problems and the achievement of achievement of these narrow and short term goals isn’t enough.
That I want to experience health. I want to experience well-being. And I want to experience in a greater way many of these these glimpses that I achieve of the possibilities of my own mind. These peak experiences that we all from time to time in the rare moments of our lives have had in various ways. You know, the when we found some kind of peace, you know, when we found some kind of union, when we when we’ve that we’ve been able to give up the struggle momentarily, when when it was enough just to be alive and to be in the world.
When we were free, just momentarily of the of this of the of the struggle and the conflict, the feelings of dissatisfaction and disappointment when there was a sense of peace. You know, one begins to have a sense that there is is a something more in this to life. And and this begins the process, you know, this is what underlies this growth motivation to achieve that. You know, the elimination of our fundamental problems, not our superficial problems, and the accomplishment of well-being. But then, you know, having having achieved that and having done that, then the universal vehicle asks us to go on from there, you know, to to raise the level of our motivation still further, you know, from growth primarily for our own sake to growth primarily for the sake of others.
And this what this operationally means is the elimination of any obstacle to our abilities to be of optimum benefit to others. To be able to help in the elimination of their fundamental problems and the achievement of their well-being. And in doing this, bringing about the ultimate welfare of both ourselves and others. You know, this is the orientation. You know, this is, you know, having some kind of sense of structure of the evolution of this of this quality of mind.
Our desperate need is to realize that we need both qualities in life. We need individuality and we also need relationship. We can’t have one at the expense of the other. No man can be fully an individual unless he is fully related. And his capacity for genuine relatedness grows in proportion as he becomes a complete individual.
These two aspects of life are yoked together by a deep and ancient bond, for they are really two sides of the same archetype, two faces of the same reality. So, you know, the you know, this if if we set Buddhism aside, you know, for the moment and just talk about what it would be to lead the good life, even confining it to this life and and in a secular sense, that maybe if we look at the at the way that we actually live our lives, that our attempts to find happiness for ourselves alone from in isolation from others isn’t the most skillful way of being in this world with others because we are in a world with others. Maybe if we can begin to open, expand our our sense of what the good life might be about and begin to see the necessity to begin to include others in our world and to see it as necessary to our own well-being to work for ourselves alone to equally begin to combine the motivation which works for the sake of others. To have a social awareness, the social concern for others is just as important for a good life as a concern for ourselves alone.
You know, the holistic view of the universal vehicle of Buddhism emphasizes that to be essentially a self directed unique individual whose experiences and concerns and actions are valuable in and of themselves and at the same time to be a social being and inextricably bound up with others in the world are not too conflicting ways of being. But two necessary two necessary aspects of of how we live our lives, of human existence. That is to say, you know, self assertion and self integration with others are two ways that we actually live our life. That we need both to live out a balanced life. We have to assert ourselves but we also have to integrate ourselves with others.
On the one hand, a living system is an integrated whole with its own individuality. And it has the tendency to assert itself and to preserve that individuality. As part of the larger whole, it needs to integrate itself into a larger whole. In order to have a healthy life, you need to assert yourself and you need to integrate yourself. The individuality and relatedness, they support and enhance one another.
Autonomy and dependency are complementary. So the highest awakening to which the bodhisattva aspires is an awakening of the entirety of their being. And this is embodied in realizing the potential of both their private aspect of themselves and the social aspect of themselves. In terms of the doctrine, this is represented by the achievement of what is called the truth body or the dharmakaya and the form body, what is called the rupakaya. These are just aspects of a tremendously happy, healthy, loving, sane human being.
There’s someone we call Buddha. We talk about aspects or or their their how their being is expressed. How we’d be how does a tremendously sane person be in this world? How in what way in what way does it function? Does a person does a personality express itself in the world?
In one way, we’re struggling for inner experience of peace. We all want that. We don’t want to suffer. And this, in terms of the achievement of this optimum way of being, of a Buddha, is termed the truth body of a Buddha. You know?
So so, I mean, Buddhism isn’t saying that we are to forego our self interest. By no means. You know? That would be how could we? You know, we can’t go from a to c without going through a b.
And we are we have to achieve our own self interest. But it’s beginning to say that maybe in struggling to find our self interest we’ve been terribly unskillful up to now. In trying to struggle for our own self interest we’ve created nothing but suffering for ourselves. That, you know, that we can find an optimum mode of being. We can fulfill our own self interest.
The Buddha does. But he or she is also aware that in fulfilling the needs of others and creating what is called a body or a that is the very expression of their being in the world for others, they are fulfilling both the welfare of their of themselves as well as others. You know, this is this is what this is the essential quality of this spiritual journey, at least as far as seen as Mahāyāna Buddhism or Yogachara Buddhism. The realization of the totality of our being. The realization experience of peace and our outward ability to be of maximum benefit to others is all that we could hope for the good life to be.
And this becomes our orientation. This is the path that we’re directing ourselves. This is the motivation behind our spiritual journey. Somehow it all fits in this. It all it all can be adapted into adapted into this overall structure of the path.
It can be adapted in terms of our orientation, you know, our thinking. We have to begin with ourselves and our own suffering. But if I’m only for myself, you know, what what am I? But I have to be for myself, but not just for myself. Also, to begin to be for others.
So in this process, all of these teachings, all of all of the, you know, this eighty four thousand bundles of Dharma that were that the Buddha taught, you know, all of the commentaries, all of the this whole vast edifice of Buddhism is somehow structured into an evolution of our mind, an evolution in our thinking, an evolution in our motivation. Beginning with the necessity to confront the suffering in our lives and developing a motivation which goes beyond simply a deficiency motivation, which develops a wanting to go beyond our fundamental problems and develop a general sense of health and well for ourselves. But accompanying that, never losing sight of the fact that we exist interdependent with the world, that we are social beings. Accompanying that motivation, going beyond the sense of primarily wanting it for ourselves alone, but wanting additionally to develop the abilities, the skills, whereby we can be of maximum benefit to others in helping them to go beyond their fundamental problem to achieve their general sense of health and well-being as well as ourself. And this is the orientation of our life.
This is the intention, you know, the the the the driving force behind the bodhisattva’s spiritual journey. So the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha. This this maximum maximization of our potential, of all that we can be, both in terms of our inner aspect of ourselves, but in also in terms of social aspect of ourselves. We call that a Buddha. And trying to to actualize these potentials by means of the Dharma, the techniques, the trainings, the meditations, you know, the truth of things.
And trying and this process occurs within the social context of a spiritual community. You know, those who who are assisting, who inspire us, who act as examples, who who teaches and guide us, who who then their support in in any, you know, how according to their their capacities, their present limitations and abilities. And again and again, trying to raise the level of motivation why we’re involved in this process. So that we’re, you know, that we’re again and again reaffirming the fact that we’re social beings. Even if it’s for one other person, that is at least acknowledging that we are related with others.
And that that my life’s energies and the time and what I’m putting forth into this path, into my development is at least in some, even if only a terribly limited way, going to the help in the development of the social aspect of myself. You know, that our orientation hasn’t fallen to the extreme of simple simple individualism, the solitary acquiring realizations of ourselves alone. You know, acknowledging that we are social beings and orientating ourselves again and again toward that. Again and again trying to raise the level of our motivation that it begins to tend toward the primacy of development of ourselves for others. Even even if our intent at present can only be for one other person, it’s least in that direction.
And we’ve at least headed ourselves in the direction, you know, the right direction, a direction where we can, you know, we could hope to achieve, you know, all that we might want for ourselves. Even if it’s a terribly long way down the line, at least we’ve got our cart pointed in the direction that we want to travel. And we keep again and again orientate ourselves in this way. Keep again and again getting ourselves back on the path. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Supreme Community, I go from refuge until awakening.
Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Supreme Community, I go for refuge until awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Supreme Community, I go for refuge into awakening. To the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings.
Reverently, I pay homage with my body, speech, mind, and present clouds of every type of offering, those actual and imagined. I disclose all my destructive acts accumulated at this time without beginning, and rejoice in the skillful actions of holy and ordinary beings. Please remain until cyclic existence has ended and turn the wheel of dharma for living beings. I dedicate all virtuous actions of myself and others to the great awakening. So, I mean, this is just, I guess, just a reminder again and again that we have to Look at our problems perhaps on a deeper look at our problems.
Perhaps look at them on a deeper level. Confront the issue of suffering in life. Begin to see whether your methods that you’re making use of, your refuge, what you’re going toward are going to help you to solve those problems. And then be gone and then tend toward to begin to go beyond this self limiting preoccupation with ourselves. And that many of most of our solutions become part of our problems and beginning to open up to a wider conception of what happiness and a good life might in fact be.
Simply that we begin to look at our problems at a deeper level, begin to avail ourselves of deeper resources of our mind and begin to change our thinking, see that as our orientation, but also begin to become aware of that others like ourselves are suffering and make that part of our concern in some way or another in our daily life. So we’re going to we’re gonna meditate. So would you like to stand for a moment? And we’ll sit. Okay.
So again, we’re just going to work with mindfulness of breathing. We’ll also use the technique of choiceless awareness that was introduced last week. That’s simply, you know, we in the in our mindfulness of breathing we can make use of the techniques of counting and noting the breaths, if that’s helpful. And at a certain point we’re to stop counting and we’re simply going to note, simply emphasizing what your mind is involved in. What is its object?
Knowing that you’re breathing in, acknowledging that fact, emphasizing that fact by noting in, knowing that you’re breathing out, emphasizing noting that fact. And then at a point practicing choiceless awareness, simply allowing the mind to become involved in any object that it naturally tends towards. We’re not going to seek to focus the mind on any particular object. It’s going to naturally tend towards that which is most interesting stimulating to it. And simply maintaining awareness.
And this is most readily done by continuing to note. You know, thinking, hearing, hearing, hearing, thinking, feeling, sensing. You know, whatever the mind, you know, like a a bird jumping from branch to branch on a tree. Continue flitting around and being aware of what branch it’s on, where it’s flitting to. You know, the in meditation, we have to develop it’s a very skillful process, you know, not not holding the mind too tight nor too loose, you know, not letting the mind go completely.
You know, the if if we if we try to control the mind too tightly, then that very energy that we’re expending will will rebound rebound back at ourselves. And if we let the mind go, then the mind simply goes, you know, pretty much wild as it normally is in normal state. So there’s an expression within within Zen Buddhism that the that the the best fence is a wide pasture. You know, the the restlessness of a cow makes makes no sense if if it has a vast field, you know, if it has a wide field in which to live. You know, simply simply expends its energy and then begins to relax and settle down.
That’s so we’re trying to create a wide fence, a vast pasture for our mind where where its its restlessness no longer makes any sense. And if we try to suppress, if we try to control the mind, that very, you know, the very thoughts that are needed, the very active control will simply agitate our minds more. On other hand, we simply can’t let them go.