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 T.S. Eliot poem on endless cycles — “knowledge of motion but not of stillness” — as a lens for examining why habitual patterns of seeking keep failing. The bulk of the talk is a frank, almost comedic survey of the refuges modern people actually rely on: family, money, romantic love, vegetarianism, sex, savings accounts, travel, and career changes — each explored without judgment but with one pointed question: are they actually delivering what you want? He then introduces the Buddhist Three Jewels as a more reliable orientation, grounded in a Buddha as living model, Dharma as method, and Sangha as mutual support. The session closes with equanimity meditation — the foundation for developing an awakened heart — unpacking how the labels friend, enemy, and stranger lock us into automatic emotional reactions that can, with practice, be loosened. For practitioners following a Lamrim-style curriculum.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 HMA 1997 05 14.mp3
UUID: 514c5fd4-fcfb-4f24-8df6-10ebfc753f72
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1997-05-14
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.6 minutes
Words: ~6,297
Our ultimate value is what we would like to realize most in our life. How in some way to help ourselves to find the good life as each of ourselves might be uniquely conceived of conceived of it, whatever it might be for each of ourselves. You know, we can go a long time as if in a half sleep. Like a stupor just aimlessly wandering, trying to find a little bit of happiness, a little bit of pleasure here and there, trying to get rid of a few pains and difficulties and irritations there. And all the while our life, its deeper, escapes us in a greater meaning and possibilities that it might have to offer ourselves what could be for each of ourselves.
The the notion of of cycles is very predominant in Buddhism. This idea that things are repetitive. They keep repeating themselves. These continual compulsive patterns that we are going through. The same experiences keep coming back again and again and again in one way or another.
This is also very characteristic of neurosis. We’re combined to cramped quarters of thinking and behaving. We keep going over the same grounds, the the same thoughts, the same ways of thinking and relating. And therefore we continue in one way or another. The other details might be different.
The overall experiences of our outcomes is very much the same in terms of the quality of life that we experience. So, you know, trying to break out of some of these self defeating and self destructive cycles that we’re in. Trying to interrupt the patterns, to open up new possibilities and intervene. Now one of the first steps in diagnosis is, the first step in intervention is diagnosis. So beginning to look at the nature of our situation in perhaps a much more deeper fashion and a more profound manner.
Trying to go beneath the superficial causes that we usually attach the the source of our problems to. Trying to probe a little bit deeper and to see if there are any more we can see the evolution of what we have called the the these superficial causes. If they in fact are are more subtle, more far reaching, more basic primary causes to our problems than the ones that we’ve been labeling up to now. If we we we haven’t diagnosed the problem correctly, we’re never going to find a cure. So the first step in is to identify what actually is the problem.
And, you know, I think it goes almost without saying. Maybe it needs to be said again and again. I don’t know one of the two. But the problem lies most of all within our own minds. Don’t look anything anywhere else but there.
That’s kind of the deeper deepest level of analysis that we come to when we when we discuss Buddhism and when when we investigate the nature of mind, it’s it’s seen from the world view of Buddhism that the primary causes of all our our both our happiness and our suffering is mind itself. The mind is in the mind is is in its place and its way to make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. The mind is the measure of all things and beginning to take care of our minds, beginning to create the causes for happiness and remove the causes from suffering within our own minds. We’re going to interrupt these cycles. There’s a verse by it’s not a verse.
It’s a from a longer poem by TS Eliot. They’re talking about the cycles. I think it’s quite useful there, this notion of first, this time, then it’s that time. Oh my god. Not again.
And it’s kind of almost despairing sense. So it’s just happening all over again. It’s coming. It’s all coming back again. Otherwise, I think perhaps we we look we pay so much attention to the trees that we miss the forest.
We don’t see the the the overall themes and underlying patterns of our lives and the way that they’re operating. And we are at best attempts to cure, dealing with our problems, remains superficial. You know, we work with more with symptoms than we do with the causes, the deeper causes of our problems. The endless cycle of idea and action, endless invention, endless experiment brings knowledge of motion but not of stillness, knowledge of speech but not of silence, knowledge of words, and ignorance of the word. All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance.
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death. But nearness to death no nearer to God. Where is the life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries brings us farther from God and near to the death, to the dust. Now the what what we talk about each week in in the first part of our our discussion together is to help us to reestablish our priorities to you know, essentially, we’re we’re discussing refuge, aren’t we? And I guess for most of us, at least for us in the west, the the the term at least is quite foreign or it’s the notion. But the notion I mean, the idea behind going for refuge isn’t. The idea behind going for refuge is not neither Buddhist nor particularly eastern.
We’ve all been going for refuge our entire lives whether whether we call it that or not, whether we were conscious of that or not, whether we, you know, we’re aware of that or not. Something or someone that we can prevail upon, that we can call upon, that we can make use of, that will that will in some way protect us, that help us to solve our problems, bring us to happiness that we’re all searching searching for in one way or another. And as you know, we’ve talked about this many times. And I guess it’s important to to actually look at, you know, there’s a basic way of listening to discussions discussions of this nature that and that it cannot be remain academic or theoretical abstract. And somehow we have to to take what is being said and make it relevant to our our own lives.
See how it fits with our own actual lived experience. And you know within our own mind looking over the course of your life and the course of this week, what to say about life. You know, what kind of refuge were you taking this week? Where did you seek your happiness? Where did you seek the solutions to your problem?
And maybe it was, know, it was people take seek it in all various places according to their values, their beliefs, their worldview, the circumstances that they find themselves in. You know, what was your refuge this week? Did it work? Yeah. For whatever purpose you were making of it.
And some people take refuge in their families. Some people people close to them. Money, material things, power, fame, status, and positions, one sort or another. Some people go for refuge to romantic love. Some people go for refuge to to science, to the arts, to sports, to music, to politics, to hobbies, to to sex, to leisure time pursuits, to drugs and alcohol.
All all these various possibilities. These various possibilities. Where we can ease the pain, where we can eke out a little bit of happiness for ourselves. You know, we we’re all very unique in this way. In certain terms, the the story, the narrative that we live our lives by.
You know, what what what describes our particular refuge. It’s interesting, isn’t it? Think. We all have our opinions, our notions. Sometimes they can be quite irrelevant to our actual experience, but still we persist.
And then some people some people take refuge in becoming vegetarians. Sounds good, Seems worthwhile. Something that can help you to to find happiness that you want. Maybe some way to cause you problems in your life or some way of avoiding suffering and some way of avoiding causing suffering for yourself and others. Something according to your particular values.
Then on the other hand, some people take refuge in eating great quantities of meat. Possibility. You know, maybe it’s it’s nourishing for them. Maybe they enjoy it. You know, a nice thick steak sometimes.
It’s a way of finding pleasure, forgetting what their problems. Some people take refuge in silence. Sounds legitimate. Doesn’t mean, relationships can be a hassle. Sure, relationships can be a hassle. Sexual difficulties are a great problem for most people.
You know, you just kind of avoid that altogether in one way or another. Take time out from the from the sexual activity for a while. So it sounds like a workable refuge. It sounds like it could we have some use to ourselves in getting what we want to solve in our problems. Other people, they take refuge in having as much sex as possible.
It’s, you know, I guess there’s some some legitimacy to that, you know, sex can be a very enjoyable enjoyable experience both physically, both mentally, and sense of intimacy, a sense of closeness to others. So there’s possibilities. Some people take refuge in putting all their money into banks, you know, saving up for a rainy day. And you’re never sure to be too sure what’s gonna happen, what what could be down the road for you, what you know, there’s a lot of insecurity, economic insecurity these days. People lose their jobs, get laid off, you know, disasters can happen.
So it’s good to set aside some money for that rainy day, save up some money in the bank. Other people spend more than they earn, which is good too. You know? I mean, why not enjoy it while you got it? Life goes by.
You know? You might not you might be dead You know? Who knows? You know? So get it while you can.
Some people go to abortion clinics. Know? It’s not, you know, not having not bringing more children in the world. Various reasons, lots of legitimate reasons why you might want not to have any more children. Just not workable for the present for one reason or another.
Some people go to in vitro fertilization clinics. They want more children. That’s where they’re gonna find their happiness. They’re having some problems and they and they need some assistance, some medical assistance to help children. That’s a possible refuge.
Some people become world travelers. Some people become hermits. Some people become activists. Some people become dropouts. Some people become presidents, lawyers, doctors, secretary, laborers, artists, musicians, you know, plumbers, rock and roll stars.
Some people try to avoid all of that as much as possible. So, you know, the point is we can always perhaps legitimize our particular effort. You know, we’re pretty clever people I think and we’re intelligent. And all we have to do is practice a little bit with these stories that we tell ourselves why we do what we do. So the point is, you know, I’m not putting down any refuge.
That’s not the point of what I was just going through. The point is that we all are basic to ourselves. We’re all involved in an ongoing struggle to find some kind of sanctuary for ourselves, some kind of haven out of the storm where we can be safe from life’s problems. You know, we can can find the happiness that we’re all seeking. And with each of us in our various ways according to our circumstances and our values, whatever, our conditioning, where we find ourselves.
We call upon someone or something or other according to to to deliver that to ourselves, to to act as a refuge, as a sanctuary, to bring us to happiness, help us, to aid us, to get rid of the suffering that we don’t want. But at some point, it simply becomes useful, productive, in our own self and best interest to to pause and actually create the space and the time to reflect upon our refuges. What are they, and are they delivering the goods? Why not? Are we getting what it is that we want or what is it you do want?
Are we basically happy people as each of us might uniquely define what constitutes happiness for ourselves, the good life for ourselves? No. It’s not to say that you know, everybody has problems So in one way or another, whether they’re major tragedies or just minor misfortunes. That’s part of the human condition that we’re all involved in in one way or another. You know, someone dies on us or leaves us.
Someone we ourselves or or someone we’re close to become sick or loses their job or their business fails. But maybe just the the car didn’t start today when you had to get to work or a big hassle When the water’s hot water system broke down, it’s going to be a huge expense. You just build some ketchup on your your new shirt. Maybe just something as minor as that. But anyway, everybody’s got problems.
The old story. Everybody’s got their problems. So when we when we when we reflect upon the nature, the overall quality of our life, what it’s bringing us, we’re not so concerned with with the individual instances of desirable and undesirable events that these series of experiences that we’re continually manifesting in some fashion form. But what, you know, what is the overall felt impression that you have about your life when you when you reflect if if you reflect upon the quality of your life? The feeling tone, the texture, the taste that you have in your mouth when you begin to look at your life.
Does does my life afford me me? Does it have a purpose? Do I do I have a sense of fulfillment in my life? Do do I have anything that I sincerely believe in? Do I have a feeling of connectedness with others?
Do I feel loved? Do I feel able to love? That sense of being part of something greater than my own ego. You know, do I feel challenged about life? Do I feel excited about life?
Are there moments of of awe and wonder? You know? Is there some kind of element of the sacred in our lives? So, you know, these are more of the quality of experiences that we are concerned with when we’re reflecting upon our life. You know, sooner or later, one way or another, reality confronts us with what we’re doing, what we stand for, and where this is all taking us in one way or another.
You know, is life just a bitch and then we die. What am I, you know, what am I doing with my life? You know, even though Buddhism, it might be a fundamental doctrine of Buddhism that the notion of rebirth, reincarnation that we’re going to have many lives after this. But you as a particular individual or what it is that you stand for, you like the consummation of the the whole evolutionary history. This person, John or whoever, for example, is unique in that way.
This person will never live again. There something will carry on. It’s hard to exactly conceive of what it is. It won’t be this particular personality. Something will carry on, but it won’t be me.
And so this is not you know, as far as Jampa Gendun is concerned, this is my one shot. And what kind of life and am I living the type of life as I might want? Am I giving am I giving everything I can out of it in terms of of all of what I’ve described, in terms of the quality of life, in terms of of feeling of belonging, love, and fulfillment? Am I happy? Or is this life is life just a matter of a of a series of events, you know, one that one after another in which we use to distract ourselves, we we lose ourselves in one way or another.
And we we we’re pretty good at this. Pretty clever. The way we can change our jobs, we can change our employers, and we can change our business, we can change you we move on to another career, or we can take a can take a break from working life altogether. We we move to a bigger, smaller, more expensive, less expensive house flat in the city, in the suburb, in the bush. Or we give up our house altogether and we go traveling for a while or or we take up a new hobby or a sport or some kind of leisure time interest or pursuit.
We have another baby. That’s a good one. Have another another facelift. Right? Or we are have another affair.
That’s another good one. Or what oh, we don’t quite know what to have next. You know, we’re we’re kinda beside ourselves trying to figure out what to have next at least for a while until, you know, and always another project or another something just around the corner, another auspicious beginning. There was that movie called Five Easy Pieces and then there was this line in there. There was always an auspicious beginning just around the corner.
Something else, another roadside attraction, something to divert our attention with, to become absorbed in, to be able to lose ourselves. It’s, you know, this endless stream of the endless domains of of most human beings. But in spite of in spite of all this, in spite of this endless struggle, inevitably, the same problems always seem to return. The same themes of of dissatisfaction or disappointment or frustration, boredom, insecurity, you know, whatever whatever it is, what how whatever labels we want to place on upon our particular overall sense of experience. Keep keep finding our their way back into our lives in one way or another.
The same sense perhaps of meaninglessness or, you know, authenticity. That’s a good word. Alienation. A sense of passengerhood in our life. We’re being taken for a ride or unmanageability. And waiting for this knock at the door.
We’re all waiting here one way or another. And I I don’t know if you’re familiar with the play by Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot. These characters are simply waiting. The whole play is taken taken up with conversation as they wait. They’re not quite sure what they’re waiting for.
I mean, there’s a lot of speculation on that. Maybe it’s God. Maybe it’s just life in general. But we’re all very much like these characters, interacting with each other in various ways and trying in various manners of distraction, waiting for what we’re not quite sure but still we wait. And and life creeps on at its petty pace in one way or another for all of us.
So I guess this is all sounding pretty heavy, isn’t it? Pretty pessimistic. And I don’t mean it to sound that way, but sometimes it’s necessary to to speak in it. And life is serious. I don’t mean solemn, but serious.
I’m looking in it in way. That to ensure that we don’t waste our lives. I thought we would that we don’t allow this opportunity to slip by. So it’s necessary to to reflect, to take the time and pause to see whether our particular refuges are working and what are in fact, what are they and what might be alternative refuges, other possibilities that we can work with, other styles and techniques, other means to find what it is that we’re that when in fact we may be looking for in a very in a more fundamental sense. Within the Buddhist context, you know, we we call these refuges: Buddha, Dharma and the spiritual community.
These are likely the primary resources that we that we avail ourselves of to to find what it is that we most look want in life. A Buddha, you know, someone who is awake, awakened from the half sleep that most of us exist within, who has primarily actualized and integrated the the archetypical qualities of wisdom, love and compassion, personal power into their waking consciousness and expresses them in their daily lives as altruistic activity in working with others and helping them to solve their problem. So this becomes like a model, a paradigm, our orientation, such such a possibility. You know, we’re not lost. We’re not kind of wandering aimlessly.
We have some kind of magnetic north that we can continually keep coming back to when we get lost on the path. We take some kind of diversion. We can come back to this person that we can that we all can become in terms of wisdom and developing our our understanding, our intelligence, in terms of cultivating compassion and love and developing an awakened heart and bringing some vitality, a sense of energy to our being, some some positive energy to our our minds and bodies and trying to work with others as best we can in helping them. So, you know, this becomes like, this is what is seem to be as a means to find our refuge, a possibility of a fulfilled, authentic, meaningful way of life. And we take the other but we have to do something.
It’s not meant merely a matter of orientation. We have to actually put one foot in front of the other. We have to take the step. And those are the steps of, you know, of practicing the Dharma using the these. This whole supermarket of techniques is a vast array of of ways of working with our minds to change them, essentially, to become that Buddha, to live that life in some some real fashion.
And taking refuge or taking, let us say, taking advantage of of the of what it can be presented of of these methods that we can work with, availing ourselves of these these tools of life. And then, you know, recognizing that this all occurs within a social context and taking advantage of that, I mean, in a positive sense and becoming a resource of yourself becoming a resource for others in your own self development for the purpose of others, you know, becoming a member of a spiritual community of a Sangha who who mutually are a mutual assistance in implementing the Dharma to become Buddhist and trying the best we can in in a haphazard and limited fashion to raise the level of our motivation, you know, to to to love one another a little bit more, to go out of our way, take that extra step a little bit more often, you know, to to make that some kind of reason behind what we do in our everyday life. But most especially, you know, what we do in terms of our practice to make that the motivation behind your practice. Whether it’s a formal or informal, whether it’s listening to teachings and our discussions together or whatever.
Making that thought that if I can do this just for the benefit of one other person, then that’s worthwhile. My life had added that much more meaning and purpose to my life, and I will find I will derive that much more fulfillment from it. That becomes a style. That’s the kind of the orientation that we’re seeking to develop, to make become one one with that orientation, to become to make it the way that we live our life. So the inner focus of our of our life becomes Buddha, which we seek to actualize by means of Dharma.
And this occurs within the the social context of a spiritual community. And continually trying to raise the level of our motivation again and again, the why, the purpose behind what it is that we do to include an ever widening circle of others. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge into 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.
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. Reverently, I pay homage with my body, speech, and mind and present clouds of every type of offering, those actual and imagined. I disclose all my destructive acts accumulated since time without beginning and rejoice in the skillful actions of the holy and ordinary beings.
Please remain remain until cyclic existence has ended and turn the wheel of Dharma for living beings. I dedicate the skillful actions of myself and others to the great awakened. So we would you like to stand up for a minute, then we’ll meditate? So we begin with the nine round breathing meditation, then adjusting our motivation once again, choosing someone who you’re close to but is not in your primary circle of those closest to you. Put someone you like, a great deal, a good friend, that is not primary to your life.
And working with the the levels of of motivation in terms of loving compassion. Then mindfulness of breathing. And then I thought, you know, we it’s not as if or maybe you have, I haven’t. But, you know, we we’ve gone through a great deal of material. We’ve gone through, you know, the first of the three principal aspects of the path.
And it’s necessary not to look at the what is being presented, not to cultivate those understandings and insight once or twice, but to continue continually being habituating the mind. That is to say, it’s necessary to be continually meditating on everything that’s been presented. You know, the the path is necessary to to go over it again, again and again and again. It’s necessary to go through the threefold activity of listening, reflecting, and meditating. So we’re working through in terms of listening and perhaps we’re reflecting in some fashion.
But the meditation process is ongoing. These various topics that we’ve covered need to be gone over and over need to be gone over again and again and again. So I thought, you know, one of the most important meditations, I think very fundamental and really worthwhile, you know, whether you believe in Buddhism or not, whether you you accept a lot of the doctrine or not, you want to lead a good life. And that’s quite natural to us all who whoever we are. And one of the ways I think that we can ensure that we don’t waste our lives, that we don’t live a superficial and live the lives of others, that we find out what is meaningful to ourselves as very unique self actualizing individuals and try our best to live out that in some in some authentic fashion is the meditation on death.
Death is you know, the the Buddhist said that of all the various mindfulnesses and people are continually talking about mindfulness. It is mindfulness of death which is most greatest greatest important in our lives. It keeps us on track. It keeps reminding ourselves what is important that we don’t waste our lives. So I thought we would work through the meditation on death.
So if you take a firm comfortable posture. We can begin by getting in touch with the body and noticing any tightnesses, any tensions in the body, especially in the shoulders, the neck, upper back, and bring your awareness to those areas. And consciously is putting some time and energy into awakening our hearts. And this is what we’re looking at presently, the second of the three principal aspects of the path. And we’re looking at the the method which is called the seven-point cause and effect instruction, one of the two meditative traditions for the development of an awakened heart.
The last week we discussed the basis for this seven-point cause and effect instruction which is equanimity. It’s like creating the the level ground upon which we’re going to cultivate the awakened heart. By this, by equanimity we mean an attitude which is divorced of our normal way of relating with others in terms of holding some people close and others at a distance. An attitude, an equanimous attitude or even mind attitude which is devoid of attachment and aversion. So that that’s the kind of the even ground that we’re trying to form here.
I think we’re basically trying to form it by means of no longer associating the habitual emotional reactions of aversion to when we label enemy. And by enemy, we you know, that’s just a a broad categorization. We each have our our ways of labeling, which, you know, this might be this guy’s a hassle or or she is a moron. It might be something of that nature. But whenever we generally, make these these designations, almost immediately they are followed with an emotional reaction in terms of when we label enemy or something of that category, we react with aversion, with anger and hatred, hostility, aggression in some form or another.
When we label friend, loved one, nice person, attractive, all of this categorization of then we almost immediately invariably through association, habituation, react with the emotional attitude of attachment. And to the vast majority of others we we kind of don’t know what to relate, what to do with them. So we put them in the box of stranger and relate to them with the sense of indifference. So we’re trying to I guess, you know, and hopefully we, you know, we have to overcome our hesitancy around this in the sense that to to no longer have attachment, you know, to be to have equanimity or even-mindedness is not to be unfeeling by any means. It’s not to be a robot by any means.
Nor is it to lose our the foundation of our meaningful relationships with others, the the real caring and love that we feel for others, the intimacy, the joy that we can that we derive from our relationships with others. None of these positive feelings is what we what we want to lose. Moreover, they have nothing to do with our attachment. Even moreover, our attachment probably is a hindrance, an obstacle to all of these positive feelings that we would like to experience with others. So in trying to overcome our you know, we will never come overcome our attachment and desire probably until we rid ourselves of ignorance, which is the basis.
But we can work with remedial measures so that we don’t you know, we we would still probably label enemy in some fashion or another. We still label friend and, you know, that these labels have meaning. They’re conventions that we can use, which which are relevant in it to our life. Life. But they we don’t necessarily have to react with the the emotional attitudes of attachment and aversion once having made those labels.
They no longer have to be necessarily associated inextricably bound up with attachment. We don’t know, it doesn’t it doesn’t necessarily follow just because someone is a friend and he that there has to be necessarily the relationship attachment that overlay. Matter of fact, you know, we more than not, and this I mentioned last week that all of the various afflictive emotions, emotions such as attachment and aversion and hatred and anger, but also pride and jealousy. Their object does not exist the way they appear. The object of our attachment does not exist the way it appear it appears.
There is inevitably a filtering out, a selective process, a focusing upon certain desirable qualities and the overlooking of any sort of negative qualities. So there’s automatically an an imbalance in our view of, for example, the person. And moreover, those desirable qualities that we’re now focusing upon at the exclusion of negative ones are exaggerated. So we’re seeing a a a caricature of the person. We’re not seeing, you know, we’re not seeing a real person with in a balanced fashion, someone who has both good qualities and not so good qualities, you know, for who they really are.
We are seeing our own idea about them and relating very much on that basis. Now there can be real no there can be no real intimacy unless it’s between real people. You know, everyone is an individual. Your friend is an individual. Let us say there is something unique about that person.
But we take these these labels of friend, and they they have they’re very much a composite of of all the friend all the friends that we’ve had over the course of our life and all the emotions that might be associated with them. It’s like a smearing out of all their uniqueness into some kind of composite image which has may not have all that much to do with this person who we’re hanging onto. That person is simply a hook upon which we’re hanging this this particular label. And we relate in terms of that label. And therefore, we experience a great deal of disappointment and this has unrealized expectations, dissatisfactions because we are not relating with who they actually may be.
You know, this also works with those we have aversion for, those we label as enemies. So the point is, you know, it’s not that that these labels aren’t valid somehow or that, you know, we are not to have friends. It’s just that we aren’t to these labels that we make make use of are both changeable and arbitrary. And moreover, they do not necessarily have to be bound up with the emotional reactions of attachment and aversion. So beginning to the actual cultivation of equanimity.
I think, you know, a great deal of our life is run is led. This is one of the most basic notions that is to Buddhism is that conceptuality in general, the thought process in general is is problematic. It’s difficult to to to appreciate that, I think, that it is within the area of study called awareness and knowledge. They have different classifications of minds and states of mind. And all conceptual thought are categorized as mistaken.
And why is that? Because it is mistaken with respect to its object that the we we take what appears to us to be the actual object itself. But what is appearing to ourselves is a mental image of the object. Whenever we think about a person, whenever we think about an object, whatever it might be, what is appearing to ourselves is a mental image. And we take that as the reality of that person or that thing.
So and we relate to it in that in that fashion. It has something to do with that person if it’s if it’s not a distorted consciousness. I mean, it’s not to say it’s not valid, but it’s not the thing itself. It’s there’s always going to be some mistaken element. So I I think a a great deal of of training in in this area is to not to be captivated, not to be sucked in by by images.
You know, this is very much I mean, there’s this is a notion which is very well known in advertising, isn’t it? More than not, they are selling images on television. You know, the reason that we are to drink Cokes, drink Coca Cola is that we can be these wonderful, happy people. You know, they aren’t selling a a sugared water drink, you know, flavored drink. They are selling a way of life.
If you drink Coca Cola, they are selling an image which is associated with that, that colored flavored drink, sweet sugared drink. And so there’s there’s they try to associate an emotional response with their product, with this image. So here we so here we’re taking that same notion of it. We’re trying to use it in a in in our favor, trying to make some kind of adjustments, trying to develop the ability not to be captivated by the normal emotional reaction which are associated with these images. The labels are valid.
They’re useful. But they they are just a manner of speaking, a way of communicating and thinking about the world. It doesn’t necessarily follow that we have to have attachment for friends, aversion for enemies, and indifference towards strangers. It doesn’t necessarily have to follow. That’s that’s our our our habitual reaction.
But just because it’s habitual, it doesn’t mean it’s either useful or necessary. So working with these these images, these labels that we normally make use of. And here specifically, the three labels of friend, enemy, and stranger. So in cultivating equanimity, we begin by imagining in front of ourselves three distinct individuals, these three categories. These are the boxes we put normally peep put people in in one way or another.
On our right, we visualize someone we love, and then to the left, someone we loathe.