Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A T.S. Eliot poem about losing wisdom in knowledge opens this 44.5-minute talk by Ven Jampa Gendun, setting up his argument that everyone already goes for refuge to something — money, romance, power, food — in an endless search for safety from life’s disappointments. He traces the recurring patterns of frustration beneath those strategies and insists that lasting change requires turning inward rather than waiting for an external rescue, invoking Beckett’s Waiting for Godot to make the point. The second half works through equality of self and others from three angles: all beings have been our primary caregivers across infinite rebirths; friend, stranger, and enemy each offer a distinct kindness; all beings face death equally. He briefly uses the Greek idea of truth as clearing away false projection to illustrate what realization means.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 09 HMA 1997 02 12.mp3
UUID: cfe9fe3e-6789-44a6-82c2-c66657293a6d
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1997-02-12
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.5 minutes
Words: ~6,537
To lose touch, to to lose sight of what it is what it is that is important, not even in terms of where our sources of happiness are are coming from, but what our happiness is, in fact. Sometimes things become magnified to the extent that they overwhelm us, that we lose all sense of perspective or all sense of any kind of proportion. That is to say we lose sight of our priorities. And I think creating this kind of space and time for ourselves where we get back in touch with some of our more central values or principles and ways of being that we would very much like to see our life lived out of if we were and if that we lose sight of over the course of our everyday life in one way or another for one reason or another whether real or imagined that we feel or we feel coerced into setting aside or that we simply are too lazy to to initiate and to follow and to make effort to to realize in some way or another. The endless cycle of ideal 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 bring us farther from god and nearer to the dust. You know, this process of of going for refuge. You know, again, it’s it’s not something particularly Buddhist. It’s not something particularly eastern. Whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we call it that or not, whether we’re consciously doing it or not, we all are going for refuge every day of our lives.
You know? Some people go for refuge to their their families, to the various people close to them. Some people go for refuge to money, material things. Some people go for refuge to power, status. Some people go for refuge to romantic love.
Some people go for refuge to science or to sports or to hobbies or to politics or to religion or sex or food or alcohol, drugs. Some people, you know, take refuge and becoming vegetarian. That’s the way they’re going to find their happiness in one way or another. Some people eat as much meat as possible. Some people become celibate.
Some people have as much sex as they possibly can. And then some people take refuge in putting all their money in a bank. Some people take refuge in spending more than they earn. Some people go go for refuge to abortion clinics. Some people join fertilization programs.
Some people become activists. Some people become dropouts. Some people become lawyers and doctors and scientists and plumbers and carpenters and and artists and rock and roll stars. And some people try to avoid all of that as much as possible, as much as they can. You know, the the list is as endless as there are varieties of people as there are individuals, which is everybody, includes everybody.
So the point is that, you know, we’re all trying to create some kind of sanctuary for ourselves, some kind of zone of safety, some haven for ourselves, a protectorate, you know, where we can be be protected from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, from the problems of life essentially. And we call upon something or someone or some situation, some circumstance, there’s something peculiar, particular to our our world view, our our particular value system, our our beliefs. But, you know, but sooner or later we have to question, well, is my my particular refuge? And we are all going for refuge. Is my particular refuge working or not?
I mean, it’s I think it’s useful to to ask that question. It’s an important quest you know, we’re we’re forced to ask ourselves whether our particular refuge is working. Is it delivering the goods? Have, you know, have my particular refuge has been of real use in getting this what I want out of life and ridding ridding myself of what it is I don’t want in my life? You know, however, each of us might, know, determine what constitutes the good life for ourselves, whatever it might hold for ourselves.
Anyway, in talking about these problems, you know, generally we we look at our life and we we we we get involved we get lost in the tree in in the trees. We don’t see the forest of our life. You know, we lose perspective as it as it were. You know, we treat our life in a piecemeal fashion. You know, we we we’re as if on a treadmill.
We keep solving these immediate problems without ever seeing the recurrent patterns which are which are, you know, are the substrata of all that we experience. And the the so when we talk about the necessity to change our mind, perhaps it doesn’t have any real significance, any impact. You know, if you think that my problem is because my car won’t start, and I I have to take it to the repair to to the garage, how is changing my mind gonna help me in that? Or or, you know, my my partner treats me unfairly. They they yelled at me this morning for no good reason.
You know, I was right. How’s my changing my mind going to help me with that? Or I need more money or I’ve gotta take care of my children. How’s my changing my mind going to help me with that? The the so when we look at the necessity for changing our mind, when we see when we see what is necessary to become aware of in terms of of the reason behind the necessity.
You know, we have to look at it, I think, in a much more much more broader scope. You know, most everyone has problems at once or another. You know, almost all of our lives in one way or another, in either great tragedies or or just petty annoyances. You know, people die on us or or people close to us leave us for one way for one reason or another. You know, we ourselves have an accident or get sick or someone close to us has an accident or gets sick.
You know, people lose their jobs or we lose our jobs or a business fails or or, you know, we have a fight with our partner or we the car breaks down or this hot water doesn’t work or we spill soy sauce on our shirt. Know? You know, all of these major and minor annoyances and tragedies which occur over the course of our lives. So, you know, we’re not so much concerned with the many particular instances of desirable and undesirable events that we experience over the course of our lives, but the overall quality of our life. You know, the feeling tone that we’re left with when we begin to look at our life as a whole.
You know, the the texture, the patterns, the themes running through our life. Not the, you know, not the not the many varied individual trees, but but the forest of our life. You know, the the overall species that we find in the forest of our life. And what is the felt impression that we’re left with when we look at our life, when we reflect upon our life? You know, the lived overall quality of our life.
Does my life for example, does my life afford me meaning? A sense of purpose, a sense of fulfillment. Do I have anything that I sincerely believe in? Do I have a feeling of connectedness with others, of belonging, a sense of being a part of something greater than my own individual ego, for example? You know, do I feel loved?
Do I feel lovable? Do I feel challenged and excited about my life? You know, whatever the the the specific instances, the the occurrences when the within this context, the overall quality, that impression that we have about our lived experience. You know, is there a sense of wonder and element of sacred in our life? You know, the the you know, if we were to really examine deeply what it is that most makes life worth living, those qualities of life experience that we’re concerned with here, You know, sooner or later life forces us or confronts us with the reality of what it is that we are doing and where this is all going to take us.
You know, it it hurdles the question, you know, is life just a bitch and then we’re all going to die. Or maybe, you know, as I think I probably mentioned a few times as Buddhist bumper sticker, you know, is life a bitch and then we’re all reincarnated. You know, whole thing all over again maybe. This is all there is, more or less. You know, what are we going to do?
You know, in spite you know, we all have these auspicious beginnings. But inevitably, I think if we notice the same problems coming back into our lives, keep reoccurring, coming back to plagues in one way or another. You know, the same themes of dissatisfaction, frustration, disappointment, boredom, insecurity keep finding their way back into our lives. You know, the same sense of perhaps meaninglessness, alienation, inauthenticity keep keep creeping back almost imperceptibly into the borders of our awareness back into our lives. Some kind of unmanageability about our lives, a sense of passengerhood as if we were not in control of our lives, that we were simply being carried along by forces outside of our ourselves in one way or another.
And, you know, generally, although at some level we know it’s going to depress us and make us even more discouraged and probably make us feel even more guilty and despise ourselves even the more. We keep resorting to the same dysfunctional patterns of thinking and behaving when bad feelings, you know, feelings of uneasiness, feelings of of fear and depression arise, you know, when they start coming up in the hopes that somehow they’re going to to make us feel better, but but they never have. And at some level of our of our understanding, we know that they never will. So, you know, but we we we struggle. We persist in trying to manipulate the people and the things and situations about us to in hope of forming some kind of permanent refuge for ourselves.
But it never quite seems to work. You know, people are are always letting us down in one way or another, abandoning us one way or another, or the things that we that we acquire never quite live up to our expectations or even when they do, they wear out and have to be replaced. They get used up in some way or another. Things keep changing. Styles change.
Circumstances change. There’s no place there’s nothing that we can there’s no niche that we can carve out for ourselves where we can find some kind of permanent safety from it all. Some kind because there’s no eternal state, no identity, no person or thing or situation that we can take refuge in, in other words. That that we can find some kind of lasting security for what it is that we want. So, you know, this drama that we’re all involved in, that we all live out, you know, the the all the actors come on the stage and they strut their various parts and the scenery changes and the props change.
I think maybe we have to maybe it only comes when you get older. Don’t know. Hopefully, it doesn’t it’s not necessary if you’re intelligent, not like me, where you only see it after many years of repeated cycles over the course of your life. You know, the plot remains pretty much unchanged. Except for the outward trappings, nothing much really changes in our lives.
But we hold on to our hopes and the wishful thinking that somehow, you know, that I don’t have to and if I don’t have to basically change my thinking and behaving in order to find what it is that we want. That’s the last bastion, the last we’re holding up with our last unfounded hope. That somehow I can manipulate this world to an extent where I can get what I want without having had to change myself. Maybe something will come along. Maybe, you know, maybe I’m maybe in some form or another, some white knight or some beautiful princess or some breakthrough in modern technology or therapy or some new wonder drugs gonna come on the market or maybe just something that’s completely unforeseeable.
Couldn’t even imagine at the present. Know? Look what they’re doing with computers. Why? Who knows what will be what will happen in fifteen years.
I’ll just wait. Something is going to come along to make the pain go away, make make things better, make make them the way I want to be. So we we wait, you know, waiting waiting for the knock on the door, the letter in the mail mailbox, that that telephone call, you know, life you ordered has arrived. Will you come down and pick it up or do you want it delivered? Something like that.
You know, what it is what is it that that you’re waiting for? What is it that each of us is waiting for? We’re all waiting for something. And was like that the play by Beckett. Godot.
We’re all waiting for something, for God or someone to save us. So I think it’s very confrontational and it needs to be gone into again and again and again. I think we’re very tough minded in this way simply by the force of habit, this orientation of seeing all that is good outside of ourselves and the way to find the good life as being within the external world. And this is very much there has to be a reeducation around this, a reevaluation and a reorientation in terms of making internal change and implementing the methods to bring that about a priority in your life is all we’re saying, I think. You know, it’s not to say that you give up your your partner, that you give up your job or your home or your car.
These are all the components which make up a good life. But without the medium of mind, without developing skillful ways of relating, without the productive attitudes and awakened habits, then all of these things about us as if our eyes are nothing. And over the course of our lives, waiting for this hope for tomorrow, one by one the tomorrows of our life become the disappointing presence of today which we had hoped would bring us the happiness that we were really looking for. And they slipped in almost imperceptibly into the past, the forgotten, unremembered days of our life. And we’re always drawing nearer to death but never really any nearer to what we what we might feel as real life.
So this is what we’re taking refuge from and what we’re going for refuge to. I guess it’s just a style a style of life. A a style which which places which in which there has been found a place for self inner growth and self development as an indispensable component. So that’s kind of the orientation. And the way we do that, you know, we we we relate with a model of some kind of sanity, a paradigm of another order of being which we call Buddha.
You know, what this this this you know, what the good life might look to ourselves as is, you know, a tremendously healthy, loving, sane human being and we keep reorientating toward that. And the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha. But, you know, it’s not just wishful thinking. It’s just not another unfounded hope that we actually have to do something. We have to imagine that we can.
We have to imagine what it is that we want. But we This has to be combined with the will that we The determination that we shall. You know, the will It’s interesting, the word will has been in what you will. You can you will become. You know, that if we have the imagination and the will, we can become whatever we want.
So it’s both in terms of what it is we want but we have to do something and that something is to practice. To begin to create the kind of person that we want to become and to lead the type of life that we want. And so this is the means of the Dharma. You know, the the various teachings, the techniques, the trainings that we can involve ourselves in, the truth of things. And this process occurs within the context of a spiritual community.
You know, looking to others as best we can. You know, we’re all fallible. We’re all making mistakes. We’re all a bit confused. But we can, in our own limited fashion, help one another.
And part of the practice is is very much consciously making it an important part of your life. The sharing, the assisting, the giving as a means as part of as an important component of your practice. And this process occurring within the social metrics of a spiritual community, the reason that we do what we do, the why behind what we’re doing, and trying again and again motivation. You know, we we have to begin with our own suffering. And if we aren’t if we haven’t found some kind of love, and by that I mean a sincere wish that we’d be happy, if haven’t found some kind of compassion for ourselves, and by that simply I mean a sincere wish that I not suffer, you know, that that I’m worthy of my own love and my own compassion just by my own very existence.
If we haven’t found that for ourselves, then how are we ever going to develop it for others? So beginning with ourselves but not stopping there. And as we’re going to look continue to look at tonight in terms of equalizing self and others. You know, the truth of the matter is the reality of it is that everyone in this room, you know, no matter who they might be, no matter what the superficial differences might be, whether they’re male or female, whether educated or uneducated, you know, whatever the economic background, social background, behind all of each of our eyes is a being in some way. And primary to that being essential and deeply most is the quality of wanting to be happy and not wanting to suffer.
That’s a very that’s a shared commonality amongst us all. And becoming becoming aware of that. And and I I guess to to open up to that to the fact and leave your heart open to that. And you know, have it affect you. Have it make a difference in your life.
I guess the word we might be talking about is social consciousness. That you can never no longer quite be remain isolated, insulated from others knowing this very fact about others as you do. And therefore, part of what we do in in in our struggle, in our practice, in finding context of others, that the good life is defined in in the context of others and not in the narrow confines of our own self centeredness, that somehow the consideration for others is very integral part to what we think of it as the good life, that others are not excluded. So again and again coming back to this where the inner focus of our life is Buddha and something of great value to ourselves, another way of being, another other possibilities. Keep coming back to the fact that I have to do something to actualize this possibility in terms of practice, in terms of developing my mind, listening, reflecting, meditating.
Keep coming back to the fact that others are are are on also on their journey and what can I do for them and how can I avail myself of them as resources? And then in this whole context of the practice to not allow it to become insular, but to always maintain maintain a social connectedness with the world about us and what the good life might mean for us. So, you know, this constant reminder, again and again bringing this to mind. 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. Through the creative potential of my listening to 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 holy and ordinary beings. Please remain till 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 awakening. Would you like to stand up for a moment and then we’ll all meditate together? So we’ll adjust our motivation again in terms of love and compassion by, you know, reflecting using as an object of cultivating love and compassion.
A stranger but someone who you find that whose appearance you find perhaps some way repulsive or some way disturbing to yourself. Maybe they’re disfigured. Maybe they’re unattractive. Some way that disturbs your mind even though you don’t know them personally but just their very appearance makes you feel have some kind of an aversion as if you wouldn’t want to meet them. And, you know, as best we can, you know, working with our feelings around such an object, such a person as best we can.
You know, can we actually develop a sense of wishing them happiness even though we’ve had this aversion, even though they may be unattractive to ourselves. Can we set that aside even if only temporarily and so they can have a friendly thought toward them that that they not suffer? Can we do that? You know, that that’s a simple involvement in in themselves as feeling beings beyond their appearance as form, their outward appearance. Then we’ll we’ll do the nine-round breathing meditation and then we’ll do mindfulness breathing.
And we’ve been meditating on equality of self and others. And last week, we meditated on in terms of the conventional level from the side of others. That from the side of others, all living beings whosoever do not wish to suffer. That’s one point. The second point was all living beings whosoever want to be happy.
And trying I I again, I think it doesn’t make any sense in a way if we if we aren’t aware of the fact that we harbor conceptions contrary to that. And and we have a conception that it it doesn’t that there are categories of beings who, as it were, it doesn’t matter whether there’s they suffer. You know, it’s an unthinking, irrational concept. But still, I think we we still harbor it at some level of our understanding. But, you know, it’s as if they don’t it doesn’t pain doesn’t matter to that too much to them.
Somehow they’re impervious to it. They’re immune to it. You know? When you see on on the evening news a starving starving baby child in Uganda or somewhere, you know, it doesn’t matter. You know, they they live in such poverty anyway.
But their lives are so miserable anyway. A little more poverty, a little more hunger, doing it doesn’t affect them that much. And that’s some this is if we were to rationalize it in in to verbalize it, we might might come out like that. You know, it doesn’t make sense, obviously, but I think at some level, we harp harbor that notion. So trying to break down that notion by seeing the reality of the situation is that even that child who’s starving is almost dead, and then maybe will be dead tomorrow morning, doesn’t want to die, wants to live, moreover, doesn’t want to suffer, wants to be happy.
Just like you and me here sitting so comfortably and well fed as we are. No difference. You know? Even though that baby’s going to be or that child’s gonna be dead tomorrow, still they’re not they’re no different than ourselves in that way. So overcoming that kind of resistance, that that misconception that we hold at some level, probably almost surely at an unconscious level, and therefore, we can remain indifferent.
We don’t have to that doesn’t affect us as it were. Maybe it seems maybe it’s necessary at some level to close our hearts, to put up our defenses because we feel like we can’t quite go through life or we could keep if we’re open to the pain about us. But you know, a stone feels no pain. It doesn’t feel anything at all because it’s not alive. And maybe that’s one way to live one’s life.
Maybe that’s how many people do feel about their life. They feel dead inside, not quite alive. A certain weariness, a certain dryness of life. So I think, you know, if we’re going to deaden ourselves, we’re going to lose our life. And maybe it’s better to feel the pain than than to do that.
Let’s see. So the third part of this equality of self and others from their side was that even though they want to be happy, even though they don’t want to suffer, is that they don’t have genuine happiness. They even though they don’t want to suffer, they still suffer nonetheless. That’s the third part. And then the three parts that we’re going to meditate on this evening are the parts that we discussed last From the conventional side, equality of others from our side.
So from the conventional point of view, from from our side, all beings are equal. And we we talked about that in terms of firstly, that over the over the infinite rebirths that we’ve all taken. And, you know, this requires some conviction in the notion of rebirth. We’ve we’ve talked about that in the past that, you know, mind is quite a unique phenomenon in the universe. But but like all products, you know, this glass is a product, my body is a product, this building is a product, they all require two types of causes in general, a substantial cause and a cooperative condition or a cooperative cause.
Everything whatsoever requires both for its production, both a cooperative cause and a substantial cause. The substantial cause is always of a similar type to the product. Mind the primary nature of mind is nonphysical and knowing. Only something which is nonphysical and knowing can act as a substantial cause of mind. That is a it is not that the body, the brain, the nervous system acts as a cooperative condition.
The mind is conditioned, is dependent upon the brain, the body, the nervous system. But it does not arise as a substantial cause from the brain. It has its own substantial cause. That is a previous moment of mind, a previous moment of nonphysical knowing phenomena. So there mind can only arise from previous moment of mind.
My mind my present mind arose from a previous moment of mind, the mind that was present when I walked into this room. That mind arose in the previous moment of mind, the mind of this morning, last month, last year when I was a adult, when I was a young adult, when I was a toddler, when I was a child, when I was a baby, when I was born, at the first moment of conception, there was a moment of mind. That moment of mind at the moment of conception arose from a previous moment of mind. That previous moment of mind was the last moment of mind of my previous life.
That mind rose from a previous mind back and back and back in infinite regression. We can never point to any moment in the continuum of my mind where we can say this is where the mind began, the first moment of this continuum of mind. Just as we cannot point to any continuum when we can say this is the first moment of matter. That the that the both of these are have a beginningless continuum without beginning. There’s never a logical point where we can say this is the first moment of mind because each moment of mind must have a must arise in dependence upon a preceding moment of mind.
So there’s an infinite regression. Over this over this infinite continuum of mind that we all have all lived through, we’ve taken an infinite number of rebirths. Over these infinite number of rebirths, we’ve had infinite numbers of mothers. There is no living being in the universe who has in fact not been our mother. I’ve You know, this is perhaps difficult to gain much of a conviction.
But I think it’s worth considering. There’s a there’s a usefulness around this. You know, we may not even wish to use the the the model of a mother. We may just say we may say that every living being in the universe has been our primary caregiver. Just as a primary caregiver in the course of this life and has treat us treated us with the same kindness as that person of this life.
So we have a very intimate connection with every living being in the universe in that way. So we’re gonna we’re gonna meditate on that, and that’s the first point. The second the second point is doesn’t require this notion that all living beings are kind. But here it was from the point of view of whether they were friends to ourselves, whether they were strangers, or whether they were enemies, that they’re all kind, equally so. Now it’s important and now we’re trying to over again, you know, the I don’t know if I mentioned this last week.
The word the word truth in Greek. Yeah? It means to clear it means when you come to it means to clear a clearing. A place where everything’s been set aside. You know, it’s like you come to a clearing in a forest.
Aletheia. That’s that’s the idea of truth. It’s it’s it’s interesting because this is what we mean in the in the Buddhist context when we say realization. Realization is simply the removal of superimposition. The the removal of a fantasy element that we project upon the world, on things, people, objects.
You know, it’s like it’s like if you saw if you’re wearing sunglasses and you see a snow mountain as green. You know, the snow mountain is in fact not green, but but you’re seeing it through the lenses of a misconception. And therefore, you’re seeing it in a distorted fashion. But the realization is when you take off the sunglasses and you see it for what it really is. You see the truth of it and you’ve cleared away the falsity, the fantasy element.
With regards to, you know, all of these meditations, And what the idea all all it means by realization is that we begin to remove the fantasy element, our mistaken projections, the the the the mistaken concepts that we’re superimposing upon the world about us. We’re we’re trying to to to gain some kind of insight, new way of seeing, you know, to get to the truth. The truth is when we when we clear away these fantasy elements, we say that we see the way things actually are. So in coming to an understanding of the quality of others in terms of they’re all kind. Friend is kind.
Stranger is kind. Enemy is kind. We have our we have our present position. You know, we have our present ideas about that. And this notion probably runs contrary to that or maybe you’ve never even considered it.
But but if we can begin to you know, what does it mean to you know, if you say open up to the idea? It means that you you allow you don’t hold on to your preconceptions so tightly. You allow for other possibilities that you could in fact be harboring some mistaken notions. A friend talking about friends is quite readily understood. I mean, that’s why they are our friends, aren’t they?
Because they we we acknowledge that they are kind or appreciate to some degree their kindness. So we we look upon them with great favor. We we call them our friends. But then there are these these vast majority of people we we are completely indifferent to as if they didn’t if that’s as if they weren’t alive in in a certain respect. At least their their life really doesn’t affect us and therefore doesn’t matter to ourselves.
But in fact it does, that we we exist in interdependence with others, that we couldn’t survive probably most of us say a week or ten days without these other people. And you know and we went we talked about this and you know, that’s saying, well, they don’t do they don’t do what they do out of kindness for me. You know, the people who are running the power plant, turning that fan, cooling ourselves, they aren’t doing it for me. They just do it for the money. And beginning to empower oneself around the notion that I can begin to choose, you know, how I wish to view their relationship toward me, you know, regardless of what the intent their intention from their side may be, I can begin to to choose that I can I can look upon their action as being kind to myself and appreciate what they’re doing to myself rather than simply remaining indifferent, rather than, you know, maintaining the the mentality of a I’m an accountant or a banker or something like that?
You know, the the plus and minuses in my account book that and anything that that they’re all playing a part in my well-being, in my happiness, the clothing that I wear, the food that I eat, the transportation that I’m able to make use of. I go out for entertainment. And now all of this great kindness, now we can begin to appreciate it. Maybe we don’t we don’t have to use the word kind. We can look look with favor, look with a sense of relatedness, appreciation for what all these people do.
And then, of course, the hardest amongst these three is that of enemy, appreciating the kindness of an enemy. I think if we’re really interested in growth, then we have to consider that whatever helps us to grow is kind. If we see that growth is necessary to our ultimate happiness, then it is our enemy who greatest friend. Because more than not, it is our enemy who is the greatest catalyst for growth, who is the greatest with respect with regard to whom we can develop tolerance, with regard to whom we can develop inner strength, we can develop patience. We can do we can develop unconditioned caring, unconditioned kindness.
It’s easy to be kind to your friends. It doesn’t take any spiritual realization to do that. But to love your enemies takes something very special. It takes some extraordinary attitude of mind and development of self and self development. So anything that helps us to grow is kind and it is our you know?
So it’s not to say that they’re all of these three people are equal in the same way. They aren’t. Your friend doesn’t your friend isn’t kind to you in the same way the enemy is. But they’re but they’re each kind to you in your own unique way. And and sort of loosening up our preconceptions about our fixed way of relating to these categories and trying to open up to other possibilities of appreciating them seeing in different ways.
And finally, in terms of equality from one’s own side, that all of these people all of these people out there, they’re all going to die. We we’ve talked about that death is definite and what is definite for oneself is definite for others. And I guess this is really I think I think it can be terribly powerful in the sense that, you know, if it’s like, you know, leaves that were blown together in in in the corner of a a doorway. Just temporarily, there’s a law in the wind and these leaves have gathered together. And then another wind is going to come shortly and disperse them.
They’re all going to fly in very in all their different directions. And that’s the way we are in one way or another. And then we come here even for this evening where like and the winds of karma have blown us together just for an hour and a half or two hours together. And we relate in one way or another hopefully in a very positive and caring fashion hopefully. And then the wind will blow again and we’re all dispersed in various directions.
Maybe not never to see each other again, possible. Know, but So a life is, you know, so it’s like a microcosm of something much larger, even a life. And what uses hatred and aversion and difference to others when we’re only here temporarily together as we are and then make the best of the opportunity in the most meaningful way that we can relate with others? So we’re all like in that fashion. So I’ve taken a lot of time for explaining.
Anyway, we’re going to meditate on all that. So if you take a firm, comfortable posture. Just getting in touch with the body. Noticing any tensions, any tightnesses in shoulders, upper neck, back.