Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A passage from Shakespeare’s Macbeth — “canst thou minister to a mind diseased?” — anchors this 44-minute session by Ven Jampa Gendun, building to a central claim: like a patient who cannot outsource recovery to a surgeon, practitioners must take full responsibility for changing their own minds. Gendun introduces the two causes for going for refuge — constructive anxiety and faith — and warns that passive hope substitutes for actual effort. The session closes with a guided meditation: loving-compassion directed toward a difficult person, Śākyamūni Buddha mantra recitation with white and golden light visualization for purification, then a teaching on equalizing self and others, examining how emotionally distorted mental images — not the actual person — are what we hate when we hate an enemy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 12 HMA 1997 02 19.mp3
UUID: 06f75977-ebf3-4f6a-b23b-8ee3a470e3d7
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1997-02-19
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.8 minutes
Words: ~5,945
I’ll share what Khensur Rinpoche mentioned last night at the beginning of his talk, and he was saying that if we can develop a positive attitude, a positive motivation for us being here and and listening and discussing the Dharma and all of the negativities that we’ve created in the past, which would have brought us, as a result, great suffering through heat, and this is even now being purified. So so okay. He says, don’t think about the heat. Think about what a wonderful opportunity it is to purify all that negative karma.
So I don’t know if you can that’s helpful to sort of a way of training the mind to help develop some tolerance. We have to reorientate our mind, adjust our motivation. If your mind is like mine, it has has a bit of difficulty thinking about things in a very deep fashion or can you hear me okay now? Yeah. Yes.
Yeah. You didn’t miss anything. I did. Oh, you heard? Okay.
I guess I shouldn’t say that because I was repeating what Khensur Rinpoche said. So as best we can, you know, trying to adjust our motivation, reorientate ourselves, you know, get our priority straight once again. If in fact, they’ve we’ve lost sight of what is important to each of ourselves. It’s difficult, I think, to in the best of circumstances, in the best of situations, to develop the necessary motivation where we see a real necessity to develop ourselves, our our our own minds as a way of finding real happiness. It’s it’s probably pretty far down on the priority list or it’s or it’s a matter of curiosity or idle speculation or sort of a pleasantry or another activity amongst our all of our various activities that involve ourselves in.
Like, somehow, you know, confronting the the reality of our situation, the necessity that if we’re going to experience real contentment, real satisfaction, fulfillment, meaning the sacred in our lives, something much more than what we’ve experienced up to now, that we’re going to have to develop our minds. It’s hard to, I think, keep that realization vivid and alive in our minds. We lose sight of it or if we’ve ever had it at all. I don’t know. In in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, I I’m sure I’ve I’ve read this before.
Macbeth asked the doctor, canst thou minister to a mind diseased? Raze out the written troubles of the brain. Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, and with some sweet oblivious antidote, cleanse the stuffed bosom of perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart. And the doctor answers, therein the therein the patient must minister to himself. So, you know, it quite often we see our illnesses, at least from time to time we do when they become powerfully manifested.
We can’t even delude ourselves. We can’t even distract ourselves from our gross delusions at times, and they become terribly apparent to ourselves. And but we even even though that may be the case from time to time, we still practice this sort of self deception that is that somehow we can they will go away out of themselves or they’re not long lasting, that this is only an episode, and that they won’t perhaps reoccur again if we think about it at all. Or we simply think that the cure lies outside of ourselves we ourselves in the things and situations maybe a therapist or maybe even to some degree in a in a teacher, a a guru or some sort, somehow they’re going to cure my mind. They’re going to if I put myself in their hands, they’re gonna make me better.
One delivers one’s alien body with its abscesses or tummo or broken bone into the hands of the surgeon, and its most elementary information and skill will transcend anything the patient need know. The patient must cooperate. One green capsule three times a day, keep the leg elevated to force fluids, but need not understand how or why. This responsibility lies with the surgeon. The problem is his.
His the accountability for failure, the credit for success. Patient and surgeon do not learn from the same text. Many patience go to a psychiatrist as if to a surgeon, and we can extend that perhaps to spiritual master or various teachers that we go to as if to a surgeon. And many psychiatrists regard themselves as psychic surgeons. When such a patient comes to such a therapist, a relationship of considerable length may result but little else.
So the job can be done, if at all, only by the patient. To assign this task to anyone else, however insightful or charismatic, is to disavow the source of change. In the process of personal personality change, the role of the psychiatrist is catalytic. As a cause, he is sometimes necessary, never sufficient. The responsibility of the patient does not end with free associating with being on time, paying his bills, or any other element of cooperation.
He is accountable only to himself, and his accountability extends all the way to change, to the change which is desired, the achieving of it or the giving up on it. But still, you know, it is very much our own responsibility. It’s it’s kind of a I think when it’s kind of an awesome responsibility in a way. I think when we when we for me at least, when I I add from this rare fleeting moments when I when I gain some perspective on that if I’m ever really to be happy, I have to change my mind, and it’s very much my own responsibility in doing so. It’s not to say that others cannot help us.
It’s for sure they can. But as to whether they’re able to help us or not is again very much our own responsibility. And I think in Judaism, they have a phrase, God helps those who help themselves, which is to say, even in a theistic situation, maybe it’s our own efforts which are going to change things for the better. But we hope that things will get better. We all have some kind of hope deep down.
Maybe it’s unconscious, not we’re not aware of it, but more of a hope, and there are various types of hope, an unfounded hope or an un that is to say, a type of hope which is simply a wishful thinking. The wishful thinking that things will get better of themselves in time in one way or another, and we’re not quite sure how, but we hope things will change. And our hope becomes a substitute for doing the absolute work which needs to be done. We our hope takes the place of actually making the effort. We can simply take some kind of solace in our hope.
I hope I will be a better person next year. I hope I will be a happier person next year. I hope things will go better for me and those about me next year or next lifetime, whatever. And without and the hope take isn’t becomes a substitute for doing the work which absolutely needs to be done. And therefore, nothing done, nothing’s changed, and we can expect nothing more but the same.
And so there’s our hope keeps us as it were bound. It we it’s our hope which brings about an inertia of our mind, a stagnation. It it’s only when we’re we things become hopeless, Perhaps when we can actually have cause a real cause for hope, that perhaps things will, in fact, get better because we will do something to make it so. If what is is not enough, then we have better to do something to sure that it is, to make it so. You know, I’m beginning to introduce the idea of the two causes for going for refuge.
Traditionally seen as the motivating force for our going to searching out alternative refuges in our lives. You know, I talked about how we all have, in fact, some type of refuge, whether you know, we don’t probably don’t use that terminology, but whether or not we we call it that or not, it’s very much still fulfills the definition. And to change our refuge, to redefine our refuge requires two basic causes. Those of what I call constructive anxiety. Quite often, it’s simply termed fear.
Maybe I like the term constructive anxiety. Anyway, just words. And the other cause is faith. It is our constructive anxiety when we become you know, we we get some perspective on the the reoccurring dissatisfactory cycles of even over the course of this life that we’re continually going through. These reoccurring dissatisfactory patterns which very much constitute our life.
And we get some insight perhaps that these dissatisfactory patterns are going to extend themselves infinitely into the future. They’re just the same problems in in different disguises that are going to keep reoccurring again and again infinitely into the future unless I do something about it. And it develops an undercurrent of anxiety or foreboding as in some kind of a dread. And I have done the constant re experiencing of our same fundamental problems endlessly into the future. Constructive anxiety.
It’s it’s it’s constructive because it is concerned with the real problems of our life and, you know, the the acting as a real motivating force for positive change in our life. So there’s it’s constructive anxiety, I think. And the other is faith. You know, that not only do we need faith, you know, it is constructive anxiety which pushes, and is faith which draws us on towards other possibilities, new refuges in our life. So in our purpose.
So it is quite necessary, I think, to to develop a combination. I think many people have, at least from time to time, an undercurrent of anxiety about the nature of their existence, the dilemma which in which they feel they’re in. But very few develop faith outside of anything that they’ve been using up to them, the various refuses that they’ve been making use of. So nothing much changes. It’s necessary to have a combination of both constructive anxiety and faith.
What we are to have faith in is something that very much we ourselves, you know, when in this paragraph about it is only we are ourselves are the final product of the path. We ourselves are the refuge in which we are to have ultimate faith. And that there are other objects, but it is we ourselves as the Buddha that we shall also may be, you know, this this happy, healthy, loving, sane human being, you know, having faith that we can do this and having faith in the means and the process to achieve that end. And then I think then there’s a we we will you know, where where do we where do we invest our energy, our significance? What is it what is it that we value?
Where your treasure lies, so there too is will be your heart. And we have to begin to a shift. Now a reattuning of ourselves from who I’d I have been to one of which of who I can be, both in privately and in terms of our relationships with others. And then we we begin we it’s necessary to begin to rewrite our life story, the life the story that we the narrative by means of which we all live our lives by, to begin to write a Buddhist story, something better than we’ve been composing up to now, and have faith that we can live out that story. So the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha, the Buddha very much inside of ourselves, alternative possibilities of who we can be, which exist as potentials at present.
And we have to do something, and it’s this is imperative that the responsibility is is ourselves, is our alone. And we have the tools to work with, and the doing, you know, of what we can of what is need to be done is the practice of the Dharma and its various forms. And in making use of these teachings and these techniques and trainings and methods, these ways of transforming ourselves into Buddhas, of of actualizing this Buddhist story. And this process occurs within the social context of spiritual community. Those who who who set up who are part of our mandala of sanity, of wisdom, of compassion, who help us implement these methods to achieve these ends and trying again and again as best we can to raise the level of motivation.
Taking into consideration what we’re learning in terms of, at present, equality of self and others. That every living sentient being is exactly like ourselves from the point of view that every living sentient being wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer just like ourselves. No different. And the having feeling beginning to feel that, feel the equality of self and others. And therefore, that they too are suffering just like myself, that they too are experiencing dissatisfaction and frustration and disappointment just like myself, and that how can I leave them behind?
Would I would would I want to be left behind if I were to exchange myself for them, if I were to reverse our roles? Would I would would I want to be abandoned? I don’t think I know I wouldn’t want to be how can I abandon them when exactly like myself? So developing the, you know, the aspiration to to bring about the welfare of not only ourselves, but others as well, an ever widening circle of others through what we do. And this becomes a a style of of of doing, a way of life, and this way of life brings a certain faith, the faith of awakening.
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 Sangha 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, 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 until cyclic existence is ended and turn the wheel of Dharma for living beings. I dedicate the skillful actions of myself and others to the great enlightenment.
You like to stand up for a moment and then we’ll meditate? Meditation as we usually do, you know, followed by this, again, this cultivation of loving compassion, and choosing someone that that you don’t like, having lots of difficulties with, maybe maybe not even personally, maybe just in an abstract sense, somebody that you some type of person that you find despicable and you really have some problems around, but maybe an actual fact. Somebody who you’re having a fight with at present. So really a difficult object to work with and as best you can. Just trying to find some way to set aside that that that image through which you’re relating with this person by and perhaps create an opening, that little gap for another possibility.
Just maybe just something a recognition that this person, you know, is is a sentient being, a feeling being who wants happy feelings, doesn’t want suffering feelings. And just a a friendly caring, you know, okay. You may be an asshole, but I I still I I would like for you not to suffer. I think we can do that. Something like that.
And then we’ll I thought we’d meditate on them. Then we’ll do mindfulness and breathing. I thought we do we haven’t done a recitation of mantra with the Śākyamūni Buddha mantra. It’s in your it’s in your your folders. I know could somebody look up and see what page it is?
The mantra, page six. Okay. So, you know, at the, you know, at the end of the during the course of the mindfulness of breathing, we’re going to visualize Śākyamūni Buddha. So, know, may perhaps we’ll we’ll pause for a minute, and then you can visually kind of inspect the image of a Buddha as portrayed in this painting to my right. You know, just kind of noticing the shapes and the colors, just the maybe just the rough patterns as best you can.
And then cause it to appear to your mental consciousness, not to your eye, but to your mental consciousness. Maybe a meter and a half in front of you, about the size of your hand, but if made sometimes larger, it is easier. So you can play around with the size, whatever works for you. Made of light, not solid and heavy, but living. It’s about having a sense of a living being.
If you can’t you know, if nothing appears, that’s quite alright. There’s different initial abilities around visualization. Some people, you know, have almost photographic memories. They can a very clear image appears to them quite automatically. Some people have to have have lost the ability and have to retrain their themselves.
So but the image is useful in making the practice more real, but it’s secondary to the feelings involved. But maybe you can just have some kind of golden light. That’s fine. But don’t once you don’t keep pushing. Try to make don’t keep trying to make clear and clear and clear and clear.
Don’t that will just agitate your mind, and you won’t you won’t nothing will appear. And this is one mistake that many students make is continually trying to make it clear and more vivid, see more parts. And maybe you just see a little hand, but be satisfied with that. Maybe just the golden light, be satisfied with that. Maybe just I mean, something’s there, but you can’t quite see it.
Okay. Just hold that that that something as the focus of your awareness. And that this is we’re relating with the potential withinside of ourselves as well as, you know, the the infinite Buddhas of the universe. It’s interesting to to to note, to think about, you know, in many practices, we we call we invoke or we we invite the Buddhas to come to this place. And that’s just for our own minds, for our to support our own conceptions, our own ideas within our mind.
You know, the the the it is said that the nature of mind is such that it, you know, it rise on wind energies, and the wind energies go out to objects. Therefore, the mind goes out to objects. And it’s said that a Buddha’s mind is an omniscient mind. Though this might be terribly difficult to to believe initially, it perhaps has some logical, rational explanation. But a an omniscient mind is able to knows every single phenomenon in the universe simultaneously.
And in knowing that, a Buddha’s mind, an omniscient mind is present, is omnipresent at every at every place in the universe simultaneously. So this room the the Buddha’s mind is present in this room, and where the Buddha’s mind is, the Buddha is. So the Buddha is within this room, you know, so we can carry out that kind of logical analysis. So inviting the Buddhas into the room is simply for our own overcome our own limitations. Our own sense that all the Buddhas are somewhere else out in the sky.
You know, we have to we have to invite them here, be good. And if we if they’re if we’re if we’re good enough, they’ll come to this place. But in fact, they’re they’re they’re never not here. They’re they’re all about omnipresent. So, you know, that this visualization is is also has an element of the actual Buddha mind, and it has an element of our own mind.
And as the thinking that this is a combination of the two, Something which may be simply a potential within ourselves, but which has been actualized by all the Buddhas of the past and present. And so we’re relating to it in a visual form to give it some kind of substance. And then we’ll we’ll practice what it’d be what we’ve talked what we’ve discussed in the past, past the four opponent powers, and we’re going to do a purification practice, developing a sense of repudiation. The power of repudiation, we’re recalling some past negativities, developing a genuine sense of regret around them, the power of reliance, what is called the power of reliance, which means to say either that you take refuge, that you get yourself back on the path, that, you know, if you’ve broken a vow or you’ve a promise to to your teachers, a word of honor, something like this, you recommit yourself to the path. You recommit yourself to Buddhadharma and its living community.
Or in the case of harming others in general, stealing their goods, sentient beings, things like that. You know, we we commit ourselves to helping others, to caring for others rather than harming. I just say we we develop compassion for those we’ve harmed. That’s the power of reliance and the power of restraint. I mean, as best you can, developing a sense of, well, I’m I’m not going to do this, whatever the negative act might be for the next hour, for the next day, for the next week.
Something realistic that you can practically try to implement, be mindful of, and make effort to actually do. And then, fourthly, as the power of antidote where we cite Śākyamūni Buddha’s mantra, is means a sage or sometimes translated as subduer. Shakya means sage, Muni means great sage. So it’s a it’s a it’s a praise of of Śākyamūni Buddha, the the historical Buddha. And imagining that as that white light, a stream of white a beam of white light comes to the crown of your head.
And through this beam, white lights and white nectars begin to fill your body completely, completely filling all the you know, eliminating all the darkness, all the heaviness, all the feelings of guilt and insufficiency, and all the self incrimination, and all the all the heavy trips that we lay on us about what we’ve done. All is gone. No more. It’s finished. The negative karma that was created, it’s it’s been dealt with in a very efficient, effective manner.
A sense of pure a purity, a sense of lightness as like, as if a burden were being lifted off our shoulders that we’ve been carrying around. Around. Then having done that, you know, we abide in that state of sense of purity. Now beyond all our preconceptions, our intellectual ideas that we may hold about who we are and our this allow oneself to let go into a sense of purity, a sense of lightness, of clarity. Then we’ll, again, we’ll invoke the Buddha to reciting the mantra.
And then this time, a golden beam of light comes down to the crown of our head, filling our body with golden lights and nectars. And this is, you know, having purified the negativities, then we can be re be more receptive to the development of our own wisdom. So feeling our own, not only wisdom, but excellent qualities. That as we as our body fills with the golden lights and nectars, our our own qualities of wisdom, which we all have developed fully in our own qualities of compassion and personal power, that we that we are we develop a consummate excellent qualities about ourselves, our body and mind completely filled with this golden light. And then beyond all one’s complete conceptions, one’s self-limitations, you know, this self-denigrating, self-defeating story that we keep telling ourselves about ourselves, about who I am, setting that aside for the moment.
I’m a you know, one that has one has developed wisdom, compassion, power. And then we Śākyamūni Buddha will come down to the crown of our head, dissolve into a golden light and into ourselves, and imagine as if you become one, in union, oneness with Buddha, him or herself. Beyond our sense all of again, our sense of limitations that we have about ourselves and our self identity that we grasp to so tightly. Setting that aside and letting go into the feelings which arise as we identify with what an omniscient mind, with what a com supremely compassionate mind might feel like, what a very powerful being might experience. Just letting go into that state as best we can while we recite the mantra.
Okay. Shall we try that? So take you in a firm, comfortable posture. So we’re looking at the meditative tradition of equalizing and exchanging self for others as a means to develop bodhicitta. And the first of these, a series of five meditations, is that of equalizing self and others.
And as a means to cultivate this this sense of equality of self and others, it is presented in terms of three points, each having three parts. First, try to get a a sense of equality of self and others from the conventional point of view, which is broken down into two from the side of others and from one’s own side, and then from the ultimate point of view. From the from the side of others that all living beings, whosoever, don’t wish to suffer, that all living beings, whosoever, want happiness. But though they wish not to suffer, still they suffer. And though they wish happiness, they do not have genuine happiness.
From one’s own side, beginning with the the notion of beginningless rebirths and that over this course of it, beginningless rebirths, that all living beings, whosoever have been in a relationship with oneself as a primary caregiver and shown us infinite kindness again and again and again. But even at those times when they weren’t our primary caregivers such as our mothers, still even when they were simply friends, enemies, or strangers, they were of tremendous kindness to ourselves in their each in their own unique way, very much the same in their kindnesses, but their kindness was expressed in a very peculiar manner according to each of these categories. And then finally, that all living beings whatsoever are going to die. You know, this is the great leveler. All of these people that we are meeting here tonight, whoever gathered around us, is going to die.
And it’s there’s no difference amongst them. And so know, what is the use of our of our hatred? What is the use of our indifference while we’re here together, you know, trying to open up to a way of a caring involvement in relating in other people’s with other people’s lives. Now then from the ultimate point of view, we we began last week with the first of these three points. That is to say that that friend, stranger, and enemy do not, in truth, exist the way they appear.
And this is a very profound notion because we have to begin to understand that that all things whatsoever, all phenomena are merely imputed, that we see the world by means of that that coming to know is an organizing into the knowing. It’s coming to know is a process of organizing into the known. And we use images. We use representations, models, symbols. Many of these symbols or models or images have are distorted in some way or another.
They aren’t accurate representations of the thing in which they are meant to represent. Moreover, sometimes the image that we use in thinking about something becomes more real for us than the something itself. So quite often, perhaps more often than not, we are relating with an image. And in the case of people, in the case of where there’s an always an affective element, an emotional element involved, we are more than that relating with our image about the person as opposed to the real flesh and blood person who they are in themselves and for themselves. So the the way they exist and the way they appear to our ourselves are not are contradictory in some fashion or another.
In truth, they don’t exist the way they appear to ourselves, and this is very much true when there’s ever an an emotional element in the nature nature of a relationship, whether it’s in terms of a loved one or in terms of feeling of indifference toward a stranger, but almost as very obvious or as more obvious than not than with regard to the other two in terms of the enemy, the the person that we hate. So we we when we if we can get a sense of this, a deep feeling for this, then we no longer are captivated by the images that we use to think about people. We that these categories of friend, enemy, and stranger, in fact, exists. But the but the but our image of, for example, an enemy is emotionally laden with our past experiences, which has nothing to do with this present person, for example. And all of their, perhaps, all of their hurts, all of their harms that had been committed, all the injustices, there’s going to be some element of that which we’re we’re going is part of that image of enemy, of of unlike person, and it’s going to be projected upon this person who we to regard as an enemy.
You know, we it’s it’s useful notion. It’s a useful idea. We we know this. You know, last week, I mentioned that, you know, that this is used in advertising, isn’t it? The the many products are sold on the basis of image, not the product itself.
Many ways advertising are simply to help us to develop a very positive image with regard to the product. The product is secondary. The product could be trash. It could be substandard, but we’re being sold an image. When somebody buys a Mercedes Benz, they’re not just buying a vehicle to transport themselves around in.
They’re buying an image, and they you know, companies spend billions of dollars in helping you to develop this image. When when you buy whether a Calvin Klein or or, you know, all of these fashion house products, you’re buying an image. The product is probably fairly good quality, but but you’re not after the quality more than not. You’re after the image that you’re going to associate with that. So, like, in this this notion can can be, you know, can be extended That when we relate with somebody who we who we think of as an enemy, we are there is a person out there who we can classify as an enemy, but more than that, we are imbuing that person with many qualities, negative qualities, exaggerated negative qualities, which they probably don’t possess.
And this this idea of a mental image being a composite of feelings and emotions and beliefs, an interconnected becoming an interconnected image of which we project upon this particular person, and we relate with them as as if they were that person. What we see, that image, and we develop aversion. We develop hate hatred, not necessarily toward that person, but toward that image through the medium the medium through which we’re seeing that person, the glasses, the eyes through which we’re viewing them. So, you know, this is the way of dismantling our sense of self righteousness in that I’m seeing the person as they really are. You know, don’t talk to me about, you know, who they are.
I know. I know what they did to me, you know, that we have, and all the, you know, that we we feel is right and justified in our hatred. And if you took it to a world court, they would say, yes. They deserve your hatred. They deserve all that, you know, all the way that you the various ways that you feel about them.
So it’s interesting, isn’t it? That you can the notion is and this will become also work we’ll work at this when we come to the awakened mind, that can we don’t have to become captivated or overwhelmed by these images. They may be still there. You know, the image is still present. For example, in terms of emptiness, there’s subsequent to having a first, the initial direct realization of emptiness, the bodhisattva, for example, rises from their meditation, and things still appear to look truly existent.
They still things still appear to exist from their own side, but he or she no longer is captivated or falls for it. Things begin to appear as an illusion, illusion illusory like. That things still appear a particular way, but the bodhisattva no longer believes in that appearance and no longer relates to these objects on that basis. So likewise, these people cannot appear to ourselves to be the despicable people that we that appear to ourselves to be despicable people, that the image which is being seen by ourselves, but we don’t necessarily have to be captivated by because we can know that there’s some degree of exaggeration of their negative quality. Absolutely sure.
In the case of enemies, for example, that they don’t quite exist the way they’re appearing to ourselves. And we know that it’s difficult. It’s really difficult, I mean, in not to believe what you see. You know? But if we but this is a very one of the most basic ideas of all of Buddhism that we can that at an ultimate you know, we’re we’re not saying that this is not a table.
You know, we’re not that’s simple minded. But there are other levels of reality which we have to bring into question. It’s you know, when when to to have this almost you know, if things aren’t truly existent, then they can’t exist at all. That’s you know, to have that undermined, to have that sense, you know, I there’s something going on which I is different than what I’m seeing. There’s something there, and I I don’t see it.
But you’d be if it’s if it’s something but you begin to it’s like as if the carpet’s being pulled out from under your belief system. At a lesser level, we can we can begin to have some sense of that in terms of enemies, in terms of strangers, in terms of those people we’re we call friends or or we’re attached to, that we aren’t quite seeing them the way they actually are. And it’s not to say that that is going to reduce our love for them or that we have to invite the enemy over for dinner. We still might not like to associate with them, but we don’t have to hate them. They aren’t quite as we might imagine them to be.
So the second part.