Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The session opens with a Japanese haiku — “Wild persimmons, the mother is eating the bitter part” — and builds into a sustained meditation on unconditional mother love as the emotional bedrock of bodhichitta. In this 36-minute oral instruction, Ven Jampa Gendun works through the Lamrim step of recognizing all beings as one’s mother, drawing on a traditional Tibetan story of a dying mare licking her foal and an extended reading from Thich Nhat Hanh on maternal devotion. He addresses those with difficult or abusive mothers honestly, offering guidance on choosing an alternative caregiver to anchor the practice instead. A personal exchange with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala — on whether tears in meditation signal going off course — provides grounding reassurance. The session closes with step-by-step instruction for gradually extending the mother-love archetype to a widening circle of beings.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 12 HMA 1997 05 28.mp3
UUID: f991d72e-20a1-4a77-9f74-e971f2c84c89
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1997-05-28
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 35.8 minutes
Words: ~4,957
And smile with great joy upon ourselves and love us. But in reality, that that happened to each of ourselves. And And just just as we see it as the case, when when we see examples of mother love, it happened to ourselves, to each of ourselves. And all in thinking in terms of all the years that followed, all that we’ve forgotten about, or that we’ve we’ve displaced, that we never stopped to consider. All the the the self giving, and all the the constant concern for ourselves ourselves that our mother has shown to ourselves over the course of our our growing up.
You know, all the years of feeding us and cleaning us and clothing us and educating us, in the years of where literally a hundred times a day protecting us from harm. And a hundred times a day turning their attention toward ourselves and our needs, our wants. A hundred times a day putting their welfare over our own, over her own. There’s a it’s a little haiku. Wild persimmons, the mother is eating the bitter part.
You remember your mother taking the bitter part and giving you the best? I do. That was quite common in my family. You know, out of you know, out of our infant’s eyes, our mother was our world. At some time, that fact is there.
And maybe we can’t recall it. Maybe we’d rather not. But there’s a point when it was true for ourselves. You know, to to nurse at our mother’s breast was bliss. And to to hear her voice and to know that she was that she was there, that she was present was all the security that we would ever need.
And to be cuddled by her, all the comfort that that was necessary for to for us to fortify our courage that we could we could go back out and face the world and face all the dragons in in our daily explorations of of of the uncharted universe. Motherly love is the most frequent and most readily understood instance of productive love. During the birth of the child, the mother’s body labors for the child. And after birth, her love consists in her effort to make the child grow. Motherly love does not depend upon condition which the child has to fulfill in order to be loved.
It is unconditional based only upon the child’s request and the mother’s response. No wonder that motherly love has been a symbol of the highest form of love in art and religion. You know, the the you know, we you know, even when Christ, for example, when he was on the cross and he said, father, into into thy hands, I commend my spirit. That was an example of, I think, of mother motherly love. You know, that that trust in mother love is what enabled him to say that.
It is it is mother love is the womb from out of which the bodhisattva is born and which empowers him to dedicate his life for the sake of all mother sentient beings. You know, there’s a story about a there was it’s a traditional Tibetan story. It’s a there was a robbery occurring in the course of this by bandits on horseback. In the course of this robbery, one of the bandits’ swords slid open the side of a a mare in foal. And the the mare fell to its side and the the still undeveloped fold issued forth from its the wound in its side.
And, you know, and and this mare in the midst of its ever pain, in the throes of death laid there licking the embryonic fluids from her dying foal as she too died. And it is said that even even the bandits hard hearted, the hardened heart of the bandit was softened in the presence of mother love and that this experience transformed him. Now but for most of us, you know, talking in this way, it’s a very emotional way to talk, rightfully so because we’re trying to get in touch with emotions. It’s not a mere intellectual exercise. But for most of us, these heart feelings, again, gradually dry up over the course of our life in one way or another.
In the arid desert of our lives, you know, feelings of of a primal bond beyond our thinking. The eventually are displaced by with demands and expectations, you know, of self centeredness in one way or another. And we begin to play the game of calculated love, which which really isn’t love at all. And then we we assume an accountant’s mentality, you know, keeping track of debits and credits as a way of interacting with others. And that becomes our our form of what we call love.
It’s when we transact business with one another. In other words, the way our relations usually go, that’s how we get along in life. Now we we we have forgotten what it felt like to be loved for no other reason than the very fact, the simple fact that we existed for no other reason than who we were as a person. And that that having forgotten that once someone looked upon us as if we were intrinsically lovable and loved us unconditionally and showed us and, you know, and showered us with kindness. Now having lost that feeling of our own sense of our own existential worth, you know, if we’ve having forgotten how lovable we were once for another person intrinsically and all the kindness that they showed us, we are unable to feel the same for others.
And we are unable to see others in that same way as valuable in and of themselves, as intrinsically worthy of of our love, as being lovable. And finally, we find it difficult to even love ourselves and to feel loved at all. You know, remembering the the great kindness of our mother is like opening a wellspring of emotion and all the mental associations which begin to arise. It’s meant to, you know, it’s meant to get us in touch with something very deep. It’s you know, it has to be you know, this is meant to be a a vivid re experiencing of long of a long forgotten events.
The re experiencing of long displaced feelings or repressed feelings and emotions, you know, beyond the intellect, beyond our rational thinking. You know, it’s like getting in touch with some type of primal feeling of a bond which we are seeking to to establish with all living beings. But we have to get in touch with we have to begin to experience with one other if we’re ever going to to extend it to all others. You know, the the reconnecting of with the fundamental bonding instinct of a mother and child. This is it’s quite a long quote.
It’s by talking about this relationship between a mother and child. It’s by the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh talking about his mother. And this is emotional. It’s meant to be. The thought mother cannot be separated from that of love.
Love is sweet, tender, and delicious. Without love, a child cannot flower. An adult cannot mature. Without love, we weaken, wither. The day my mother died, I made this entry in my journal.
The greatest misfortune in my life has come. When I was a child, I heard a simple poem about losing your mother, and it is still very important for me. That year, although I was still very young, my mother left me, and I realized that I was an orphan. Everyone around me was crying. I suffered in silence.
Allowing the tears to flow, I felt my pain soften. Evening enveloped mother’s tomb. The pagoda bell rang sweetly. I realized that to lose your mother is to lose the whole universe. And Thich Nhat Hanh goes on to say, we swim in a world of tender love for many years and without even knowing it, we are quite happy there.
Only after it is too late do we become aware of it. People in the countryside do not understand the complicated language of the city people. When people from the city say that mother is a treasure of love, that is already too complex for them. Country people in Vietnam compare their mothers to the finest variety of bananas or to honey, sweet rice, or sugar cane. They express their love in these simple and direct ways.
For me, a mother is like a bonghum banana of the highest quality, like the best nep moi sweet rice, the most delicious mia luk sugar cane. There are moments after a fever when you have a bitter, flat taste in your mouth and nothing tastes good. Only when your mother comes and tucks you in, gently pulls covers over your chin, puts her hand on your burning forehead. It is really a hand or is it really this is it really a hand or is it the silk of heaven? And gently whispers, my darling, do you feel restored, surrounded with the sweetness of maternal love?
Her love is fragrant like a banana, like a sweet rice, like sugarcane. Father’s work is enormous, as huge as a mountain. Mother’s devotion is overflowing like water from a mountain spring. Maternal love is our first taste of love, the origin of all feelings of love. Our mother is the teacher who first teaches us love, the most important subject in life.
Without my mother, I could never have known how to love. Thanks to her, I can love my neighbors. Thanks to her, I can love all living beings. Through her, I acquire my first notions of understanding and compassion. Mother is the foundation of all love and many religious traditions this and pay deep honor to a maternal figure, the Virgin Mary, the goddess Kuan Yin.
Hardly an infant has opened her mouth to cry without her mother already running to the cradle. Mother is gentle and sweet spirit who makes unhappiness and worries disappear. When the word mother is uttered, already we feel our hearts overflowing with love. From love, the distance to action is very short. Mother is a boundless source of love and inexhaustible treasure.
But unfortunately, we sometimes forget that mother is the most beautiful gift life offers us. Those of you who still have your mother near, please don’t wait for the day to come to say, my god, I have lived beside my mother all these years without ever looking at her. Just brief glances, a few words exchanged, asking for a little pocket money or one thing or another. You cuddle up to her to get warm. You sulk.
You get angry with her. You complicate her life causing her worry, undermining her health, making her go to sleep late and get up early. Many mothers die young because of their children. Throughout her life, we expect her to cook, wash, and clean up after us while we think only about our grades and our careers. Our mothers no longer have time to look deeply at us, and we are too busy to look closely at her.
Only when she is no longer there so we so we realize that we have never been conscious of having a mother. This evening, when you return from school or work or if you live far away, the next time you visit your mother, you may wish to go into her room and with a calm and silent smile sit down beside her. Without saying anything, make her stop working and look at her for a long time. Look at her deeply. Do this in order to see her, to realize that she is there, she is alive beside you.
Take your hand and ask her one short question to capture her attention. Mother, do you know something? She will be a little surprised and will probably smile when she asks you, what, dear? Keep looking into her eyes, smiling, serenely, and say, do you know that I love you? Ask her a question without waiting for an answer.
Even if you are thirty or forty years old or older, ask her as the child of your as the child of your mother, your mother and all, and you will be happy, conscious of living in eternal love. Then tomorrow when she leaves you, you will have no regrets. When love is present, that is enough, and there is no need to talk of obligation. To love your mother is enough. It is not a duty.
It is completely natural, like drinking when you are thirsty. Every child must have a mother, and it is totally natural to love her. The mother loves her child and the child loves her mother. The child needs her mother and the mother needs her child. Please do not think I have written this to give a lesson in morality.
Loving your mother is not a question of loving your mother is a question of profit. A mother is like a spring of pure water, like like the very finest sugarcane or honey, the best quality sweet rice. If you do not know how to profit from this, it is unfortunate for you. I simply want you to bring want you bring this to your attention to help you avoid one day complaining that there is nothing left in life for you. If a gift such as the presence of your mother doesn’t satisfy you, even if you are president of a large corporation or king of the universe, you probably will not be satisfied.
I only want to remind you that a mother is like a banana, like a good rice, like honey, like sugar. She has tenderness. She has love. So you, my brothers and sisters, please do not forget her. Forgetting creates an immense loss, and I hope you do not, either through ignorance or through lack of attention, have to endure such a loss.
That is all. You know, but but Buddhism would not ask us that, you know, that we see black as white, that we see that we see bad as good, you know, that we involve ourselves in some kind of mental gymnastics and contort our minds in believing something that was in fact not the case. It it may in fact be our own experience that that all of what has been said was not the case for ourselves. You know, some mothers do, in fact, abuse their children, you know, physically, emotionally, sexually. And many of us may have had a mother who was an an unskillful mother.
And we we we may bear we may still bear scars of their inability or refusal to parent as well. But at the same time, at some point along our journey, and if we are to actually be on a journey, if we are trying to grow, that is to say, it becomes unskillful of us and unfair to our self if we just leave it at that. To to leave such wounds to fester or to pretend that they don’t that they don’t exist at all or to dismiss them as if they aren’t important and not and thus not to confront them and try to work through them. You know, understanding that we are all attempting that understanding that what we are attempting to do we are doing not out of a moral imperative, not out of a sense of guilt that dictates us that we should love our mother. That’s not the point.
But in order we are trying to do what we are doing order to heal ourselves, to become healthy, you know, because loving your mother is a question of profit, not necessarily for your mother, but for yourself. You know, as as was as we mentioned previously when we were discussing equality equalizing exchange in self for others, with when we quoted Thich Nhat Hanh with regard to a difficult son, we may need to take our mother as the object of our meditation and try to understand her. You know, it’s something that perhaps we have never done before. Try to you know, try to understand her and her world and how she became the way she was. You know, try to understand what happened between you, how it evolved, and try to try to see if in fact our memories of the way it was are accurate.
Do they accurately portray the total picture of our relationship with our mother and what actually happened? And as it’s important to acknowledge and explore openly and honestly both the positive and negative perceived qualities of our mother and our mother child relationship with with her. And and and but also to look at our expectations, you know, maybe even not maybe just not even our past expectation but maybe also our present expectations of her and the demands that we sought to place on her. You know, we have we have to remember that that the the figure of the mother looms larger than life, larger than the personal mother that each of us had experienced, that the mother is archetypical. Archetypical, is an archetype.
Although the mother experience is archetypical, we tend to load that enormous burden of meaning, responsibility, duty, heaven, and hell onto the shoulders of one frail, fallible human being who was our mother. And what we were we as child expected, demanded of our mother. Maybe no mother, maybe no ordinary or even extraordinary human being could have met those demands, those expectations, what it what it is that we thought a mother should be. You know, the the our mother was neither omniscient nor was she infallible. Though in our child’s mind we thought she was or we thought she should be both at least.
And there was no she didn’t have an unmistaken formula to which she could have made use of in bringing us up so that we would not now be suffering and neurotic. As long as we create negative karma, we are going to suffer. And as long as we have ignorance in our mind, we’re going to be neurotic. We cannot blame the the the nature of the human condition, the universal nature of the human condition on our particular mother, on her. And we we perhaps we can blame specific instances of abuse or negligence in what she did or didn’t do.
But we have to temper our understanding with an understanding that surpasses reason. A recognition that after all she was just one frail and fallible human being, you know, who happened to be our mother. And beyond all the hurt and possible real justifications for the contrary, forgive her for being a human being, you know, just like ourselves with all the frailties, with all the fallibilities which we as human beings possess and open our hearts to all that she once meant to ourselves. So it is the it is trying to, you know, it is the feeling of being unconditionally loved through through mother love that we want to associate with all living beings, with all sentient beings, all our mothers, you know, each and every one of them. And all the the fat ones and the thin ones, the beautiful ones and the unattractive ones, the black ones, the yellow ones, the white ones, the female ones, the male ones.
They’re going going beyond all of that in a without regarding them in an unconditional manner. And the the the all the beings that we have ever met and in the presence of and will meet have treated us all in the same way. You know? They have given us the same caring. And Can we we gain that sense that they have all shown us the same protection, same have all nurtured us, have all shown us the same kindnesses and born the sacrifices for us, whosoever in the same way.
You know, that they have all everybody in this room, everybody we’re going to meet tomorrow has at some point been the center of our life. They have all loved us in the same ways. Males, females, you know, whosoever. That they were all part of ourselves at one time. And it’s now only due to to time and this narrowing down of our vision, this myopic vision that we have that that others appear to us to be so alien, so, you know, as if so completely unrelated to ourselves as if they were from another planet.
No connection whatsoever. Yeah. But okay. But we I guess I think it’s worthwhile to work with. Challenge with the idea of mother and getting in touch with these feelings, to feel unconditional love, to feel that you that human beings are in fact worthy of love regardless of what they do or don’t do, of how they appear or don’t appear.
That their that their mere existence worthy is by merely existing I and you are worthy of each other’s love. What a wonderful way to lead life. What a way what a wonderful possibility that opens up for ourselves both in terms of our own individual happiness but for the world as a whole. But we may, you know, we may not be able to to take our mother child relationship as our moral as our model for developing a deep sense of bond between ourselves and others. You know, temporarily maybe there is too many obstacles.
You know, that may be our reality. And Buddhism would say, you know, by all means be genuine. Be honest. Don’t leave it there but be honest. But for the time being, temporarily, there may be too many obstacles, fears.
There may be might too much resistance, too many hard feelings that have been built up over the years between yourself and your mother and these may stand in the way. So if this is the case, then select someone who was a primary caregiver to you as best as you can remember. You know, someone who you feel close to and and and deeply connected with, who you can remember, have a sense of how kindness appears out of a child’s eyes. You know, the the innocence way of a child accepting, trusting. Perhaps your father, perhaps your sister, perhaps a brother, perhaps an uncle, perhaps an aunt, perhaps, you know, a friend of the family.
But taking, you know, someone who who can bear the the archetype of mother love for you. You know, after all, you know, you have a mother child relationship with all other sentient beings as well as the mother of this life. And then you’re going to take this archetype of the mother child relationship and try to associate it with every living being. But first, have to get in touch with it with about a single being and actually experience it. Now whether the person be your mother or or your or of this life or someone you or someone else, imagine that person person in front of you and cultivate the clear awareness of of the feelings and emotions that that you have for them.
And remember all the all the kindnesses, all the, you know, arouse a sense of connected and and the bond between yourself and them that you share with them. And this had you know, has to be in a in a I remember once I I I maybe sound like a. Dropping. I don’t know. Anyway, and I was talking to the Dalai Lama.
Just having a cup of tea and, you know, and so me and HH and I were — now I I I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve had a few interviews, private interviews with His Holiness. And I I I this was a number of years ago when I was sitting in Dharamsala. And I was, you know, working with some of the ideas on if we you know, these meditative traditions for the awakening of one’s heart. And and I asked him I was concerned that maybe I was becoming overly sentimental.
I I was kinda questioned, you know, checking up. And I I said, you know, during these meditation sessions, you know, if you you think if you’re crying, you think you’re you’re getting off on the ram wrong track. You know, you’re simply going off into some kind of emotional tangent, which maybe is not profitable, and maybe it’s just self-indulgent. He said, well, you know, the tears the tears are not what we’re seeking and are not the result we’re trying to achieve, but they may be they may be an indication that you’re going in the right direction. And I was trying to, I guess, to verify, I guess, and validate that that though and I was in in my meditations having these strong emotions that that I was I wasn’t going off into some self-indulgent tangent, that I wasn’t going I was this was a proper process of meditation that I was going to get the desired result.
And he sort of validated that for me. So the point the reason that I bring this up is that this process is not meant to be an intellectual exercise. You know, that that that something touching deep within your heart and beyond reason, beyond our usual rational approach to thinking about these things. Not to think not to stand outside of the experience but try to be within that experience of what it must have been like in terms of being unconditionally loved, the mother child relationship and that connection. Then when you get to sense of that, then to to to picture a person next to that individual who you’ve developed this sense, this, you know, your mother of this life perhaps, a person who you care a great deal about, and we, you know, we’re we’ve been doing this a great deal.
Someone you naturally feel close to. And using that model of feeling, this emotion associated with this, maybe your actual mother, this first person, try to generate a similar feeling now towards this second person that you’re imagining next to the next to them. You know, and reflect. You know, you know, in in a a previous life, this person was my mother. Just like my mother over here.
You know, the the we died and now everything is completely different. But still, this person was my mother. And as actually, it’s useful to say, you know, actually, verbally, you know, you can go on a quiet place. Mother, you know, hear yourself say it. Hear the words.
It makes a difference. And this person this this this person here treated me just like my mother mother over here in the same exact way, showed me the same kindness, the same caring, the same unconditional love, my beautiful mother. And and see if you can begin to to transfer that archetype of related feelings, a related relatedness to feelings toward this second person. And then then on and on and on as we’ve been talking about in various meditations. You know, once you’ve been able to develop some genuine sense of connectedness in those terms with the second person, then moving down the spectrum of individuals, possible ways of relating, and developing this, extending this same archetype, the same template of feeling, applying it to a spectrum of individuals.
Each in your mother, you know, even without a belief in rebirth, such a practice can be done as a as a as a psychological challenge. And with with the conviction of rebirth, we we can begin we can with the conviction of re in rebirth, we gain our perspective on our relationships with others. You know, I talked about this last week, this this this churning vegetable cosmic stew that we’re all boiling away in. You know, one you know, one one moment a piece of carrot comes to the top, and next moment a potato comes to top, next moment a piece of celery, you know. And our relationships in this stew are constantly changing, shifting from one life to another.
Likewise, you know, that we’ve all these shifting positions in terms of our relationships with others. Over the course of one life, what to say over the course of beginningless lives. So what we’re we’re seeking to open our hearts to everyone as a child to their mother. Not as a not childish. There’s a big difference.
But as a child. And to leave our hearts open as much as possible throughout all the shifting situations and appearance that our life brings us. So developing a an appreciation for the great kindness of our mothers. And next week, we’ll we’ll look begin to look at the wish developing a wish to repay. Having begin to get appreciate and get in touch with that great kindness.
Developing a sense of of wanting to repay that great kindness, a sense of gratitude. So I’m sorry I’ve gone on so long. I’ll stop there. In the land encircled by snow mountains, you are the source of all happiness and well-being. Powerful, remain to the end of cyclic existence.
May I quickly become an awakened spiritual master and lead each and every living being to that awakened realm through these skillful actions. May the supreme jewel of the awakened heart that has not arisen arise and grow. And may that which has arisen never diminish but increase more and more.