Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 44-minute talk, Ven Jampa Gendun opens with a window sticker spotted on the drive over — “freedom is not hereditary” — and uses it to frame the session’s central question: what actually enables us to change? He works through two causes for going for refuge: constructive anxiety (the honest recognition that our habitual patterns cause suffering) and faith, which he insists is not a religious artifact but a basic psychological function. A vivid analogy — a young man who learns to drive becomes a different person, not just a more skilled one — anchors the point that cultivating love and compassion transforms who we are entirely; we do not stand apart from change, we are the change. The session closes with guided meditation: nine-round breathing, a loving-kindness exercise on two people (one deeply loved, one merely liked), and a purification practice using visualization of Śākyamūni Buddha with mantra recitation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 13 HMA 1996 11 27.mp3
UUID: f9f8b89c-7135-43f6-ac9d-03cbd1c14d73
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1996-11-27
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.8 minutes
Words: ~6,448
Being back in touch, reprioritizing what’s important to each of ourselves. You know, this process of what is traditionally called going for refuge. The notion that there’s something that we can do, something that we can prevail upon to begin to help us to solve our problems at a more fundamental level, a way of finding the happiness that we all seek. Something perhaps different than the way we’ve been operating up to now or that we’ve lost sight of and it’s necessary to begin to redirect ourselves to get back in touch. Now I was on the way over, driving over tonight, and I noticed a bumper sticker.
Actually, was on the window. It wasn’t a bumper sticker. It was a window sticker. And it said freedom is not hereditary. I thought that was quite good.
I like that. You know, freedom I guess we could talk about it in many different ways, but one of the ways I think is that it is the awareness of alternatives and the ability to choose. If we aren’t aware of alternatives, then we aren’t free. If we aren’t able to choose, then we aren’t free. And we’ve been talking about the two causes for going for refuge, and those are a constructive anxiety but also faith.
And it is faith which overcomes our fear. The fear around change, the fear around taking another avenue, the unfamiliar, the unknown. And I think as long as we have fear, we aren’t really free because it limits our possibility of choices. We don’t have the real ability to choose. So it is faith which not only does not enslave us to some dogma or some idea or some doctrine, but in fact, it is faith which helps us to find freedom.
You know, is bestowing of a value, a significance, which makes that real for us. You know, I I have talked about what what we have have faith in is what we will go for refuge to, in the notion that refuge is not something particularly foreign, not something particularly religious. It’s something which is very much a function of our everyday psychology and what we seek out as means to solve our problems and find happiness. And what we have faith in is what we will go for refuge to. So the idea is that we have to that faith is not simply a religious artifact.
It’s just not a religious notion which has no practical relevance to our everyday life and what we actually experience, our everyday psychology of what we do, but in fact is a fundamental importance to ourselves. And so we are trying to develop faith in perhaps other types of refuges, reprioritizing what is the goals and what are the means to achieve those goals in our life. You know, for example, you know, Buddhism places tremendous emphasis on the development of love and compassion just by way of example, by way of illustrating what I mean. And, you know, love and compassion are seen as an integral part of the spiritual path, both as a means to reach the goals of the spiritual path, but also as ends in themselves. Even if we were to set aside any religious notions, and it just in a very mundane sense that the the the qualities of caring and concern for others are a very necessary part of just what it means to find the good life, you know, to find some peace and some meaning in your life, the sense of connecting with with connectedness with others.
So in that sense, we all if we we have to be able to see the the valuable quality of faith within our own experience and come to see it as as worthy of our goals and as a means towards our goals. So but when we when we begin to speak about qualities such as love and compassion in just these ways that we do, We we can easily begin to see that love and love and compassion are like an isolated factor of our minds, like an independent function of our minds. I want to cultivate love and compassion. We begin to see them as if they were a variety of flower that we could grow in the gardens of our mind. We can grow you know, bouquets and bouquets and bouquets of flowers in our gardens without in any way affecting ourselves.
That we over the process of growing these flowers, we remain relatively the same people as when we began. So sometimes I think we we develop this same notion about the cultivation of these qualities, that they are that they are like mental flowers that we’re trying to cultivate within the gardens of our mind, and that we, as an individual, can develop these qualities but stay very much the same person as we were before. That there’s a sense that we can stand outside of the process of change itself. I read you a quote. A young man who learns to drive a car thinks differently, therefore feels differently.
When he meets a pretty girl who lives fifty miles away, the encounter carries implications he could not have felt as a bus rider as a bus rider. We may say then that he not only drives a car, but has become a driver. So this young man is has not just acquired another skill, that is to say the skill of learning how to drive a car, let alone a skill which is independent of who he is, but he has become someone other than who he was before he developed that skill, before he learned about how to drive the car. And his world has changed. His his his relationship to the world, and therefore his experience to the world has in some way been altered.
He’s not the same person, and his world isn’t the same world as when before he learned this skill. His world and himself are in some way different from what they were before, before he learned how to drive a car. He and his world have changed. So, you know, the the idea, the implication of what we’re getting at here is that we are not isolated egos cut off from the rest of our own minds, cut off from the rest of ourselves as persons, cut off from the rest of the world. Though it is true that it is not simply the case that that part of our practice is to purposely cultivate love and compassion, But more that we are to become loving and compassionate people.
You know, people who are aware of or are sensitive sensitive to and concerned about the happiness and suffering of others and the world about them. You know, love and compassion begin to permeate other areas of our thinking, other areas of our behaving. They they color other qualities. In some sense, they’re they’re they’re operative even when they aren’t manifest in our mind. Love and compassion begin to pervade the entirety of our being, our perceptions, our experiences, all of our relationships to the world.
And the world itself become affected. That is to say, the love and compassion, the cultivation of them is going to have real world impacts. It’s not something that we can simply, you know, like growing flowers where we can we can pick them at will and put them in in nice beautiful vases, you know, beautifully arrange them, give them to friends on special occasions, and we remain relatively the same persons. That the cultivation of love and compassion is going to affect our lives in a very substantial ways. To change is to change who we are, and to change who we are is to change our world.
Both we and our world are going to be different than they were they were before. We’re never going to be able to quite go back to being the same person. We’re never going to be able to go home again. We’re never going to be able to go back to the same familiar world as we once knew it. Both ourselves and our world are going to change.
They’re going to be different. They will have changed in some fashion, some form, some manner or other, whether tangible or intangible ways to lesser or greater degrees. You know, our self identity, our interests are going to change, our values are going to change, what makes us happy, what makes us unhappy is going to change, What it is that we’re willing to invest our energies in, our time in, our relationships, our work, the type of work that we do, the way that we do our work, the way that we be in the world. Everything that makes us who and what we are is in some way all naturally going to change in some way or another to some degree or other. There will be a difference because we are different.
We do not stand apart from change. We are the change. So the point in emphasizing this this the nature of what we’re doing and the nature of change is that cultivating qualities of love and compassion will inevitably have a lesser or greater real world impact on many, if not most of the significant areas of our life. You know, how we lead our daily lives, how we experience our world. And though we may not be able to predict all of the the the impact, all of the the possible ramifications, all all the we we may we may not be able to foretell all the changing circumstances.
We may not be able to to prevision all the evolving outcomes. Due to our faith in the the salutary, that is to say the beneficial nature of loving compassion, we are confident that our life is going to be a better life, that our world is going to be a better world, ultimately both for ourselves and others. That the newly evolving quality of our relationships is going to be for the better, that the newly evolving type of world that we live in is going to be for the better, that newly evolving type of work that we do in the way that we do it is going to be for the better, that the values that we begin to develop are going to be for the better, that the way that we relate with the world will be for the better. And we don’t know quite we aren’t able to fully comprehend all of the details of of how it’s going to be better. But we have faith, we have a sense of confidence that all of this is going to lead to an improved quality of life for ourselves and it’s going to lead to a better world, that we are going to be better people.
So we have faith in all this. And due to our faith, we’re willing to make the effort. You know, we’re willing to implement and give ourselves over and trust ourselves as it were over to the means and the process of cultivating, in this case, love and compassion. You know, and the goal of being a loving and compassionate person and all that that entails. You know, we feel we feel inspired.
We have we have courage and and the vision necessary to take a risk to overcome our hesitations about traveling down another avenue, the unknown, the unfamiliar, in spite of our fears around the unfamiliar and as yet fully understood possibilities, all consequences of this change, to begin to freely and consciously commit ourselves to forming a different future for ourselves. And by the power of our faith in love and compassion itself, We are entrusting ourselves to love and compassion itself. It’s like we’re going for a refuge to love and compassion itself. Even though these are tremendously abstract values, we’ve given them a reality, a substantial reality by our by the power of our faith. And and we’re willing you know, we don’t know what how our life is going to go.
We can it is this faith which is going to come overcome our fear, overcome our hesitation, our unwillingness. It’s going to help us to take the leap. This process which I’m trying to describe isn’t completely conscious. If it were, then perhaps we it wouldn’t be as necessary to make this emphasis or to develop the quality of faith which is being spoken of here. But we have to develop the nurturing ecology of mind whereby the resistance to change is overcome.
And why is it we don’t change even though we want to? We see our lives as a shambles. We see our we see our attitudes as dysfunctional. We see that the way that we relate causes us nothing but problems and suffering. There’s a resistance to change.
There’s a there’s a momentum. There’s an inertia to maintain the status quo. We have to intelligently create the inner ecology of mind whereby change is enhanced. The supportive conditions are are are fostered. These are the constructive anxiety and faith.
Constructive anxiety is going to help us to overcome, as we’ve talked about previously, our unfounded hope things are gonna get better somehow all by themselves. It’s our it it is our constructive anxiety which is going to push push us and it is our faith in the salutary nature of change in in the direction of our life and these new goals that we’re trying to establish for ourselves, which is going to draw us on to new possibilities, which is which is actually going to create the conducive conditions whereby change can be brought about. We we we become a different person. We go for refuge to love and compassion itself. You know, thinking that to become a loving person and all that that means, to thinking to become a compassionate person in all that that means and willingly accepting what that means at a very deep level of our being is the necessary conducive condition to actually become that.
Without that, there’s always going to be resistance, hesitation, and fear and very much of the same of what has gone in the past. There will be no change. So, you know, in Buddhism, we’re trying to, you know, conscious bring this to bring this to process to as conscious in a level as possible. In in the in the purposeful cultivation of constructive anxiety, looking at the suffering nature of our life, the repeating patterns of which are are taking us nowhere but to more of the same dissatisfactions and disappointments and frustrations, suffering. To purposely begin to cultivate various levels of faith, not as a religious artifact, not as some emotion which sweeps over ourselves, but as a conscious examination of the objects toward which we’re trying to move.
You know, faith has a sense of admiration, a sense of of seeking to implement and seeking to integrate that object toward which we have faith in. You know, whether it be an idea or a person, you know, something worthwhile and held to be of great significance and value in our life and seeking and inspiring to make that a part of ourselves, a part of our living reality and who we are. You know, the the faith of Buddhism is directed toward three objects, that of Buddha, Dharma, and the spiritual community. You know, as seen as a means as real resources for solving our problems and becoming the embodiment of of what Buddhism holds that we can all be. Tremendously happy, healthy, loving, sane human beings.
So the focus of our life becomes Buddha, that Buddha within inside of ourselves. And this we’re having to develop some kind of faith, a faith in many various in many levels based within our reasoning, based within our own experience, based within our own intuition. And having faith in the means to actualize that Buddha, which is the Dharma, you know, these various techniques, these various trainings, and the truth. Having faith that if we only can come in contact and touch the way things are, that somehow it’s going to liberate our mind from our various problems, that we’re going to experience a better quality of life. We’re going to be of greater use to both ourselves and to others, having that kind of confidence and trust in the truth itself and making it a priority in your life beyond all your your self deceptions, all your self ignorance and delusion that you want to know really how things are.
In fact, the truth of things. And having faith that there are others who can assist us, that there is a spiritual community or the Sangha, those who who validate our aspiration, who authenticate what we’re what we’re doing, who who help us to implement the means in our everyday life. So in this this becomes our orientation. These become, these are our priorities. What is the greatest value of ultimate concern and the ways to achieve those ends.
The inner inner focus of our life becomes Buddha by means of the Dharma in the social context of the spiritual community. And again and again trying to raise the level of motivation, you know, why we do what we do. You know, we come here and we you know, it’s there are other things that we could all could be doing. And we we we give over some of our time, our energy, maybe even a few dollars. And we want it to be worthwhile.
We want it but we try to have the attitude of not only making it worthwhile for ourselves, that not only trying to derive you know, that’s the way that’s the way it’s always been. That is the way of the world. And maybe we can begin to extend the scope of our concern, you know, begin to to to go beyond the ways of the world to a different possibility of not only trying to solve our own problems and find happiness for ourselves which perhaps hasn’t worked all that well up to now. But beginning to include an ever widening circle of others in the in the scope of our concern. That, you know, what I’m doing, what I’m going to listen to, the meditations I’m going to do as best we can.
I’m going to do it not only for my own narrow needs and limited self interest, but for, you know, maybe if if only one other person. The moment you you include one other in your life, this it’s like some bonds have been released. The burden of self centeredness is is in some way lessened. And there’s some kind of liberation of the heart immediately. And to that same degree that we can open our hearts to that, you know, to put it another way, you know If if if I only have to bring about the welfare of one person, then I only need to use that much of of my resources, of my own potential.
If I can bring about a limited I have a limited goal and I can bring about a limited realization of who I can be. If my if my goal, if my concern is unlimited, if it includes an infinite number of living beings, then I’m going to have to use an infinite my infinite capacity. I’m going to have to use infinite possible resources that I have and therefore my my achievement will be of an infinite nature. You know, it’s like it’s a big mind and trying to go beyond our small vision of what we can do and what the good life is about. Having a vast vision, a great scope, That’s why they call it the universal vehicle.
The scope is universal, to realize the fullest of our potential. So just think that what I’m doing, I’m doing it for at least, you know, one other person besides myself. To that same degree, you know, we’re realizing our possible potential, the the possibility of our of who we can be eventually. Anyway, to that same degree, think we’re solving our problems, you know, going beyond a lot of our dysfunctional patterns and whereby many of our attempted solutions to our problems become part part of the problems themselves. It’s not an ordinary way of thinking.
It’s quite unusual. It’s an exceptional way of thinking. I think it’s useful if we can develop some kind of faith in this exceptional way of thinking. That is actually going to be the way to help us each as individuals to solve our problems and bring out a better world in general. Maybe that’s the kind of thinking which is necessary, some kind of exceptional thinking.
To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge into awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings. To the Buddha, to 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 until awakening through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, and 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 that is 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 a 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. So would you like to stand up for a minute and then we’ll meditate together?
So we’re going to begin as we usually do in in terms of our posture. Take taking a comfortable but firm, stable posture. And then we’ll again adjust our motivation in cultivating love and compassion. I think one of the basic reasons I think that especially universal vehicle Buddhism, the Buddhism of the Mahāyāna, very much emphasizes love and compassion is that, you know, there are as we’re going to discuss at great length, there are two most basic dysfunctional patterns of our mind. One of these is self centeredness and the other is self grasping or ignorance.
And we have to, in order to realize our fullest potential, order to solve our most basic problems, develop both of these two realizations, the awakened heart and the awakened mind. But I think if we’re realistic, the the development of the awakened mind, the realization of emptiness, it it is a long haul. It’s going to take work over a long period of time. But we can all, even in a limited fashion, in the next moment, practice loving kindness. You know, that’s the most available means to help us with our psychological ills that we have.
And that it’s something that we can do for ourselves quite readily, just developing, cultivating, and expressing a caring concern for others as best we can within our own limited way, within our own limited circle of possibilities. We can do that. So altruism is the most available psychological method for us to help us to become cheerful, to become happier, to help us to open our hearts. There’s a great suffering that comes with closing down your heart in isolation. And so in the meanwhile, until we gain this great realization of emptiness and selflessness and the wisdom understanding it, the awakened mind, we can work with the means of cultivating love and compassion at all times, at all places, in all ways.
It’s always appropriate. So we’ll cultivate love and compassion toward two people tonight. So we work through a spectrum of individuals, from ourselves and those we love most down to enemies. So tonight, you know, taking two people, someone you love a great deal and someone that you feel really friendly toward. You have a liking for them but you’re not particularly close to them.
So, you know, imagining that you have these two categories of people, similar. They’re not tremendously desperate. They’re not there’s no great emotional distance between them in terms of your relationship. But they still are somewhat dissimilar. Someone you’re very close to, very attached to, you love a great deal.
And then someone that you aren’t particularly close to that you but you like. They’re very appealing toward to you. Then we’ll practice the nine round breathing meditation. You know, breathing in, blocking if you wish, actually physically. Beginning with the left nostril, blocking the left nostril, breathing in the, you know, the You know, whatever you feel Always in all of our practice and all of Buddhism, we have to go with what works for ourselves.
You know, there can be tremendous teachings, you know, very profound, intricate, complex, tremendously meaningful. But there might be some simple word that was said, some simple idea which actually acts as a key to opening up other possibilities of your mind. That’s your practice at that time. That’s what works for you. That’s what you should stick with and make use of for sure.
The rest is to be put on a shelf and taken down at some other time and made use of when it’s appropriate to actually practice what is most relevant to yourself. So in this context, breathing in something The way I was relating what I just said to this practice of the nine round breathing meditation is that breathing in something which is visualized as some brilliant pure white light, but something which is meaningful to you, something which you can actually connect with, which is relevant to yourselves. Know, within traditional Buddhism, we would say that this is the blessings of all the Buddhas, Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, all the holy beings and visualize visualize in the form of this this aspect of this brilliant white light. But maybe something else is more meaningful for you. You know, make use of that, maybe some kind of benevolent force in the universe.
Whatever has meaning, whatever connects for you, whatever works for you, then think of it in that way so that it doesn’t become something mechanical or just a sense of indifference to the process. It’s something which has you have a feeling about. That’s what we have to work with to move the mind. So imagining what what what could you in fact have some kind of confidence that that you were drawing into yourself if anything? And then working with your own mind and your own belief system and your own values, drawing it in the form of this brilliant white light coming down.
You know, we haven’t talked about the channels in the body. We’ve talked about them in the past but not for some time. But just coming down towards the navel, down below the navel, and then breathing out all of the negative aspects of yourself that you feel you have, whether they’re all the various afflictive emotions, especially those associated with desire and all the negativities that that you’ve created through desire and attachment, all the heavinesses, all the sicknesses, you know, all that is all the obstructions, you know, all that is undesirable coming up in the form of thick black smoke going out, blocking your left nostril, going out through the right nostril. All far into the distance, imagine it’s disappearing, it’s gone. And the visualization has meaning using the images within our own mind.
And if we can support that with a conscious belief system, then it’s going to be that much more powerful, have that much more powerful effect. Then again breathing, doing that three times, and then breathing into the left again, blocking the right and down with the white stream of nectar or white light coming down and breathing out through the to the right channel in a form of thick black smoke, you know, all the negativities especially those associated with hatred or anger, aversion. And then three times. And finally drawing in this bright white light coming down to approximately three fingers below the navel coming up through the central channel and out through an opening between at the mid brow. And all of the negativities and obstructions associated with ignorance are removed.
And then having a sense of of clarity about yourself, both both body and mind. Then we’ll meditate on mindfulness of breathing and if it’s useful using the techniques that we’ve talked about, discussed in the past. And we’ll discuss those again sometime in the future of counting the breaths and noting the breaths. Just a gentle quiet noting in and out, one, in out two, in out three. And then last week, you know, we practiced the application of what were the four powers, a means of purifying the various negativities that we’ve created in the past.
And a lot of people found that that in conjunction with an antidote, one of the four powers, the antidote was a visualization of traditionally Śākyamūni Buddha. But whatever you again, you find meaningful for yourself. If you feel you want to visualize Christ, if you feel you want to visualize some kind of abstract, benevolent force in the universe in white glowing light, by all means, make use of that. It’s quite, skillful from the point of view Buddhist practice to use Śākyamūni Buddha as the object of our focus, our attention. We apply the four opponent powers, which we’ll go through as in the course of our meditation.
And then when we come to the final one of the four powers, the antidote, we’ll visualize Śākyamūni Buddha as as depicted in this painting. And we’re going to recite his mantra together as we did last week. It’s in your book. That’s the way the Tibetans pronounce it. In the book it says, think, means sage or subdurer, sage or subdurer.
Maha means great. So it’s in praise of the Buddha. So we recite that. And imagining, you know, we all can visualize. Sometimes it’s difficult to visualize on command, to be able to visualize what it is that you exactly want to do, but we all can visualize.
Visualize. If I ask you to visualize a big mac or something like that, some picture comes up in your mind, you see this thing or visualize your car or your house. Some picture comes to your mind. That’s that’s all visualization is, just calling calling up a picture. It’s sometimes difficult to call up the particular picture that you might want.
That’s a skill. It’s also a skill to be developed the ability to hold that picture, to make it vibrant, to make it alive. So we want to be able to develop this skill to be able to do all that. So imagining Śākyamūni Buddha or whatever visualization you want to make use of. And the the size of the visualization is very relative to the condition of your mind.
Usually, it’s quite it’s easier to visualize larger. It’s sometimes it’s difficult to visualize small. Mean, who advanced yogis who have developed this ability can, in a visualization the size of a drop, they can picture the entire vast mandala with hundreds of deities and and all kinds of mansions and surrounding gardens, you know, just in the size of a drop. But maybe we’re not haven’t progressed that far yet. I don’t know.
So approximately the size of your hand is a good is a good size, it’s generally suggested, and about a meter and a half in front of you, and approximately at the eye level. This can be varied according to the condition of your mind. It’s said if your if your mind is dull, if you feel sleepy, then slightly raise the visualization, you know. If your mind is is excited, if it’s if you feel distraction, lots of mental wandering, then slightly lower the visualization. So these these are meditation techniques which you can develop as you go along in in being able to work with the mind.
But just for now, something about the size of your hand, about a meter and a half in front of you, and it’s made of light. You know, it’s not something which is mere painting. It’s something which have a sense is alive, a being of light, a living being composed of light and glowing. And there’s a sense of you know, it’s good if you can have a sense of relationship with it’s just not a picture that you’re imagining. But you actually have a sense of of connectedness, a sense of of respect and reverence for what it for this object.
And we’re going to recite Śākyamūni Buddha’s mantra together. And imagine while this is being recited that from the heart of Śākyamūni Buddha, and he’s sitting and holding an alms bowl with his right hand touching the ground on top where his right knee is, that from his heart is, you know, maybe a shaft or a beam of white light comes down to the crown of your head and begins this white light begins to fill your entire body. You know, like it can be thought of as, you know, like in a dark room, a pitch black room. When you turn on the light, the darkness is gone, it’s vanished, it’s gone, as if it was never there. We can think of all these lights coming into all the nooks and crannies of our body and mind.
There’s no place that this light does not shine and thereby dispelling all the darkness, all the negativities, all the heaviness, all the feelings of guilt and shame, all the obstructions, everything, all sicknesses, everything that we see as undesirable in our life, in our body and mind. It’s completely eliminated. This light keeps coming in more and more light, brighter and brighter like sometimes they use the images of a hundred full moons, that kind of intensity of brightness. You know, like, you almost it almost blinds you to see it, filling your body and mind completely with this brilliant white light. And then having a sense that you’ve actually done something, you know, through these application of these four powers that that a sense of heaviness, a sense of the burden, a sense of guilt that might be associated with what you’ve done.
You know, we’ve talked about the difference between guilt and regret and that it’s necessary to to you know, we can’t undo the past, but we can begin to alter our attitude toward the past and begin begin and not let what we’ve done in the past alter our future. We don’t we can’t we can’t undo the past, but we don’t have to let allow the past to undo our future. We can begin to take some kind of control through this practice. And therefore, we’ve really done something for ourselves in a real substantial way. And it is our mind which creates the negativities and it is our mind which can eliminate the effects of those negativities, you know, in terms of the karmic latencies which those past negativities have planted in your mind.
You know, the conditioning factors left in our mind from the residue left over from our actions. You know, we can do something about it. It’s not necessary that we be victims, that we can begin to take control. And this is a way, a very substantial and real way as far as Buddhism is concerned that we can. I think that’s all.
Okay. So take a firm, comfortable posture. Just getting in touch with the body, noticing any tightness. We’re looking at the way that we can begin to cease identifying with a dysfunctional approach to life that we call cyclic existence. You know, we’re trying to develop what is called the will to awaken amongst these three principal aspects of the path, the will to awaken, the awakened heart, and the awakened mind.
Now we have to want to change at a very deep level of our being and I want to and this requires something more than intellectual speculation. It has to we have to actually feel it and be able to to induce the conducive circumstances within our own mind which are gonna facilitate this change. Simply wanting to change is not enough. It, of course, is a precursor. It’s a necessary preliminary.
But we have to create create the ecology of mind, which is going to allow new patterns to evolve. This we have to be see we have to see very deeply for ourselves with our own experience that that many of these reoccurring compulsive patterns aren’t working. They’re dysfunctional. They’re causing us suffering and beginning to disentangle ourselves with that way of thinking, that way of living and being in the world. And it just doesn’t work.
I’ve tried it. And that we we’ve had enough suffering and we don’t need anymore. We if if only we can begin to use our suffering as a source of learning. If you think in again and again about the deeds and the inevitable effects, so that’s what’s our teaching on karma, actions as causes and their results, and the sufferings of cyclic existence. So we have to actually begin to purposely constantly look at the nature of our situation beyond our our our hopes and fears, our fantasies that we normally live within.
Beyond the realm of our own primary scope of our delusions, ego’s world as it were. And not how we would might like to see our lives to be lived, how we would like others to see it, how we think it should be we should be experiencing our lives. You know, we all want to be running on the beach with Coca Colas in our hand, laughing. I don’t think you can do that twenty four hours a day. What a life.
I don’t even think probably people don’t do it.