Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A vivid story anchors this 44-minute talk by Ven Jampa Gendun: an American football player spends a week cultivating intense hatred for his opponent, only to have it instantly deflated when the man greets him warmly before kick-off. The anecdote opens the session’s central theme — that we relate not with real people but with exaggerated mental images of friend, enemy, and stranger. Gendun first covers the two causes for genuinely going for refuge: constructive anxiety from honestly examining how much of our suffering is self-generated, and a grounded faith drawn from recognising one’s own moments of sanity and wisdom. He then moves into the ongoing equalizing-self-and-others meditation, exploring the Buddhist teaching that categories of friend, enemy, and lover carry a fabricated, fantasized overlay — and that seeing through these labels, far from destroying relationships, may allow us to encounter people as they actually are.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 13 HMA 1997 02 26.mp3
UUID: ba155499-4dbf-4121-b8ca-327c147b3dbc
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1997-02-26
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.8 minutes
Words: ~6,173
It said that, Master Dalai Lama was giving a talk one of his first talks that he gave in the West, I think it was to a conference in Austria. Can you start again? Hello, everybody? Tony asked me to remind everyone that tomorrow morning at I think I was talking about the Dalai Lama in Austria newsletters. He he he gave a he was addressing a conference in Oslo, I believe.
And, you know, he had never seen these people before. Oh, I presume he had. And he one of the first things comments that he made before this gathering was that it’s nice to to meet old friends again. You know, I can’t I am not sure what he meant by that or what was on his mind. But, you know, I was just kinda glancing around the room.
How all kind of being amongst lots of familiar faces, lots of familiar friends. And then I think, you know, this it’s kind of a nice feeling to to take this opportunity that we have on Wednesday night to share as we do. I think maybe it’s the the preponderance. I don’t think I’ve ever used that word before. It’s a good one.
What is said comes comes from my mouth, I mean, at least comes through me. I don’t claim to having any to say anything original. But anyway, you know, it’s kind of a sharing something really very precious, very sacred, something really worthwhile amongst ourselves and and getting it getting to know each other and ourselves in a in a very in a very real way It’s quite a gratifying experience for me and I hope it is for you also. So, you know, this process that we have to again and again involve ourselves in. I don’t know if this has become don’t wanna use the word boring.
It’s not quite the word. I mean, does it become mechanical or does it is it necessary? For me, you know, I kind of maybe I project everything upon that that I have in my own life and what goes on in my own mind upon you and the people about me. Sometimes I wonder whether I’m actually communicating. But I know for myself, you know, that I I keep pulling back into old ways of thinking, old patterns of thought, patterns of thought.
My hopes and my fears keep reasserting themselves. The old habits of who I once was come again and again and again. And it seems as if it’s a never ending it was like it was like the like Superman, the never ending struggle for truth, justice, and the American way. But here it’s the never ending struggle for for going beyond a lot a lot of our dysfunctional patterns, a lot of our negative thinking and ways of behaving, trying to find some more basic cures for the ills of our life, beginning to change the stories that we have about ourselves, finding some meaning and fulfillment in our lives and being of greater use both to ourselves and to others, that kind of reorientation again and again and again and again. And I keep coming back to the idea that, you know, basically, I think I was thinking about this this afternoon that, you know, we we all have our methods, our means, our tools that we’ve learned over the course of our life, which we play a great deal of faith in that by making use of or going for refuge too in some shape or form is going to help us to find the good life for ourselves.
Can you hear okay? Yeah. And and I think I think when inward cheated continually, but we don’t quite notice it. Our life imperceptibly slides by and and the the the those hope for tomorrows become the disappointing todays and and they the the forgotten yesterdays of our life and our life creeps on at its petty pace in its way. And but we still hold on to our hopes, this wishful thinking.
That somehow, you know, without changing ourselves, we’re going to find what it is we want. And Buddhism has said, no. An emphatic no, I think. That there’s just no getting around it. And if we if we ever hope to find a good life for ourselves and how each of us might define that, that we have to we have to begin to reduce attachment in our life.
We have to begin to reduce hatred and aversion and anger, jealousy and pride, ignorance. All of these dysfunctional patterns which to a great extent control our lives, control our thinking and our behaving and thereby our lives and the quality of our lives. But this I think is this is something that we quite easily lose sight of and we’re you know, we have to habitually and continually keep coming back to this same basic theme that we have to change ourselves, our own inner world, if we’re ever going to find some kind of peace and harmony in the outer world and some kind of peace within our own minds, some kind of fulfillment in our life. And and we’ve all tried all of our various methods in one way or another, you know, trying to find that right partner, trying to find that right job, trying to find that right car, right house, whatever, the right and sometimes we, you know, what is even there’s a saying in America, even a even a blind owl finds a mouse now and then. And once in a while, do trip upon something worthwhile in our lives, trip over the darkness.
And we we do have some enjoyment. We do real worthwhile moments or even longer periods. But they but they are transitory and one way one way or another they’ve slipped by. They’ve gone their way. And we are left pretty much as we begun.
Not much has changed but the search itself continues. And maybe in that case, I think the habitual reminding of ourselves or being mindful of the fact that part of our priorities of life, that is to say our time and our investment of energies and significance of what is worthwhile, must be directed towards our own inner development. That’s the bottom line. I think that’s basically what we’re talking about. I think that’s going for refuge, more or less.
And that is this continual reorientation, this redirecting which I’m continually talking about in ad nauseam at the beginning of each of our talks together. You know, I guess it’s something that we have to be continually and constantly reminded of, that there’s no there’s just no getting around it. And that we can we can continue on and we will pass our life very much as we have lived it in the up to this point, you know, with our hopes and with our fears and we will trip over those small moments of pleasure in the course of our life but never having found really realized our potential, never really having found the sacred in our life, never having lived a life as as it probably could have been as we all feel at some deep level of our being. There’s a potential of ourselves and this that there’s a basic goodness about ourselves and a basic goodness of life, but somehow it seems to elude us as always somewhere out there. But we hope.
You know, I was talking about the the two two basic causes for going for refuge. And I think if we’re intelligent, you know, I have it I also have an idea that that we don’t have to practice any violent means upon ourselves. We don’t have to coerce ourselves into taking any positions or any beliefs which feel alien or which don’t feel quite which don’t fit who we are at present. If if we exercise our intelligence, And as there will be some kind of change quite naturally. You know, if if you’re sitting in a chair and it becomes uncomfortable, one doesn’t need a very developed theoretic abstract philosophic system to motivate one to change your position in the chair.
You know? There’s a certain pain and you move and the pain goes away. And so there’s a certain basic intelligence in that, isn’t there? And I think this can be exercised in our life. Know, when we talk about going for refuge and alternative refuge, you know, the the refuge is a Buddha Dharma and I think I think if we I think it’s a it’s a living it’s a it is our life is a living expression of what our refuge actually is, you know, who we are, what it is that we believe It’s not something that goes on in our our heads primarily but something which is very expressed in our very being.
What is your refuge? I think we can pretty pretty well determine that if we were to reflect deeply upon our life, what it is that we actually do believe in. And if you want to change that refuge, then you’re I think you’re going to have to adjust your values and your priorities, but not in an artificial sense. I think if we, as I mentioned, if we go about this intelligently, you know, we said that there are two basic causes for this this shift, this redefining of what is of primary value in my life in terms of anxiety and faith. Anxiety and faith, constructive anxiety, sometimes fear.
It’s called fear, anyway, and faith. That if we if we do reflect upon our life, if we do examine our life, and it has been said by many of the greatest philosophers, the unexamined life is quite is really not quite worth living. That if we do examine the quality of our life and what it is in fact bringing us, not what we suppose, not what we might wish, not what we have been told or been led to believe, but in our own experience. Now there was an article in Mandala. Some of you have read it.
Anyway, which is Lama Yeshe. Lama Yeshe was the founder of Buddha House, the founder of the foundation for the preservation of the Mahāyāna tradition of which of which Buddha House is a member. And there’s an article that says be your own therapist. Be your own therapist. And this I think is quite good advice.
But essentially what he says is to to look, to pay attention to your life. You know, what is it that you’re feeling when certain situations arise? What goes on in your mind? You know, and then you begin to learn. And then you begin to make adjustments.
You begin to avail yourself of your of your own basic sanity and intelligence. And you shift positions because you feel some pain. And you begin to know what hurts and what doesn’t hurt. And you begin to evolve synthesize some kind of path which is quite natural natural to yourself, which isn’t artificial, which isn’t being superimposed upon, know, your core value system or what makes you a unique person. So you know, the idea of looking within our own experience and seeing the great amount of suffering that goes on in our daily life and what is its source.
And that becomes our teacher that we actually are are there’s a verse by the Śākyamūni Buddha in the Compendium of Sayings in which he says that you are your own master. Who else can be your own master? By being your own master, you shall find freedom. And ultimately, we have to be our own teachers. There’s no getting around it.
We we rely upon the the teachers outside ourselves. You know, we’re very fortunate in that to have contact with great a great many really realized spiritual masters. And but they, I think, help us to find our own teacher with inside of ourselves, our own inner guru, if you like, who who really begins to show us our way. And, you know, our own pain, if we’re if we’re sensitive to it, can be our teacher. It’s like a mouth.
You know, as it said, our wounds are like mouths telling us the truth about our lives and who we are, and we have to listen very closely. And this this listening, I think, provokes a anxiety, a certain fear if you like, but it’s a rational fear. It’s a grounded fear or a founded fear. About the the real possibility of the continued reoccurrence of of most of most of these disabling dysfunctional patterns and pathological themes of our lives continuously in the future unless we what? Unless we change our own minds.
How can we you know, if we look at where our suffering is really coming from at a very at a more profound level, a deeper level, can finding another partner change that particular type? Can it change our suffering? I mean, the deeper nature of our problems. Can finding another job change the deeper nature of our problems? Can finding you know, all manipulating all the the material world about us?
Can it solve the deeper nature of our problems? I think we’re trying to see, now it can’t. It can’t quite touch that. Sure. It can help.
And we have to make use of these things and these people and our relationships and finding a a meaningful way to be in this world of others and seeking significant relationships and having the all the material nice things of life. And and I’ve talked on on about that. But I think if we’re I think if we’re honest and we have we practice we’re we’re attentive, we’re going to see that none of us can quite touch the deeper nature of our problems. That only by changing our our own attitudes, our own ways of thinking, and therefore behaving, can these ever hope to change, ever hope to be solved. So then, I I mean, if one sees that within one within your own experience, then there’s there’s naturally going to be the shift.
There’s a pain and you find a new way to to position yourself and the pain begins to go away. And you begin it it it takes some kind of you find it very it’s encouraging for yourself. It’s you become your own source of inspiration, your own intelligence, your own wisdom. You gain confidence in what you’re doing and who and and your own ability to solve your problem. And so you follow that a little bit further, but it’s quite natural to you.
It’s growing organically from out of you. It’s not something which is being imposed from outside upon you. So we need to develop a certain anxiety, certain fear if you like, which I think will naturally arise when we, you know, when we begin to really systematically and thoughtfully examine the experiential quality of our life and the nature of the of the sources of our problems. But then the other part of that is having some kind of faith. You know, that, you know, merely not without faith, we could fall into a sense of cynicism or pessimistic attitude.
You know, life is just a bitch and then we’re going to die. What’s the use? But we Yeah. As we have all solved many of our problems instinctively, quite naturally over the course of our life, and beginning to recognize those instances of when we express great sanity, great wisdom, and when we acted with altruism, you know, with out of non attachment, out of out of humility and rejoicing. And and and the real the real gift that is bestowed upon ourselves, the real bless the way that we blessed ourselves into into an experience of a higher order of being, if only for momentarily, then we can have some kind of faith that there is possibilities for solutions, that that we have some of the answers within us, that we can avail ourselves of some kind of resources inside of ourselves, and that we can make use of all of our teachings and our teachers to and as as cooperative conditions to to bring about this end.
So I guess the you know, all of them all I’m saying is, perhaps we’ve all had maybe a busy day. We’ve done lots of activities, involved ourselves and lots of distractions and both meaningful and not so meaningful. And maybe we’ve lost sight of or need to be reminded of the absolute necessity to orient orientate ourselves toward recognizing the necessity to develop our inner selves, to work with our attachments, to work with our hatred and jealousy and pride and most basic our ignorance. But even over and above that, to begin to evolve the the positive natures of ourselves in terms of their the opposites, you know, in terms of love and compassion and in terms of of generosity, in terms of open ness, in terms of caring, terms of wisdom and humility and rejoicing. And and out of this, you know, we can’t this would be the context in which we experience our world and having some kind of confidence that the experience will be of a a greater quality.
It’ll be more of what we want. So, you know, I think this is very much going for refuge in in a Buddhist sense. So the inner focus of our life becomes this Buddha. Now I think, now there is the outside Buddha. I don’t mean to dismiss that or or undervalue the significance of an intelligent force seeking to assist us in traveling our spiritual path.
But and it it but the focus, we have to get on with the work. We have to create the opening. You know, I like the Dalai Lama has said that it’s like a like a like a radio antenna. You know, if we have if if we don’t have a long antenna, can’t there’s not much we don’t have very good reception. Mhmm.
So we have to develop our antennas, and we have to develop ourselves. And then we can then we can receive the blessings and the grace or whatever it is of of the goodness which exists in the world, the intelligent force which is enshrined within the context of our lineage teachings and our karma to lead us out of our problems into realizing our potential as Buddhas. So, you know, the inner focus of our life becomes this Buddha, The consummation of all of that we’ve been talking about in terms of of you know, it’s something that we can gravitate toward, something that we can hold before our mind’s eye as a primary value to ourselves and have and have reverence and respect. And in that, we are empowering a deep image within ourselves such that it’s able to exercise a greater influence. Our life our life is very much lived out of these these deep images within inside of ourselves, and this this original image of wholeness and health, and and giving it a life bestowing energy, a priority through the admiration and respect and the the inner focus that we make it in our life, its value for ourselves, giving giving it a a psychological reality which may not be accessible to ourselves directly at present.
And the way we begin to realize this Buddha to to make to integrate this image of wholeness and health in our life is by means of the Dharma, you know, all of the various teachings, the trainings, the techniques, the truth of things. And this all occurs within the social context of people like yourself coming together. Now there this is there are many interpretations of what we mean by the spiritual community or Sangha. But the most immediate relevance for ourselves is ourselves just as we are now and who we are now and coming with all of our our nakedness, with all of our our shadow and our beauty and and creating an atmosphere where we can begin to experiment with alternative ways of being, asking of of each other to to be all that we could be, you know, that without any guises, without any pretense, creating a a an ecology where we can nurture these these struggling sprouts of of love and and wisdom and openness and trust. Mean, all of it goes into making a Buddha.
And this trying to raise the level of motivation, you know, again and again and again such that what we do, this this process that we’re all involved in, this journey that we’re that we’re all on in some way. It’s not just done for ourselves but trying to to make the creative force behind it directed to more and more towards a greater the welfare of the whole rather than simply an individual self. That is to say, it becomes a social project and a matter of Something which is integrated with the world about us and not something which we seek to arrive at in isolation from others. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge until awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings.
To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge until awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge into awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to 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 has ended and turn the wheel of dharma for living beings. I dedicate the skillful actions of myself and others to the great awakening. We take our seats. So we’re going to do as we usually do in terms of the nine round breathing meditation.
And then in cultivating love and compassion as a motivation, you know, choosing this time we can we can work with two people as best you can. Imagine that these two varieties of people are there before you and you’re you’re directing your feelings toward these two people. In this case, you know, someone that you love a great deal that you’re very close to, and then next to them, someone that you’re slight that’s slightly out of distance from that, but you care a great deal about. They care a good deal about you, but not as significant in your life, not as close in your life as this first person. So two people, one extremely close, the second a little bit more distance.
So we’re going to we’re going to invite all of these people into our mandala as we begin to expand it. And then we’ll meditate mindfulness of breathing. And then we’re going to we’re working through equalizing self and others in this nine part meditation. And we’ve meditated from the conventional point of view, from point of view, from the side of others and from our own side. And we’ve discussed we began discussing last week or the week before from the ultimate point of view, And that also has three parts.
But we’ve covered two two of those parts from the ultimate point of view. You know, from the ultimate point of view, we’re trying to break down this this notion of that the way things appear, especially in terms of friend, enemy, stranger, are the way they exist. And we’re going to work with those in the course of our meditation that trying to break down the you know, that it’s a very I think it’s tremendously difficult, but I think it’s tremendously necessary part of our of our development that we we don’t quite put as much faith. We’re not so captivated by the images which we by means of which we look at the world out of which, you know, the we’re not so captivated by these images by means of which we come to understand the world. But in particular context, especially the images of friend and enemy and stranger.
Maybe in the beginning, we’re trying to see something which is more which is more primary, more essential than the fluctuating labels which we are continually applying to the various people around us as they change in our lives, our various ups and downs of our relationships. Now what is the, you know, what is beneath all of the waves of these fluctuating relationships and emotions that we feel about these people? What is most what is deeper? What is most essential? That is that they all want to be happy, that none want to suffer.
And then beginning to to relate mindful of this most essential fact of the nature of you and myself and everyone else that we know. Not being so caught up or overwhelmed or carried away with this constantly churning, changing nature of the labels which we’re applying, that this is my friend, this is my enemy, this is a stranger, and how they are constantly changing. So we’re trying to see to make these images a little more transparent. They aren’t so opaque. We don’t take them so literally.
We begin to have a more open and fluid way of relating with others, but keeping in mind this more primary nature of of each of ourselves in terms of wanting happiness and not wanting to suffer. So, you know, we’ve looked at the first of these two points, that that, that friend, enemy, stranger do not exist the way they appear. It’s I’ll read you listen. I I just came up this is again from the Mandala.
There’s a column written by Jonathan Landaw called the passing scene. Yeah. Yeah. I thought I’d just just to introduce this notion to read you a paragraph or two paragraphs. From the violent world of American professional football, for example, comes the first firsthand account of an offensive guard’s weeklong preparation to face a particularly powerful defensive tackle.
For those unfamiliar with this sport, suffice to say that it is the job of such guards and tackles to engage a sustained trench warfare with each other throughout the football game. I don’t know if you are familiar with what gridiron football but so they’re on they’re on opposing sides on the field and then they spend, you know, like three hours on a Sunday afternoon trying to demolish each other, more or less. So that’s part of the game. This particular player prepared himself for battle by cultivating a particular intense hatred of his opponent. He would visual visualize the man and he would he would have to face he he would visualize the man he would have to face as the very incarnate of evil, as the force intent on depriving him and his family of their daily bread.
By the time Sunday arrived, the day set aside for the this most sacred of American religious observation observations. He was so pumped up with hatred for his opponent that he was ready to kill. On a particular Sunday in question, however, just before the game was about to begin, his opponent came up to him, greeted him warmly by his name, politely inquired about his wife’s health, and wished him well. In an instant, the violent intention cultivated for a week were deflated. And the requisite intensity to pound his opponent into the dust was lost.
The moral, never get personal with a defensive tackle. So, you know, more than not, it’s hard to it’s I mean, it’s we One of the one of the one of the most fundamental premises of Buddhism is that the world is merely imputed by conception. This table, people, everything, and everyone including myself, is merely imputed by conception. That means it relies upon images, ideas, concepts within our own minds for their very existence. This is not problematic.
This is this is part of the nature of the world in which a Buddha themselves must operate, and it’s not problematic for Buddhists. But quite often, these images that we make use of in coming to an understanding of our world and making sense of our experiences have a fabricated element, have a fantasized element, have an exaggerated quality about them. And we still seek to understand the world through what is in fact a mistaken idea about the object itself. And moreover, the image that we use, even though it’s a false image, becomes more real than the than the object toward upon the basis of what we call imputation. It takes on a reality as if it were almost alive itself.
Now in in psychological terms, in in this context, more than not, when we when we when we begin to relate with somebody as if they were an enemy. You know, we might not the word enemy may not arise in our mind. It probably doesn’t. But a notion of them as being a threat to our well-being or being a hassle or being an asshole, something like that. But it it might not be verbally it might not be verbalized consciously.
It’s going to have elements probably taken from our entire conditioning around people who are a threat to our well-being, who are hassles, who are difficult people. There’s gonna be that we’re laying on this poor slob a great deal of our history around people who have who have given us a hard time, who have been have been a threat to our well-being. There’s we’re going to and we’re identifying. We’re we’re superimposing upon this person a great deal of our negative conditioning around people who have given us a hard time and hassled us. And we’re we’re not able to actually see that person in and of themselves.
We’re not able to see the actual conventional nature of who they are. But a great deal of our exaggerated condition conception is being superimposed upon them. So and we relate with them on that basis. You know, just like this but we know and the same holds true for the opposite. Those who we become who who who are our friends or our loved ones.
There are loved ones in a very conventional sense. There’s a there there is a conventionally reality about that. But we there’s always an exaggerated element, a fantasized element being superimposed. And we more than not fall in love with the fantasy. We more than not hate the image.
That so we we we begin to relate not with living flesh and blood human beings who are likable or or perhaps not so likable, but our our ideas about them. And moreover, these ideas are more than that, quite often, are exaggerated or are fantastical or illusory in some way or another. So if we can if we can begin to it’s if we can begin to have some feeling of the illusory nature of the image through which we’re relating with this person, we won’t fall for it. We won’t we won’t be captivated to the extent where we we we emotionally react and relate with this person on the basis of that particular image we’re using to understand them. A person can be your enemy, but it doesn’t mean that you have to hate them.
That that the labels that we apply to the people, for example, to a friend. You know, a friend is someone who’s kind. You know, what what would happen happen you know, we we talked about this, last week. If we had if we had If there were no such things as enemies or if we didn’t have may if we didn’t have those labels of friend and enemy, then, of course, friend and stranger would never would no longer be meaningful. They would have no meaning in such context.
You know, who would all these people out there be? Now just for a moment, just kinda suspend your, if you can, imaginatively. This process of continually categorizing the people about you. Like just the people in this room. And who would they be?
You know, if you if you if you for if you forwent the category of friend, stranger, maybe not maybe enemy perhaps, I don’t know. Or even the categories of male and female are beautiful and not unattractive or you know, we we I think we I think we would still we would relate. We would have some type of meaningful relationship. You know, you’re still going to relate warmly with that person. But you’re not going to but it is not as if if you no longer superimpose that that that that that friend label upon them, you’re going to if you if you are no longer captivated by that label which you I mean, through which you’re relating with them, that somehow you’re you’re not going to it’s going to destroy your relationship.
I don’t think so. I think on the contrary, you may see them for the first time, you know, rather than you may see them, you know, that we’re we are as if, you know, seeing who they are for the first time in and of themselves and not what they are for me. And I think I don’t think we’re going to stop loving them and caring about them any the less and liking them and finding meaningful our our relationship meaningful and significant and worthwhile and enjoyable. I don’t think but I don’t think we’re going to relate I don’t think we’re going to react with attachment because attachment only arises in dependence upon this exaggerated image which we’re projecting upon them. And we, you know, we can we can begin to see this person in a bit much more balanced way.
There’s there’s a saying in amongst the Tibetans, you know, a lover’s cup is never dirty. That’s the that’s the way that image that we have when we when we think about someone in that way. That in in in the label of, I guess, lover is more powerful than the word friend, for example, for saying that. It’s that all the negativity, all the negative qualities are filtered out. And the the positive images, the the desirable attractive images are exaggerated.
And that’s what we fall in love with. That’s what we become attached to. And that’s what we relate with. And so that’s why romantic love can’t really last all that long because no one can sustain that that basis of labeling.
Sooner or later, we’re gonna say, oh, you don’t set the basis of labeling of what what I thought who I thought you were. I have to go find another basis for this label. And we we lay it on the next poor slob that comes by and we do the we do the same thing with enemy. So, you know, you know, I don’t think we’re gonna need to love any of the less have meaningful relationships any of the less without having attachment, without having these labels. I guess lover in a way is a more powerful image for in the west, rather than friend and probably isn’t dramatic enough for us to really get our teeth into, you know, this lover or enemy. I think we’ll see people, people that we like, people that we get along with, that we that we have things in common that we share, that we enjoy good times with, meaningful times with.
But we in the same but in terms of so I think yeah. So anyway, we’re gonna play with these these labels and see if we can begin not to become so overly fascinated by them that we that we lose sight of the of who the person perhaps perhaps is from their own side. You know, that we have a sense that that this is the way the person is from their own side. This you know, this is, you know, the the looking at it from in a very profound sense. When we see a lover or we see an enemy, we have we have a sense that that all of the qualities