Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 39-minute talk, Ven Jampa Gendun takes up the third of five meditations on equalizing self and others — the relativity of friend, enemy, and stranger. Drawing on Śāntideva’s Compendium of Training, he argues these categories exist only conventionally: the ring finger is neither long nor short in itself, only in relation to its neighbors. He then works through a sustained dialogue from Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra — a text on the awakened heart — in which a persistent disputant challenges why we should eliminate others’ suffering. The counter-argument turns on the image of a hand removing a thorn from the foot: it does not suffer, yet it acts without deliberation. The session closes with the claim that self-identification is a conditioned habit, not automatic, and therefore expandable to encompass all sentient life. Aimed at practitioners already engaged in this mind-training series.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 14 HMA 1997 02 26.mp3
UUID: 121f253c-bfe2-4128-a2ce-a553eba5b118
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: 39.0 minutes
Words: ~5,574
Coming from their own side, that there’s nothing being projected from our side at all. That I’m not I’m not attributing or any particular qualities to them or I’m not overlooking some some qualities that they, in fact, may have. I’m seeing them for what they really are and how they exist from their own side. That’s at a certain level, that’s what we’re believing. And it’s on that premise that we go on to develop attachment for for the lover and hatred for the for the enemy.
But if we if we can get if we can begin to to to undermine that strong belief by coming to have a sense that there’s a certain fantasy element which we are superimposing upon them. That we’re projecting where we’re projecting the quality of our label, there’s a certain illusory nature about it. Then we won’t there will be we won’t become so caught up, and we’ll be able to see the person more and more for what is more prime what is more primary aside from our exaggerated labels, that we’ll be able to see more and more the equality of others. And the so that’s the first one, trying to overcome our notion that that the the the the truth of these people do not, in truth, exist the way they appear. You know, it’s a very difficult idea, and we’re going to talk about a great deal more when we come to the awakened mind.
But here we’re using it in a conventional sense in terms of trying to in terms of trying to overcome our captivation our our being captivated by these labels of friend, lover friend, lover, that stranger over there, and that that enemy over there. You know? That the that the that do they appear do they appear that way? Yeah. This person appears that way.
That they don’t really exist that way. And then then the second part of this was that understanding the we also have a notion that the way they appear is not only true, but it’s permanent. We fix it upon the the nature of the this present relationship, and we have a sense it’s always going to be like this. You know, the lover is always going to be my lover in the same way that we’re loving now, that this stranger is always going to be in a we’re never going to have any particular relationship with this person other than in the indifferent quality of our present relationship. And the enemy is always going to be remain fixed, always an enemy, and holding to these categorizations very rigidly and tightly and not being able to go beyond them.
So, you know, trying to see through that. You know, the idea is not none of this should feel threatening to you. And I I but it does. I think it I I I taught an introductory introduction to Buddhism course down in Norlanga last month, and we were talking about love and how it’s invariably mixed with attachment. And the woman said, well, I couldn’t imagine not having attachment.
There’s no love if there’s no attachment. There’s, you know, wanting. And so there is a sense of a threat. But we can love without attachment. In fact, they have very little to do with one another.
They’re quite often mixed together. More than that, they are. But the attachment doesn’t has nothing to do with the the person out there. It’s very much egocentric in its its origination. But love is concerned with what is going on to that person aside from what what’s in it for ourselves.
And it’s it’s very other reference other referential rather than in terms of attachment, which is continually self referencing. So there’s a great deal of difference. And I don’t think we need to feel any threat to to feel that even though our relationships are impermanent, that this is somehow going to weaken our bond or our caring for one another. It may weaken your attachment, but that’s not to say that it’s not going to be able to help your relationship and make it enrich your relationship. It’s not to say it’s going to shorten your relationship.
It’s omitting a reality about your relationship, a truth about your relationship, and you really have to have some kind of confidence that ultimately the truth is therapeutic. It’s it’s it’s in our own and in in the case of our our partner our partner’s best interest. That’s something only good can come out of it. So that’s quite a bit and I think we’ve lost quite one beyond time, actually. Anyway, we’ll look at those.
So take a firm, comfortable posture. So we didn’t meditate on the change ability. Okay. We’re looking at the the first of the the five of a series of five meditations in the cultivation of the awakened heart according to the meditative tradition of equalizing and exchanging self with others. And within the very first of these meditations is developing a sense of equality.
And this is we’re looking at it from a pretty detailed point of view. This is from nine parts. First, from the conventional point of view, and this is divided into two, from the side of others and from one’s own side. From one’s from one’s side of others that all living beings, whosoever, want to be happy, all living beings, whosoever, don’t want to suffer. That though they want happiness, in fact, they don’t have genuine happiness, so they don’t want to suffer.
In fact, they suffer equally on their own side, experience such a state. From our side, over the infinite numbers of rebirths that we’ve taken, all living beings, whosoever have been our primary caregivers and have shown us tremendous kindness again and again and again. But secondly, you know, even if that doesn’t hold much significance for ourselves, that they have been tremendously kind even when they weren’t our primary caregivers in terms of those times when they were fall fell within either of the three categories of friend, enemy, and stranger, each uniquely bringing about our welfare either in an immediate temporal sense or in a more profound ultimate way. But they each have uniquely are are have have shown us kindness in this way. Or then from the third point of view, from one’s own side the conventional, is that all of these people out there, from my point of view, they’re all going to to die.
And that’s We’re equally involved in that. There’s no going beyond that. And what is the use of in such a situation to harbor attachment and hatred and indifference. And from the ultimate point of view, which we’re looking at now, first, what we looked at last week, that friends, enemies, and strangers do not exist the way they appear. Though they appear one way in truth, they they exist another way.
But we see to the truth of that appearance. We don’t see the exaggerated qualities of the the superimposed labels that we images that we’re making use of in relating with these people. Then secondly, that these trend enemy and stranger are changeable, and there’s constant you know, we were going to meditate on it. You know, even over the course of this life, we have all experienced someone who is so close to us as, you know, as as if they were ourselves, our own heart, that we would have gladly given our life for them if if if need be. And only in a short matter of a short interval of time, they won’t give us the time of day.
You know, it’s it’s as if they were almost our worst enemies, as if they were actually went out of their way to hurt us. And we’ve all perhaps experienced that in some way or another. But also the adverse of that, that those people we’ve had difficulties with have become close with just a few words of reconciliation, a clearing up of some misunderstanding, being thrown together in a difficult situation, we find reason to to to experience a sense of warmth and closeness with them. And then thirdly, what we’re going to look at tonight, and we just began to briefly mention last week, the relativity of friend, enemy, or stranger. And I I mentioned last week, you know, a quoting from a verse by Śāntideva.
Śāntideva is the textual source for this meditative tradition of equalizing exchange in self for others, and and that text is the Bodhicaryāvatāra. I guess this was what’s in my mind. Khensur Rinpoche, we’re, you know, we’re going to have an Easter retreat. This is a commercial break. We’re gonna have an Easter retreat at the end of March, and the the subject of the of the retreat will be the sixth chapter from this text, Bodhicaryāvatāra, which is on the cultivation of tolerance or patience.
So I think it is it would be quite I’m quite I think it’ll be a very worthwhile experience. Anyway, that’s a commercial back to the program. But Śāntideva has written another text, which isn’t so widely known, and it’s called Compendium of Training. And in this text he says, both self and others are dependent like this side and that side, this side and that side. And further he goes on to say, if one does not establish the self, then in reliance upon what can other come about?
So, you know, you’re getting at the notion that that self and other, they exist. There’s no question about that. But they only exist conventionally, relatively relatively, not absolutely, not ultimately so. You know, this is this is the case with all with every phenomenon in general, but it’s much more readily seen in terms of the of a dualistic discrimination of qualities such as near and far and high and low and good and bad and light and dark, that existence of one is intimately dependent upon the existence of the other. Without the one existing, the other could not exist.
Without high existing, low becomes meaningless. It’s just a a sound that comes out of our mouth. We have no ability to comprehend what is meant by such a sound. It’s a nonexpressive sound. The you know, if if the far but if the fars if the far side existed independently, absolutely of the near side, if it if it existed as a far side from its own side without depending upon the near side, then, you know, no matter how close we approached it, you know, no matter how, you know, how much we drove toward it, it would always be the far side.
That would be its independent nature. That would be its intrinsic nature. Its nature by by from its own side, by its own way of being, it would be that. It could it could not be any other way. But we know that’s not the case, that we have but this is not the way we relate with the world in general, but also is not the way we were relate in this context with friend, enemy, and strangers.
And I and I use this this this tech you know, this idea that, you know, is is my ring finger, is it long or short? In itself, it is not long or short. It’s only relatively so, comparatively so. And compared to my little finger, it’s long. Compared to my middle finger, it’s short.
So in itself, it’s neither. It doesn’t exist absolutely, ultimately, inherently as as long or short, only relatively so. In just the same way, all of the opposites share implicit identity. That is, however vividly the difference between these opposites may strike us, they nevertheless remain completely inseparable and mutually interdependent, and for the simple reason that the one could not exist without the other. Looked at in this way, there is obviously no inside without outside, no up without down, no win without loss, no pleasure without pain, no life without death.
Says the old Chinese sage, Lao Tzu, is there a difference between yes and no? Is there a difference between good and evil? Must I fear what others fear? What nonsense? Having and not having arise together.
Difficult and easy complement each other, long and short contrast each other, high and low rest upon each other, front and back follow one upon the other. So likewise, we’re trying to break down this notion that that the that the way things appear to us is in fact the way they exist. And the way they appear, friend, enemy, and stranger in this context, is if they appear independently, absolutely, ultimately as such from their own side. But the enemy only exists relative to friends. They are distinguished by a comparing dualistic discriminating awareness.
It’s not to say that they don’t exist, but we’re talking about the way they exist. They exist in a way which isn’t apparent to ourselves at present. They exist in a way which is in which we in a way opposite to the way we present believe, presently conceive of them to exist. Friends, strangers, and enemies only relatively exist. Their existence are inseparable one from the other.
If we had no you know, as I mentioned last week, if we had no friends, we would have no enemies. If we had no enemies, we would have no friends. If we had no friends or enemies, there would be no strangers. That’s an interesting concept, I think. You know, I mentioned before just looking around and around.
You know? We wouldn’t there wouldn’t be this barrier, I think, as as great between ourselves, and especially in terms of friends. We would see living beings as opposed to strangers, in terms of strangers. But we misconceive the nature of friend, enemy, and stranger and hold them that they very strongly exist from their own side in their own right. That’s the way they are, and we relate with them on that basis.
You know, this is how we can, you know, this is the internal logic of attachment and hatred and indifference that we have. It’s consistent. You know, there’s a ignorance is not stupid. It’s there’s a tremendous tremendous intelligence at work here. It’s just that all of what evolves out of this mistaken premise is dysfunctional.
But it’s not to say it’s not intelligent. And if if you if if your basic premise is somehow mistaken, it doesn’t mean that it means that all of what will follow from that is somehow not is missing the mark. It is not it’s in some some way not appropriate, but it does not mean that it’s somehow stupid in how it’s being arrived at. In terms of the internal logic of ignorance, attachment makes sense. Great.
Yeah. If things were inherently existent, then it would it would make sense to hold on to them as tight as you could because they’re gonna bring you eternal pleasure as long as you have them in some way with you. If if things were inherently existent, if the enemy existed from its own side, then it would make it absolute sense to have aversion, to get away from to destroy them, not to have them wanting not to want to have them associate with you because that association is automatically going to bring discomfort and pain to yourself. It makes in in in the internal logic of the afflictive emotions, it all makes a great deal of sense. All of the the afflictive emotions emotions arise out of this this basic mistaken premise about how things exist.
Here here we’re trying to break it down, but not in in a in a an ultimate sense in terms of all phenomena in the universe, but mainly in terms of how we relate with these three categories of friend, enemy, and stranger. You know, in dependence upon conceiving of a self, we conceive of other. In this in dependence upon conceiving that this this distinction between self and others, which does conventionally exist to absolutely exist rather than relatively exist, there there there then ensues feelings of isolation, of alienation, of defensiveness, emotions such as attachment, aversion, and indifference, and jealousy, yeah, as ways of relating to those things out there. There’s other people out there who who exist as absolutely other. So, you know, at this level of analysis, the question of the owner of suffering or whose suffering does not even does not even arise.
And then there’s a notion that that there is that there is just suffering. And because it ultimately does not belong to anyone, it is to be eliminated. You know, it says everyone is equal and not willing to suffer. And it’s simply that suffering the fact that suffering exists is reason enough that we should seek to eliminate it. Why?
Because we’re all equal in that way in the suffering. And as Śāntideva in his could I’m gonna go through some of Śāntideva’s recently said he makes you so in in his Bodhicaryāvatāra. He takes up the argument that we that we you know, why should I be concerned with other suffering? I mean, there’s there’s there’s many levels that we can address this issue at, and I think it’s necessary. I think it’s necessary to go to do this because if we’re going to you know, as I was mentioning earlier, if it’s going to be something if our if this way of this compassion and this love is going to be an an organic expression of our own understanding, or whether it’s simply going to be another ideology, another way of indoctrinating ourselves into another should or ought to, another straight jacket that we’re going to try to fit ourselves into, no matter for some romantic or some sentimental or whatever reason.
So we’re addressing why why we should be coming, why it is worthwhile to cultivate love and compassion. So why we should dispel the sufferings of others just as we would our own. So Śāntideva says in his text, the suffering that I experience does not cause any harm to others, but the suffering is mine because my conceiving of myself as I, thereby it comes becomes unbearable. Likewise, the misery of others does not befall me. Nevertheless, by conceiving of others as I, their suffering becomes mine.
Therefore, it too should be hard to bear. Hence, I should dispel the misery of others because it is suffering just like my own, and I should benefit others because they are sentient beings just like myself. When both myself and others are similar in that we wish to be happy, what is so special about me? Why do I strive for my happiness alone? When both myself and others are similar in that we do not wish to suffer, what is so special about me?
Why do I protect myself and not others? But there’s a, you know, there’s there’s somebody who is giving Śāntideva a hard time, who is going to argue, a disputant who’s going to argue against this with Śāntideva. And this disputant says, but why should I protect them if their suffering does not cause me any harm? And Śāntideva returns with an answer, then why protect myself against future suffering if it causes me no harm now? It is a mistake it is a mistaken conception to think that I shall experience the suffering of my next life, for it is another person who dies and another person that will will be reborn.
So, you know, even you know, this this question can even be put into context in in in a way of this life itself. Why do we deprive ourselves of possible pleasant pleasure, you know, by putting money in, let’s say, retirement fund or a pension fund or a superannuation fund, and if to provide for our our retirement sometime in the future. The present person who’s doing the saving is not going to be around when the when the when the to enjoy that retirement. This is not going to be able to reap the benefits of this pension fund. They’re not the same person, are they?
I mean, just as in the same in a way that you’re not the same person that when you were ten years old or a four years old. Now why do we do that in a think considering that fact? This disputant goes on to argue, surely whenever there is suffering, the sufferer must protect himself from it. And Śāntideva answers, but the suffering of the but the suffering of the foot is not that of the hand. Why does it protect it?
Now why does the hand, rather than remaining indifferent, reach down and remove a thorn from the foot? The hand isn’t suffering. The foot’s suffering. But for some strange reason, the hand reaches down and takes the thorn out of the foot. So in this case, the disputant replies, all this although this may not be justified, it is done because of grasping of a at a self.
And Śāntideva continues, but surely whatever is not justified for myself or others should not should at all cost be rejected. In the same way as the hand hands and so forth are regarded as the limbs of the body, Likewise, why are embodied creatures not regarded as limbs of life? So I think what maybe Śāntideva is trying to get across here is the notion, why cannot we begin to see ourselves as limbs of a great being of sentient life? You know, each of us having our rightful place and each of us ultimately dependent upon the well-being of the whole, of this great being of which we all are a part of. And then Shanti Śāntideva continues.
Being no inherent owner of suffering, there can be no dis distinction at all between that of myself and others. Thus, I shall dispel it because it hurts. Why am I so certain that I shouldn’t eliminate the suffering of others? And then this disputant is quite persistent. He goes on to say, but since neither the suffering or the sufferer truly exists, why should I turn away the misery of all?
And Śāntideva answers, this is no ground for argument. For if I present if I prevent my own suffering, surely I should prevent the suffering of all. If not, since I am just like other sentient beings, I should not prevent my own suffering either. So in in in this coming to this sense of equality of self and others, in equally equalizing ourself and others, we are trying to discover an alternative way of relating with others through feeling the essential sameness of ourself and and others. You know, just as we want happiness and don’t want to suffer, just likewise, exactly so, all living beings, whosoever want happiness and don’t want to suffer.
You know, we all are exactly the same in that. So the implication is that I should identify with all of these equal beings and take all of their suffering as seriously as I do my own. In the same way that because I’m I’m used to identifying with all the parts of my body, I take, you know, I take pain seriously wherever it occurs in my body, equally so. You know, whether it’s in my foot or my hand or my head, I take that pain seriously no matter where it may be. I have the same degree of concern for pain wherever it occurs in my body.
Likewise, the notion that being a limb of this great being of sentient life, to begin to cultivate the attitude that I can take the pain as seriously wherever it might occur within these limbs, this great being of life, whether I call that limb I or other. You know, we we we may object and that is unrealistic to expect us to automatically respond to the pains of others as we do our own in the same way that we do, since you know, in the same way that that we respond to to to the various parts of our own body. We, you know, we don’t feel the pain of others in the same way that we feel the pain of all the various parts of our body. You in in in such a this this argument, he counters by saying that that we only feel our pain because we appropriate it through habitual identification with our body, with our body’s bodily senses as as ours. It’s it’s you know, we have a sense that’s automatic.
We have we have no notion of that that that we went we went through a process of actually beginning to identify our I with this body mind complex. But in fact, it’s it has been an education as it were. You know, there there are there are many occasions when in the heat of of great emotions or under hypnosis that that we can’t feel at all pains that would ordinarily be excruciating. Because under these conditions, we are temporarily not identifying with the pain as ours. You know, this this shows that our own feelings are due to a habit of identification.
You know, we we the habit of and habits can be modified. We have appropriated the pain as our pain, as my pain. It’s not it is not inherently so. You know? And the converse of this is that we can, through cultivation, accustom ourselves to identifying with the well-being of others, with their pain as well.
We can begin to empathetically feel the pain of others and identify it as our pain. We can cultivate that because we have cultivated with regards to our own body and with regard to our own mind. We feel unhappy thoughts in our in this mind. We think, I am unhappy. It’s it is an appropriate customing process that we work through.
You know, the the is trying to get across that this process is, you know, the is arbitrary. There’s an arbitrariness to what we identify as me and mine, and therefore it’s susceptible to change. It can we can expand what we presently identify as I and mine. We if there’s a there’s a possibility for expandability of self identification. Śāntideva goes on to say, although the basis of is quite impersonal, through constant familiarity I have come to regard the drop of sperm and blood of my parents as I.
So in the same way, why should I be unable to regard the bodies of others as I? Hence, it is not difficult to see that my body is also that of others. So this is we we did did not we did not begin as children to identify with our bodies automatically. We had to learn this. We had to learn to do it, and we we became accustomed to it.
You know, if we you know, the the semen of of our father and the ovum of our mother formed a body for ourselves in which our cons our consciousness entered into. You know, if if if you were to find if you were to find some semen and ovum on your sheets, you you you might find it quite repellent. Know? But what has been repellent has, through the process of familiarity, become so accustomed to ourselves, so familiar to ourselves that we now think of it as I. And can you imagine that this sperm and ovum that you found on your sheet could eventually be become so familiar to ones elf that you begin to to expand yourself sense of self identity to include it as as I, as my body, as you, who I am, in fact, am.
Now what was there? These simple substances becomes us. Simply through a process of familiarity, of accustoming ourselves, of identifying of appropriating them as me and mine, as my body and my mind. You know, the this is self identification there is a process of self identification which we go through as we grow. It’s not something automatic.
This is the point that I think Śāntideva was making, that and that it takes a long conditioning. We have conditioned ourselves to identify as as sperm and ovum, but it but but it can also operate other than in other ways, in which it does many in many cases, many instances, which, you know, soldiers, athletes, citizens of various nations, you know, believers in religions, believers in ideologies, can easily recondition become reconditioned to identify more powerfully with the organization, with organization, with with the group than with their own individual selves. You know, some they’re willing soldiers are willing to die in battle, you know, that people, you know, give up their lives for the for games, know, for the Olympics whatever, for for national goals or for to become martyrs of the cause, of the faith, that that that that cultural reconditioning can even overcome the supposedly all powerful survival instinct. You know, people will give up their life for the group. They identify the welfare of the group above their own welfare.
So there’s an expansion of self identity to the extent where they identify with the welfare of the group as more important than their own individual identity. You know, why then cannot you know, if this notion can be is operative in these mundane ways, why then cannot the conditioning of the awakened heart, you know, awakening our hearts to others, cause us to expand our sense of identity to include all living beings as other limbs of this single body of life. It can. I and and it’s almost unimaginable, perhaps. But the bodhisattva you know, this it is it is as if for the bodhisattva, someone who has actually awakened the heart, that that there is not this this sense of alienation between others.
But it, you know, is it is that they as long as this great being of sentient life is suffering, then I must alleviate its suffering, just as the hand reaches down and moves the thorn from the foot. There is no there is no sense that I am doing the foot a favor. I am a hand. I am not suffering. Look what I’m doing for you.
There is this pain, and the pain is to be eliminated wherever it may be occurring within this great body of sentient life. In the same way as the hand and so forth are regarded as limbs of the body, likewise, why are embodied creatures not regarded as limbs of life? Through acquaintance has the thought of I risen towards the impersonal body. So in a similar way, why should it not arise toward other living beings? So, you know, it’s not unrealistic, but even, you know, compellingly practical that we develop a natural, rational, instinctively heartfelt, powerful altruism.
For there’s nothing artificial whatsoever about the fact of the essential equality of ourself and others, that all being whosoever want to be happy, that none want to suffer. And finally, I’ll just quote a last verse from Śāntideva, and I’ll I’ll stop here. In cultivating the qualities of a Buddha, we rely on the victors and sentient beings. So the victors here is the victors that has an an epithet, another name for the Buddhas. We rely both on the Buddhas and sentient beings in our in our growth, in our in our in our self development, in in helping ourselves to ultimately solve our problems and find a good life.
We rely both on Buddhas and sentient beings. Just as we pay homage to the victors, how can we not pay homage to sentient beings? Our well-being, since we are social beings, and our growth and our ultimate welfare is just as dependent upon the sentient beings of our society, and and our our spiritual community as it is upon the Buddhas themselves. You know, from this point of view, not only for us, not only are sentient beings equal in wanting to be happy and not wanting to suffer. But in fact, they’re equal to the Buddhas in their importance for our own, you know, well-being, for our own going beyond our suffering.
So next week, we’ll start on this this the next section, which is looking at the disadvantages of self centeredness and the advantages of other centeredness. So you’ve been very patient. Thank you. You’ve been wonderful sentient beings. Thank you.
So we’ll dedicate the positive potential that we’ve accumulated. In the land encircled by snow mountains, you are the source of happiness and well-being, powerful Chenrezig, Tenzin Gyatso. Please remain till 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.
May that which has arisen never diminish, but increase more and more.