Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Since this is a writing task rather than a code implementation, ExitPlanMode doesn’t apply here — I’ll deliver the paragraph directly.
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In this 45-minute talk, Ven Jampa Gendun opens with a pointed question: does your current refuge — whatever you invest your deepest trust in — actually deliver the goods? He traces two causes that turn a practitioner toward authentic Buddhist refuge: a constructive anxiety at recognising recurring life-patterns projected indefinitely into the future, and a reasoned faith — distinguished sharply from blind or misguided faith — that a reliable remedy exists. Gendun then unpacks awakening as wisdom, love, compassion, and personal power realised through sustained human effort rather than supernatural endowment, using a vivid metaphor of a parent jumping without hesitation into a pit to rescue a fallen child to illustrate compassion as practical action, not mere goodwill. The talk closes with guided loving-kindness meditation progressing from close friend to stranger to enemy, and a brief orientation to Tsongkhapa’s three principal aspects of the path.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 15 HMA 1996 12 04.mp3
UUID: f07b76e4-d31d-41ee-988b-d42c5daf74f1
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1996-12-04
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.8 minutes
Words: ~5,698
So we have to begin again. This continual process of reorientating ourselves, getting back in touch with what is of the most important to ourselves, process of reprioritizing. You know, the the I guess, redefining our refuge. The ideal is as I’ve often mentioned, of going for refuge is not it’s not foreign to any of us. It’s not something particularly eastern eastern or particularly Buddhist.
Maybe the word is, but the the the notion isn’t, the concept isn’t. We’ve all been going to refuge to something most of our lives in one way or another in some form or another whether consciously or unconsciously, whether intelligently or in terms of in the context of our wisdom or whether through ignorance. We’ve chosen someone or something, some idea, some value, some way of being in the world as a means to solve our problems, to find the happiness that we’re all looking for. And so I guess if we’re going to live our lives intelligently in the light of our own truth and in terms of our own lived experience, we have to, at time from time to time, you know, stop acting, stop speeding, and take stock, confront the issues of our life and see whether our particular refuge is working for ourselves or not, whether it’s actually delivering the goods, the overall quality of our life. And in terms of the redirection towards what Buddhism holds as an authentic refuge, a workable refuge, there are said to be two causes that we’ve been we’ve been discussing, The causes of a constructive anxiety.
You know, one becomes a little a weariness, I think, some kind of dread, a discomfort of the mind, beginning to see the reoccurring patterns of our lives and beginning to extrapolate from our past into indefinitely into the future. And there develops a sense of anxiety or foreboding about this dissatisfactory way of existence extending continuously into the future without end. You know, just the same patterns, the same reoccurring themes repeating themselves ad infinitum, ad nauseam into the future. So that begins to turn us away. We begin to gain some kind of perspective on our life, beginning to look for alternative refuges, alternative direction in our life.
But the other is the other half. The complement of anxiety is faith that there is something to be turned to, that there are workable refuges, authentic means by which to solve some of the basic problems of our life. Having faith. Alas, my mind conquered by confusion. Though I came from afar to seek refuge in the profusion of your excellences, I could not embody its smallest part.
Yet when I stand before the lord of death and the stream of life is not quite ended, I will consider myself fortunate to have even the mite of faith in you. No. Faith is, again, nothing new to any of us. It’s not particularly necessary falling in the religious domain. It is very much part of our everyday thinking of a mental faculty which we all possess to a greater or lesser degree, lesser or more powerful.
And we all have faith in something or other. You know, there are are varieties of types of faith. There’s faith there’s blind faith, which is faith without any supporting reasoning or or evidence, and there’s misguided faith,, faith based upon mistaken reasoning and faulty evidence. So these types of faith are, in some way or another, continually being undermined. And this is a lot of people running scared with their faith.
They have to narrow the scope of their awareness, the scope of their thought and thinking. Can you hear me okay? Yeah. That too loud? No.
Anyway, these are these various types of faith. Is that okay? We’re getting a bit starting to get a bit of feedback, I think. It’s better before. It’s better before.
Maybe we can try turning it on. I could sing something. Jesus. There’s nothing that comes to my mind at the moment. One, two, three.
Is that It’s a normal six. Is that is that okay? Yes. Do you feel comfortable with that? Actually, I noticed that people have to listen harder.
There might be something to be said for that. Don’t know. Anyway, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. So we’re talking about faith. Faith in something or someone, some strategy perhaps, whether it’s it could be of a nominal faith, our usual faith, of of a blind faith or misguided faith.
They are easily lost even in the face of slightly contradictory logic or or or experience. And moreover, they they play they play a very superficial and short term part in in their influence in our mind, and therefore the direction of our lives. They don’t they aren’t able to exert a very powerful influence on the quality of our thinking and behaving. On the other hand, there are other there are various other types of faith, the types of faith which are very much emphasized in the Buddhist context. The faiths which are based upon reasoning and rational thinking, which are based upon our own experience in terms of evidence for that we’ve found for ourselves, in terms of intuition, and based which are based in these are extremely stable, and and moreover, they can exert a profound and lasting influence over over our thinking and behavior, and therefore the direction of our lives.
And these are the various are the types of faiths which are very much emphasized in Buddhism. So, you know, what are the direct what are the what are the objects of faith of Buddhism? In the Buddhist context, the notion of faith is that the object of our faith has the power to protect ourselves from the anxiety that we’ve been discussing, the anxiety associated with the reoccurrence of all these dysfunctional patterns and pathological themes of our life. That something that there is something which can protect us, can can resolve that anxiety. And that moreover, these objects of refuge are able to act as as reliable resources for for achieving what is of ultimate concern, what is of ultimate value to ourselves.
Now it’s interesting that in defining what religion might be, one of the terms that I’ve seen in the the better definitions is, you know, the that which concerns or that which has as a central focus what is of ultimate concern, what is of ultimate value in our lives. In a religion, a spiritual practice is very much concerned with ultimates, you know, the profound, the deep, that which is at the core of our life and being. You know, maybe we can work at the the lesser levels, the more superficial levels with by secular means. Maybe that’s not the the province, the domain of or the or necessary for a religious practice, spiritual practice. Anyway, you know, that which can act as reliable resources for for achieving what is of ultimate concern for ourselves, you know, solving our fundamental problems and achieving, the sacred in our lives.
You know, faith is a is a primary investment of energy in all of this. You know, it’s a crediting with importance of our refuge to ourselves. You know, it gives our refuge some kind of substance for ourselves. It endows our refuge with a primary psychological reality for ourselves, even though that perhaps it’s not directly accessible to ourselves at present. But nonetheless, through the power of our faith, it’s very real.
It’s as if it were present for ourselves. So in the actual practice of Buddhism, the the faith is an ongoing commitment to working with the the deeper causes of our problems. You know, the and the the goal of realizing the fullest potential of ourselves as human beings. You know, this is what we commit ourselves to. This is what is the central focus to our life.
You know, a dedication to our own basic goodness and the basic goodness of life itself. So entrusting ourselves, you know, giving giving ourselves over to something within ourselves which we ourselves are the final transformation. And then ultimately, we give ourselves over to our own Buddha nature or our own divinity or however we want to phrase that, our own basic goodness. We take refuge in that. We seek to to implement the means whereby we can actualize and express our own basic goodness, our Buddha nature, our own divinity, and having faith in that.
So the the faith of Buddhism, this investment of positive significance, all this trust, this energy, this time, our commitment, you know, this is what we mean by going for refuge. Think if it has if it is to be spelled out and have meaning, any real meaning at all, is primarily directed toward three objects in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the spiritual community, the Sangha. So these are these three objects of refuge are the ultimate resources for solving our fundamental problems. Therefore, they are the ultimate objects of our going for refuge within the Buddhist context. You know, we can have other more temporal refuges in our life.
We can you know, as has been pointed out by Geshe-la, and I think I’ve said previously that, you know, if you’re hungry, the best recourse the best thing you do is simply eat a good meal. You know, we don’t have to recite mantras or make prayers to alleviate that problem of our life. There are a lot of material and superficial difficulties that we can solve principally through secular means, by material means, through scientific methods, through hygiene, good health, rational thinking. But there are other deeper problems which these methods aren’t amenable to. The there that that there are other different more profound and more and deeper deeper problems, more fundamental problems, which are not amenable to resolution by these various superficial methods.
And so, you know, we have to look for other methods. And I think this makes sense, that we need a a an array of tools to work with in finding the good life for ourselves. And amongst these, our spiritual practice, our practices of of training our mind, practices in meditation and learning, coming to understandings can be of a great benefit, you know, within this vast array of other possibilities, of other tools that we can work with. So the the faith of Buddhism, its power its investment of primary significance, all of this time and energy, commitment is directed toward the Buddhadharma and the spiritual community. And, you know, we can talk about these various these objects of refuge from various levels and various levels of profundity.
But, you know, perhaps we can begin to identify something about ourselves with these objects of refuge in themselves since we ourselves are are seeking to ultimately become our own refuge. We ultimately are seeking to become Buddhadharma and spiritual community ourselves. So there’s something about ourselves which lends ourselves, you know, which to which, you know, we are simply an extension of that there’s some quality or characteristic about ourselves that which perhaps we can begin to identify as being the the acorn, which is of which, you know, the the the tree of Buddha and the tree of the Dharma and the spiritual community are the full are the realized potential, you know, the oak tree. So Buddha is simply, you know, someone who is awake. And to be awake, it means to be aware of things as they actually are in their in their actual true nature.
You know, this is how an awakened being sees the world, with a wisdom and a knowledge beyond all misconceptions or all prejudices or wrong thinkings or distortions or projections or obscurations. Just the ability to see things clearly and know them in their true nature, wisdom. The awakened mind is or Buddha is characterized by love and compassion, an intense and profound overflowing compassion, a desire to see all living beings free of suffering and to see them happy. You know, it’s the analogy or the the metaphor which is used in describing this quality of love and compassion is like that of a mother or father for their only child. You know, there’s it brings to mind a metaphor which is used in describing this quality.
That is, you know, there’s a child that has fallen down in a pit, and there are many people standing around. And they’re all very sincerely concerned with the welfare of the child, you know, wanting the child to be well, wanting that your child be safe and and to be rescued. But the mother or the father comes to the edge of the of the pit, of the hole in which the child has fallen, and without thought, spontaneously as it were, jumps down into the pit and saves the child. So this is the quality of love and compassion. Not simply a thought that others be happy and that they be free of suffering, but an act of compassion, an altruism which is expressed in some kind of in real ways, by practical means, to bring about what it is that we wish for, in order to that all of these beings like ourselves be free of suffering, that they too have happiness and being willing to do to act in their to this end for their welfare.
Wisdom, love, and compassion. Awakening also is characterized by an experience of personal power, an an inexhaustible mental and physical energy, an intensity of being, a spiritual vitality, some kind of inner strength of will, And then finally, awakening is as we’ve just described in terms of of how we are in the world, that we don’t exist in isolation from the world, that we are creatively responding to the needs of the world, and to to freely and purposefully participate in the lives of others in terms of our wisdom and our love and compassion and our personal power, finding creative expression as skillful means. It’s like an environmental generosity in extending to all living beings. So when Buddhism talks about awakening or enlightenment or Buddhahood, all of these various terms and synonyms that we use, what is meant most essentially is the consummate state of wisdom and love and compassion and personal power and their creative transformations expressed in our everyday life. You know, to to awake is to awaken from ignorance, the sleep of ignorance, you know, ego’s ongoing dream and awaken to the true nature of things and the totality of who we are.
You know, a Buddha. A Buddha means an awakened one. You know, someone who has completely integrated the primary archetypes of wisdom and love and compassion and personal power and altruistic activity into their conscious being and creativity lives them every day of their life in unconditioned freedom and the unceasing bliss of unlimited being. So, you know, though we look to the historical figure of Śākyamūni Buddha as the source for our present teachings on Buddhism, Śākyamūni Buddha was one of many. Though he was a human being, he was not an ordinary human being.
He he was an extraordinary human being. But the point is, and perhaps the crux of Buddhism is, that he was not always such as he was. He was not born. He was not by he was not self existently. He was not by his nature an extraordinary being, that he became an extraordinary being through his own human effort to to realize, to bring to consummation his potential, you know, the same potential that exists within all of ourselves.
So, you know, when we talk about refuge and when we talk about where we’re going to go and what how we’re going to do it, what we are to have faith in, what is going to actually solve our problems by means of alleviating our constructive anxiety and removing our fundamental problems, it is that that ourselves is Buddha. You know, that’s something that we ourselves are the final transformation of. You know, this is the only there’s nothing outside of oneself and one’s own mind which can help us in all ways, at all times, in all situations. It is the only thing that we can realistically rely upon, our own minds and their development. So the focus of our life becomes this Buddha, and very much the Buddha that’s inside of ourselves.
And we try to you know, we have to do something, and wishful thinking is simply not enough. We have to act. You know, we are what we do, and we can choose what we do. And we choose it is the consistent choice of the Buddha inside of you which is going to make you an extraordinary human being, which is going to be the means to help you to solve your problems. And a commitment means a consistent choice of the discipline a context prescribes.
You know, the consistent choice of the discipline a context prescribes. The context here is Buddhism. What is the discipline that we are consistently to choose? This is the Dharma. You know, all the various teachings, all the various meditative techniques, the trainings of the mind, more than naught the truth, the way things are, consistently choosing that and to realize that.
And this process occurs within the social context of a spiritual community, and then those who assist us in implementing the truth, in implementing the Dharma in our lives, who help us to realize our our Buddha nature, to realize our potential, and again and again, trying to release the level of our motivation, why we do what we do. You know, again, I I think it you know, we could get by. We could practice well without having to, again and again, talk about altruism and love and compassion perhaps. You know, we could find some kind of safe niche for ourselves where we could become absorbed in our own kind of fuzzy warmth, find kind of some kind of safety for ourselves. And I think that’s a possibility, and that is a that’s a recognized possibility within the context of Buddhism that we can achieve what is traditionally termed an individual liberation.
We can achieve a passive peace. And it’s the kind of peace that like when you go to the movie and you you constantly are aware that these are just lights flashing on a screen, for example, that you’re only watching a film that is it’s it’s not real. And so seeing this flickering lights on the screen, one never becomes quite involved with the plot, the drama which is being enacted before you. One remains a passive observer. You know, why why go to a movie?
Why why not save your money? Yeah. That’s, you know, that’s not why we go to the why we go to films, to become involved in the life of others, to to find meaning and purpose in our life. And this can this in itself can transcend the the the goal, as far as universal vehicle is concerned, the goal of one’s own individual liberation. That to to that, you know, even there’s a vast vision of what mental health is, that it’s something it’s a social phenomena, and somehow we cannot avoid it if we’re ever going to really find a means to to to be in the world with others and and to be happy.
And if the vision of ourselves is completely realized beings, being a person who has found inner peace for themselves and motivated by their compassion, worked skillfully and fearlessly in the world to help others to do the same. And then this is the is the pinnacle of human existence. This is from the point of view of Buddhism. There’s no more to be realized, no greater goal that we can set for ourselves. There’s there’s no there’s nothing higher than such a way of life, such a way of being.
And this is what Buddhism is asking of ourselves. It’s it’s a tremendous ask, but I think it has the means to bring about that goal. And we but we have to ask it of ourselves and implement the means to bring about that goal for ourselves. So the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha by means of the Dharma within the context of a spiritual community. And again and again, trying to raise the level of our motivation such that we do it not just for our own narrow needs and limited self concerns, but for an ever widening circle of 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 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, 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 the Buddha for the sake of all living beings. Reverently, I pay homage with my body, speech and mind. I 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. So would you like to stand up for a moment, then we’ll sit and meditate? So we’re going to adjust our motivation again in terms of developing love and compassion as we’ve been doing, working through a spectrum of of different types of relationships from from ourselves and those we hold closest to ourselves all the way down to the other end of the spectrum, down to enemies, those we don’t like, we have aversion for. And, you know, we can if, you know, if you can imagine that you’re working with three people, someone that you’re very close to that you love a great deal. Someone that you are friendly toward that’s appealing to you but you’re not very close to.
And then choose a neutral person. So we’re we’re trying to add more and more people, I mean, a variety of people. And the idea is to ultimately, by working through using as objects of meditation a great variety of individual people to actually have the sense and the actual feeling that you’re able to extend this an indiscriminately towards all living beings. You know, if we begin with all living beings, is it all for the sake of all living beings, may I achieve Buddhahood, I love all living beings. It’s probably not doesn’t have much meaning for ourselves.
We have no idea what all living beings mean. We haven’t really worked with developing the the sense of nondiscrimination toward friend, enemy, and stranger, a sense of equanimity. And then we can end up like very much like the like the person who says, oh, I love all people. I just can’t stand my next door neighbor. Or, you know, I I love humanity.
I just don’t like people. And humanity just becomes some abstract notion in their mind without any specific examples for them to direct their their minds toward. So working with these various individuals and actually training the mind, we can do this. Who we are is very much who we’ve learned to be. And we can what has been learned can be unlearned, and new learning can take its place.
And it’s and a person who we call a loving person You know, sometimes we look at the Mother Teresa’s and the Dalai Lama’s of the world, and we have a sense that somehow they’ve always been the way they are, that they it’s their nature as it were. You know, they have loving genes and compassionate neurons in their organic makeup of their brains and something, that they didn’t have discouragement, they didn’t have to train their minds to to learn how to love, to overcome hate, to that they weren’t like us at some time or another in the past. You know, that’s either you know, it’s it’s an unthinking assumption at best, but it’s also a strategy not to have to do anything to change ourselves. Just a matter hope, hoping that things are going to get better, that we’re going to become the person that we’ve always wanted to be somehow, never having to put in the work to bring it about to be in fact, to make it that you actually realize it. So, you know, we can you know, a loving person is someone who has a predominant loving thoughts in their mind, nothing more than that.
An angry person is somebody who has a predominant angry angry thoughts in their mind. We we label that. On the basis of that, we label an angry person, loving person, nothing more than that. There’s nothing inherent in nature which makes them that. It is just the predominant patterns of their mind.
And we all have we all have loving thoughts. You know, however exclusive and limited our love may be, at present, we all have we have real, sincere, authentic, genuine love in our mind. Perhaps it only arises for short moments for only certain people at limited times in our lives, but still it’s there. It’s a quality we all possess. If we can simply find ways to access it in using our skills to and be able to to to evoke it toward others and prolong it and to cause it to arrive more frequently with greater strength, and we become loving people.
Nothing more than that. And that we have the power to do, we can do that. So gonna try we’re gonna use these three individuals, someone you’re very close to. Just imagining these people, you know, if you can see them, it helps to evoke feelings, and the feelings are most important. But just imagine that these three types of people are there, someone, and you actually call into mind who these three people are.
But if you actually can’t see them in your mind’s eye, you can’t actually see a visual image of them. It’s not all that important. The feeling is most important that there’s someone that you love a great deal, that there’s someone who you’re friendly toward that you like but not very close particularly close to. And then finally, a neutral person, a stranger. So you’re probably feeling different toward this person.
And we might try to try to evoke a sense of love and compassion for all three together, you know, as best we can. And it might it might be just the friendliness, might be just a sense of warmth and a sense of relatedness. A sense of something more than what’s there now that are usually related. And then we’ll do the nine-round breathing meditation, and then we’ll do mindfulness breathing. And I thought we would just maybe we’ll just do that.
I’ve been talking quite a lot. If you take a comfortable firm posture. So we’ve almost completed the first of the three principal aspects of the path, and a short text by Lama Tsongkhapa in which he outlines how to develop three principal aspects of the path and developing the will to awaken, some kind of a determination to be free. Quite often, it’s translated as renunciation, but maybe there are other ways of putting the same idea in a more skillful fashion. You know, if anything, in terms of renunciation, we renounce the cause of our suffering.
And but it’s important to begin to be able to recognize what what actually is the cause of our suffering. We have some mistaken notions about that, and therefore we’ve never really been able to to go beyond our sufferings up to now. I think, you know, in developing these these three aspects of the path, developing the will to awaken, this determination to be to be free, you know, this orientation, I think all automatically there’s a lessening of our problems. Automatically life isn’t quite as difficult for us as it was before. It’s not as problematic because our approach to to life has become less problematic.
When you begin to sincerely or genuinely say that, you know, fundamentally our deeper problems reside within our own mind. You know, we quit blaming other people and situations, the things about us for for our lack of happiness in life, meaning in life, for purpose in life, having the various difficulties that we do. And then I think we this orientation itself, though it automatically lessens our frustrations, all our disappointments, our feelings of dissatisfaction. We still have problems that need to be worked with. We still suffer for sure.
Then maybe the the intensity of the nature of our suffering becomes a little less. You know, we have we we have a sense that we overcome our victim mentality. We we we can have a sense of genuine self respect and taking control of our life. We aren’t at the mercy of the whims of the world. And it’s a learning process, you know, it’s a disentanglement and and turning about at the very depth of our mind in the direction that in in which it’s flowing and where it sees its refuge.
And we’re trying to develop authentic refuges, refuges that actually work for ourselves. So, you know, this is this disentanglement is like, you know, we’re caught up, enmeshed in a whole in a in a vast network of misconceptions and wrong beliefs and erroneous ideas, distorted views, and the world hurts us, and then we clash with our world. Yeah. Problems arise where we meet our world and find it inadequate to ourselves or ourselves inadequate to it. Something hurts, clashes.
And as Yeats put it, we feel the pain of wounds, the labor of the spear. And the spear the spear, as far as Buddhism is concerned, is ignorance. And the labors of the spear is karma, our actions, and it wounds us, and we experience suffering, pain of all various sorts. And somehow we have to pull the spear out of ourselves. So, you know, we’re trying to disengage ourselves, disenmesh ourselves from the problematic approach to life, to disentangle ourselves.
And, you know, we’re looking at the nature of a type of existence. You know, we are not are not looking at life per se. You know, a person has tremendous belief that in the basic goodness of life, in the basic goodness of ourselves, and we can experience all that life holds, all the possibility that life holds for us, which the Buddha the the many Buddhas of the past, himself and herself have realized for themselves. So, you know, we’re looking at a type of life. We have we’re trying to there’s no reason why we should change if if the base if our motivation is simply curiosity or intellectual speculation, if it’s not felt at a very deep level of necessity.
You know, necessity is the mother of invention. Only when it seems only when it seems as if there’s no other way for ourselves will we find a way to change. If it when people don’t learn very well, it seems, they learn only learn out of the through a high degree of unmanageability in their lives, through a great deal of pain and suffering, if at all. You know, the pain is no longer necessary. We’ve all had enough pain to last us our entire lives.
But now we have to try to draw the lesson out of that pain to make our pain meaningful, the suffering that we’ve all gone through in one way or another, that we can learn from it. You know, we’ve all had the lessons, but we’ve all had the experience, but we continually miss the lessons and which our wounds are are like mouths trying to teach us. So all of what we’re talking about is simply that, to to help us to recognize what, if we were if we had complete awareness, would be self evident. And the Buddha was simply a great pointer. And he was going, why don’t you take a look at this, examine this, investigate this, and then see for yourself?
The if what I say is true or not. So we’re looking at a particular dysfunctional approach to living, and this dysfunctional approach to living is called conditioned existence. And it is it is characterized by three marks: suffering, impermanence, and selflessness. So let us say, now we’re talking you know, our mind is is not that we’re trying to disentangle our mind from from our from a a our mistaken premises and false assumptions that we’re operating our lives on the basis of. We’re trying to see how much of our thinking is is pathological.
And if we can see that, then our mind will disengage from that that approach to life which arises, which uses these as its as a basis from which it operates in the world, ways of thinking, the ideology which we all labor under, you know, in some ways, which it causes pain, which harm ourselves. And trying to disentangle ourselves from a particular approach to living, a particular way of thinking and behaving, which is problematic, which causes us feelings of dissatisfaction and frustration, disappointment, loneliness, feelings of alienation, inauthenticity, suffering. And we’re trying to trying to turn the mind around, trying to disengage it, trying to see