Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute commentary, Ven Jampa Gendun reframes the Three Jewels not as religious doctrine but as a practical reorientation: going for refuge means consistently choosing clarity over prejudice, compassion over anger, and truth over habitual drift. A distinctive thread ties the session together — the Sanskrit word Dharma shares an etymology with the Greek root of “therapy,” making Buddhist truth pragmatic and therapeutic rather than absolute. He invokes the Dalai Lama’s readiness to revise traditional Buddhist cosmology when scientific evidence contradicts it, and shares a personal exchange with him: if your motivation is right, mistakes don’t matter. The session closes with layered guided meditation — a four-person loving-kindness visualization, nine-round breathing, mindfulness with noting, choiceless awareness, and resting attention on mental consciousness itself.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 17 HMA 1996 12 11.mp3
UUID: b3f05e87-17b1-48fb-b8aa-4c6482987367
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1996-12-11
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.7 minutes
Words: ~6,272
Redirecting ourselves perhaps to other refuges. You know, the Can you can you hear me okay? Yeah. I guess I’ve tried to emphasize the fact that the notion of refuge in particularly Buddhist or is it eastern? It’s something that we’ve all been doing our entire lives in one way or another.
And we do it every day of our lives. And we perhaps our refuges change their names, that we seek out other people or other situations or other materials or positions whereby to solve our problems, to find the happiness that we’re all looking for. So, you know, the the idea of of reorientation is simply perhaps of redefining our refuge even if only momentarily, temporarily. We perhaps get out of touch with what has worked for us in the past, or maybe we haven’t found anything that’s worked for us in the past. And perhaps we’re looking for something more, a refuge which is actually going to work in helping us to solve our problems and bringing us the happiness that we’re looking for.
Anyway, in the Buddhist context, we go for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Supreme Community. This is like an orientation for ourselves. And I think the notion of purpose is extremely important to Buddhism. The emphasis in Buddhism is is not so much where we’ve been or what we’ve done, but where we’re going and what we could do what we can do now to get to where we’d like to arrive at some time in the future. You know, past does exert an influence.
We are conditioned by our past experiences, what’s happened to ourselves. And it in the case especially of of neurosis, when there’s a high degree of unawareness, has a chain like repetitive force in our lives. We keep going through the same motions, the same types of actions again and again and again, the same ways of thinking and responding. But there’s also the necessity to begin to orientate ourselves away from the past and more toward the future in terms of our purpose behind our action, the motivation, where it is that we’d like to go and how we’re going to get there and begin to draw upon the resources within our present environment as the to implement what it is that we want. Like, you know, actually taking a position rather than simply drifting and finding oneself here or there.
You know, the the situations push and we yield, and we end up in perhaps places and situations that we in our final moments, our our more thoughtful moments, we’d rather not be in in one way or another or types of being. You know, we are very much what we do, and we can begin to choose what we do. And that is to say, we begin we can begin to choose who we are. And the choice that we’re beginning to make, you know, is is Buddhadharma and the spiritual community, and this isn’t necessarily some kind of religious missionaryism that we’re embarking upon, where we’re, you know, that they’re as if the Buddha Dharma and the Sangha are something that are going to save us or something outside of ourselves. But in fact, it’s an orientation about our own possibilities of our own mind and the quality of our life.
You know, the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha. And we’ve been talking about what that is in terms of the qualities of what we’re to have faith in and therefore where our treasure lies. You know, someone who knows things clearly beyond prejudice, beyond mistaken misconception, beyond obscuration, someone who is loving and compassionate. You know, we’re talking about a way of life, aren’t we, a possibility for ourselves, as someone who has a personal power, some vitality to their being, someone who seeks to express this in their everyday life through altruistic activities. You know, this is our orientation of what the good life is about.
And you can each of us can define that for ourselves, and there are various definitions. You can see them every commercial on television tries to help you out help you in that respect to define what the good life, you know, where to find happiness can be found. But maybe that their definitions are rather hollow. Maybe they actually don’t deliver the goods. Maybe they aren’t real refuges in a real sense.
So maybe there’s an alternative. So I think what it means if we’re going to do anything is in terms of going for refuge in the Buddhist context is, you know, the the idea of some discipline is necessary, and discipline involves a commitment and a consistent choice of the context that consistent choice of a discipline that a particular context prescribes for ourselves. We always choose Buddha over something contrary to that. And what does it mean to choose Buddha? That means we choose to think clearly about things, to use our wisdom, to exercise our understanding, to go beyond prejudice and, you know, to remove obscurations from our mind.
That is to choose a facet of Buddhahood, to choose love and compassion rather than anger, rather than recrimination, hatred, and jealousy, and spite. You know, we we could choose those alternatives. Some people do. They see them as as means of enhancing what they want to get out of life, enhancing the possibilities, and as tools. From the Buddhist context of discipline, they’re not seen in that way.
They’re seen, on the contrary, as as being obstacles to finding the happiness, the fulfillment that we want. You know, it means choose in making the effort to express altruistic activities in your everyday life as opposed to self centeredness, as opposed to being completely wrapped in your wrapped up in your own claustrophobic self interests. You know, like that’s a choice. And we all the various activities of our daily life present us in even in some minor manner, possibilities for choosing. So we’re always choosing.
And it’s a consistent choice which is going to change our life for the better as far as Buddhism is concerned. So, you know, we have faith in this way of life. We have faith in the Buddha in something within with inside of ourselves which we can actualize by means of this this discipline of a consistent choice. But we also go for refuge to the Dharma, know, the have faith in the Dharma. You know, the actual means, the techniques, you know, how we can actualize Buddha in a very practical fashion.
There’s something that we can do. There’s some work, some training that needs to be done. The jewel of Dharma are the various paths that we travel to awakening. The jewel of Dharma is also the self sustaining solutions that we are able to actualize within our own mind. These are what are termed the third and fourth noble truths of the four noble truths.
The truth of suffering, the truth of the source of suffering, and the Dharma is the latter of the four noble truths, the true cessation and the paths leading to true cessation. So in practice, you know, Dharma is whatever is able to raise the level of our consciousness and becoming clear about what it is that does that and seeing the necessity, in fact, to do that, to make that effort. You know, whatever is able to help bridge the gap between attachment and generosity, between hatred and love, between self centeredness and other centeredness, between jealousy and rejoicing, between pride and humility, you know, most basically between ignorance and wisdom. You know, whatever has helped us helps us to take us from an ordinary being as we are to an extraordinary being as the Buddha is. You know, might take you know, such a Dharma might take the form of something as seemingly insignificant or seemingly trivial as a as a leaf floating down from a tree on one occasion, you know, giving us a teaching on impermanence, which we’re we’re going to talk about tonight.
Or on the other hand, it might be something as seemingly complex as the eighty four thousand collections of the Buddhist teachings. But the point is that, you know, that the Dharma that we become acquainted with outside of ourselves, you know, through from our teachers, from books, is not necessarily our Dharma. You know, whatever form the Dharma takes, it is only our Dharma when it has the power to move our mind, to to to perturb the system in which we are all all embedded, you know, to bring about actual salutary changes, beneficial changes in our life for the better. You know, it actually has to work for us if it’s to be our Dharma. You know, there there’s a there’s a saying that at one at one time, a single blade of grass is equal to a sixteen foot high golden statue of a Buddha.
At another time, a sixteen foot high golden statue of a Buddha is equal to a blade of grass. That, you know, that is to say that the Dharma is what is effective in changing our minds for the better, you know, regardless of its various forms or its its various expressions. So in its in its broadest sense, dharma is whatever acts as a key to opening our minds to to some kind of greater vision of what the good life is about, you know, about whatever acts as an antidote to these dysfunctional patterns of our mind and beginning to help us to clearly recognize what are the dysfunctional patterns of our mind. You know, that which, you know, gives us a sense of brings us a sense of of connectedness with others, a a sentient beings and purpose and fulfillment in our lives. You know, whatever it is that is able to help us to solve, you know, our our the problems of our life at a more fundamental level, you know, we can begin to see that as the Dharma and is worthy of orientation, is worthy of going to.
It is resources for solving our fundamental problems. It’s a refuge. You know, literally, the word Dharma, it’s a Sanskrit word. And it the literal definition is to hold. And the Dharma is what holds us back from the the dysfunctions of our own minds, the pathologies of our life.
It it holds and supports. It supports the unimpeded expression of our our basic sanity, our our Buddha nature. That that’s Dharma. That’s that’s that’s what is able to support that process within our own minds. And then, conventionally, the Dharma might take various forms of of the teachings of the the methods of training, meditative techniques, you know, the the practices which contribute to our performing our our Buddhist story, the story that we’re that each each of us is telling ourselves about ourselves.
But in a very real sense, Dharma is the truth of things. You know, above all, we want to know the way things are. From the point of view of Buddhism, the truth is therapeutic. More than being Buddhist, we want to know the truth of things, and indeed that the way things are in their actual nature. And it is it is this truth, you know, that which has been said in Western culture and Buddhists would Buddhism would completely agree that’s the truth that makes us free, that frees our mind from its misconceptions and thereby all its dysfunctional and therefore the pathologies of our lives.
You know, we begin to think clearly and know things as they actually are, and then and therefore begin to relate with them in ways which are much more appropriate, functional, skillful. You know, we’re able to ask a reality what it’s able, in fact, to give us. We find what we want. There’s some kind of peace in our life. But, you know, but when Buddhism speaks about truth, even, you know, the truths of Buddhism, it doesn’t doesn’t assert that it has any monopoly on truth, that that it somehow has a preeminence position amongst all the possible other valid methods and traditions and spiritual paths.
You know, one of the I guess one of the truths of Buddhism, one of the most basic truths that the Buddha taught is that there is no absolute truth. That is to say, no truth exists absolutely. And I guess the fundamental truth of Buddhism is it all depends. In one way or another, everything depends including the truth. So, you know, the the Buddha was not interested in teaching a truth which, you know, like stood outside of of the minds of humanity, of the conventions of that we make use of, you know, because he saw that all truths were in fact relative.
And any world view that we develop is going to be a relative world view. But talking about, you know, about truth and a world view in this way, that the truth does not absolutely exist, that it is dependent upon a community of discourse. It isn’t there is only exist a conventional reality. A so that a social construct. Even though we talk in these ways, it’s not the case that one world view is as good as any other, is as valid as the next, or simple mindedly to say there is no truth or that everything is true or to deny the existence of falsity.
You know, say that there is that the truth does not objectively exist out there independent of our minds, independent of our culture, independent of language. To say that is not to say that the truth does not exist at all or that falsity, in fact, does not exist also. You know, though the Buddha did not teach an absolute truth, he did teach elaborate methods whereby how we could arrive at the truth. And he sent out he set out an elaborate criteria for determining what is true and what isn’t true. You know, what what is important is to understand that I’ll read a quote.
The Buddhist world view can be verified within a Buddhist frame of reference, and that the and that the worldview thus is true, for there is no overarching set of truths that could falsify it. Neither religion nor science may any longer claim universality or exclusivity, yet neither thereby forfeits its claim to truth. For truth means not correspondence to some object of reality, but simply what is coherent and effective within a particular community of discourse. So, you know, what’s most important in coming to understand what is being gotten at here is that, you know, you know, we have a sense that the truth stands outside of ourselves, like like in a pasture, you know, like a moo cow with big horns, you know. If you were to cross over that fence, it’s gonna knock you down, as That is something that that is not dependent upon our minds, as it were.
That’s something that we are not involved in as co creation, that it’s not culturally conditioned somehow, that it’s been there and always will be independent of our thoughts and independent of our our all of our, you know, changing cultural conditions. All we can say of the worldview you know, the Buddha had a discovery. He was interested in the problem of suffering. It said that’s all he was really concerned with, suffering and and if if it could be alleviated. And this was his main concern.
So he he made a discovery when he began to analyze the nature of the human dilemma in terms of the quality of suffering in ordinary living. And he’s he he and he developed a particular way of looking, a way of seeing, a way an approach to life. He developed an elaborate system, a worldview. And he that this worldview is coherent and effective, that it empowers us and imbues us with competency on how to live our lives. You know, that’s all we can ask.
And and and more than that, that’s enough. And it is just this dharma which is able to do that. You know, that’s all we can hope to expect, that someone can can present a worldview, a way of living life, and a way of looking at the human condition and how to be in this world. And if one is able to to, by the means, the methods, the dharma, able to establish for oneself the validity of that world view within one’s own experience, within in in terms of own intuition and reasoning, and be be able to to to see for oneself the truth of that world view, then there is a lessening of one’s own problems. One finds one begins to find peace.
The world is no longer problematic. You know, your approach to life becomes much more functional, appropriate, more skillful. You you eventually go beyond suffering altogether and you experience peace. So, you know, this is so there is this this this way of approaching life which the Buddha discovered or developed, And it’s it’s internally coherent. It’s not it cannot be contradicted, you know, that it and it is effective.
And in it moreover, it’s it’s integration into our and we each have a world view. Empowers us and imbues us with a competency in living our a better life for ourselves. So the Buddha used the standard of suffering in delineating his path and presenting a world view. You know, the the his his the Dharma, his path is therapeutic. The the Greek word is related to the root word ther, which is related to the word Dharma.
And there’s a there’s a relationship between the word therapy and the word Dharma in terms of the etymology of the languages from Greek to Sanskrit. So the Dharma can be thought of as Buddhist therapy, and the truth is therapeutic. The Dharma is Buddhist truth. You know, the there’s a verse where it says, the the subdueers, the Buddhas, do not wash away sins with water, nor do they remove suffering with their hands, nor do they transfer their realization to the minds of others. But by their showing of the truth, the way things are, all will be freed.
So, you know, the Buddhist truth, his Dharma, is above all a therapeutic truth. You know, it’s a pragmatic truth. It has it functions as a means to help us to solve our problems. You know, truth as a means of achieving the final goal of complete health and well-being. And it’s based upon this pragmatic criteria that the truth of the Dharma is ultimately verified.
That is to say, not only is the Dharma an incontrovertible coherent world view, which comprehensively describes the human dilemma, you know, our problematic approach to life and how it can be transcended, But equally, it it and most importantly, it it is perfectly effective in doing just that. That is to say, it actually works. So for when we when we go for refuge to the Dharma, in a way, I think we’re, you know, we’re going for refuge to the truth. We’re trying to become a student of the truth, of who and what we are, and of what in the way things are in fact, in their true nature. Above all, that’s what we want to You know, above all, the Dalai Lama has reinforced this idea many times.
You know, he has, for example, said that, you know, in in the the text on Buddhist cosmology of the nature of the universe, which were you know, some of them are are quite old, you know, a few thousand years old. And they have these rather bizarre descriptions of of the way the the universe is constructed. And the and the Dalai Lama said that if scientific evidence is so overwhelming to not allow these traditional presentations, that they contradict these presentations, then we have to adapt the scientific, not just because it’s said to be scientific or not just because it’s contemporary, but because of the preponderance of of its of its nature. It seems to be that it’s the valid way things are. That it seems to describe the way things actually are.
And we have to adopt that. And above all, and not Buddhism, but the truth of things is what we want to understand and the way that we want to live our lives. You know, we we ultimately, the jewel of Dharma, you know, what we’re seeking to go for refuge to is not something outside of ourselves, but is we ourselves as an authentic living expression of the Dharma, of the truth, you know, trying to become authentic. You know, it’s all our various realizations and all our our lived self sustaining solutions to our problems within our own mind and the ways that these begin to find expression in our everyday life, and the integrity of our character in our in our relationships of our everyday life. You know, the the ourselves as a living embodiment of of the truth.
That’s that’s our Dharma refuge. That’s our that’s our actual refuge. There’s no other refuge than that. So, you know, that’s kind of our orientation where we try to come to back again and again. You know, above all, you know, above all, you know, above above all the the forces which are at play exerting pressure on my life to lead, to be, to act in various ways that I do.
You know, above all the the the complexities of my own mind and the vying values and beliefs which are trying to dominate my present thinking and the way I relate with the world, above all these internal and external forces and pressures. I want to live the truth of things the way they are in fact. You know, that’s you know, that it’s not it’s a goal. Perhaps perhaps it sounds abstract in a way, but we can find some way to translate it into some minor realities for ourselves such that it can be lived in the details of our mundane life in a very real way. You know, what is the truth for me?
What is it that actually brings happiness to me? What works for me? What is it that I really believe? Who is it that I am? What do I stand for in my life?
That’s the truth of who I want who who I am in some way. And, you know, continually coming back to that. So the inner focus of our life becomes the Buddha, all of that we can you know, this kernel of sanity, of decency and caring, which we, you know, we’re trying to which is supported by the truth, which is we try to actualize by means of the truth, you know, these and various conventional practices that we involve ourselves in as a means to get at the truth. Within this occurs within the social context of a spiritual community. Those who validate our truth, who are searching themselves for meaning and purpose in their lives, who assist us in implementing implementing the trainings and techniques, whatever.
We’re very isolated, I think, from one another. The spiritual community is a direction for overcoming that isolation and realizing that mental health is very much a social phenomena. We struggle within our isolation for solitary realizations, and perhaps we’re missing the point. So the the refuge which is trying that we’re trying to orientate ourselves toward is very much liberating us from this this continuous or this mistaken notion that somehow we can find happiness and well-being separate from the rest, create some kind of a sanctuary for ourselves. Trying to raise the level of our motivation why we’re doing all of this.
You know why? You know, another matter of purpose. Our purpose is tremendously important, you know, the why behind what we do. And even if we make mistakes, even if we go off the tracks, if our purpose is sound, is worthwhile, it really doesn’t matter. There’ll be some learning, there’ll be some going beyond what has been, even if unexpected in unexpected ways, it doesn’t quite fit our our preconceived notion of where we should be.
There’s still some some going along the way, the path. I remember once I asked the I think I’m quite fortunate that I’ve had a few audiences with the Dalai Lama men. I once asked him, I I was quite concerned about making decisions, making choices. I don’t know. I talk talk a lot about that, don’t I?
Choices and decisions. It’s something very human, I think. It’s one of our our most fortunate of endowments is our ability to choose if we exercise. And he said, you know, I said, well, you know, how do you know when you’re not making a mistake? You know?
I mean, you know, we always can’t be very always can’t be wise in deciding what to do. You know? How do you know? You know, I wanted some foolproof formula, you know, from the Dalai Lama so I could just plug it in and say, oh, that’s true. That’s not true.
And my life would be much easier. I wouldn’t have any conflict. But anyway, he just said, you know, he didn’t recant. But he said, if your motivation is right, then it doesn’t matter. It’s okay to make mistakes.
Okay? No.
So, you know, if I’m you know, if we can set our motivation. Is that okay? And the, you know, the the purpose behind what we do. Anyway, we can’t. You know, we I think we we have all our expectations, don’t we?
We have sets of expectations which we bring to almost every situation, every everything that we do, even as we sit here and even when we go to meditate. And we can’t know, can’t we? I mean, it’s we we it’s only some degree of predictability. We have very little real control, probably less than we imagined. But if if we if we can simply orientate, if we can create some purpose to a direction and then be open, allow what is going to occur to to acknowledge that’s what should have happened, then we I think we can always take kind of have a confidence that things are working, and that we can have some kind of faith in perhaps that we aren’t seeing all of the the overall patterns that we might like, that we could find some, like, kind of security in.
But we can have a sense that because our purpose, the why behind what we did was healthy, and as we go along, we’re always going to be moving in a healthy direction, and we’re going to be realizing our goals. Perhaps they’re not the goals that we might have foreseen. We can’t envision all of what occurs, but it will be for the better. Ourselves will be for the better, and the quality of our life will be for the better. We’ll be of greater use to ourselves and to others.
Now we can’t quite know where life is taking us, but we can create purpose and a direction in that life. So this purpose, yeah, that’s where I was going. What if we the greater the purpose, the greater the results. The more limited our purpose, the more narrow. Appropriately or concomitantly, the results will be likewise.
You know, we’ve all struggled so hard, and all the blood and sweat and tears that we expended over the course of our life to to find my happiness, to serve my purposes, to get what it is that I want. And and it’s brought us to this place here now, where we are now. I don’t know if this is where you wanted to get to or not. I doubt it. Maybe if we changed our orientation, maybe if we began to reorientate in terms of our purpose, we might find ourselves in a place that eventually somewhere down the track that we would we would be able to say, this is where I wanted to get to all along in some way or another without even being able to perhaps presently imagine where that place might be like, what it might feel to be that person.
But we cannot face in the direction, you know, the purpose that we create. And creating the greatest purpose, you know, raising the level of our motivation. In some way, now we can we can, if only a little, set aside, if only momentarily, our complete self absorption in me mind and try to open our minds, if only slightly, to the sense that what I’m doing, I’m doing it if only for one other person than myself. May I be of of better use and greater benefit if only to one other person in an altruistic sense when there’s little or no selfishness or self reward involved. Just the fact that another human being has benefited by myself, that would be worthwhile reward result of what comes out of what I’m doing.
And freeing one’s mind from enslavement to our own ego, our own relentless necessity to to serve our own selfish purpose, continually in everything that we do and say and think, and then beginning to liberate the mind and our heart in that very moment. To the Buddha, the Dharma and the Supreme Community, I go for refuge into awakening. To the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of the Buddha for the sake of all living beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge into awakening. To the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of the Buddha for the sake of all living beings.
To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge and to 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. So I’ll meditate. If you like, do you wanna stand up for a moment and we’ll stretch? Okay. So I thought we, you know, we’ve been first we’ll begin with adjusting our motivation again.
Now within the Buddhist teachings, I don’t I think sometimes we have to begin to believe our teachers, sometime, that they aren’t just repeating meaningless words, which are from scriptures written a long long time ago, which are irrelevant and maybe not correct at all. That, you know, we can it’s worthwhile to spend our entire life just trying to develop our love and compassion. That this is a worthwhile career in itself. If nothing else, our life has had great meaning. You know, that’s what the our teachers say.
I think maybe it’s probably true, it’s kind of a truth we have to perhaps discover for ourselves. So I guess what I’m saying is that we, you know, it’s worthwhile to keep coming back again and again and again. It’s not meaningless. It’s very relevant. It’s very and it’s worthwhile.
So we’re going to cultivate our motivation in terms of love and compassion. We’ll look at a group of people almost, know, someone that you love a great deal, very close to, someone that you’re not particularly close to, but you like. Someone who is appealing to you, attractive to you, but you’re not particularly close. A neutral person, stranger, perhaps you feel indifferent towards. And then somebody you don’t like, you know, and perhaps not a heavy duty dislike. Just you don’t feel very good around them or you have some kind of maybe some kind of present disagreement with them.
Something something’s going wrong in the relationship. Anyway, these four individuals. And, you know, perhaps the images that we have aren’t necessarily visual, but, you know, if you can add the visual, that’s it acts as a as a as a stimulant to the feelings. But, you know, you’re going to have a different feeling toward each of them. That’s part of the image that you that you presently associate with these various individuals.
You know, you look at the loved one, you’re gonna have a certain feeling, you’re gonna be aroused by that. And you look at the other person that you like, a certain feeling quality about, you know, it’s just There’s a feeling component associated with every mind moment, whether we’re aware of it not. So there’s always going to be some feeling associated with any object that we view. So it’s going to when you view that person like, there’s some feeling. Then there’s a feeling with that stranger, some feeling with that person they dislike.
So the feelings are most important. You know, if you can see that’s that’s great. It’s gonna make the process that much more vivid, more more powerful. But the feelings are most important and how we feel about it. See if we can begin to work with those feelings and change those feelings.
And then we’ll do the nine round breathing meditation with the white light and breathing out all our negativities and heaviness. And then we’ll do mindfulness breathing. In the course of our practice of mindfulness breathing, thought we’d do two meditations that we’ve we’ve that we’ve done in the past. One of these is this choiceless awareness. So at at a certain point in the course of our meditation, if you’re counting your breath, you stop counting.
If you’re noting, continue to note. If you’re not noting, note your breathing. Noting, as I’ve described in the past, is simply acknowledging what your mind is involved in, you know, to yourself. A mental noting, you know, breathing in and knowing that you’re breathing in, note it in. Breathing out, knowing that you’re breathing out, breathing out.
Or if your mind is has wandered or it’s been distracted, you know, maybe somebody’s pounding with out on the in the yard or whatever is going on out there. Hearing, and then bring your mind back to the breath. Maybe it’s something internal, maybe it’s a pain. You know, pain. Bring your mind back to the breath.
So just note what it is and bring your mind back to the breath. So there’s noting quality. Then but we’re continually bringing the mind back to the breath, you know, like a little puppy dog bringing it back to the paper, trying to paper train it again and again and again. But then we’re going to practice choiceless awareness. And choiceless awareness is just that we now allow the mind to become involved in any object that it naturally tends toward, and we’re not going to try to focus it on any object.
It’s going to be naturally attracted towards the most stimulating object. It could be external, it could be internal, it could be a thought, a fantasy, it could be a memory, but it could be, you know, if noise, the fan, somebody moving next to you, it could be a pain. And simply note, you know, thinking, hearing, feeling without trying to control the mind. The mind allow the mind to be drawn to any object that it’s naturally tends toward, but be maintain your awareness. Thinking, Thinking.
Hearing. Thinking. Feeling. Hearing. Hearing.
Hearing. Thinking. Thinking. Feeling. Then bring the mind.
Then that’s choiceless awareness. We’re not choosing the object of our awareness, but we are maintaining our awareness through it’s very helpful to use the technique of noting. And then we are going to practice mindfulness of breathing again, and then we are going to dwell upon the mental consciousness. You know, within Buddhist psychology there one way of dividing consciousness is into primary consciousness and secondary mental factors. In primary consciousnesses, there are six, I, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mental consciousness.
The objects of so we’re going to focus upon the mental consciousness itself, and we’re going to continue to note. But we’re not going to we’re not going to discriminate as to the various objects in mental consciousness. We’re just going to label them or note them all thinking, whether it’s a feeling, whether it’s a visual image, whether it’s some mental thought, you know, the words that go through our mind, or just call them thinking. So directing your mind internally to the mind itself, to the mental consciousness itself. It’s it’s very useful to note thinking.
This will help to create some space between you and your thoughts, the images. Generally, we identify with our thoughts. I am my thoughts. But now we can begin to stand back, gain some kind of perspective. You know, all of these various feelings, these very