Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A physicist who lets his chauffeur deliver his lecture — until a pointed question from the audience exposes the ruse — opens this 24.5-minute talk by Ven Jampa Gendun and sets its central theme: hearing Buddhist ideas is not the same as living them. Gendun argues that genuine practice demands personal responsibility; teachings pour off the mind like oil on water unless rediscovered through lived experience. He then addresses how change in practice tends to be subtle and uneven, arriving in unexpected areas of life rather than all at once. He turns next to motivation and purpose — comparing a purposeless life to a rudderless ship — before closing with a distinction between the private inner self and the social relational self, arguing that real wellbeing requires both. The session ends with a guided loving-kindness meditation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 19 HMA 1996 12 18.mp3
UUID: 496c96c9-9170-4769-af3c-54bed91f0077
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1996-12-18
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 24.5 minutes
Words: ~3,514
But, you know, this is what we normally go through. It’s something very much that, you know, I try to perhaps give some guidelines, a few reminders of the ways that we could think, but it’s very much dependent upon oneself, something that you can only do for yourself inside of yourself. I think that there’s a story. You know, I’ve sort of gone over these ideas, many of the ideas about this process of reorientation, this getting back in touch with what is important to each of ourselves, very unique individuals, reprioritizing. There’s a story about there is someone made a a great breakthrough in some very esoteric aspect of physics, astrophysics or something like that.
And he became rather famous overnight. And as quite often the case, he was invited to, you know, speak on his breakthrough and his new theory in his his very unique area of science. And so he, was on a tour. Probably United States. That’s the way they kinda do things there.
And he rather than flying from city to city over this this long tour, he hired a chauffeur. He hired a driver to drive him to all the various venues where he would give a talk. And he gave the same talk every night on this latest theory of physics. And again and again, giving the same talk over and over again to the just different faces, but the but the ideas and the the talk remain very much the same. And after a number of weeks of this, he was driving to the next venue, the next city where he’s he was scheduled to give another talk, the same talk.
And he was talking to his chauffeur and he says, I’m really getting tired of this. The same talk night after night after night. I say the same thing night after night after night. And his chauffeur said, well, why don’t you let me give the talk? So I’ve heard you give it so many times, I could give it myself.
He said, yeah. Yeah. Let me hear you. And so the chauffeur went on to give this very elaborate explanation of this very advanced theory of physics. And the physicist was astounded by it.
He said, that’s a great idea, but give me a break. He says, you give tonight’s talk. So they got to the venue, and the the chauffeur gets up and on the lecture platform, and then there’s the the physicist sitting down in the front row as where the the chauffeur normally sat. And the the chauffeur went on to give this brilliant talk, word for word exactly as the the physicist had been giving the talk on the numbers of times previously that he had made the same speech again and again and again. But it just so happened this time that having finished this talk, someone asked, can can we ask some questions?
Yeah. But the chauffeur was the chauffeur was quite clever. He said, I only want you to ask questions if they’re really profound. You know, I’m getting tired of these simple simple minded questions that I’m getting. I only want the most profound, the deepest questions that and otherwise, don’t please don’t bother me.
I don’t have the time for it. But someone had the courage to speak up and and went on to ask this most profound and most difficult of questions that you could ever imagine in the area of physics. And the chauffeur says, oh, why do you bother me with such questions? Such simple minded questions. Even my chauffeur can answer that question.
I don’t know what the point of that story is. But anyway, maybe I can tie it in. Know, even you can develop the motivation. You know, even you can try to reorient yourself reorientate yourself, reprioritize, get back in touch, you know. There’s work that we can only do for ourselves.
Know, it’s it’s only something that you can do for yourself. And that’s you know, we just have a have to find some key to unlock our minds. It’s as I probably said many times, and perhaps it’s my hang up. I don’t know. You can tell me.
I think Buddhism places tremendous responsibility on ourselves as individuals, and it it it asks us to use our mind to its optimum, to its maximum. That’s a lot of us, think. But I think it delivers a lot in return if we’re willing to to go along with that. So there’s nothing there’s nothing mechanical that can be done. There’s nothing there’s no easy formula that we can simply plug into our lives as if they were mathematical problems to be figured out.
There’s no there’s no universal prescription even though the Buddha had a comprehensive world view which was internally consistent, coherent, which it seems is incontrovertible from from all most points of view. Still, we have to discover it all for ourselves within our own and it’s tie tied into what is actually happening to ourselves within our own lived experience, make it relevant, make it work for ourselves. And we, as it were, have to discover all the truths that the Buddha, him and her selves over the past have discovered for themselves. We have to rediscover for anew for ourselves. You know, this is the only way that we can overcome the various faulty patterns within our mind, these various dysfunctional patterns which have very much governed our lives, these these misconceptions, these these wrong beliefs, these crooked premises, erroneous ideas, mistaken, distorted worldview that we live under the influence of.
And it is only this discovery. Otherwise, it’s like, you know, pouring oil into water. You know, when you pour oil and water, it just floats on the top. It doesn’t sink in. It’s not integrated.
It doesn’t mix with our minds. It doesn’t become part of who we are. It may be an idea that we we have, but it’s not something which we live our lives out of. Our life in our Buddhist practice or our ideals about Buddhist practice don’t quite come together at some place deep inside of ourselves. So this is the process that we have to continually be re-involving ourselves.
And I think it’s hard to see the changes that we’ve made, I think, but I think we do change. Trouble is in in noting the change, is the change is often very subtle or it’s not so much subtle. It’s in ways that we are unexpected or unlooked for. Those those ways which we had not preconceived or provisioned we would change. Perhaps we’re looking for change somewhere else, and all the while, some change has been been going on behind our backs as if unknown, and we’ve become become another person even as unknown to ourselves.
Maybe our life just functions a little bit better. It doesn’t quite it’s not quite as problematic for ourselves. Either and it is not to say that that it’s all going to happen at once, that we’re going it’s like a front a frontal, you know, like you watch the the news on the on the sixth on the the weather report on the news, and there’s this front moving in, and the weather is you know, there’s this huge change of weather that’s moving in, and it’s going to pervade everything that it surrounds. It’s going to permeate the the atmosphere, and everything’s gonna be somehow affected by it. There’s going to be areas that were of our life, areas of our own mind where we’re we’re quite functional, where we’re quite skillful, we’re quite wise, and we can we have great power and and can act very effectively in in our world.
Other areas where perhaps we’re rather dysfunctional, where we don’t quite have it together, where we make a lot of mistakes, where we are governed by a lot of misconceptions and irrational emotions. So it’s not as if it’s uniform. There are going to be gaps. But over time there is change. We can develop some kind of confidence in that.
We can keep continually orientating ourselves toward that. That is our great hope. Nothing less than change is a cure for the ills which from which we all suffer, and of the ills of attachment and hatred and jealousy and pride, most basically the illness of ignorance. No other nothing less than change is going to cure that. It is only change, so we have to change.
The the the outcome of this change is a Buddha, the ultimate cure, the ultimate our our paradigm of sanity, what we look to as some model of health. You know, we each, you know, we each in our own way have our ideas about what a Buddha is, you know. Just as everyone if we were to ask Christians, they would each each if if they haven’t even thought about it even slightly, they have their own ideas about what God is perhaps. And we each have our own idea about what a Buddha may be. And but however we may conceive that Buddha, that’s what we’re working toward.
You know, the the outcome outcome to our preferred most spiritual story is that would be the finest story that we could ever hope to tell ourselves about ourselves and what is possible for ourselves and the quality of our life. We call that a Buddha. And that becomes you know, we continually reorientate in ourselves toward it, keep coming back to that. You know, we’re gonna talk about we’re gonna review a lot of what we’ve talked about over the last how long has it been? Six months, I think, in in developing the will to awaken, which we’ve all developed.
And one of them is the the part that the that the spiritual teacher plays, the the lama or the in in a more in a term which is more familiar to ourselves, but which is probably somewhat even out of date or has become outdated, is the idea of a mentor. And the mentor is someone who, if nothing else, keeps our dreams alive, who takes us out of normality, who who keeps quest who keeps questioning us, forcing us to question ourselves about what we’re doing and where we’re going. Doesn’t allow us to lose sight of of other possibilities inherent within our existence and ourselves. So we can’t lose sight of that. In a way, we have to be our own mentors in a way.
We have to be our own teachers, our own guides, and not let ourselves lose our way, and, you know, keep holding to the story about who we could be, our Buddhist story, and keep orientating towards that to the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha by which we you know, we can do something. We have to do something. It’s not it’s one thing to focus and wish, but it’s another thing to actually actively seek to actualize that wish, to make it a reality, to translate it to trans translate our dreams of who we might feel that we could be into some kind of actual reality. And that we can do for ourselves because we you know, we have I said that we had to rediscover everything that the Buddha discovered for them, but we don’t have to invent we we don’t have to invent the wheel anew. You know, we don’t have to discover fire for the first time.
We have our teachers that they turn the wheel of Dharma for ourselves. So we can implement those teachings in our in our life as best we can according to each of our unique circumstances. But we can do that to to some extent. And we try to you know, this and this process occurs. It’s a social process.
It you know, that we need each other’s assistance. It’s it’s a very you know, the path is very much an individual struggle, but it’s something which can be done but we can help one another in our individual struggle. We actually can can be of assistance in in real and significant significant practical ways. You know, we don’t have to go it alone. We have to take so we have to become very taking a lot of initiative for ourselves and and keep working within ourselves, that we can look to others and we can help others in the process of of living out this Buddhist story.
You know, it is if and the world about us is our co author of our lives, the co author co author of our story, and our spiritual community is co author of our Buddhist story, very much so I think. Without them, I don’t think we could ever write it properly. I don’t think we could ever bring about the end that we want. And we we try again and again to to raise the lever of our motivation, you know, the why behind the purpose. Purpose is tremendously important.
It can’t be you know, this idea that that we keep coming back to motivation is simply not an unthinking tradition. It has great meaning. The idea of purpose, the the mind is purpose in its nature. It’s in movement. It’s dynamic.
It’s always and it always has a quality of direction. We can begin to consciously create that direction, to determine that direction through purpose, that is the intentionality, our motivation. Then we will arrive at where we want to get to. What’s, you know, what is it? Ours is a world where where people don’t know what they want but are willing to go through hell to get there.
And that’s the way most of the quality of our lives is in one way or another. You know, very much like the like, you know, the proverbial ship without a rudder, and it’s just simply tossed by waves. Sometimes it goes in the direction that it might if you in the if it had conscious awareness of possibilities, it might wish to go, but it’s simply a chance occurrence, you know, wherever the waves of our afflictive emotions, wherever the waves of our karma happen to carry us. But if we were to put a rudder on our life as it were, give our mind some kind of direction, some kind of purpose, then there’s great hope, realistic hope, founded hope, you know, we can actually direct a course of change. And we try to to raise the level of motivation, why we do what we do, the purpose behind all of this, you know, to include an ever widening circle of others.
Again, the idea of raising our motivation isn’t an unthinking tradition, isn’t it not words which have been repeated, which have lost which are really of no significance to ourselves. You know, I I think we have to look at what in there for ourselves, what is being gotten at by many of these notions that Buddhism is keep continually repeating to ourselves? You know, what are they actually driving at? What are they trying to tell me particular, uniquely? What is this meaning for me?
You know, simply want to be happy, that’s our bottom line in most of ourselves. And we’ve all struggled and we’re continuing to struggle, you know, with in terms of the various skills that we have, in terms of the various materials that we have, our relationships, our values, our beliefs, and we try to to create some kind of good life for ourselves. But perhaps we need to look at the at the fact that our actual nature is that there are two aspects to who we are, to to to the dimensions of our being. And I probably repeated this a number of times, maybe it’s worth repeating that there is one that the inner experiential quality of the dimension of our life. You know, the the the there’s the that aspect of ourselves which is only only known to ourselves, the I of experience, the inner dimension of my being.
But there is another aspect to ourselves in the dimensions of our life and who we are, and that is the social aspect, the social dimension to our being, the I which exists in relationship to the world, to others. And quite often we lose sight of this fact, that somehow we have the notion that we could experience the good life in isolation from the world and others. We have this fence that we’ve built up, and we’re just trying to pile up all the goodies on this side of the fence, and we want to sit here in our little corner and kind of feast on them to our, you know, ad nauseam. And maybe that’s a mistaken notion. Maybe at best we can only bring it to some kind of marginal fulfillment, this this private aspect to ourselves, this inner dimension.
But that’s not all of who we are and all we could be. We have to also work at creating a a skillful way of being in the world with is, which that that mental health is a social phenomenon. It’s something which exists in a relationship. And so we have to not only to to work at creating purpose for our inner self, finding peace within our selves, but the purpose of finding meaningful ways of being in the world with others in terms of love, in terms of compassion and altruistic activity, and the most meaningful way that we can relate with the world. So, you know, we need both of these dimensions to our life.
So the motivating force, the purpose behind our practice and why we go for refuge and why we’re doing what we’re doing is not only for this inner peace but for an ever widening circle of others. And therefore, can bring about not only our a narrow limited welfare of our inner self, but the complete total totality of who we are as well as bringing about the welfare of others in the world. That’s the best of all possible worlds is perhaps the definition of what the good life is. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge until awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings.
To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge until awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma. May I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings? To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge 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. Reverently, I pay homage with my body, speech, mind and present clouds of every type of offering that is actual and imagined.
I disclose all my destructive acts accumulated since time without beginning and rejoice in the skillful actions of holy and ordinary beings. Please remain until 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. Meditate. Would you like to stand up for a minute?
Stretch. So again we’ll, we may talk meditate on the nine round breathing meditation. We’ve been going through a spectrum of individuals toward them to develop love and compassion. And rather than making that specific part of our meditation, we’re going to meditate on loving kindness in which in the context of with in the in the in the process of which we’re we’re going to make use of all these various levels and categories of individuals and try to develop love and compassion toward them. So rather than making a particular cultivation of love and compassion, we’ll we’ll meditate on that in the context of a meditation on love and compassion, of loving kindness.
And I’ll lead you through that. So taking a firm, comfortable posture, a sense of purposefulness behind what you’re doing, which is reflected in your physical posture. And begin again. And whatever identity you may hold to, whatever however you may conceive of yourself, you can change. You can become anything that you want to be.
But just for this present moment, we simply want to set aside the past and the future and make friends with ourselves in the present. So just begin to direct some kind, caring feelings for yourself, wishing yourself well, wishing yourself all the good things of life. May I not suffer? May I be happy? May I be healthy?
May I grow? Be kind to yourself. Wish yourself all the good things of life, all that you could ever hope for yourself.