Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute session, Ven Jampa Gendun uses a William Blake verse — “He who bends to himself a joy doth the winged life destroy” — as a pivot from impermanence to the third mark of conditioned existence: selflessness. He dismantles the notion of a fixed, independent self using a film-reel analogy, then carefully distinguishes the fantasized self Buddhism targets from the ordinary functional “I” that even a Buddha retains. The second half follows Tsongkhapa’s Three Principal Aspects of the Path, working through the first — the will to awaken — covering appreciation of human fortune, karma’s four modes (inevitability, proportionality, growth, and persistence of karmic seeds), the four opponent powers for purification, and the three levels of suffering. Suited to practitioners working through Lamrim systematically.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 20 HMA 1996 12 18.mp3
UUID: b4e3fe8e-3488-40db-a8d8-18439667860c
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: 45.0 minutes
Words: ~6,933
And and there is various levels in terms of the impermanence as and our our Our struggle against the texture of our life, our rejection of impermanence, our denial of it, and how it how that very denial leads us to to inappropriate ways of acting and being, causing us more problems and more suffering. Then finally, you know, we talked about the fact that impermanence is is in itself is not a problem, is it? I mean, we can’t you know, we have to accommodate reality in our world view. You know, that is to say some some idea of the way things actually are. And and the world is impermanent.
The people around us are impermanent. The things that we own are impermanent. That’s their nature. You know, it wouldn’t do us any good to to try to see them otherwise. It would only compound our problems, but we try to.
So, you know, the things remain impermanent even for a Buddha. It’s not as if somehow the nature of reality changes. A Buddha can’t go beyond the law of cause and effect. A Buddha is not omnipotent. So we we have to get in touch with the way things are and begin to adjust our thinking thinking and behaving to ways which are more appropriate, more functional, more skillful in terms of the way things are.
You know, it is our constant clinging and grasping at the transitory and its pleasures, which turns our pleasure into pain as if they were permanent, you know, grasping at the pleasure as if it were permanent, as if it’s going to last us forever, as if it’s going to be unchanging, which turns pleasure into pain. And that’s the mark of impermanence in terms of our conditioned existence. Anyway, read that verse by it’s by William Blake, He who bends to himself a joy doth the winged life destroy, but he who kisses the joy as it flies lives in eternity sunrise. So but, you know, but we have to go on to ask, this is all very well and true, you know, we all have some kind of intuition around that. It touches us at some place deep inside of ourselves.
But who is it or what is it that that is constantly trying, is struggling to bend to himself a joy? Yeah. Who is it or who is this trying to use all of these ten thousand things that who is it that’s trying to get in touch with reality and the way things are? Who is it that grasps? Who is it that expects?
Who is it that demands? There is no substantial self trying, struggling, grasping, expecting, demanding. There is only the trying, the struggling, the grasping, the expecting, the demanding. So this is the third mark of conditioned existence, the mark of selflessness. You know, we’re we are constantly trying to synthesize the flow of transient mental and physical events which constitute our being into some kind of unchanging, fixed, independently existing self.
The effort to secure our happiness, to maintain ourselves in relation to something else, is a process of ego. But this effort is futile because there are constant there are continual gaps in our seemingly solid world, continual cycles of death and rebirth, constant change. The sense of continuity and solidity of the self is an illusion. There is really no such thing as soul or ātman. It is the succession of confusions that creates ego.
The process which is ego actually consists of a flicker flicker of confusion, a flicker of aggression, a flicker of grasping, all of which exists only in the moment. Since we cannot hold on to the moment, the present moment, we cannot hold on to me and mine and make them solid things. The experience of oneself relating to other things is actually a momentary discrimination, a fleeting thought. If we generate these fleeting thoughts fast enough, we can create the illusion of continuity and of solidity. It is like watching a movie.
The individual film frames are played so quickly that they generate the illusion of continual movement. So we build up an idea, a preconception that self and other are solid and continuous. And once we have this idea, we manipulate our thought to confirm it, and we are afraid of any contrary evidence. It is the fear of exposure, this denial of impermanence that imprisons us. See, now we’re going to go into this notion quite extensively when we come to the third principal aspect of the path, when we come to developing the awakened mind, the wisdom understanding emptiness, the final nature of things.
But, you know, so just to briefly touch upon these points because it it is relevant to the quality of our of our suffering existence. And nothing in the whole stream of mental and physical phenomena, nothing within the whole stream of mental and physical events that constitutes our experience of body and mind has the quality of an unchanging, independent self. You know, we we are you know, there is a we talked about more than an idea of things or we can talk about process or continuums or streams of events. If we were to introspect, if we were to to simply become aware of our actual moment by moment experience, we would notice some physical events, we would notice some mental but we would never notice within this stream of mental and physical events which constitutes our complete experience. There’s nothing out of this.
We would never notice an unchanging, independent, independent, fixed, substantial self in all of this. There is only the continual stream, the flow, the process of the experience of mental and physical events, none of which we could call self, none of which we can call I. It is all change. It is all dependent arising, none of which we can term this is who I am, this is the self, this is the core of my being, you know, the soul, my ātman. It is all process.
You know, it is our persistent effort to treat our bodies and minds as if they were as if they were, as if they they they that they constituted or possessed an unchanging, fixed, independently existent I or self that makes our bodies and minds a constant stream of suffering and our life a never ending struggle filled with all types of self deception, all types of anxiety that makes conditioned existence suffering, you know, that makes it pathological. And so in itself, again, selflessness is is not a problem. You know, know, the fact is we do have a self, an I. You know, the Buddha has a self. The Buddha doesn’t somehow lose himself.
Or it doesn’t become, you know, this notion of selflessness. When we say selflessness, what is selfless? What is the less? What is the self that we are without? A particular type of self, a fantasized, a fabricated type of self, a self which is independent, independent of body, independent of mind, independent of of all my circumstances, of my culture, of of all other factors.
It is fixed, unchanging, unitary, whole, partless, all these terms that we use to get at this. This self doesn’t exist. This is the self that we’re less of, but we think to the otherwise, or ignorance does indeed. Ignorance tries to grasp at the existence of such a type of self. We have a self, an I, a self which is dependent upon body and mind, which is constantly changing, which is conditioned by our society, by our culture, by what my past history.
It’s a constantly changing flux movement of mental and physical events upon which we label I or self. A Buddha has such an I or self. That the the empirical I, this the I, the self which walks, which talks, which, you know, comes to Buddha house, which which will eat a piece of chocolate cake hopefully, does all these various activities, is not a problem. It’s never been a problem to anybody. If the I itself were the problem, then a Buddha would still have problems because a Buddha has an I, has a self, and a Buddha just simply doesn’t have any problems.
So it is our it is our grasping at the existence of a fantasized way of existing, a fantasized I self, which has such qualities qualities as independent existence. You know when you get angry, it’s, I hate you. I can’t stand you. That I is that I am you know, that if we could find that I that can’t do the standing, that’s doing the hating, That’s the eye that would you know, if we’re to get angry at anybody, if we’re to want to destroy anybody, it’s that eye. But if we look, we never find it, but we think it’s there.
Matter of fact, we base our entire life on the assumption that it’s there. On on the basis of this assumption of such a type of I, we make a sharp distinction between self and other. And in the bit on that basis, attachment and aversion arise, and all of cyclic existence evolves, and all of our problems, all our pain. So this is is ignorance governed existence. This is the condition that we’re we involve ourselves in.
Now we’re never going to be happy. There’s no way that we can be find complete happiness is the point within this context, within ignorance governed existence, within karmically dominated existence. There’s simply you know, we can play we can keep it’s not an element, know, like, we have this notion of I don’t know. It’s not an element in this set. You know, like like you have like like we, you know, we’re we’re given so many let’s see.
You know, like like a baby. Baby, you know, we’re given so many different toys to play with. There’s educational tools or whatever, books. That’s all we have to work with. And if somehow each of them is flawed, each of them is is doesn’t work properly.
And, you know, what can we do? We we can arrange them in in all the various ways, you know, possible ways. You know, we can use our imagination. You know, it’s like the yeah. You know, we have have mental maps of how we navigate through our life, and we depend upon those mental maps, our our our conception of the way things are, and where we want to go, and how to get there.
But what happens if we if our map is in some way flawed, you know, and we keep using the same map over and over again? We never quite get to where we want to go, our destination. Or we could you know, even even realizing that your that your mental map is flawed. You can say, well, I could be more accepting about not getting what I want out of life, you know, I could change my attitude, you something like that. You know, we just kind of accept being lost all the time, as it were.
But in either case, do we get what we really want in life, you know, meaning and fulfillment and peace, finding the element of sacred, a sense of connected with others, you know, all that life could have had some intuitive level we hold out for, that life could present us with. So we, you know, we we have to change the mental maps that we use to navigate through the train of our life. There’s no getting around that. And we try. We do that.
We do that to some degree. But this is the most fundamental change. You know, the notion of I. All that we do, all that we think is permeated with the notion of I. That that that all of our experiences are encompassed with that is happening to me.
And as long as it’s the very basis, the very foundation of our very, you know, most most fundamental premise in which we operate in, as long as that is somehow flawed and mistaken, then our life is pathological. It’s going to be somehow it’s never going to quite hit the mark. We’re never quite going to get to where we want to go. So this is the dilemma that we that we that we we find ourselves in. This is the pathology of conditioned existence, our existence.
We’re talking about our life. It is not some theory which is irrelevant to ourselves. The Buddha is trying to point out that what that these are qualities in which we all exist. Then this you know, we can look in the mirror and there’s this mark of of suffering upon our foreheads. And then we can it’s like we have you know, like like if you monkeys are intelligent.
One one they’re one of the few species that if that they if you put a mark, say, on their forehead and they look in a mirror, some of them may actually touch the mirror, sometimes they touch their own forehead, You know? They know they can tell the difference between that this is a reflection of themselves. They touch their own forehead. A real that’s almost, you know, almost a quantitative difference between the intelligence of species, that they’re able to see and say, is that’s only an it that’s only this is only a reflection of something about me. So what is being talked about is to be seen as a reflection about you, ourselves, that we’re talking about ourselves, not about a theory, not about something abstract, not about a religion, but about our lives in some way.
Trying to personalize it in some way, see how it reflects upon ourselves. So, you know, a type of existence which is marked by suffering, which is impermanence and selflessness. So it’s necessary to repeatedly confront and acknowledge these three facts about our everyday existence if we’re ever going to develop a repudiation or discouragement or an aversion almost. I don’t want that anymore. You know, Buddhism is saying that if you don’t want to suffer anymore, you’re going to have to deal with ignorance.
You’re going to have to deal with self centeredness. You’re to to deal with a lot of levels of of misconceptions and misbeliefs and wrong ideas. You’re going have to deal with your world view. There’s no other way around it. You can continue the way you have in trying to manipulate the people and the things and the situations about you to ad infinitum, which we’ve tried to do, infinitum from beginning of this time, and it hasn’t worked and it never will.
And somehow the penny must drop at some point, and maybe we can begin, you know, begin to get on with another approach, another refuge, redefine how our strategies for finding the good life. There’s a gap between our beliefs and our belief conditioned perceptions on the one hand and the way things are on the other. And that gap is experienced as pain, as suffering, as disappointment, as frustration, anxiety. You know, we at present, we we believe that conditioned existence, let us say by conditioned existence, again what I mean by conditioned existence is a an ignorance governed, karmically driven existence, a type of life which is conditioned by misconception, most basic ignorance, most basic ignorance with respect to the ultimate nature of reality, and karma, that is to say, these past conditioning factors within our mind which govern how we now what we now experience and how we relate how we react to those experiences. You know, there’s no spontaneity.
There’s no freedom existing in relationship to the present context. We we react in terms of what of our of our histories, about conditioning factors. That there we believe that conditioned existence has the capacity to bring us complete happiness, and we’re holding out for that at some level. That, you know, finding that right partner, finding that right job, the right house, and getting my body healthy and strong, getting enough money together, maybe another degree, Think of that that, you know, getting the car working properly. I’m hoping for that one.
Anyway, this vast array of variables, thinking, just gonna get them all in the proper arrangement. Then I’m home. I got it made. That’s that’s the good life. Complete happiness.
That’s what we’re holding out for. And it’s never happened in the past. It’s not gonna happen in the future. So if Tsongkhapa, coming back to Tsongkhapa in his Three Principal Aspects of the Path, says, if having meditated thus, you do not generate admiration even for an instant for the prosperity of cyclic existence. And if an attitude seeking liberation arises day and night, then the thought definitely to leave cyclic existence has been generated.
You know, I have the thought definitely to leave cyclic existence, the will to awaken. Okay? The determination to be free, and finally to awaken. You know, we have to to we have to learn to care for ourselves, to be concerned about ourselves, to go beyond our apathy about ourselves and our present condition. You know, something something has to matter to us.
Something you know, if if an individual if we as suffering individuals ever expect to solve our problems at a at a more comfortable fundamental level, if we ever expect to find some kind of real peace in our lives, real meaning in each of us in our you know, this is what I think in in a whatever it is for you, in your heart of heart, what it is that you want out of your life, what you’re searching for, where all these yearnings are trying to take you, all your wanderings, all your struggles, And we have to develop a powerful and consistent determination to be free, you know, finally to awaken, to confront all our self deceptions and to go beyond all our mistaken premises which presently govern our lives. So if we don’t see this clearly, the point is that if we don’t then we will never know what freedom means. What does it mean to be free? People talk about freedom, I wanna be free. You know, what what freedom might be you know, what are we trying to be free from if if we’re trying to be free?
You know, we have to what liberation actually entails. And that if we don’t see that, you know, the wheel is simply going to turn again. Our history simply going to repeat itself again, and we’re going to continue to suffer. Shouldn’t these ancient sufferings of ours finally start to bear fruit? Isn’t it time that in love we freed ourselves from the loved one and trembling endured as the arrow endures the string collecting itself to be more than itself as it shoots?
For there is no remaining, no place to stay. So that’s the that’s the first of the three principal aspects of the path, developing the determination to be free, to awaken. And I call it the will to awaken. Sometimes it’s referred to as renunciation. So now if we very quickly, you know, looking at the text which Tsongkhapa which we’re following to some extent, where Tsongkhapa begins with homage to the foremost holy master, form foremost holy Lama.
So, you know, trying to point out that, you know, we need as I mentioned previously, that we need to depend upon others and very much depend upon perhaps some someone who is more experienced than ourselves and where it is that we want to go. And that’s the the whole idea of a guide is, you know, we’re entering an unknown territory as it were and depending upon others who have been there before ourselves. Patrul Rinpoche, who is one of the great masters, the greatest recognized masters of the nineteenth century, previously in Tibet, to reach liberation, there is nothing more important than lama. Even the simple things of this present life, which which with things that can be learned just by sitting down and watching someone, you can’t get anywhere without a person to show you. So how on earth are you going to get anywhere without a lama when you want to be go somewhere you’ve never gone before, and you’ve you’ve only just arrived from a journey through the lower realms?
So so Tsongkhapa begins by paying homage to the Lama who is like the foundation of the path, who who he tries to show us, who tries to, you know, not let us lose sight of our dreams, not let us be overwhelmed by normality and all that and it keeps our keeps our dreams alive for us, and it keeps inspiring us and shows gives us some tangible methods and strategies to work with to to translate those dreams into some kind of reality, to to build foundations beneath the castles that we’re that we’re building we’ve all built in the air. And then he goes on to say, you know, I will explain as well as I can the essential meaning of all the conquerors scriptures, the path praised by the excellent conquerors’ children, the path of the fortunate ones wishing liberation. Whoever are not attached to the pleasures of mundane existence, whoever strive in order to make leisure and fortune worthwhile, whoever inclined to the path pleasing to the conquerors, those fortunate ones should listen listen with a clear mind. You know, he’s setting out in these verses essentially the three principal aspects of the path. This is what he’s going to talk about, the the will to awaken, the awakened heart, and the awakened mind.
And then he goes on to begin with the first of these three principal path aspects of the path, the will to awaken. Without the complete thought definitely to leave cyclic existence, there is no way to stop seeking pleasurable effects in the ocean of existence. Also, craving cyclic existence thoroughly and always binds the embodied. Therefore, in the beginning, determination to leave cyclic existence should be sought. So in in any valid spiritual path and any authentic method of growth has to begin with ourselves because that’s the only reality which we recognize at present is our own self interest.
We have to begin there, and then we have to begin to wanting to grow, wanting to go beyond these continual cycles of of suffering that which we are involved in one way or another. That’s that’s where we’re at, at present. And how are we going to do that? Let’s at least begin to this is this Tsongkhapa divides into two parts. One where we we begin to become discouraged with.
We begin to to to we get some handle on the nature of our situation and on the on the quality of life. You know, we we we expand our our scope of our vision of what the good life is about. Leisure and fortune are difficult to find. Life has no duration. Through familiarity with this, emphasis on the appearance of this life is reversed.
So and we’ve talked about leisure and fortune are difficult to find. That is to say, we we have to begin to appreciate our humanity, what our human life affords us, what it actually it it has the capacity to bring us. And and not only human human life in general, but ours specifically. You know, that that you know, there there is a list of what are called eight freedoms and ten richnesses or fortunes, but we don’t even have to look to those traditional explanations, but look to ourselves as very unique individuals and and all that our affluence affords us. You know, look look at how you know, we’re very special people, and everyone is special.
But I mean in terms of the opportunities our lives afford us. We have a window of opportunity as it were, that most people on this planet simply don’t have the great fortune to to enjoy. You know, that we have all our our material needs readily met. And then most of the people on this planet have to work seven days a week, probably, you know, ten hours, twelve hours a day. That’s their reality.
That’s not our reality. That’s theirs for one reason or another. That that’s they’re not they don’t have the circumstances that we have to be able to to pursue their their creative pursuits, their their their interests. That they many people in this world simply don’t have their religious freedoms. They don’t have the the, you know, the the political freedoms, the social freedoms, the the affluence that many people you know, these are the external endowments that we all have that we specifically you know, we’re talking know, this is if you look in the mirror, you’re gonna see this on your face, on life and who you are.
Take we’re not talking about someone else. We’re talking about ourselves in Australia and Adelaide in in nineteen ninety six in December, we who we are now, that we enjoy this. We’re not talking about somebody else. Most people in this world don’t. There are there are many people who are experiencing wars, famines, going through tremendous turmoil in one way or another where they simply can’t concern themselves.
You know, there is a as if a pyramid of hierarchies of needs that we have to be met. On the basis is we need food and water and some shelter. Once that’s met, then we can go on to other things. Based upon having those more basic needs met, we can go on to higher needs. We want security and safety.
And the basis of having that met, we can go on to higher needs, love and companionship and connectedness with others, know, love working with ideas, truth. On top of it all is growth, self actualization, awaken. You know, we are at the pinnacle of this pyramid of having our needs met, and and beginning to appreciate that, not taken for granted in terms of our external endowments, and but also in the fact of who we are in terms of our internal you know, we’re fairly healthy people. You you might have your own particular problem, and I have my problem, my physical difficulty, but it’s not preventing me from using my mind, carrying on, you know, the physical activities associated with, you know, all that’s needed in study and attending teachings and meditating and and and contemplation and meditation and all those things which traveling path entail. It’s not stopping me.
It may next week. It could. But while I have this opportunity now, it’s it’s a it’s a window of opportunity. It might shut. You know?
It’s going to shut for all of us at some time. But we all are fairly you know, there are many people who simply aren’t physically able to to to involve themselves in many of these activities. You know, they’re dying of cancer. They’re in constant pain. You know, they’re they’re mentally, they’re perhaps they’re completely, you know, completely wrapped up with bigger, better, more, you know, the the mantra of the world.
They can their whole all their energy, time, all their their all of their being is is wrapped up in in constant pursuit of materialism in some way or another, in status, in power in one way or another. That’s many people’s reality. They don’t there’s no they don’t enjoy this opportunity that that you possess, that I we all possess. So, you know, not appreciating this fact, not taking it for granted is the point. You know, counting our blessings is the point.
And life has no no duration. Because this window is going to close at some time, it’s not always going to be there. It’s definite we’re going to die, and we don’t know when. The time of death is uncertain. But not even the time of our death at the end of this life, but just the fact of what happens if we have an accident, what happens if we become incapacitated in some way.
This window can close in other ways simply other than, you know, the finality of death. And there are limitations which are physical and mental which can be placed upon ourselves in one way or another in in our terms of our activities and what we can do and not do, which we, you know, constraints, which which constrain our freedom. If you appreciate this fact and appreciate ourselves and all that we have and it’s not going to last forever, then your priorities are going to change. And you can’t keep going the same way you’re going with the same priorities when you begin to gain this kind of perspective. Then Tsongkhapa goes on to say, if you think again and again about deeds and their inevitable effects and the sufferings of cyclic existence, the emphasis on the appearance of future lives will reverse.
So, you know, that there’s another step to this process of developing this determination to be free, You know, that not only to concern myself in terms of deficiency motivation, to hope, you know, to concern myself with making sure that things are better in the future and covering my debts, but to get out of the situation altogether in a cyclic existence. If you think about karma, and we talked about that in terms of karma is simply actions, the actions that that we create through our body, speech, mind, and the and the tendencies, the latencies that these the conditioning factors that these leave, the residue that these leave within our minds. Our life is not something other than our actions, what we do, And we can choose what we do. We are free to choose what we do. But if we don’t if we don’t exercise that choice, then it simply becomes a programmed running itself out in one way another.
We we keep very much going through the same cycles over and over again. You know, the various types of karma that we pointed out in terms of, like, a ripening result and the the overall realm in which we’re all we take rebirth in, the overall quality of the conditions over the course of that life. There’s the the result which is similar to the cause functionally, that is to say that we have a tendency to repeat the same type of actions. Having killed once, there’s a that facilitates killing again, that you have a tendency to take on jobs and occupations, interests, which are going to to help you to fulfill this tendency, to express this this this, you know, this addictive habit that you’ve developed in some way. The result which is similar to the cause experientially, that this is simply the notion of as you sow, so shall you reap, that as we do unto others, we it’s going to come back to ourselves.
And then finally, the governing result. The governing result is the the immediate environment and resources that we have that are available to us ourselves. You know, trying to gain some kind of conviction in in that karma is simply is not some eastern notion, is not some Buddhist myth, that it’s simply a particular area of the law of cause and effect dependent arising. And it’s it’s concerned with not the cause and effect of things in general, that is to say, whether, you know, if you if you if you if when the when the rain when it rains on mountains, the mountain is washed down, or if if you chop down a tree, the tree falls, and these various cause and effects, but cause and effect internal to being. That is to say, what we do, what we think, what we say has an effect, Not only the immediate effect, but it’s going to have a reaction, and it’s going to cause us to have certain experiences in the future.
It’s going to condition the way that we that we the way that we the way that we interpret, interpret, the way that we experience and respond to the world. It’s going to have a determining effect on the quality of our life in terms of its felt effect on whether we’re happy or we’re suffering. And we talked about karma in terms of how it affects us in practice. And these were the four distinct modes of karma. That is to say, the first of these is that karma the effects of karma are inevitable.
That is to say, there is a is a relationship between the quality of the cause and the quality of the result. From skillful actions comes happiness, from unskillful actions comes suffering. So, you know, this is almost what we mean by a skillful action, that which ultimately brings a result of happiness to ourselves. That’s what we mean by unskillful action. So there’s no moral judgment being made.
It is simply that certain ways of acting, speaking, and thinking bring about results of felt experiences eventually, and there is a correspondence between the two in terms of their quality. That an uncommitted act that the results of an uncommitted act are not experienced. That is say, you know, that if we and this is a simple simple simple minded notion perhaps, but it it maybe it needs to be pointed out. If we don’t create the cause, we won’t experience the result. Simple, isn’t it?
We we know that, but perhaps it’s too simple and we overlook it. That if we as we go through life, if we want to experience some kind of result, whatever it might be, it could be worldly or it could be transworldly, if we want to experience that result, then we have to make a conscious effort to create its causes. If we haven’t created its cause, we won’t experience that result. But the converse holds true as well. If there’s some type of experience that we don’t want to go through, if we don’t if there’s something that we don’t want for ourselves, then don’t commit its cause.
Yeah. Consciously avoid committing that cause, and thereby you won’t experience this effect. Then there is the the in terms of these four distinct modes of karma, thirdly, there’s the karma is increasing, and this was the fact that that even insignificant or minor causes can bring about magnified results. So beginning to concern ourselves not which of, you know, the huge things we do in terms of, well, I won’t kill people this week. It doesn’t matter whether I kill this mosquito.
Beginning to concern ourselves with even minor negative and positive types of actions. And then finally, in terms of these four distinct modes of karma, that the karma the latencies of these karmic actions are not dissipated, that these actions, they leave a residue within our mind, they condition our mind, and they don’t go away. There’s a tendency left within our mind, and there’s as if a karmic seed is implanted in our mind by our various actions, which is not lost, which is not wasted. And when the correct conditions, just like planting a a flower seed or any type of seed, placing it in the correct cooperative conditions, then then that potential is germinated, it’s activated, and some kind of result arises, a flower or a plant of some sort. Likewise with the karmic seeds present within our mind.
They’re given when they meet with the proper the appropriate cooperative conditions, then they’re going to be actualized in some manner. There’s some tendency, a way way of thinking, a way of feeling, a way of organizing our reality, a way of experiencing is going to occur, that this potency isn’t lost. And therefore, we have to concern ourselves. But there was one pervasion made, and that was unless they’re acted upon by an agent. And these agents are in the terms in terms of our positive karma or skillful actions, the agent of anger or hatred hatred and misguided regret.
That’s the one that’s one of the reasons behind our dedication of these skillful actions that we create together as we do, giving it some kind of direction. It is said by dedicating our positive potential, skillful actions, this acts as if as it were to insulate these positive seeds from being destroyed by either anger or misguided regret on the one hand. On the other hand, there are the, you know, the unskillful actions, the seeds of our of our negative actions that which have been left these latencies left in our mind, and that these are going to remain unless acted upon by an outside agent. And that outside agent is the four opponent powers. And we we went through these four opponent powers, the most important one of which is regret, developing a sincere, reasoned, healthy regret around this past action, you know, repudiating that action, no longer identifying with it.
And you made a mistake. You added one and one and made three, and it was only a mistake, but there’s a sense of real regret about having done it and and and dividing oneself off from it, you know, no longer identifying it wasn’t okay. Acknowledging your mistake as a mistake, and then applying the remaining three of these four opponent powers in terms of if we break a vow or if we break a promise, then realigning ourselves with our own basic sanity in terms of going for refuge. If we’ve hurt others, we’re aligning ourselves with our commitment toward compassion and developing loving compassion for others. That’s that’s the force and the power of going for refuge.
And thirdly, determining not to repeat the action again, you know, in some realistic sense, I’m not going to act that way again, you know, for whether it’s for a day or two days or whatever you feel realistically capable of doing. And then fortunately, some type of antidote, you know, this can be there are traditional antidotes which you can make use of, but some type of positive action constantly committed or performed as a counterbalance to that previously negative action that you committed. And in this way, there’s no negative action, no unskilled action whatsoever that cannot be completely purified such that its result will never have to be experienced again. Then we talked about the the the the sufferings of cyclic existence in terms of these three marks of cyclic existence. You know, the first mark is the mark of suffering and the three levels of suffering that we’ve talked about, the suffering of misery or pain, you know, in terms of its three levels.
Three levels of suffering, first of which is the suffering of pain or misery, you know, mental and physical pain which we go through every day of our lives. And then there’s the suffering of alternation, the underlying psychological process which which predisposes us to inevitably experience dissatisfaction, some type of negative quality in our life, simply because we only know happiness in contrast to pain. Only know success in contrast to failure. We are is the the nature of a dualistic our our present dualistic thinking process. It’s it’s part of the psychological process which which makes cyclic existence problematic, which makes it in the nature of suffering.
And finally, the third of these three levels of suffering, the suffering of conditionality, the fact that we aren’t free, we’re we’re under the influence of the forces beyond our control. Yeah. Whereas if we’re like abused children who have nowhere to go, who don’t know any better as it were, you know, where they’re stuck in a sit in a pathological situation in which they have, you know, almost no choice, almost no choice. That’s the nature of our present existence. We’re in we’re being abused by by ignorance and afflictive emotions and karma.
They’re continually abusing us. And in such a way situation, there’s nothing worth being or having or or becoming. It’s none of it is real happiness. None of it that goes beyond suffering. You know, if seen is you know, we’re talking about a particular approach to life, a type of life which is governed by ignorance.
And it’s in the these mental patterns which stem from ignorance, you know, hatred, attachment, and miserliness, and jealousy, pride, and then their offshoots. They don’t they just they’re the very word afflict. That’s what we call they’re called in in the translation. Afflicting emotions, afflictive patterns, disturbing attitudes, they they destroy the the natural peace of our own mind. Our mind is by its very nature at peace, but due to the presence of these afflictive patterns, that peace is never experienced, is never realized.
So this is what we’re trying to be free from. This is what we’re trying to develop some kind of will to awaken from, a determination to be free. So, you know, that’s kind of where we’re at now, and where we’re going to go to next month. Begin again.