Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A passage from Carlos Castaneda’s Journey to Ixtlan — a lone dog barking in the desert dark, which Don Juan reads as a man crying through his companion animal for death to release him from a life “not altogether miserable, but rather hot and dull and uncomfortable” — opens this 46-minute session as Ven Jampa Gendun uses it to anchor two drivers of practice: anxiety about remaining unchanged, and faith. He argues Buddhism is realistic rather than nihilistic, and that subtle suffering — isolation, fragmentation, self-consciousness — yields only to inner change, not material solutions. The session then moves into guided tonglen (taking and giving) meditation, beginning unusually with oneself as the object: taking on suffering as black smoke that dissolves the egg of self-centeredness at the heart, and giving happiness outward as brilliant white light. Part of an ongoing series on awakening mind.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 21 HoM 1993 06 09.mp3
UUID: 88411c90-7ac3-42aa-929b-69eaeae2a8e3
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1993-06-09
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.2 minutes
Words: ~4,304
Reprioritizing, getting back in touch with some of our central values. Those values, those guidelines that over the course of our life we found meaningful for ourselves that we’d like to like to focus upon. But oftentimes we get out of touch with, in the practical day to day necessities of our life in dealing with those. This redirecting process, this reorientating, reprioritizing process, as I’ve mentioned quite often in the past, has two basic causes. One of them is a sense of anxiety and the other is a sense of faith.
Anxiety and faith. Anxiety about the nature of our situation, confronting our problems and the possibility that these are simply going to continue to overcome our sense of hope. And by hope, I mean our sense of wishful thinking. That the that the rules which govern our life, the rules which by which we relate with our reality without changing them, and just say without basically without changing our mind, somehow we can hope for something better Without creating the causes for happiness, there’s a wishful thought that happiness is going to come. We’re not quite sure how.
It’s kind of a vague, nebulous, unthought out, unclarified, wishful thought in the back of our mind. Things will get better. It’ll be alright in the morning. I think that’s a very common Australian phrase, isn’t it? It’ll be alright in the morning.
So confronting our difficulty, you know, it’s not necessarily it’s not meant to be in any way pessimistic or cynical. You know, sometimes Buddhism is when it’s looked at superficially, when it’s not understood, it’s sometimes thought of as being somewhat nihilistic, cynical. And that in fact, Buddhism is ultimately optimistic. Well, not optimistic, because optimistic is probably also some sort of bit of wishful thinking involved there. It’s realistic.
It’s but it’s realistic to the extent that one of the most fundamental doctrines of Buddhism is that someday everyone’s going to solve their problems at the most basic level, and we won’t have to have these Wednesday night teachings anymore. You can stay home by the fire in bliss. You know, that everyone in this room should be blissed out. That’s kind of a that to me, that is our birthright. As it were, we’re just making some mistakes along the way.
And perhaps we haven’t spotted these mistakes. And so if Buddhism does anything at all, just helps us to spot our mistakes and helps us to to transform our mistaken ways of thinking. Some of our epistemological errors errors, which we’re going to talk about more tonight, into ways of thinking and ideas, notions, and beliefs, and premises which are more in keeping with a with a particular way of life, particular type of reality, which is characterized by peace, fulfillment, meaning. But we have to, as it were, to get unstuck out of our reoccurring compulsive patterns which very much constitute our life. We have to determine to grow, to change.
We have to determine to reprioritize, redirect ourselves, continually again and again, keep picking ourselves back up as it were. And the two motivating forces, the causes behind this continual redirecting process which we’re trying to involve ourselves in, are as I just mentioned, a sense of anxiety that things aren’t going to get better unless I do something about it. Why should they? The rules which govern the situation, which govern my experience remain very much the same. And without changing those rules, without changing my attitudes and my opinions about the things around me and the people and my relationships with them, How can I expect anything to get better?
I mean, is it realistic or is it just wishful thinking? And so confronting the issue of our life and developing a sense of anxiety. And I I read this quote before, but I I I like it. And it sort of cut my mood, which I was in today. And I’d like to share it with you again.
It’s it’s a it’s a quote from a a passage from a a book by Carlos Castaneda, Journey to Ixtlan. And as I’ve mentioned previously, Carlos Castaneda is, or was, I’m not sure, A at this particular time of writing the book was a PhD candidate at UCLA, University of California at Los Angeles, in anthropology. A rather sophisticated young man who probably thought he knew it all. And he was the course of writing his PhD thesis, he was interviewing an old derelict who lived in desert, or what appeared to be who appeared to be an old derelict living in desert by the name of Don Juan. And Don Juan was in fact, a man of knowledge, a Yaqui Indian living probably in northern Mexico.
And Don Juan is talking to Carlos Castaneda. There it’s, you know, it’s it’s approaching evening. The sun is going down. They’re out on the desert on top of a probably a plateau, a mesa. And the wind is gently hissing.
It’s growing dark. And in the south, there’s a village. And in that village, there’s the lone barking of a dog. Carlos Castaneda goes on to say, he paused. The silence around us was frightening.
The wind hissed softly. And then I heard the distant barking of a lone dog. Listen to that barking, Don Juan went on. That is the way my beloved Earth is helping me now to bring this last point to you. That barking is the saddest thing one can hear.
We were quiet for a moment. The barking of that lone dog was so sad and and the stillness around us so intense that I experienced a numbing anguish. It made me think of my own life, my sadness, my not knowing where to go or what to do. That dog’s barking is the nocturnal voice of a man, Don Juan said. It comes from a house in the valley towards the south.
A man is shouting through his dogs as they are companion slaves for life. His sadness, his boredom, he’s begging his death to come and release him from the dull and dreary chains of life. Don Juan’s words had cut a most disturbing line in me. I felt as if he was speaking directly to me. That barking and the loneliness it creates speaks of the feelings of men, he went on.
Men for whom an entire life was like a Sunday afternoon. An afternoon which was not altogether miserable, but rather hot and dull and uncomfortable. They sweated and fussed a great deal. They didn’t know where to go or what to do. That afternoon left them with only the memory of petty annoyances and tedium.
And then suddenly, it was over. It was already night. So I think as, you know, most of us aren’t basket cases. Most of us are extremely healthy people. I think if I can be so arrogant to say that’s one of the reasons that we’re here, because we’re extremely healthy people.
And we’re sane enough to understand the nature of our problems and perhaps have some inkling about how to best go about dealing with them, the way in which we have to begin to work with our own minds as a basic solution to our difficulties. So it’s not as if we’re basket cases. It’s not as if we are in extreme pain. From time to time, everyone has troubles. Everyone has disappointments and frustrations, moments of anguish and despair.
But I think we’re talking more about the tone, the overall quality of our life, a sense of discomfort, a sense of isolation perhaps, a sense of fragmentation, of alienation, the sense of self consciousness. There’s more subtle underlying currents, themes which seem to permeate our entire being. And I think we’re healthy enough to want to to solve those more subtle levels of suffering, which most people perhaps aren’t either aware of or are willing to wish away, thinking tomorrow is going to be alright. It’ll be alright in the morning. And it’s not going to be alright in the morning.
These are never going to go away. These are the the human dilemma which all ordinary people partake. It’s not as if there was something particular wrong with ourselves, our history, our present conditions, our family, our economic background, our educational status, whatever it might be. These are expressions of the human dilemma, of a of a life, governed by ignorance, of a good life based upon attachment and aversion, desire and hatred. And so, you know, we this becomes if we feel this at a very deep level, you know, we can we can deal with many of our materialistic problems using material methods.
But to deal with these problems, no minute no no degree of material affluence is going to be able to solve them. No one outside of ourselves is going to be able to to eliminate them. No power, no physical means is going to be able to alleviate them. It is only by bringing about change within our own deep minds which we’re ever going to find peace at a very deep level. And so, you know, confronting this nature of the human dilemma of what it means to be an ordinary being becomes the first of these two causes for us continually to be redirecting ourselves, reorientating as reprioritizing of the of the absolute necessity to begin to change our mind no matter how long of a road it may appear to us at present, No matter how, what how high a mountain it may look like to us now to begin that journey, we have no choice but to begin.
So the inner focus of our life, becomes Buddha and the Buddha with inside of ourselves, the solutions to our problems. This metaphor of the preferred outcome of a healthy way of being, of a healthy life, a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being, someone who has solved these very subtle most dilemmas of ego based existence. This is a potentiality within ourselves. So we we we orientate towards actualizing that solution with inside of ourselves. This solution we call Buddha, to be awakened, someone who is awoken.
And this is achieved by means of the Dharma. You know, it’s simply that those methods, those means, how are they whatever forms they may take, which are able to help us to actualize the solutions to the basic human dilemma, help us to express Buddha within our lived experience. And this occurred within the social context of a spiritual community, that we are social beings and we are need each other, that we are interdependent, that mental health is ultimately a social phenomena. And finding a way of relating with others which assists in the process such that able others are able to contribute, each in their own very unique and specific way to the unfoldment of our own journey. And we participate in the lives of others in their unfoldment.
That we are all on a journey. And that we some are holding us front handed, they’re pulling us up. And we in turn have to reach down and pull others up. That we’re all linked together inextricably on this, on a very long journey and working together. And we try to raise the level of our motivation such that we’re not doing this all only for ourselves because that in the end, is the extreme of individualism, which is self defeating.
But we raised the level of motivation such that we begin to widen, increase ever increasing the scope of our concern for the for the the motivation why we’re doing what we’re doing, why we’re involved in this process of of evolution, why we’re trying to solve our problems, is in terms of not only for myself, but so that I might be able to be a benefit to a greater greater number of others, in a greater and greater number of other circumstances, and a greater and greater amounts of time. Unlimited others in unlimited ways. And then this in the process, we solve our own problems. I guess, you know, just simplistically, we have to change our minds in some ways to help them to operate a little more skillfully and that to find our own happiness. And our happiness is bound up with others.
And so making a part of this effort in developing these skillful ways of operating our minds to find our own happiness in in the at the same time, incorporating a sense of others in our efforts such that we can help both ourselves and others. And then our life is meaningful. Whatever we might achieve, some some goodness has come out of it. We are not the same person we were brought through as we were born. There’s been some real progress on this, this long long journey which each of us is involved in whether we’re aware of it or not.
I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest assembly. And the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving and other perfections, may I attain the state of the Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly. From the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving and other perfections, may I attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. I go for a refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly.
And the virtuous merits that I collect by practicing giving and other perfections, may I attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. So we’re going to we’re going to meditate. And we’ll begin with, cultivation of our motivation. In terms of love and compassion. And we’ll take as an object, someone who we’re having some problems with, someone we don’t like, we’re angry at, really pressing our imagination and our ingenuity, our skill, and see if we can develop a more skillful attitude toward them, transform our present attitude of aversion to one of attraction in terms of development of love and compassion.
And then we’re going to meditate on taking and giving. Okay. I think when we went we went through this last week, the description description of this meditation. It’s a concept of bringing together of all of the ideas and methods of equalizing exchange in self for others. And as we mentioned last week, we’re to begin with ourselves.
I think it’s quite interesting, isn’t it, to objectify oneself from time to time? We’re so closely identified with ourselves that we never perhaps think of ourselves in more objective types of terms that we normally think of others in. And it seems like it’s rather worthwhile to look at oneself in a rather from some kind of perspective, a rather dispassionate point of view in terms of this person, you know, seeing oneself. This person this person wants to be happy. They don’t want to suffer.
And maybe we’ve never thought that in terms of ourself, where you always think of in terms of perhaps others. But we probably have never thought about it in terms of ourselves. I’m a human being. I’m a feeling being. I want to be happy.
I don’t want to suffer. I deserve to be happy. I have every right to pursue the methods to achieve happiness to solve my problem. This person out there. And it’s like sometimes for us, we don’t treat ourselves quite as well as we treat others at times, I think, in certain ways, in certain from certain perspectives.
So we’re going to begin with ourselves. And so, you know, thinking about some present difficulty, maybe whatever it might be, either physical or mental problems. And then, you know, I know this person would want to be happy. Just like me. I know they don’t want to suffer, they’re just like me.
Even though this is yourself, treating yourself, looking at yourself a little more dispassionately objectively for the moment, imagining yourself in front of yourself. And we having having exchanged ourselves with others, having put ourselves in other’s places, how what would I want if I were that person? I’d want somebody to take on my problems. I know that. I’d want I’d want to be I’d want my problems to be eliminated.
I’d want my suffering to be removed. That’s what I would want. And then having meditated on disadvantages of self-centeredness, determining, for once in my life, I’m going to act in act against my natural tendency to to seek happiness only for myself at the expense and exclusion of others. On the contrary, I’m going to take on suffering. I’ve never done this before voluntarily.
And I’m going to to to place it upon that part of myself, that aspect of my way of thinking, which is causing me all my problems, my own self centeredness. And taking transforming that person’s suffering, which in this case happens to be yourself, that present difficulty into black smoke which rises up into your nostrils and down and begins to eat away at the at the the repulsive dark-colored egg at one’s heart. Yeah? This is your self center. This is what’s causing you all your troubles your whole life.
This is what’s destroying you all your happiness like a knife twisting in your heart. And this begins to eat away that black egg. Repulsive repulsive colored egg at at one’s heart. It begins to eat away like acid. And then remember, well, what would this person want?
I’ve been there. I’ve exchanged myself. They want to be happy. I know I know that because I’ve I’ve exchanged myself. And and they’re just like me.
And I’ve been in their place. And then remembering that, you know, having contemplated the advantages of other centeredness, How, you know, this going out of ourselves is is this narrow confines of this prison cell of self-centeredness in which we usually abide have been the most the peak experiences in the course of our life. You know, That one this is a substantiated one came within one’s own living experience and deciding I’m gonna give it all away. I’m gonna finally go beyond my self centeredness. I’m gonna become completely other centered and transforming possessions, all our creative potential, our skillful actions, even our own body.
Imagine they’re all transforming to this brilliant white light which rises up in out our nostril and transforms into the positive counterpart of that previous suffering. Suffering. You know, if if before maybe they had cancer and pain, you took that cancer on, and now you’re giving them a healthy body. And you see them dancing around. You feel good and happy, and you you sympathetically share in their joy.
And then future possible sufferings, you know, the growing of growing old, losing one’s sense sense powers, know, what eyes, ears, hearing, deafness, the other types of sickness maybe. I have to go to the dentist next week. You know, possibilities, eventual death, separation from loved ones that may take place, possibilities, taking those on, going through this process of equalizing, exchanging, imagining one’s own self centeredness being destroyed, taking on that now in the form of various types of wild beasts streaming upward. You know, lions and tigers and jackals streaming upwards in your nose and tearing to shreds this self centeredness at your heart. And again, what would this person want?
You know, whatever that counterpart to that previous suffering. Transforming one’s one’s possessions, one’s created potential, one’s own body into this brilliant white light with a sense of loving. So we take on with compassion, we give with love. Compassion is essentially the the wish that others be free of suffering. Love is, most simply put, the the the wish that others have happiness.
So giving wanting them to be happy and giving everything that we can and opening up to the hurt of the world, and opening up letting go of what we’ve tried to hold on to our whole life, and which none of this which has been working for ourselves. So reversing this trend, this premise upon which we have conducted our life to now, at least in training, beginning to open up to others’ pain, beginning to let go of some of of what we’ve cherished most, what we’ve we’ve guarded our whole life in training our mind. And then finally, but still, they are, you know, they still have ignorance within their mind. As long as there’s ignorance covered existence, there is some level of suffering, some level of a goal that they have not yet achieved, their highest potential. So taking on their ignorance, their their attachment, their hatred, all of these negative qualities of the mind.
This time in the form of various types of weapons, you know, spears and guns and bombs and hand grenades coming in the form. And I, you know, really getting involved in that. It’s really blowing to smithereens, this self centeredness at your heart. And again, giving away, transforming. This time, whatever it would take to help that person complete the journey of along their spiritual path.
Maybe it’s teachers. Maybe it’s a beautiful meditation site where they nice running brook where they can sit there and peacefully meditate and and maybe texts and books. Whatever it would take for them to develop their mind, all the conducive conditions. And then finally, they they complete their journey, and they become happy, healthy, loving, sane human beings. They become a Buddha and sharing sympathetically in their joy.
So we do that. Okay? So you take a con a firm comfortable posture. Beginning with the cultivating of love and compassion as our motivation towards someone we’re we don’t like, that we’re angry at, that we’re having some problems with, and that imagine that person in front of you as best you can. And just simply beginning with the the simple friendly thought, Be wonderful if this person didn’t have any problems.
See if you can actually generate that. That would be quite a breakthrough. Just that simple thought. It would be nice if if you didn’t suffer. And strengthening that, may you not suffer.
I wish all your problems were solved. I’m going to help you commit myself to working with you and solving your problems and eliminating your suffering. It would be wonderful if you were happy. That would be great. I would like that very much.
May you be happy. I’m going to commit myself to working with you and finding happiness. And the way I’m going to express my commitment here at this at this present moment is through my meditation. By developing my skills and my my compassion and my love and wisdom. Eventually, someday, I’m going to be of actual and real benefit to you.
I can fulfill my commitment to you. And then bring your mind to the breath. Just the easy, gentle, in that flow of the natural breath. If it’s useful using the techniques of counting and noting. So let’s begin by imagining yourself in front of yourself as best you can.
If you can’t see yourself, it doesn’t matter just. Feel that that there’s a being in front of you who is and that being is you. And in some way, at this present moment, that person is hurting, is having some feelings of dissatisfaction or either physical or mental, some kind of suffering. And how would it feel if you were them? What would you want if you were them?
And determine to to take on their problem, their suffering, and place it upon your own self centeredness at your heart. And then imagine that their problem or their suffering is transforming into a thick black smoke, which rises up and toward toward yourself and down and begins to eat away at the egg of self-centeredness at your heart like acid, taking on their suffering and using it to destroy your own self centeredness. So they’re presently they may not be suffering, so they don’t have that counterpart to happiness. They’re more or less in a neutral state. So determine to give them whatever will make them happy.
Remembering how this other-centeredness is the source of all your happiness. Determine to transform your body and your possessions, your greater potential into whatever is going to make them happy. And imagine a brilliant white light forming at your heart and beginning to rise up and out. And as it approaches them, it transforms to that positive counterpart of their previous suffering, a healthy body, a companion, whatever it might be that would make them happy. And then sympathetically share in their happiness.
You’ve made them happy. That should make you feel good. But still there’s future sufferings, all the various possibilities of mental and physical sufferings. Consider some of those and out of your compassion, begin to take those on. This time in the form of types of fierce wild animals which rise rise up and begin to devour and rip to shreds your own self centeredness.
And then lovingly, the form of a brilliant white light, give them whatever will make them happy in the future. But still there’s very subtle levels of anxiety, of fear, alienation, and isolation. Taking on those most subtle types of suffering and dissatisfaction, the form of various weapons of destruction, rising up and completely obliterating, demolishing your own self centeredness.