Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Jampa Gendun opens this 44-minute session with a guided taking-and-giving meditation — visualizing others’ suffering as dark smoke dissolving a hard egg of self-centeredness at the heart, and sending white light back as their happiness. He then turns to the third of the three fundamentals of the path: the realization of emptiness. Using a map-is-not-the-territory analogy — and noting that a Tolkien-style map has no findable territory at all — he explains how the mind projects fabricated models of intrinsic existence onto all phenomena. He outlines four philosophical stages (Hearer, Mind Only, Middle Way Autonomy, Consequentialist) through a river metaphor: stepping off the solid bank of naive realism and gradually releasing each layer of misconception. A rope-mistaken-for-a-snake illustration closes the session, showing how removing the root ignorance of inherent existence dissolves fear and all afflictive emotions at once.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 28 HoM 1993 06 23.mp3
UUID: eb42bafd-3592-4d81-aec7-29065e33a338
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1993-06-23
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 43.9 minutes
Words: ~4,170
And imagine that self centeredness as a discolored egg at your heart. Hard, solid. And if you were them, you’d want somebody to help you, help you to remove your suffering. Determine to take on the suffering and you’re going to place it on your own self centeredness. Whatever their suffering might be, it takes the form of a thick dark smoke, rises up from them, entering in through your nostrils, beginning to eat away like acid, like the discoloured egg of self centeredness at your heart.
Just completely eating away your own self centeredness by taking on this suffering. Now they may not have any present suffering, but still they don’t have the happiness at the present moment, the counterpart of that previous suffering. And they want to be happy just like yourself. If you were them, wouldn’t you want to be happy? What would you want of yourself if you were them?
You’d want yourself to make you happy. Remembering all the advantages of the positive qualities of other centeredness. Our happiest moments have been associated with the caring for others, of opening out to others’ needs and determining to help them to be happy. And transforming your possessions, all your creative potential, skillful actions, even your own body into a brilliant white light at the area of your heart. It rises up and out your nostrils and as it moves toward them, transforms into whatever is the positive counterpart of that previous suffering, a healthy body, a companion.
Whatever would make them happy, give them that. And they’re happy, and share in their happiness with them. But still the future problems, future sufferings, old age, disease and death, separation from loved ones, not finding the happiness that they may be seeking, meeting with undesirable. What kind of future sufferings may they experience? Taking on that future suffering, this time in the form of all kinds of ferocious animals, jackals and tigers streaming upward, tearing to shreds the self centeredness at your heart.
Giving them future happiness. And then sharing in sympathetic joy. But still they have the roots of suffering within them, self centeredness and self grasping. Taking on that in the form of all types of violent weapons. They’re self centered in ignorance, form of bombs and guns and knives, streaming upward and completely obliterating, destroying the self centeredness at your heart.
And determining to lovingly Give them all happiness, all that they need to realize their fullest potential. Teachers, all the material necessities, all the opportunities, everything that they need, give them that. Transforming your possessions and your your body, all your creative potential to breathe white light. Giving them all that they need to become a Buddha. And then sympathetically sharing in their great bliss, in their great peace.
They dissolve into light and enter into your heart. And bring your mind back to the breath. Slowly becoming aware of your bodies, your surroundings. If you want to give me some feedback sometime, privately, whenever, I noticed that it’s quite late. We haven’t even gotten onto the main topic of what we’re going to be discussing.
Let me know if it’s the way they the way it’s divided up in the evening is, you know, if you have any suggestions how to improve it or you’re satisfied. Yeah. Maybe you can tell me in the discussion group or outside of it. I just realized that we don’t have so much time. We’re talking about the third of the three fundamentals of the path.
The three fundamentals of the path: the determination to awaken, the awakening heart, and the awakening mind. The awakening mind is the development of traditionally this is called the view of emptiness, the realization of emptiness, the realization of selflessness. And we began to talk about what this, you know, to introduce it. The emptiness is an absence, a lack of a particular imagined way of existing, a fantasized way of existing. This fantasized way of existing has we use many different terms, but they’re getting at the same thing.
Terms such as intrinsic existence or independent existence, inherent existence, self defining existence, objective existence, many terms. But these are all these terms denote some fantasize, some imagined way of existing, which we are continually superimposing upon every phenomena: glasses, tables, people, ourselves, the eye. And we’re projecting qualities upon things which they don’t have. And this projected quality is this way of existing. The essence of Buddhist practice hinges upon the realization of this emptiness.
But as I mentioned, know, last week, when we hear the word emptiness, you know, our minds just remain rather empty, think. Nothing much arises. You know, the notion of inherent existence or intrinsic existence or self defining existence is so far removed from our everyday thinking that when we initially we are unable to grasp the meaning or the significance. An emptiness is a phenomena’s lack of intrinsic existence. It is a negative.
It is an utter absence of a concrete mode of being which we are so familiar with. So, you know, without identifying what intrinsic existence is, you know, all these other synonyms, inherent existence, objective existence, without identifying them, we can never really identify its absence. You know, if we say, There is no vajra on this table to someone. It doesn’t mean anything to them because they don’t know what a vajra is. The tabletop, there’s an absence of vajra on the tabletop.
It has no significance. When understand what a vajra is, it’s this. I’ll explain what a vajra is. You know, it’s this small metal pronged implement which is used in rituals, very much in Tibetan rituals. It’s something that big, it’s held in the hand.
Once you are able to identify that, then when I say that the table top is absent of vajra, then it makes some sense. Something you’ve gained some knowledge. Yes, you’re right. There’s no vajra on top of the table. Until you’ve identified what is absent, then its absence has no significance.
So until we begin to identify what inherent existence is, what independent existence is, then its absence has no significance. We will never be able to understand emptiness. You don’t see something until you have a right metaphor to let you see it. We are developing metaphors for what inherent existence is, intrinsic existence, self defining existence, order to identify it before we can understand its nonexistent. So it’s rather a roundabout way of going through things.
Cognitive systems of which the mind is, such as the human mind, are model builders. The processes of perception and understanding involve processes of constructing representations of the world, including ourselves. So we have the mental models that we use to think about things correspond to objects in what we deem to be the real world. These mental models that we use to think about things, they are metaphors or symbols standing for something out there. If we say, for example, to somebody, Please bring me a glass of water.
Strangely enough, they get up, and a couple minutes later they come back and they bring you this, you know, something that looks like that. Then you can pretty legitimately assume that they understood what you meant. You know, there was some there was something there was some correspondence between what you meant by the models that you were using, the symbols that you were using when you said glass. You know, we used many different representation glass, water, you, ring, that they had core that their models, it sort of it corresponded. There was a a parallel models that they were using in theirs in their cognitive system.
Because eventually, they fulfilled your request. So there was some understanding that took place, some kind of communication took place. But this is important. The words glass, water, bring, kitchen, whatever, they the word glass is not a glass. The word water is not water.
The kitchen is not word kitchen is not a kitchen. That is to say, they are representative of them. They are like maps which stand for territory, but they themselves are not the territory. You know, when we we cannot drive a car, you know, a little red lines, little blue lines. We cannot go to we cannot go shopping and eat in restaurants in these little black dots that we see on the maps.
The map is not the territory. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that expression. It’s rather a famous expression in some circles. The map is not the territory. The red blue dots and lines, the red and blue lines stand for real roads that we can actually drive on.
The little black dots stand for real towns and cities where we can shop, where we can go to restaurants. They stand for something other than themselves. They are representations. They are symbols for We can’t drive on those red lines, those blue lines, but they correspond to actual findable realities. Yeah?
So the map is not the territory. It stands for something that we can actually go out and find. You know, I get out my road map, my street map, and it says Nelson Street. And to get to Nelson Street, have to go to Florence Street, Glen Osmond Road. And I’m driving along.
There’s Glen Osmond. Let me go right here. And Florence Street, and then make a left onto Nelson Street. But these these lines on this map correspond to actual findable things in reality, things that I can actually work with, things that I can actually can drive on. But these lines are not are not the territory.
I can’t drive on these lines. They stand for something other than themselves. They correspond to something other than themselves. They are symbols, representations of something other than themselves. So that’s another important point to keep in mind is that there are maps and there are maps.
In in The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien, he he fabricated an entire world, a realm, a fantasized realm, inhabited by all types of strange beings. And he went to the extent that he actually drew maps of this world. But this map does not correspond to any findable reality. Its lines do not stand for real roads which we can walk on. The dots do not stand for rich real villages which we can live within, that we can find.
No matter how long we may search, we are never going to find them. Not only is the map not the territory, but some maps don’t even stand for a findable territory. So if if you know, using the example of, Please go get me a glass of water in the kitchen. If I said, Please go get me the glass of water which I left on the table in the kitchen. Yeah.
Please go get me the glass of water which I left on the table in the kitchen. No matter how long And I In fact, I didn’t leave a glass of water on the table in the kitchen. No matter how long a person may look for that glass of water, they’re never going to be able to find it. Glass of water. There is a model for glass.
There is a model for water. There is a model for kitchen. There is a metaphor for what it means to have left it yesterday. All these symbols make sense. All of these metaphors make sense.
But when they’re put together, they make sense when I put them together. It makes sense to that person. But they don’t correspond to anything which can be found. That person, no matter how long they may search for that glass of water in the kitchen, they’re never going to find it because it doesn’t exist. We are making use of mental models for something that doesn’t exist.
We can think about things very legitimately, logically, and rationally which don’t exist. There is nothing that corresponds to that glass of water which I left in the kitchen I left on the counter in the kitchen. The sentence makes complete sense. All of the elements of the sentence, the symbols, the metaphors, the representations, it’s put together syntactically, rationally, correct. But there’s nothing which corresponds to it.
It doesn’t have any meaning value in that sense. Under the influence of ignorance, we have fabricated models of ways of existing that do not correspond to anything in reality. These ways of existing we call intrinsic existence, independent existence, objective existence. We have mistaken beliefs which conceive of fantasized ways of existing, which we are continually superimposing upon objects. So intrinsic existence or independent existence, all of these various synonyms, is the most subtle of the various fantasized ways of existing that we are continuously projecting upon all phenomena.
So as a prerequisite of understanding the notion of intrinsic exist existence and thereby the emptiness of intrinsic existence, we have to understand what coarser, more accessible forms of fantasized ways of existing. This is the most subtle imagined way of existing that we’re projecting upon objects. You know, it was mentioned yesterday that there are four readily recognizable stages in this evolution of such an understanding and overcoming of mistaken beliefs associated with them. You know, letting go of our deeply held beliefs. It’s interesting about knowledge, that the more we know something, the less accessible it is to a conscious awareness.
This knowing, which is in fact a misknowing of the way things exist, is inaccessible at present to our conscious awareness. It’s held at a very deep level. So we have to work down through more coarser levels of misknowing ignorances with respect to the way things exist. And we said that there were you know, in this, there are four recognizable stages in this process. We call them the Hearer stage, the Mind Only stage, the Autonomy Middle Way stage, and the Consequentialist Middle Way stage.
You know, this working down through our mistaken beliefs. You know, letting go of our most deeply held beliefs is a difficult process. You know, we all know this, even on a very mundane level. You know, it’s said that those with little personal power, when they begin to gain some feeling for emptiness, some realization of emptiness, they develop great fear. It’s like losing an old friend, something which was always there to find security in, some kind of comfort.
On the other hand, those who have great personal power, creative potential, when they begin to experience emptiness, it’s like the lifting of a great burden off their shoulders. It’s associated with a great experience of joy, a sense of freedom. Gaining insight, overcoming resistance, and letting go is a gradual process. It’s experienced in these four stages. Previous to these four stages, we are what we might call a naive realist.
That’s pretty much the situation for most of us. That is, you know, we are standing on a riverbank, this kind of a metaphor of standing on a riverbank where the world feels very solid, very substantial and real. And we unquestionably accept the appearances to be true. We uncritically accept everything as solid and real, the way it appears to us. We don’t question.
But as we begin to question our beliefs about the world, as we begin to examine this seemingly solid appearances about us, and glasses, tables, and people, and eyes, when we begin to question them, when we begin to doubt the solidity, We begin to step off the secure bank of a naive realist. This fantasized world that we’ve created for ourselves. And we begin to step into unfamiliar waters. Waters of the way things actually are. We haven’t known that up to now.
And there’s some fear involved because we’re not quite so sure if we’re going to stay afloat, if we’re going to be able to handle the situation or whether it’s going to overwhelm us. There’s a fear of being swept away, of losing ourselves in this, you know, losing this solid world that we put so much belief in, that we had such a great emotional investment in. So, you know, those step by step, we venture further and further out into this river. We continually hold on to the last vestiges of our belief in a solid concrete world. We like holding on to some log to make sure that we stay afloat.
Our beliefs. It’s like an insurance policy against an existential drowning. But gradually, we confidence. We develop confidence. And our skill in dealing with this newfound reality.
And with great fearlessness and with great understanding, we let go. And what we find, you know, we we allow ourselves to dwell in the way things actually are. And we realize that all along there was nothing to be afraid of, that we never really needed the seeming security of the bank. Or the log. And our lives become a spontaneous and joyful sport in this ever flowing water of emptiness.
But so from standing anxiously on on the on the riverbank, on the solid shore of our fantasized world, to frolicking frolicking joyfully, frolicking. There’s a word there somewhere. Frolicking playfully in this ocean of suchness, the way things actually are. It involves a process in this gradual unfolding of deeper and deeper insight through more and more profound methods of training and learning. In learning any technical subject, there is necessarily a gradual working through from the basic principles to the subtle most details.
The Buddha always taught in accordance with the level of understanding of the students, according to their capacity, according to their disposition. You know, he didn’t give the same teaching to everyone. But he gave that teaching which would most effectively which would be most effective in leading a particular student at a particular time along their very unique path, their particular spiritual path. So then these teachings, all of these myriad of teachings that he gave, all of these various teachings to various disciples at various times were later systematized. And out of them, they were formulated into four philosophic schools or what are called tenets, philosophic systems of Buddhism.
There are four main philosophic tenets or philosophic systems of philosophy of Buddhism. There’s the Great Exposition School, the Sūtra School, the Mind Only School, and the Middle Way School. The the these first two, the great exposition school and the sūtra school, are usually associated with the individual vehicle. Those types of Buddhism which are mainly practiced in the southern countries of Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia. The latter two, mind only school and middle way school, are mainly associated with universal vehicle Buddhism.
The types of Buddhism which are primarily practiced in the northern countries of northern India, Nepal, Tibet, China, Korea, Japan, mainly those countries. So as I mentioned, they represent a gradual progression of subtlety in their presentation of the nature of reality. You know, the atomic theory of great exposition school, the lower school, up to the participatory universe of the middle way school. So when studying these distinctions of the in the various presentations on the nature of reality, due to their similarities, the great exposition school and the sūtra school, these two bottom schools, are combined into one. We call that the Hearer stage.
Due to their differences within middle within the middle way school, there is a distinguishment made into the middle way autonomy school, we’ll call that middle way autonomy stage, and the Middle Way Consequentialist stage. So middle way school divided into two stages. And then intermediate between these two is the mind only school, which is the mind only stage. So, you know, we’re going to work through these four stages. Hearer stage, Mind Only stage, Middle Way Autonomy stage, and Middle Way Consequentialist stage.
We’re going to work It’s like stepping off of the riverbank and slowly working our way out into the river of emptiness, all along holding onto this log until we finally get to the final thought of the Buddha, which is the Consequentialist Middle Way stage, and we let go of the log. We don’t hold onto any last vestiges of intrinsic existence or inherent existence or self defining existence or objective existence. We’ve worked on removing all the various levels of misconceptions of ignorance until it’s completely removed. And then there’s no need. Then we can sport or frolic in the waters of suchness, way things actually are, in spontaneity and freedom, which is the experience.
When one has removed this necessity to continually secure, continually concretizing, continually holding on in our fear of losing our self. But obviously it’s a gradual process. It’s an evolution. This process of letting go. This process of opening up that we’re going to work through.
So this brings us to the Hearer stage, the first of these four stages that we’re going to work through. It’s nine o’clock. Rather than jumping to start walking up to the riverbank and getting our feet wet. And it’s hardly worth the trouble of taking your socks off because we don’t have much time. Yeah.
I I hope I hope hopefully, what I’ve said makes a bit of sense. Trying to You know, we can have We have Just as you know, if we were walking along an evening and on the side of the path we saw what appeared to be a rope, to be a snake, and we generate great fear and associated various associated emotions. But upon investigation, we see that what was in fact what appeared to be a snake was in fact a rope. Upon investigating, then all of that fear and all of the associated emotions which came with that fear would be eliminated, would disappear. That fear and all the associated emotions with that fear had no basis in reality.
They were only generated out of a misconception, nothing more than that, a wrong belief that there was in fact a snake there, but there wasn’t. It was only on the basis of an appearance, a mistaken conception that we experience fear. There is no basis for that fear in reality. Once that’s understood, once that misconception is overcome, once we understood that there is in fact only a rope there and have eliminated the conception that there’s a snake there, then the fear of itself disappears. Likewise, we have a misconception within our mind as to the way things exist.
Based upon that misconception, we generate fear, anxiety, we generate all the various afflictive emotions, the disturbing patterns, dysfunctional qualities of mind, attachment, hatred, desire, jealousy. They all arise dependent upon a misconception. Once we understand the way things are, that things are empty of our fantasized ways of existing, that we’re continually projecting on them, then that fantasized projection, that misconception will cease. And all of the fear, all the afflictive emotions which arose in dependence upon that misconception disappear or eliminate. Just like the conception of snake dissolves once we understand rope.
Once the misconception of snake is gone, the fear is gone. All the associated emotions are gone, and we’re at peace. So we can begin to understand how the mind is able to return to its natural state of peace. That the very nature of the mind is peace. It’s not something that we have to fabricate.
It is our natural state once we remove the disturbing factors from the mind. And the way that we remove disturbing factors from the mind is by removing the most basic misconception, which is the foundation for all the disturbing factors of the mind. This is a wrong belief, a mistaken premise, a wrong conception, which we call ignorance, which misconceives the things about us and the nature of the eye, the self. Once this is removed, once the wisdom realizing emptiness is generated and all of the fear, all the afflictive emotions, and therefore all the disturbing factors are removed from the mind, such that they can never return again, and the mind experiences only continual peace. It can never be disturbed again.
That’s why we have to realize this. That’s why we have to work at understanding emptiness, why we have to generate the awakening mind. That’s why it’s considered the premise, the basis of the Buddhist path. So we’re going to stop there. We’ll dedicate the creative potential that we gathered, that we accumulated.
May I quickly become an awakened spiritual teacher and lead each and every sentient being to the enlightened realm through these skillful actions. May the supreme jewel of the awakening heart that has not arisen arise and grow. And may that which has arisen never diminish, but increase more and more. So this would like to remain for discussion. Would like to get a cup of tea?
Thank you.