Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 5.6-minute talk, Ven Jampa Gendun draws a precise distinction between three conceptions of self as a foundation for understanding how suffering arises and how wisdom dissolves it. The first — a unitary, unchanging, independent self — is the mistaken conception that ignorance produces and that underlies all our problems. The second is the imputedly existent self: the I that comes into existence through the labeling process, illustrated by the way a newborn is named John or Mary and that person thereby comes to exist. The third is the valid everyday self that eats, works, and raises children — a practical convention requiring no philosophical claim. Wisdom overcomes ignorance by replacing the first conception with the second. A brief, carefully paced segment suited to practitioners working through the nature of self step by step.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 31 HoM 1993 06 30.mp3
UUID: 6611edb5-e4f2-4152-a217-780a3671277e
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1993-06-30
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 5.6 minutes
Words: ~551
It appears. A label comes to mind. It’s merely an appearance. There’s nothing it refers to. There’s nothing there which corresponds to it.
In order to end our suffering, there is nothing more important than to realize that when we think and act as if the body and mind constituted or possessed a unitary, unchanging, independent self, that we are unthinkingly attributing qualities to it which it does not possess. Okay. So that’s does that make sense? Which is that? So we’re interested We can denote types of selves at this level.
One is the unitary, unchanged, independent self which we’ve been discussing up to now. We have a conception of that type of self. Another conception or type of self we have is imputedly existent self. The self which is designated, labeled upon body and mind. That’s another type, a second type of conception of self.
The third type of conception of self is our everyday sense of self. The self that eats, walks, goes to work, takes care of the kids, which we don’t think of as being unitary, unchanging, independent, nor do we think of it as being imputedly existent. A common sense, everyday conception of self. So we have those three conceptions of self. The first one is a mistaken conception, the conception which conceives of a unitary, unchanging, independent self.
The second one, the conception of an imputedly existent self, is a wisdom consciousness arising from investigation upon analysis. And the third one is a valid everyday conception, which we use, which is very practically necessary to deal with, to get along in the world. It is this first one, which is the one that’s causing us all the problems. We overcome it by use of the second one, wisdom. The first one arises through ignorance, the second one arises through wisdom.
The third one is simply a convention that we’ve learned. Just as in the case when a baby is born, there’s a body and mind there, and they give it a name, John or Mary. The labeling process, upon body and mind. John comes into existence. Mary comes into existence.
Likewise, in dependence upon body and mind, we label I. We label you, me, self. in dependence upon that process, I comes into existence. You come into existence. Self comes into existence.
That’s the imputedly existent self. That self exists, undoubtedly exists. Understanding that is the wisdom which arises through investigating the nature of the self, which overcomes ignorance. So we’re going to investigate quite a bit more. But it’s good if we take it step by step, I think.
Then I won’t get confused. So I’ll stop there. I’ll dedicate the merit, the, the positive energy that we’ve accumulated over the evening. May I quickly become an awakened spiritual teacher and lead each and every sentient being to the enlightened realm through these three realms. May the supreme jewel of the awakening heart that has not arisen arise and grow.
May that which has arisen never diminish, but increase more and more. If you’d like those of you who’d like to remain for discussion, would like to get a cup of tea? I think the next Wednesday will be twenty sixth or twenty sixth. Yeah, three weeks. That’s fine.
Okay, so be happy.