Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” opens this 45-minute talk by Ven Jampa Gendun as a frame for Buddhism’s central question: will we fully awaken or keep sliding back into half-conscious, ego-driven life? Gendun argues that everyone already carries seeds of wisdom, love, and energy — what we lack are conditions to cultivate them. He introduces refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha as those cooperative conditions, then walks through all six perfections — generosity, ethics, tolerance, joyful effort, concentration, and wisdom — as their practical daily expression. Concrete examples ground each step: water-bowl offerings as training in non-attachment, street-giving in India as a habit of letting go, and income-tax cheating as a specimen of the internal split that ethics aims to heal. The talk closes with a guided meditation inviting listeners to imaginatively claim admired qualities as their own.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 H and M of B 1992 05 13.mp3
UUID: f3b26ae5-9085-44b2-bbb6-48c836e17925
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Buddhism (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1992-05-13
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.4 minutes
Words: ~4,362
We’re going begin as we usually do this continual process of reorientating ourselves, redirecting ourselves, sort of getting back in touch with some of our central values, some of the principles and the guidelines that we’ve set for our life which we hold, which we value, which we hold as extremely important. But oftentimes during the course of our busy life, we we lose sight of continually reminding ourselves of what is important to me, very particularly to me. You know, we can’t really look to anyone else. What may be important to my friend, to my spouse, my other members of my family may not be of what is valuable to myself once I’ve determined it, once I’ve seen within my own experience what is the source of my happiness, what is the source of my problems as best I can. Last week, we tried to present ourselves with a model of a paradigm of sanity, of something which is a workable goal for ourselves, something which is relevant to who we are.
We call this in Buddhism, but we call it awakening. It is as if we’re half asleep or half born. And we have this expression, what is it in Hamlet’s soliloquy? Or is this to be or not to be? That is the question.
This question is, in one way or another, is continually being asked to us whether we’re going to be or not to be. Whether we’re going to be fully born or simply try to regress back to a womb state. Whether we’re going to completely awaken or try to go back to sleep. We’re sort of hovering in a limbosis where our mind is a bit groggy. You know, somewhat shakiness and we don’t quite want to wake up.
Whether we’re going to become fully born or whether we’re going to continually try to regress, continually try to make the world go away, whether we’re going to get in touch with reality or whether we’re going to live continually in a world of fantasy. And this is what perhaps the word awakening entails. Someone who has gone beyond their misconceptions, their preconceptions, their distortion, their biases, their prejudices, and sees things the way they are and begins to harmonize their actions of body, speech, and mind with the way things are. We have no choice but to make that effort. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but perhaps it’s relevant.
We have to accept the way things are. We’re trying to work within its various laws to change it to the way we think they should be. We can do that. But for the present moment, if we deny the reality of our situation, then we are either going to be enraged because the world isn’t how we think it should be, or we’re going to have a sense of powerlessness because we can’t do the impossible. We can’t defy the laws of reality.
So we take as our paradigm, our model, a direction for our life and our various actions for our mind. We take it to the awakening, contemplative wisdom, seeing things as they actually are, beyond our misconceptions and deceptions and prejudices. We take the quality, the feeling tone of love and compassion, a burning desire that oneself and others be free of suffering and taking responsibility to bring this about in fact. And then some sort of inexhaustible mental and spiritual energy and creative activity in the world. And this becomes a real workable direction to give our life.
But, you know, we can ask the question, well, is this is there something about me which suggests the possibility of such ways of being, of what such states of mind? We all have some wisdom, some knowledge, seeing things the way they are. No matter how obscure, no matter how faint that wisdom might be, we all have to some degree. We all have some love and compassion no matter how exclusive, no matter how limited that love and compassion might be. We all have some energy, mental and physical energy, no matter how unrefined, how unspontaneous that energy might be.
So what is being suggested here is that we have the seeds, that we have the potential. Everyone in this room, in a very realistic way, has the capacity to take what is already there and develop it. It’s not as if there’s no qualitative difference. There’s no quantitative difference between ourselves and these highly realized beings as far as Buddhism is concerned. The Buddha, the individual that we take as a source of inspiration, as a source of teachings, was an ordinary individual like ourselves at one time, Just as confused, just as depressed, just as hopeful of something better, another better way of life.
But unlike us perhaps in the past, in the Buddhas of the past, males and females have made a consistent choice of cultivating what was already there, of cultivating their wisdom, their love, and their energy as a means of solving their problems, of going beyond their confusion, going beyond their depression, and finally solving the basic problem of life, of what it means to be an ordinary person, of what it means to lead an ego based existence. And having done that, going beyond their own individual passive peace and working motivated by compassion to skillfully help others to achieve that same end. The way that we’re working with this, the way that we’re you know, it is as if we have these seeds. And just as in the case of cultivating a plant, you know, if you plant a flower seed, the seed in itself is not sufficient Even though it has the potential to flower, it needs the proper cooperative causes, the proper cooperative conditions like soil and water, sunlight and air. So even though we have the seeds, Buddha nature, the capacity of wisdom, capacity of love and energy, we still need the cooperative conditions.
We have to make some kind of effort. It’s useful to make effort because it accesses the cooperative conditions to bring to actualization what is already there. And the cooperative causes, aside from our effort, is as we’re going to be discussing, are these three fundamentals of the path. These act as the cooperative conditions, the necessary water and earth and fertilizer. The central cause, the main cause is already present within us.
It’s something that we’re not lacking. There’s nothing insufficient. It’s simply a matter of creating the proper conditions to actualize the potential which we all possess. And this can be like going for a refuge. Or that is to say, is like taking a direction, taking recourse to our own capacity to solve our problems in a very realistic way.
Out of all the various methods that we’re applying, that we’re employing in order to solve all the various problems, all the various difficulties that are continually confronting us every day of our life, One of these methods, one of these components as a means of solution to our problems must be an inner method, a method which in some way helps us to cultivate these seeds of wisdom, in some way helps us to cultivate our love and compassion and our energy. We can it’s like we can develop great confidence. I have to go to work. I don’t have to. You have to.
We all have different problems. We employ different methods, materialistic methods, psychological methods, social methods. And that’s quite useful. And we should have all the various skillful we should develop skills in all of these various ways. Learn how to cook well so you can feed yourself well.
Have delicious meals. That makes sense. Learn how to deal with problems in a very skillful way. But some of these problems are only amenable, can only be solved through our wisdom and through our love and our compassion. They’re very basic fundamental problems which we probably haven’t looked at.
We’ve been dealing with at best on a superficial level. That’s why our problems never quite seem to go away. They seem to keep reoccurring. So while we’re making use of all of these other skills that we’ve developed, all these other trainings to deal with all these various problems which we’re continually confronted with, Part of our energy, part of our time, creating some space to train ourselves, to develop the skill, to deal with certain problems, you know, certain various levels of problems. You know, we’re going to be discussing these at length when we discuss the dissatisfactory quality of ego based existence and the qualities which permeate our existence.
It’s like an undercurrent, like water flowing beneath the ice, feelings of loneliness, alienation, separation, isolation, having to seek union with ourselves, with others, with nature, this feeling of having to guard my territory, having to reestablish my credentials in front of myself, in front of others. And this constant having, this constant struggle which we’re all involved in. None of these methods outside of internal method can begin to address themselves, can really begin to solve the really subtle and most basic problems of what it means to have an ego, of what it means to be an ordinary person. So this is a skill that we’re trying to develop. It’s a certain area that we’re trying to work with.
And we keep continually redirecting ourselves. Otherwise, we’re going to lose sight of the necessity. The suffering will remain, but we’ll lose our awareness. We’re going to use inappropriate methods which don’t work. We have up to now tried our best in all that we could, with all that we’ve learned, in all the various ways that we’ve been conditioned to work with our problems.
That’s all we have to work with. There’s nothing more that we could bring to bear on all our various problems. But now maybe we can learn a new skill, some new ways of viewing the same situations, the same problems, and begin to approach them in a slightly more skillful manner and more appropriate manner and really begin to solve some of our real problems, more subtle problems. And as the Dalai Lama emphasized a number of times over his visit to Australia. The purpose of religion is to be happy.
It’s not to please anyone, not anyone outside of ourselves or or any agent outside of ourselves. It’s simply a very specific, useful, practical way to solve certain very specific types of problems in our life, which religion is perhaps the only applicable method that we have available to us. So it’s a method amongst all our various other methods, but it’s an important method and we shouldn’t neglect it. And so we have to keep reminding ourselves of its usefulness and its value in our life and keep making the effort and reorienting ourselves to make use of it in our daily life and try to integrate its methods, its means as a useful part to find the happiness that we’re all looking for, to eliminate the suffering which none of us wants. And this is what we call going for refuge.
So in terms of this orientation process of this redirecting, the inner focus, the focus of our inner life becomes Buddha and Buddha within oneself, this paradigm of sanity, real ultimate solution to ordinary existence. And this is achieved by means of the Dharma, the methods, the means, the truth, whatever we want to call it, whatever is able to move our mind toward the direction of skillful means in solving our problems in appropriate manners is Dharma. And this whole process occurs in the social context of a spiritual community. So these are as if our orientations that we keep redirecting our mind toward, reminding ourselves of absolute necessity to use to develop my wisdom, to develop my love and compassion, and develop my energy. And trying to raise the level of our motivation such that I’m doing this not only for myself, not only for my own welfare, but for the welfare of all other sentient beings, all other living beings.
And they’re trying to broaden our horizons to the extent that we see ourselves as an integral part of this great being called sentient life. And this is the ultimate solution to our problems in its deepest, most far reaching sense. Now this is what is addressed by means of these three fundamentals of the path. It says, I go from refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and highest assembly. So the more than you know, the Buddha within oneself is is the only ultimate solution to your problems.
Nothing outside of yourself can can ever Consistently be dependent upon. The only thing which you can be sure of is your own mind. And so that’s your ultimate refuge, the Buddha within, the awakening of your own mind by means of the Dharma in the social context of what is termed here the highest assembly, one’s spiritual brothers and sisters. And from the virtuous merit, that is to say the creative power, the creative potential that I create by practicing giving and the other perfections. Those six perfections, these are the Once we’ve worked with these three fundamentals of path, then we begin to actually the way we can begin to express them in the real workings of our life are in terms of these six perfections.
Generosity, we’re going to discuss we’re going to discuss these, but just to list them. Generosity, simply giving, opening oneself up, letting go. Ethics. The highest ethic is a peaceful mind. If our mind is at peace, then we’re obeying all the ethics of all the various religions of all the world.
Ethics is a way that we can approach a peaceful mind. Essentially, a minimal ethics that we should try to work with and practice in our everyday life, if we can’t help others, at least don’t harm them and not to harm others. Tolerance. So tolerance is a mind which does not become distressed in the face of problematic situations, a non distressed mind in the face of what usually, normally would be a problematic situation. Effort.
And this isn’t heavy handed effort, in a way you sort of grit your teeth and push. It’s a joyous effort. Is a product arising out of wisdom. If we understand, then the effort comes it’s almost as if it bubbles up. We don’t have to push ourselves if there’s understanding.
When there’s wisdom, then things become a lot easier. The fifth perfection is concentration. That is the integration of all the internal factors of the mind, condition, feelings, emotions are all centralized around a single point of focus. You know, we’re no longer schizophrenic. Our mind is can be rest rested upon a single object.
Sixthly, wisdom. There are various types of wisdom, but the ultimate wisdom is the wisdom understanding emptiness, the ultimate nature of reality. So it is by means of these six practicing, working with these, and the creative potential, the creative power that one derives from that, that one attains the state of a Buddha. That is said that I’m able to wake. This energy awakens oneself up.
And we do this. We try to raise the level of motivation for achieving this end. And the only way that it can be achieved is for the sake of all sentient beings. And that is only we’re going to discuss this at quite a great length. But in order to wisdom by itself is not sufficient.
It must be accompanied by method. And method, there are various methods. But the ultimate method, that is to say that which energizes, you know, like like a rocket. The rocket is wisdom, but the rocket needs fuel. The fuel is method.
And the ultimate method is a loving mind. It’s the only way that we can ever break through all of the barriers which obscure, which prevent us from the fullest actualization of our human’s human potential. It is only the energy of compassion and love which has the ability to propel us to the state of complete awakening. There’s no other force which has that power. And that’s why sometimes it’s said that compassion and love are the most powerful forces in the universe.
Because it is only these which have the power to bring us to our fullest potential. Wisdom by itself can’t do it. We have to have both just like the two wings of a bird in order to fly. We need both wisdom and love. And this is way that we can solve our problems.
So if nothing else, you know, on a very practical level, you know, that some part of our lives, some part of energy has to be dedicated to something beyond our own egotistical ends, to beyond our own chocolate cake, and beyond our own instant gratifications, beyond our hopes and fears. Something has to be focused upon very central principles which we’ve discovered for ourselves in our finest noblest moments. And the way that we can foster these seeds of wisdom, love, and compassion, and energy is through practicing these six perfection, practicing opening oneself up through generosity, letting go, letting go little by little. Even in India, it’s quite easy to find people to give to. I mean, some of my teachers, they carry a bag full of coins.
And maybe it’s only five paise or ten paise. Ten paise? What how much is ten paise? It’s about thirty rupees to a dollar. Maybe about how much is it, Leslie?
Twenty twenty rupees to a dollar. So one rupee is five cents. And so oh, anyway. It’s about a fifth of a cent. But any so they carry these bags these bags full of coins and all these beggars.
And so you get in the habit of giving giving. It may not be much, you know. Like one beggar said to me, he said, people give me enough to keep me alive but not enough to live. And then the beggars, they’re not trying to gain all their support off you, but we can we can just, you know, get in the habit of letting go of something. That’s why we offer this water.
They’re very extreme. I mean, Buddhists, they don’t need water. It’s ridiculous on a rainy day. Anyway, it’s like, you know, it’s water is said to have two purities. It has the purity of maybe not Adelaide water, but that unpolluted, that it’s unspoiled, that it’s pure.
Yeah? One purity, a physical purity. It also has the purity of it’s hard to be attached. It’s hard to take pride in offering water. And you can’t think, wow, what a great, you know, what a great how generous I am, what a great person I am out of offering water.
You know, anybody can offer water. Anybody can offer water. But the idea is to habituate oneself to letting go of something, of giving something each day, letting go of something. Even if it’s just you know, we we offer things in the mind. You know, we offer universes.
You walk down the street and you offer a department store to your teacher or to the Buddhist or to your best friend or your parents or whoever. You you don’t have to own it. It’s just a sense of habituating the mind to letting go. Just letting go and giving, you know, opening. You know, we’re always trying to you know, the first thing that that people do is they there’s always this when when we hear somebody please give, there’s a contraction.
Because I’m like, oh, I’m gonna lose something out of this. Something’s gonna be taken I’m going to be less of something out of all this. So, you know, if we this practice of generosity, all of these various reflections are the way that we can overcome all of these tendencies toward concretizing and solidifying our own egos, that we can begin to move away, reorientate ourselves from all the ego reinforcing habitual patterns that we’re continually reacting with, that we’re continually habituating our mind to in a very concrete, practical way, giving and practicing ethics. You can say, My pleasure is more important than your pleasure. I’m going to have sex with your spouse.
How can you be a loving person and think in that way? In ethics, the primary basis of ethics, I said that the ultimate ethic is a peaceful mind. Ethics will lead us to a peaceful peaceful mind because it begins to harmonize our way of thinking and our way of behaving. Quite often, there’s a there’s a split, isn’t there? And I knew I shouldn’t do this, but I feel so good.
I can’t stop. You know? There’s a split between what we think is right quite often and what we do. You know, how many people cheat in on income tax, you know? Oh, it’s okay.
It’s okay. But there’s a split. They’re schizophrenic. They’re not integrated. And the move toward integration begins with very basic basis of ethics in harmonizing our thinking and our acting.
They become one. There’s a union. They’re coordinated. There’s no split. There’s no conflict between the two.
And then we go on. On the basis of ethics, then we go on to concentration. Concentration is a further harmonizing integration of all the various elements within our mind centered around a central object of focus. From the basis of ethics, we practice concentration, an integrating process, a harmonizing process. And then we go beyond that on the basis of concentration.
We practice wisdom which is the ultimate means of harmonizing. We harmonize our way of being with the reality of the world. There’s no conflict. Now there’s a conflict because we’re involved in wrong views. We have misconceptions.
So wisdom is the way our conceptions become accord with the reality. The way we think and the way our view of the world and the world are similar. There’s no conflict. So it’s always gaining wholeness, integration, a movement toward harmonization. And these are the practices that bring us about in one way or another on a very practical level.
Sometimes these teachings become very abstract, theoretical, but we can always come back and come back come back to practice a little bit of generosity. We can always come back and practice a little bit of ethics. We can always practice a little bit of tolerance. And on a very practical, mundane, everyday level so that the teachings become relevant. And though we may not be able to integrate, to access some of the theory, some of the philosophy, some of the teachings at present, But this is a means.
This is the way we can begin to approach the ultimate. We can begin to approach that someday we will begin to access. It will become clear. We will have understandings which we didn’t previously, that we will change. We will know things that we didn’t yesterday.
We will be a happier person, a kinder person, a more peaceful person. There’s some movement of the mind, there’s some growth. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly. From the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving and the other perfections, may I attain the state of the Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly.
And the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving and the other perfections, may I attain a state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly. From the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving and the other perfections, may I attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. So we’ll continue with the meditation. So if you take a comfortable posture, comfortable but firm posture, we’ll begin with mindfulness of breathing and then I’ll lead you through another meditation.
We’re going to work with some of our potentials, some of our qualities that we often project upon others and try to recognize them within ourselves and begin to foster them, begin to identify them within ourselves. So take a firm but comfortable posture. Think of someone that you admire, that you respect. Begin with the male. Someone that you have high regard for.
What is it about him that you admire and respect so much? What quality? What characteristic? And now, imagine to create a situation where you yourself have that same quality, that same characteristic, and you yourself are admired and respected by others just as you presently admire and respect this person. So take on that quality, that characteristic, and imagine to create a situation where you express this quality as if you had that quality.
Now think of a female we admire that you respect. And what is it about her? What quality, what characteristic do you admire and respect so much? And then imagine that you yourself have the same quality. Imagine a situation where you express it and admired and respected by others.
And think of some negative quality which you now possess, something you don’t like about yourself, some characteristic you wish you didn’t have. And now imagine that you possess the positive counterpart, the opposite of that negative quality. Imagine a situation where you express this positive counterpart, this positive quality about yourself. Now think of something that you like about yourself, some quality, some characteristic, something positive. But now imagine that quality is fully developed, Much, much greater than it is even at present.
Imagine the situation where you express this fully developed positive quality. And then return to your breathing. Just a natural even in and out flow of the breath.