Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The hollow promise of the “American dream” — follow the rules, marry right, get the right job, and happiness will be delivered — opens this 46-minute session as Ven Jampa Gendun’s central illustration of why dissatisfaction drives genuine spiritual inquiry. He maps three grades of suffering within ego-based existence: obvious physical and mental pain; “contaminated happiness,” where every pleasure is merely the cessation of prior pain; and the subtler suffering of universal conditionality — the self-consciousness, shame, and existential anxiety that come simply from having an ego. A guided meditation then walks the group through each layer by reviewing the past week’s experiences directly, before closing with the three fundamentals of the path and cultivating the determination to be free. Suited to practitioners who have been following the series.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 H and M of B 1992 10 28.mp3
UUID: af3ea880-f25d-4764-97bb-afac74babe13
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Buddhism (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1992-10-28
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.9 minutes
Words: ~3,279
Are you comfortable? Would you like the fan on? Would you like the fan on? We begin as we usually do by redirecting ourselves, reorienting can you hear me in the back? Reorientating ourselves.
Prioritizing some of our values, getting back in touch. And during the course of our the practical necessities of dealing with everyday life, oftentimes get out of touch with those values, those guidelines, those goals which we hold most valuable for ourselves. That we have at some time during the course of our life determined what makes life worthwhile, which help us to express our basic goodness about ourselves and help us to believe in the basic goodness of life. And so we have to, as we’re, keep reminding ourselves of what is important for me as a very unique and self actualizing individual. It’s something that we cannot look to our neighbor or the person sitting next to ourselves.
There’s something very unique to ourselves. What is worthwhile? What do I hold as valuable? What brings my life meaning and purpose? What can I believe in?
Something which resonates with a deeply felt need in our lives, which when we are giving expression in practical applications in our everyday life, there’s some kind of peace, there’s some kind of authentic response to a deeply felt need. We were talking last Monday, last Wednesday, and continue tonight about nature, the pathology of conditioned being, the conditioned existence. That is the ego based existence. Its texture, its quality. It has this sort of feeling about it which is dissatisfactory.
That is to say we’re talking about suffering. And this is the reason behind all that we do here, because we want to be happy. We don’t want to suffer. That’s our basic line. Even when we talk about reorientating ourselves from a sense of self centeredness to other centeredness, this is still is a means to find happiness.
It’s an unthought of, a revolutionary method for most of us, for the general trend of our society. But still it is a method to bring ourselves happiness. And the only way that we’re really going to become sincere, determined to find happiness, to solve our problems at perhaps a more basic level or more fundamental level than what we have hitherto been working with them at is by getting in touch with our difficulties, basic suffering, the texture of our life. As I mentioned last week, we don’t come to this spiritual journey, this exploration, this striving voluntarily. It’s at some deep level of pain, of crisis, of emotional upheaval, of the certain degree of unmanageability in our life, and trying to seek some answers beyond what is available to us in the secular society about us.
So the path begins with a deeply felt sense of suffering. And this is one of the qualities which helps us to redirect ourselves, keep reminding ourselves what is important, what works for me, not what I have been told works. You know, it’s sad. I remember when I lived in the United States, and I think it’s also true of Australia. We used to call it the American dream, It was very prevalent back in the fifties and early sixties.
If went to the right university and you married the right spouse, got the right job, had the right number of kids, bought the right car, had the right house. There was a promise that all the good all the goodies of life would be delivered to you, that you would get all the happiness that life had to offer. And many people, they prescribed to this promise that was offered out. And then they got to their forties and fifties, and they did everything right, they followed all the rules. And then they began to develop a sense, an atmosphere that somehow they were cheated.
That in fact, that what they had gotten was hollow. It really hadn’t delivered the goods. That though they had in fact followed all the rules and followed them well and done everything right, But it was a hollow promise. It didn’t deliver what it was supposed to. And there was a deep felt sense of a meaninglessness.
There was sort of, I think, trend into valuelessness in the United States, you know, in conjunction with the lost promise, the lost dream, the killing of the Kennedy, the Vietnam War. And people began to, I think, search and explore. And they began to become aware that to be to be normal in an insane society is not to be very healthy, is in fact not to be very happy. So you know, it is as if we can’t look to others, but only to our actually lived experience to validate what is of importance to us, what works for us in our actual lived experience, and begin to live out as an authentic part of ourselves, to take refuge within ourselves and within our own basic trust within ourselves, within our own basic wisdom. No matter how obscure and faint that wisdom may be, we take refuge in our own love and compassion no matter how limited and exclusive that love and compassion may be.
And take refuge in our exuberance for life, our zest living, our our creative, spiritual, and mental and physical energy that we all have. To take refuge in the Buddha which is inside of ourselves It’s the ultimate solution to all our problems. It’s the only solution that works in every case that all the varieties that life brings. It’s the only solution that we can always trust in, that we can always depend upon. We’re not going to make this choice, this direction, unless we begin to have this sense, a deep felt sense of dissatisfactoriness with our present situation.
You know, we’re never going to give up our irrational fears until our rational fears are even greater. The irrational fear that if I don’t change, if I don’t do something, if I don’t begin to direct my life toward this person I want to be somewhere down the line ten years from now, fifteen years from now, I’m simply going to be bound by these reoccurring compulsive patterns, which up to now have constituted my life. And in fact, nothing will change. In fact, things aren’t going to get better, but probably worse. So there’s a realignment of our allegiance from a life passively led on the basis of hopes and fears.
Know, hopes of pleasure, fears of pain, hopes of gain, fear of loss, hopes of fame, fear of notoriety, hopes of praise and fear of ridicule. Now this constitutes our life. These are the prime values in which most people live their life according to. And within their experience it doesn’t work. It doesn’t bring happiness.
It only brings continued dissatisfaction, frustration and disappointment. So this redirecting of ourselves, this reorientating process is one where we choose growth as a prime value in our life, as a prime determining factor in the various choices that life is continually confronting us with. Beyond all my hopes and fears, whatever is going to help me grow, whatever is going to help me to go from hatred to love, from miserliness, attachment to openness and generosity, from self centeredness to other centeredness, from ignorance to wisdom, that’s what I choose. In spite of my hopes, in spite of my fears, I choose to grow. And this becomes our refuge.
And then there’s some kind of movement, there’s some kind of change, there comes an awakening. So the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha, the Buddha within side of ourselves. And this is achieved, is actualized by means of the Dharma, that which is able to raise the level of our consciousness. And this process occurs within the social context the spiritual community. And we raise the level of our motivation such that I’m not doing it just for myself, but accepting that greater responsibility, expanding our social awareness to broaden our area of concern.
But I’m doing it not only for myself, but such that by my own growth I can be of that much benefit, more benefit to those about me and fulfilling a greater destiny. And then our life has great meaning. We can respect our life, ourselves, and we can feel good, and we can feel good that our life is going to deliver all the possibilities of the goodness, and that we can have we can feel good about ourselves, our own basic goodness and the goodness of life. And this becomes a way of life, a lifestyle. And this is this style is your ultimate refuge.
You’re you’re becoming become your being. 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 the other perfections, may I attain the state of a 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. And 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. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and highest assembly.
In 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’re going to meditate. And we’ll begin with the cultivation of love and compassion in our meditation and picking as the object to cultivate love and compassion towards someone who is not intimate with you, but someone that you like and someone of the opposite sex. So someone that you like, that you’re attracted to, that you have a warm relationship to with, but it’s not an immediate intimate relationship to you. Then we’ll go on to practice mindfulness of breathing.
Then we’re going to meditate on suffering, all the various types of suffering that we’ve talked about thus far. You know, we’re looking at suffering the pathology of conditioned existence, that is ego based existence. And we began to look at it last week from the basis of suffering of pain, all the various physical, mental pains that we are continually every day of our life experiencing. And the more profound, more subtle level of suffering or dissatisfaction that we experience in terms of fluctuation. That what we term happiness is in fact, from the point of view of Buddhism, a contaminated happiness.
That is to say, it’s always tied up in suffering. Now we can never know the warmth of a friend without knowing the coolness of an enemy. We can never know success without failure, pleasure without pain. That’s why it’s said to be contaminated. That all the pleasure that we experience is from the point of view of Buddhism termed the suffering and fluctuation.
It is only comparatively happiness compared to pain. It is the cessation of prior deprivation, the cessation of pain is taken to be happiness. Tension reduction is taken to be happiness in itself, it is not happiness, only relatively so. And therefore the dissatisfactory quality of it is that in order to be happy, we have to alternate it with pain. We can never know stable constant permanent peace within this contaminated situation, within ego based existence.
In another more deeper level, suffering of universal conditionality, that is the very fact of having ego itself. It’s like a bundle of thorns that we’re constantly carrying around in our back, wherever we go, whatever we do, it sticks it. You know, the various very subtle types of suffering that we experience in terms of having an ego. You know, sense of self consciousness, having to guard our territory, having to reestablish our credentials, the feelings of guilt, of shame, the sense of struggling for union with oneself, with others, with nature. These feelings of fragmentation, alienation, having to watch yourself, the loss of innocence, the dread of death, anxiety permeating our existence at some level.
We’re going to discuss that more tonight, but we’re also going to try to look at it in the course of our meditation. So if you take a firm comfortable posture. We’re going to cultivate first compassion towards someone that you you like, that you’re attracted to but are not very intimate, someone of the opposite sex. Think of such a person and imagine that person in front of you. If you can’t see them, doesn’t matter.
Just feel that they’re there. Beginning with the the simple friendly thought. It would be wonderful if you didn’t have any problem. That would be great. I would like that very much.
And strengthening that feeling, May you not have any problem. I wish very much that you were free of all your difficulties and suffering. Try to feel that towards this person. Strengthening that feeling, I’m going to commit myself to your welfare. I’m going to take responsibility for working with you to help you to solve your problem.
I’m going to do that for you. We’ll cultivate love towards this person. First with a friendly, simple thought. It would be wonderful if you were happy. I like that very much.
Let’s take in the feeling.. May you be happy. I wish you all the goodness of life. I’m going to commit myself to your happiness, take responsibility for working with you help you to be happy. And the way I’m going to express my commitment to you at this very moment is through my meditation, by developing myself.
I’ll be able to help you find the skills you need to be a real benefit to you. And then bringing the mind to the breath. Just be gentle, easy, and allow the flow of the breath. But it’s useful using the techniques of counting and noting. I want to simply review our past week in terms of the various dissatisfactions that we experienced.
First, in terms of the sufferings of pain, physical pain, all the various headaches and toothaches and backaches, cuts and bruises that we experienced over the last week. So just go through, review your last week. Look at all the physical pains that you experienced. Just acknowledge without judging. Just listen.
Now look at the mental pains that we experienced over the last week. So again, just review your week in terms of mental pains, all the various worries and depressions, frustrations, disappointments. Meeting with the undesirable, not getting what you wanted, all the unhappiness. Just go through and listen, review your week. Because of the suffering of fluctuation, that all our pleasures are bound up in pain.
And just think of yourself when you were cold and you got next to the fire, the pleasure that you feel. But what happens when you stand next to the fire for long? What happens when you sit in a comfortable chair for long. Look at all the pleasures that you experienced over the week and see if you can see how they’re related to some cessation of prior difficulty, lessening of previous pain, how their harmony is tied up into conflict, how the pleasure of a meal is tied up in the pain of hunger. Just see if you can see how they’re related to one another.
All your various pleasures are related to some pain. Look at the pleasures that you experienced over the week and see how they’re related, how they’re relative. And then finally, looking at the suffering of universal conditionality, simply having an ego. And then the pain of being self conscious, of having to watch yourself all the time, having to be on guard. Having to reestablish your self image in front of others and yourself.
Feeling some guilt and shame. That you don’t quite have what it takes, that there’s something wrong with you. Constant struggle to be perfect, to achieve, to be someone else. And then bring your mind back to the breath. Just be gentle and allow the flow of the breath.
We’re looking at the three fundamentals of the path: developing the determination to awake or to grow, the awakening heart and the awakening mind. And within developing the determination to be free, to awaken, we’re looking at the final awareness that needs to be developed, that is the pathology of conditioned existence. That is to say that within the ego based existence there’s nothing worth having, nothing worth being, nothing worth becoming. It is dissatisfactory by its very nature. In order to develop the determination to free ourselves, to develop the consistent determination to work through our fears and hopes, to implement all the various methods to transcend our problems once and for all altogether.
Otherwise, it’s, you know, if we don’t it’s necessary to confront the fact of suffering within our lives. Someone living in a prison, if they don’t recognize the situation and feel it very deeply, it becomes very easy to become complacent and feel that it’s good enough. There’s no longing to be free. But once we begin to become aware of the disadvantages, the dissatisfactoriness within our own experience, then we’re going to develop a strong determination to be free, and we’re going to find a way to free ourselves. So we’re looking you know, we have to actually acknowledge the actual experience of our lives, the texture of our existence, and the quality of suffering that we all experience at some level or another.
We have to begin to cut through our cultivated unawareness our self deception and confront the issue of suffering in our life, that everything’s not okay and it’s never going to be okay as long as we remain within this reoccurring compulsive pattern of ego based existence. And by its very nature, it’s dissatisfactory. When we get sick and tired of being sick and tired, then we’re going to find a way to get well. But we have to, as it were, become terribly sick and tired. It’s not okay.
So we’re looking at the way things aren’t okay at its various levels. This isn’t something which is being imposed by some dogma. It’s simply pointing out the actuality of our lived experience. If if it doesn’t correspond to what you actually experience in your life, then it’s not true for you. It doesn’t need to be listened to.
Pay no attention. It’s not something which you ought to believe in order to become a Buddhist, that we’re describing actual facts of our life. Hopefully Buddhism does that. Buddhism has a tremendous faith in truth. The truth is therapeutic.
And as the Dalai Lama has said, in the case of science versus religion, if science is able to describe a phenomena reasonably satisfactory and we can see no fault, and the logic seems to be foolproof, then we have to accept that, whether it contradicts Buddhism or not. We’re not interested in becoming good Buddhists, but in helping ourselves become well. Because our ultimate, our actual reality of our situation, that we’re living living our lives on the basis of varying varying levels of deception, misassumptions, wrong belief, erroneous premises, and we have to begin to work through these. So we begin to, in terms of the pathology of our situation, that is the unhealthy quality of our situation, looking at it in terms of the three marks of ego based existence. Three marks.
All of any state which originates out of basic ignorance.