Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The talk opens with a striking reframe: Ven Jampa Gendun argues that moments of self-doubt and depression are not signs of failure but the first stirrings of wisdom — “brilliant sanity beginning to break through.” In this 45-minute session, he makes the case that awakening is our birthright and that we encounter sparks of it in ordinary moments of care, honesty, and self-awareness. A brief guided meditation on love and compassion anchors these ideas before the session moves to Tsongkhapa’s Three Principal Aspects of the Path. Gendun unpacks the opening verses line by line: the determination to be free, the awakening heart (opening to others’ suffering as a bodhisattva does), and the awakening mind (dissolving the self-grasping that keeps us trapped in distress). Accessible to newcomers and established practitioners alike.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 H and M of B 1992 05 20.mp3
UUID: 9ea5fffb-1b85-415b-bf57-a2e2bb6852fd
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Buddhism (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1992-05-20
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.8 minutes
Words: ~4,123
We begin this process of reorientation, getting back in touch. In the last I’m talking about the way in which we to redirect our mind. Can you hear me in the back? Yeah? Taking some kind of creating some kind of model, some kind of presenting some type of paradigm for one’s mind, something toward which it is able to evolve and holding it before one’s mind as a central focus of one’s life, one’s internal development, one’s direction, and talking about the qualities of such a type of model.
And within the Buddhist context, taking as our model or paradigm, awakening. And we talked about the qualities of what constitutes an awakening mind. The qualities of wisdom, knowing things directly without misconception and without preconception, without prejudice or bias, love and compassion, an active response, taking responsibility to help others, to remove their suffering, to bring them happiness however best we can. And this energy and exuberance for life, creative activity, working within the world. So this becomes our we have some we have something very concrete toward which we can direct our mind.
And seeing that somehow it’s relevant to ourselves, That we all have some wisdom no matter how faint and obscure that we all have some love and compassion. No matter how limited, no matter how exclusive it may be at present, we all have some energy no matter how unrefined and how spontaneous or unspontaneous it might be. So, you know, that we can begin to see those moments when we’re expressing an element of that which we are seeking to develop more and more. And we become, as it were, our own inspiration. We are seeing sparks of enlightenment, sparks of awakening in our everyday life.
But we can begin to question the idea of human enlightenment, human awakening. From where does it come? I think someone wants there’s a popular saying in Australia, life was never meant to be easy, and beginning to question this. Is in fact This was one of the burning questions that Śākyamūni Buddha, before he was enlightened, he sought to answer, is dissatisfaction, disappointment, frustrations, is it somehow bound up in human existence? Are we simply to accept it and get along the best we can?
And this an extremely burning question for me. It became such a burning issue that he could no longer lead an ordinary life. He can no longer live within the norms of his society. He had to find an answer to this question. And he found an answer.
The Buddha was born an ordinary person just like ourselves. You know, with all our own problems, with all all our various afflictions, with desire and pride and jealousy. Eighty four thousand problems, not unlike ourselves. But by his own effort and many men and women have, by their own effort, gone from being ordinary individuals to becoming extraordinary individuals. They actualize what is potential in all of us.
The enlightened person, the awakened person, has attained the state of the highest person in the universe. This becomes the ultimate goal of evolution as we see it, as Buddhism conceives it. Because of this, the Buddha is respected, is revered for showing us the way, for demonstrating to us what is possible, for setting an example. And the Buddha is revered, is worshipped, is respected for being a teacher, a guide and an exemplar for showing us what we too are possible in becoming. So as I mentioned this over the weekend, sometimes In fact, Buddhahood is our birthright.
Awakening is our birthright. And oftentimes seeing our confusion, seeing our pain, we develop a sense of insufficiency. Know, oftentimes we see on television, especially on the commercials, there’s healthy young men and women running on the beach drinking Coca Cola. And somehow this we don’t quite match up to what is typical, what is shown. And somehow perhaps there’s something wrong with me.
Everyone else seems to be happy. Everyone else seems to be doing okay. And I don’t feel okay. And that makes us even feel worse than not okay. It makes us feel that there’s something inherently wrong with us.
That maybe something went wrong somewhere along the line. There’s some kind of annoying suspicion about our about our our own sanity, but to say of our own ability to solve our own problems. But even, you know, in those those difficult moments when you when you feel you know, sometimes I use the expression when you feel lower than the mud puddle out on the road. And at that very moment is is a Buddha mind. There’s some sanity beginning to break through.
Anyway, it’s saying, Look at where you’re at. Look at where you’re going. One of the most difficult situations with a psychotic, with an insane person, is when they don’t realize that their actions are inappropriate. But once they become aware, somehow they can pointed out to them. The discrepancy between appropriate activity and the way they’re acting.
That they’re not acting in accord with, in fact, the actuality of the situation. That there’s some disparity. Then they can take note of that. And this difference becomes a difference in their life. There’s sense of awareness.
There’s some wisdom which sees that there’s a disparity. There’s a discrepancy. The first moment of wisdom is to become aware of our ignorance, become aware of our, as it were, insanity. That we are perhaps just a little bit less insane than most people, but we’re still acting inappropriately and becoming aware of this becomes the first step toward wisdom. At that very moment when we’re feeling so very depressed, so very feelings of self insufficiency, there’s some love and compassion at work.
Wishing sincerely, taking one’s problems seriously to be happy, caring about oneself, becoming genuine about solving one’s problems in perhaps a very real practical way. And at that very moment, there’s some energy. And it’s saying, you’re a little bit away. Don’t go back to sleep. Stay awake and wake up more.
So at that very moment, there’s some suggestion of awakening. There’s some of our innate sanity, our intrinsic instinct toward wakefulness, at work, operating. So rather than becoming depressed, rather than becoming downhearted, when you become aware of your shortcomings, when you become aware of when you begin to conceive of yourself as somehow lacking, insufficient, that very awareness is your brilliant sanity beginning to break through. That very awareness is going to lead you to what you can become. So this becomes, in a way, some kind of inspiration for ourselves.
It’s not that we cannot change. But I’m beginning to point out, to focus upon those moments of real sanity, real wisdom, real love and compassion, and the exuberance of the life that we do. Every day of our life express, even if there are seemingly insignificant moments, sparks of awakening that we are continually expressing in our everyday life and beginning to inspire ourselves. So the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha, the Buddha within each of us, within ourselves. And this is achieved by means of the Dharma, the methods, the technique, the truth, whatever helps to raise the level of our consciousness.
And this is done in the social context of a spiritual community. And we try to raise the level of our motivation such that we’re not doing this just for ourselves. But we’re going to try to develop the ability to be able to help others. As I mentioned over the weekend, one of our problems is that we’re totally absorbed in our own problems to the exclusion of others. So part of our growth, part of our understanding, must be to understand and to grow toward others.
Becoming aware that to be healthy is to acknowledge that we’re somehow interconnected, that we’re social beings. And somehow our mental health, our mental welfare, our well-being is very much bound up in our attitudes toward others. And the most skillful, appropriate way of relating with others, of an attitude toward others, is in terms of love and compassion, in terms of communication and caring. We have to try to communicate and care about one another if we’re going to be healthy. Probably we have no choice, just as we have no choice but ultimately to understand our own minds and how it’s operating.
These two wings of the bird, of awakening, love and compassion on the one hand on the one wing, and wisdom, understanding the nature of reality on the other. So we have some kind of direction, and we have to keep continually reorienting ourselves toward that direction. 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 the highest assembly.
From the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving any 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. 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. Begin with mindfulness of breathing. And even before the mindfulness of breathing, we’ll do a meditation on love and compassion for us.
Love and compassion. So if you take a firm, comfortable posture. Trying to develop a positive motivation for doing what we’re doing, for meditating, for listening to the talk, for being here tonight. Begin by thinking of someone of the same sex that you love, that you like, that you care for a great deal. Simply begin with a friendly thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful if this person didn’t have any problems?
Just a friendly sense of caring for this person. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you were free of all your problems? And then strengthen that thought, may you be free of all your problems. I myself am going to help you to be free of all your problems. I’m going to take that responsibility myself.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you were happy? May you be happy. I myself am going to help you to be happy. I’m going to take that responsibility myself. In order to develop myself to be really, in fact, able to help you, I’m going to meditate.
Trying to improve my mind. And then bring your mind to the breath, the gentle, even in and out flow of the breath. What does this significant male mean in your life? What do they see in you? What quality about you do they most highly respect, highly admire?
Then imagine a situation play a role where this quality, this characteristic has developed even greater than it is now, completely developed. And you express this completely developed, highly admired quality that you now possess. Then think of a significant female in your life. What quality about you do they admire most, respect the most within you? And again, a situation where you express now fully developed this quality that they presently admire in you.
Now consider the type of person you like to be ten years from now. What qualities would you like to possess? What would you like to be like ten years from now? What stops you from becoming that person? What are obstacles?
What do you do in your practical everyday life that’s leading you to become that person you want to be ten years from now? So we’re beginning to look at Tsongkhapa’s text, The Three Principal Aspects of the Path. And last week, we looked at the very first line, homage to the foremost holy lama. The function of the teacher is to help us to instill confidence in ourselves, to help us to believe in ourselves that we can change, that we can become the type of person that we’ve always hoped to become, that we can solve our problems on a very basic level, and to inspire us to work towards that end and to give us the skills and the techniques, the methods whereby to actually do that in fact and to serve as an embodiment, an example of someone who in fact has done it or is at least somewhere along the way. So it’s a practical living reality.
It’s not something abstraction or something in theory, but it is a living fact. And the words foremost holy lama denote the three levels of capacity or three perspectives of individuals in terms of their spiritual practices, in terms of their perspective on goal gratifications. Over and above the necessity to have immediate goal gratification, we begin to take some kind of long term perspective on our happiness, on our development. And in this way we begin to not be under the complete influence of our hopes and fears, of pleasure and pain, of gain and loss, of fame and notoriety, of praise and criticism. But we begin to willingly, perhaps temporally, to take up some types of legitimate suffering, to be willing to go through difficulties, to confront issues when we have longer range goals in mind.
For example, if someone who wished to become a doctor, they may not be interested at all in physics or mathematics. They may dislike them. If they looked at physics and mathematics in isolation, they might not have anything to do with They don’t enjoy doing it. They see no purpose in it. But because it is a stepping stone to something which they prize as worthwhile, they’re willing to go through the difficulty of studying mathematics and willing to study physics in order to achieve a higher end. Something that they wouldn’t have done otherwise if only seen in isolation. So we begin to gain a longer term perspective on our development, that we’re not completely wrapped up, bound up by having our immediate goal gratification, that we’re not immediately wrapped up by having to not be willing to enter into any difficulties for longer term goals. We’re willing to forego perhaps temporal pleasures, immediate pleasures for the sake of long term goals. So these long term goals in terms of various perspectives and various scopes of being, foremost holy lama. Foremost denotes an individual of narrow perspective, someone who wishes to achieve, who conceives of happiness of future existence for themselves alone.
Or at least someone who begins to see that there’s no state within ego based existence which is satisfactory. That’s simply no matter how comfortable your prison cell may be, it’s not freedom. So such an individual wishes to be liberated from the prison altogether for themselves alone. And then Lama denotes someone of the vast perspective, highest capacity, someone who additionally wants to be liberated from the prison, but begins to expand their horizon and understanding that all living beings are exactly in the same position that they themselves are in and begins to develop the aspiration to not only liberate themselves from the prison of their neurotic patterns, but aspires to develop themselves such that they’ll be able to help to liberate, to free all living beings from their compulsive patterns, from their suffering. And that’s the highest capacity, the most vast perspective.
Then Tsongkhapa goes on in the text in the very first verse. He says, I will explain as well as I can the essential meaning of all the conqueror’s scriptures, the path praised by the excellent conqueror’s children, the port for fortunate wishing liberation. So this is the section, the preliminary of composition. So in composing a text, it was traditional to pledge to complete the text, to make a promise. And it is said that through the power of the determination to fulfill one’s pledge, to fulfill one’s promise, this in itself would overcome certain obstacles, internal and external, to the completion of the task, the writing of this text.
And traditionally, it’s said of realized beings that their promises are like engraving in stone, that they will always be there, unforgotten until they’re fulfilled. And so Tsongkhapa, I will explain as best I can, is the way of Tsongkhapa setting out his determination that I’m going to complete this text in order to immediately overcome some kind of obstacles both internal and external. And also, when he says, As best I can, it’s an expression of his humility in general. But specifically, he’s saying within the shortness, within the brief words, the few words of this text. I’m going to explain as best I can and the text is only fifteen verses long.
So the next line, the essential meaning of all the conqueror’s teaching, of all the conqueror’s scriptures. So this indicates the first of the three fundamentals of the path. This is what we’re going to be discussing, the three fundamentals of the path: the determination to be free, the awakening heart, and the awakening mind. So this first line indicates the first of these three fundamentals, the fundamental of determining to be free. Consider the essential meaning of all the conqueror’s scriptures.
The conqueror is an epithet for the Buddha, someone who has conquered, someone who has overcome the enemy. And here the enemy is self centeredness and self grasping. So one who has conquered these two enemies of self centeredness and self grasping. Determining to grow is mentioned first because, as we’ve talked about, it is essential that it be developed first. But before we can realize the awakening heart and the awakening mind, it must be preceded with the intention to be free, the intention to grow, this determination to develop ourselves.
If we have never developed the attitude of wanting to help ourselves, how could we ever knowing our own suffering, knowing our own difficulties first handedly, how could we ever develop a sincere, stable, real wish to help others to go beyond their difficulties, their problems, only knowing their difficulties and sufferings secondhand, vicariously at best. We can’t. So initially, the quality of determining to be free, determining to grow, has to be directed toward ourselves. Subsequent to that, we can begin to understand others are in the same situation we’re in. And we can begin to develop the attitude of wanting, determining to help them to be free.
So this is the essential meaning of all the conqueror scriptures, this essential preliminary quality of determining to grow, determining to change, that something needs to be done, that it doesn’t seem to be working. And the necessary ingredient in bringing about change is a change within my attitudes, which we mean by growing. Then the third line, the path praised by the excellent conqueror’s children. This indicates the second of the three fundamentals, the three fundamentals of the path, the awakening heart, opening our hearts to others. Conqueror’s children refers to bodhisattvas.
For bodhisattva, the word bodhi means awakening. Sattva, most traditionally, literally, means a hero. So it is someone a bodhisattva’s heart has been awakened to the pain of others, to their problems, to their suffering. And such an individual heroically aspires to achieve enlightenment in order to alleviate their suffering. An individual who is heroic with respect to enlightenment, with respect to awakening, that’s a bodhisattva.
Someone who has awakened their heart wants to develop themselves for the benefit of others. It is a conqueror’s children. That is a Buddha child. And the fourth line, the port for the fortunate wishing liberation. So this indicates the third fundamental of the path, the fundamental of the awakening mind, awakening our minds to the nature of reality, the ultimate nature of reality.
Essentially, this means overcoming self grasping and all the various patterns which are based upon self grasping. These are expressed as a struggle to maintain a sense of solidity, a sense of permanence about ourselves. There’s a constant reconfirmation of an identity. We’re trying to secure the self in space and time, trying to solidify, make concrete who we conceive of ourselves to be, this I who are involved in this constant struggle, self grasping, to grasp to a permanent, unchanging, independent self. So this is considered to be bondage and is experienced as distress, one level or another.
So seeing deeply into the nature of reality dissolves this patterning of grasping It ends the struggle. And this is likened here in this verse, in this line, to a port for the fortunate, wishing liberation. So it’s like a harbor, a peace. So then the third section, beginning with the second verse. The third section is the preliminary where Tsongkhapa is beginning to encourage us to practice.
It’s set up in the verse, Whoever are not attached to the pleasures of mundane existence, whoever strive in order to make leisure and fortune worthwhile, whoever inclined to the path pleasing pleasing the conqueror of Buddhas, those fortunate ones should listen with a clear mind. So here, Tsongkhapa is addressing himself to the reader of the text or to the listener, encouraging them to train in these three fundamentals of the path. But who specifically is he addressing himself to? As it says, whoever are not attached to the pleasures of mundane existence, are not willing to step out of the fantasies of ego, Whoever are not attached to its fabrications, its constructions that are built on hopes and fears, what we call mundane existence. That is, those who are determined to grow, those who want to be free.
Whoever strive in order to make leisure and fortune worthwhile, whoever try to make use of their opportunity, to make use of their freedom and fortune, which we’re going to be discussing. That we have all of the external and internal circumstances, conditions necessary to grow. And whoever desires to make use of those conditions to grow and to awaken. We all have the conditions necessary to change, to become the type of person that we have always hoped to become. They’re all there.
Everything that is needed is there, is present. And there’s no greater purpose to which we can apply our freedom and our fortune. There’s nothing more worthwhile to strive for than to take up the difficult task of opening our hearts to others, developing an awakening heart, developing love and compassion. Whoever inclined to the path pleasing the conqueror Buddhas, whoever inclined as it says, who are inclined to see. The fourth verse on the next page.
Those who are inclined to see the cause and effect of all phenomena of cyclic existence in saṃsāra are infallible. Thoroughly destroy the mode of apprehension of these objects as inherent existence has entered on the path that is pleasing to the Buddhas. So the existence of all products arise dependent upon external flow of causes and conditions, of causes and effects, the infallible relationship between those two. And the internal imputing of the mind. So nothing exists inherently without depending upon other factors, something outside of itself.
Everything depends upon the external flow of causes and conditions and the imputation of mind, language and concepts, all products whatsoever. So nothing exists inherently. Nothing exists from its own side objectively. But we believe the contrary. We believe as if everything exists inherently, is self defined, doesn’t depend upon causes and conditions, doesn’t depend upon our own mind imputing.
It doesn’t depend upon language, upon concepts. So as long as we will continue to suffer, as long as we do not make the necessary effort to have seen deeply into the nature of reality developing an awakening mind. So he’s exhorting this to develop the determination to be free, to develop an awakening heart, to develop an awakening mind. Then he goes on to, in the next line, Those fortunate ones should listen with a clear mind. So this involves the process of listening.
In terms of listening, reflecting, and meditating, Buddhist spiritual life, that is to say a life which is built around awakening our hearts and minds. It’s built upon raising the level of our consciousness. And this development can take place both indirectly and directly, the various methods that we use. The indirect methods of developing our mind in the various forms. Simply going out into a countryside and being near nature can raise the level of our consciousness.
And the type of work we do in making a worthwhile product with a sense of pride.