Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The concept of “refuge” — something everyone already seeks in drugs, relationships, money, or status — opens this 46-minute session by Ven Jampa Gendun, reframed as the Buddhist question of whether our chosen refuges actually deliver lasting happiness. Drawing on Carl Jung’s insight that neurosis is the refusal to accept legitimate suffering, he argues real change begins only when we grow genuinely “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” A guided meditation follows — loving-kindness cultivation, mindfulness of breathing, then choiceless awareness with a gentle noting technique — before Gendun turns to Tsongkhapa’s Three Fundamentals of the Path and the first of them: the determination to be free. He uses a William Blake verse to illustrate the difference between clinging to pleasure and letting joy pass freely, and explains why it is grasping, not pleasure itself, that generates suffering. Accessible to newcomers with no prior Buddhist background.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 H and M of B 1992 05 27.mp3
UUID: 54d1fe9f-3b11-412e-b570-811dc89cc31e
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Buddhism (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1992-05-27
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.2 minutes
Words: ~3,957
We begin with a reorientation, redirecting, getting in touch with ourselves. Unlike myself, you probably had a busy day. You had lots of things to do, important activities to involve yourself in. Working, taking care of your kids, your home. And so now we want to sort of perhaps get back in touch with ourselves.
Can you hear me okay? With perhaps some of our more important central values that somehow over the course of our life, in our more lucid moments when our mind was very clear and we were in touch with some of our basic sanity, some of our innate wisdom, our brilliant intelligence. We set goals for ourselves. We find out we have a sense of what is most important for me as a very unique individual. Over the course of our busy days, busy life, we get out of touch with ourselves.
We forget what feels right for us, very uniquely right. And perhaps we put ourselves on automatic pilot, or perhaps we’re caught up in the values of the people around us, and goals that perhaps in our better judgment we would not be following, we sort of lose sight, have lost sight for one reason or another. So this process of reorientating ourselves, redirecting ourselves. We’ve talked about this idea, this traditional idea of refuge. It’s not an Eastern trip.
It’s something that we’ve been doing every day of our lives. Perhaps we didn’t give it a name. Most likely we’ve never given it the name refuge. But we still have done it. That which we conceive of as having the potential to solve our problems.
How are going to find the happiness that each of us is looking for every day of our lives? How are we going to get rid of the pain of what it means to be an ordinary person? We go for refuge to drugs, to people, to money, to jobs, to clothes, to I guess there’s about as many refuges as there are people. And so we have to begin to check up to see whether our particular refuge is delivering the goods, is paying off. It’s not to say that these things aren’t important, that they can’t contribute, but we have to become aware that perhaps they’re not the sole determining factor of the quality of our life.
And this quality of refuge, this quality of going for redirecting our life, redirecting our attention, Where are we going to motivate ourselves toward? The impetus behind it is said to come about through two causes. One is suffering, and the other is conviction or faith. You know, if we’re comfortable, you’re sitting in a comfortable chair, and if you’re comfortable, you won’t get up. But the moment you become aware that there’s something other that needs to be done, that you’re becoming uncomfortable, that your position has become painful.
At that moment where you see very deeply, very naturally, spontaneously, you’ll shift your position. It’s not as if something more needs to be done. The scene brings about change. The scene is the change in one’s attitude. One’s behavior is shifted.
One does something different. So it becomes imperative to begin to become aware of the high degree dissatisfactoriness in our life. This is not to say that simply becoming aware of the dissatisfactory quality of our life is going to increase it. I don’t think it will. I think it will actually become Much of our dissatisfaction, many of our problems are simply this churning over.
If you get hit by a car, it’s very painful. Somehow this seems to be a very real pain, which is connected very much with our reality. But how much of our pain, how much of our mental turmoil is simply of our own making, our fantasies, our ego’s projection, which are completely divorced from reality, which have nothing to do with the reality of our situation. I think we all know that, don’t we? If we become aware, if we become sincere about solving our problems in a very real and practical way, we become removed by the degree of pain in our lives.
When we get sick and tired of being sick and tired, then we’re going to be energized, we’re going to find a way. The very nature of our mind, very quality of our basic sanity is going to open up a path. A door is going to be opened. It’s going to go beyond mere intellectual curiosity. The simple gathering together of more information, it becomes a real necessity in one’s life.
As I think I’ve mentioned a couple of times now, the mother of invention is necessity. When we get sick and tired of being sick and tired, we’ll find a way to get well. This is not to say that we’re basket cases, and that we’re probably the most healthy people that we know, aren’t we? But perhaps things could become better. To cease denying even to oneself that things could be better.
To be willing to confront, to be willing to go through legitimate suffering, to cease the self deception that things aren’t okay. And it’s okay not to be okay. Isn’t that what they say in the Alcoholics Anonymous? I’m not okay, and you’re not okay, but that’s okay. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in not being okay.
It’s normal. But we don’t have to be satisfied with normality. We can strive for something better once we become aware that normality is not okay. That there’s something better. That we can have the conviction.
And this goes on to the other aspect of why we redirect ourselves. Having conviction that there is something very okay about us, that we have a basic sanity about us. We have the resources to solve our problems. But we’re never going to become sincere about solving our problems until we see the necessity to solve our problems. And I don’t think this I think Carl Jung has said, The basis of neurosis is the unwillingness to accept legitimate suffering.
We actually create more suffering, compound our problems, by not confronting our difficulties and being willing to work through them. We all know this in our daily life. This is always coming up, even in petty situations where because of the unwillingness to confront another person because it’s uncomfortable, You avoid that person, you avoid the issue, but you still turn it over in your mind. The knife keeps turning in your heart. And you compound.
The problem could have been solved perhaps in one moment of going through legitimate suffering, of that uncomfortable moment of confrontation. And that would have involved some growth. You would have gone beyond some previous limit which you had set upon yourself. To grow is painful, to extend oneself means to go beyond our present limits. And all of these even seemingly petty situations that occur in our daily life.
We’re going to talk about the eight principle preoccupations of ego-orientated existence. And the two major, the two premises upon which we base, on which ego expresses itself within our daily life in a very mundane fashion is in terms of hopes and fears. Unless we really want to grow, determined to grow, to go beyond our problems, when every time we come up with a confront of fear, we’re going to turn away. And we’re always going to be swallowed up in our hopes. Without this determination we’re simply, the moment pain arises we’re going to withdraw.
We’re never going to see the necessity that it’s in my best interest to work through that pain, that difficulty, that confrontation. And we’re going to be lost in the fantasy of our own hopes. Hopes in terms of setting one’s priorities, in terms of ego, in terms of one’s fantasies, not in terms of reality. What is the real workable situation with real people where my expectations can be fulfilled, where I can begin to get off this treadmill. I have never ending hopes which are never fulfilled, but we never quite learn from our previous mistakes, previous lessons.
We just keep hoping, blindly hoping, but never having created the causes for what we expect. We only hope. That’s all we have, is our hopes and our fears. So we won’t work through these unless we see a necessity to. And the necessity is because we don’t want to suffer.
Very much Buddhism is rooted in this We can argue philosophy, theology, ad nauseam. But it’s difficult to argue the fact that everybody in this room wants to be happy, that nobody in this room wants to suffer. That seems to be almost what we mean by sentient life, a living being, approach and avoidance. We avoid that which we see as pain, we approach that which we conceive of as happiness. We have to begin to use our intelligence because we may be making mistakes as to what is painful and what is happiness.
We may be making a mistake. If you were conceive of putting your hand in the flame as happiness, then you shouldn’t be surprised that you’re burnt again and again and again because you keep making the same mistakes again and again and again. Even though you may conceive of happiness, in fact it’s not in accordance with the reality of the situation. And if we’re not willing to work through our pain, then there’s always going to be a limit to how far we can develop ourselves. We’re just going to be confined to a small prison, the outer walls of which are pain, our fear and hope.
In our fantasy world of ego. And it’s not a very satisfying experience. It’s not living to its fullest extent. So this becomes our direction. This is why we are trying to solve our problems.
And this is one of the two fundamental causes for this orientation towards the inner focus of our life becoming Buddha, and the Buddha within yourself, to actualize the solution to your own problems by means of the Dharma, the techniques, the methods, the truth, whatever we want to call it, that which raises the level of our consciousness. In the context of a spiritual community, the social context in which growth takes place. And we try to raise the level of motivation such that we’re doing this not just for myself, but for the sake of others, however many others we can cultivate in terms of our motivation, however many we can begin to include in our sense of connectedness, relatedness, until ultimately this entire being called sentient life for their sake, for its sake. I want to solve my problems on the most basic level, And I want to develop compassion to its fullest extent. And I want to develop the skills and the abilities such that I can help others to be able to do the same.
And this becomes our ultimate direction. Ultimate orientation that we take with our everyday life, keep getting back in touch with these deeper values, with these these become right guidelines whereby we can make the choices in all of the seemingly insignificant choices that confront us every day of our life toward that person we want to become. Each choice opens up one door and closes another, and that door opens up to another door and closes another, and so a path is created. And it’s a consistent choice of the person that we want to become, which is going to take us from where we are now as ordinary beings to the person that we want to become. And this is our direction in life.
It becomes a purpose of evolution. And then something happens. There’s been some change. There’s been some going beyond our old limits. New horizons, laws begin to open themselves up to us.
New orders of being. And this becomes a way of life, a kind of a style, a way of doing things, a way of living. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly. From 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’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 the Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, the highest assembly. In the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving in the other perfection, may I attain the state of the Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. Begin with meditation. We’ll do mindfulness of breathing.
Preliminary to the mindfulness of breathing, we’ll do the simple method of cultivating love and compassion. Then toward the end of the mindfulness of breathing, we’ll practice choiceless awareness. And if you use the two techniques of counting and noting, Then toward the end, want to stop counting and practice noting. This is a gentle notation in your mind, what your mind is involved in. Ideally when it’s mindfulness of breathing, you’re breathing in, you know that you’re breathing in, you note in.
When you’re breathing out, know that you’re breathing out, note out. So you’re noting in your mind, in out, in In, And then if your mind becomes distracted, if it wanders, simply note whatever it is. The moment you become aware. If it’s a sound, hearing. If it’s a pain, pain.
Thinking, hearing, seeing, feeling, hearing, thinking, and come back to the breath in and out. But in choiceless awareness, we don’t direct the mind at all. We allow the mind to become involved in any object that it naturally tends toward. We’re not trying to focus the mind on any particular object, but we want to maintain awareness. We want to maintain awareness.
And we can do this if we consistently note, a gentle noting. So whatever the stimulus in your environment, whether external or internal is the strongest, your mind will naturally tend toward that. And simply note it and allow the mind to become involved in any object that it naturally tends toward. But maintain your awareness from moment to moment. Maintain your awareness.
And you can best do this as technique to assist this process by noting, simply noting. Hearing, thinking, thinking, thinking, pain, pain, thinking. Boring, boring, thinking. Hearing, thinking, pain, itching, itching, itching, pain, thinking, thinking. Just maintain your awareness.
Just allow the mind to become involved in any object that it naturally tends toward, but maintain your awareness. So if you take a comfortable firm position, start. So let’s begin by cultivating compassion. Just a friendly, gentle thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful if other people were free of suffering and the causes of suffering. Wouldn’t that be nice?
And we’re going to strengthen that. May others be free of suffering and the causes of suffering. I myself will free others from their suffering, from the cause of their suffering. Would it be wonderful if others had happiness in all the causes of happiness? May others have happiness and the causes of happiness.
I myself will bring happiness and the causes of happiness to all others. In order to do that, I’m going to meditate. In order to bring happiness and free others from suffering. I’m going to meditate. Then bring your mind gently to the breath.
Just be easy, gentle, even, in and out flow of the breath. If you’re counting, stop counting, but continue to note the breath. Note the in and the out of the breath gently within your mind. Now allow the mind to become involved in any object that it naturally tends toward. But continue to note, maintain your awareness.
Watch the mind, observe it, be aware. Keep noting. And then bring the mind back to the breath. Natural, even gentle flow of the in and out of the breath. We’re looking at a short text, which is in our books, Three Fundamentals of the Path by Tsongkhapa, the fourteenth century Tibetan scholar Yogi.
We’ve looked at the first overall division. First he pays homage to the spiritual teacher, then he moves on to pledge that he’s going to compose the text. He gives us some words of encouragement. He sets out what he’s going to talk about in terms of he’s going to discuss the three fundamentals of the path: the determination to awaken or to grow, the awakening heart and the awakening mind. By awakening heart, it means the opening of our hearts to others in love and compassion.
And the awakening mind is awakening our mind to the ultimate nature of reality. So these are the fundamentals of the path. This is the path taking us from our present situation, involved in ego based existence as ordinary people with all our various problems and difficulties, to a state of an optimum mode of being, to a Buddha, whatever we want to call that, that culmination of the human potential. Now we’re going to begin to talk about the actual three fundamentals of the path, the first of which is developing the determination to be free, to awaken. This has three sections: why we should develop the determination to be free, the way to develop the determination to be free, and what is the measure.
How can we know what signs indicate that we’ve actually developed some determination to awaken within our mind? Beginning with the reasons for developing this determination, this is in the third verse, where it says, Without a complete thought definitely to leave cyclic existence, there is no way to stop seeking pleasurable effects in the ocean of existence. Also craving cyclic existence thoroughly binds the embodied. Therefore, in the beginning, determination to leave cyclic existence should be sought. Without this complete thought definitely to leave cyclic existence, and without this determination, this thought definitely to grow, we’re always going to perpetuate, we’re going to remain stuck in our reoccurring compulsive pattern.
These are recursive patterns which keep continually arising again and again and again. Determining to grow is to become aware of this pattern, that we are involved in a system, that we’re involved in self defeating behavior, self defeating ways of thinking and acting. And to attempt to consistently interrupt, to intervene in these patterns, to begin to break them up, to evolve more skillful patterns, more functional patterns, but ultimately to go beyond all pattern modes of behavior altogether. To step outside of the fantasy world of ego and exist within the substance of reality, the way things are. To live in spontaneity and creativity rather than the deadening patterns of what has been.
We tend to perpetuate our patterns. We’re seeking to secure the self in space and time out of a fear of an open fluid way of relating with the world. And so we perpetuate what has gone in the past. We gain a sense of security. We gain a sense of solidity, a sense of concreteness about ourselves out of this constant busyness, this constant activity involving ourselves in this constant struggle.
To become aware is to grow. Become aware is to grow. And to determine to become aware is the determination to be free, to become awakened. They’re not as if two things. As we become aware, there’s going to be some kind of shift in our attitude, and with that, a change in our behavior.
Buddhism says that giving up is in the scene. If you do not naturally drop your stupid assumptions, that is because you have not really understood their stupidity. Or perhaps because you once saw it, You saw it once, but the insight has lost its force and old habits have reasserted themselves. How can you cling to what you know to be false or worthless? It is as if you treasured a ring that you had found in the belief that it was valuable, and then you discover that it is actually valueless.
It is an imitation. Could you continue to feel about it in the same way? Of course not. In the moment of knowledge comes a change of attitude, and with it a shift in the way you behave. Without this determination, as Tsongkhapa said, there’s no way to stop seeking pleasure, pleasurable effects in the ocean of cyclic existence.
There’s no way to stop seeking, to stop grasping for pleasure in the ocean of ego’s projections, in the ocean of ego’s fabrications, hallucinations. Pleasure is not the problem. A Buddha only experiences pleasure, and it’s not problematic for him and her. So pleasure is not the problem. It is our grasping for and clinging to pleasure which turns pleasure into pain, by means of which pleasure becomes problematic.
Pleasure in itself, we should all be happy, we should all be blissed out. And that’s one of the fundamental premises of Buddhism. Everyone in this room should be an unimaginable bliss at this moment. It is our birthright. But it is because we have this thought, there is this unconscious assumption that if I don’t have this pleasure, then there’s no pleasure in my life.
There was only unhappiness in my life. So we hold on to any particular happiness, pleasure that comes our way as if this particular pleasure, this particular person, this particular situation, this particular article is going to have to last me the rest of my life. There’s this basic unconscious assumption that we’re working with. This is it. Without this I’m never going to be happy.
I’ve got to hold on to this as if my very life depended upon it. And then it becomes problematic, doesn’t it? Then the pleasure becomes a problem. Or let us say, our clinging to that pleasure becomes the problem. Without this evening’s pleasure, this person, this possession, I’m never going to be happy.
And it’s precisely this trying to hold on to situations, trying to hold on to people and things which turns pleasure into pain. Our patterning, our habitual attitudes, our styles of relating, all endeavor to perpetuate and repeat past pleasures which are beyond our control, beyond our control. But we hope, we hope for the best in our busyness. What are we to do? There’s a verse by William Blake.
He who bends to himself a joy doth the winged life destroy, but he who kisses the joy as it flies lives in eternity sunrise. Someone who has developed the determination to be free is no longer captivated, no longer tries to hold on to pleasure. They do not reject pleasure, but also they do not try to hold on to it. They do not lock into the concept that without this particular pleasure I’m never going to be happy again. And the converse of that, as long as I’m involved in this, as long as this suffering exists, I’m never going to be happy again.
With this particular suffering, there’s no possibility for pleasure again. The mind isn’t operating in terms of the reality of the situation. It’s become totally absorbed in its own fantasy, with its own projections, its own wrong assumptions, wrong ideas about what’s happening. We develop ideas about what we think, the way we think things should be, which oftentimes bear no relationship to the actual situation, to reality, to our actual experience. We’ve all had the experience, but we missed the lesson.