Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute talk, Ven Jampa Gendun uses a desert-thirst analogy to map three levels of faith — clear faith, longing faith, and convinced faith — and argues that anxiety, properly understood, is a healthy catalyst rather than something to eliminate. The unsettling recognition that compulsive life patterns keep repeating is what initiates real reorientation; paired with the conviction that change is possible, it becomes spiritual energy. He then addresses the role of community in sustaining growth, before leading a structured guided meditation on the actual exchange of self for others: practitioners imaginatively inhabit the viewpoints of a loved one, an acquaintance, a homeless person, and a difficult person, then look back at their former self. All of this is framed within Je Tsongkhapa’s Three Principal Aspects of the Path.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 09 H and M of B 1992 06 03.mp3
UUID: a76afcf1-4294-4dda-97e3-4ed005541767
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Buddhism (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1992-06-03
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.9 minutes
Words: ~3,630
So we begin by reorientating ourselves, redirecting ourselves, getting in touch with some inner principles, some inner direction in our lives, and readjusting our motivation. Last week we were discussing the reasons, the causes, what precipitates this process of reorientation, this redirection, which is quite necessary. We’ve been involved with a lot of activities out of necessity. And now perhaps during the course of our busy day and our various activities, we have to get back in touch with perhaps some more of our basic values, some kind of principles which we’ve developed over the course of our lives, we find worthwhile, meaningful, very unique to ourselves as meaningful, and begin to reorientate ourselves, redirect ourselves, what works for me as a very unique self actualizing individual. The cause behind this, as was mentioned last week, there are two basic causes.
The first was anxiety, and the second was faith. Anxiety and faith. Generally we think of anxiety as being something unhealthy, something which is to be avoided at all costs. People spend a lot of money going to therapists to get rid of their anxieties. Here we’re saying it’s something very healthy.
This undercurrent of foreboding perhaps, that unless I change, then perhaps everything that has gone in the past was simply going to repeat itself again and again and again endlessly. We’ve all had the experience. Perhaps the reoccurring compulsive patterns which constitute our lives. We Maybe you have, I don’t know. You get another spouse, another job, another degree, move to another area.
Strangely the same problems seem to reoccur. And there begins to become a sense of uneasiness, a sense of bewilderment about it all. Unless our existential fears become more powerful than our neurotic fears, we’re always going to be stuck. We’re never going to take up the legitimate suffering of change. There are certain things which are wise to be feared of, which are reasonably based, which are quite rational to be feared of, things which are quite rational to be anxious of.
So we have to begin to distinguish between unreasonable irrational anxieties and quite productive healthy types of anxieties which are going to precipitate change, which are going to help us to grow and serve as a catalyst to help us to solve our problems. The other reason, you know, simply to be worried, simply to be anxious, in itself is not much value. It’s not an end in itself. We have to have some kind of conviction, some kind of faith that we can solve our problems, simply to be concerned that all your problems are going to repeat themselves endlessly. If you had no conviction that you could solve your problems, it would be simply another matter for depression.
It would be, quite reasonably. It looks like a hopeless case. But if we can begin to see some possibility of change, we have some kind of faith, some kind of faith. In Buddhism there are various classifications, ways of describing faith. One particular type of classification looks at faith in three different levels.
It’s called longing faith, clear faith, and convinced faith. And the analogy which is often used of someone who’s out on a desert and they’re very thirsty, and they’re suffering from the pain of thirst. And eventually it begins to hit them what their problem is. It becomes clear to them that they have a problem. They begin to confront some of the issues in their life.
So they develop what is called clear faith. They begin to get a handle on what their actual problem is. It’s no longer a vague notion. They cease to distract themselves. They acknowledge the high degree of unmanageability of their lives.
They acknowledge the reoccurring difficulties, the themes of unhappiness and dissatisfaction and disappointment and frustration, which seem to permeate their way of thinking, their way of acting, their way of speaking. So they develop what is called clear faith. That is an acknowledgement and some sort of clarity with respect, I have a problem. And they begin to wonder if there’s a solution to that problem. Once there’s a problem, there must be a method of solution.
I think this is a cause for hope. If there’s a problem, if we can identify a problem, there must be a solution. Otherwise we couldn’t identify a problem. Once we know that these are complementary, the problem and the solution to the problem, we will never be able to identify the problem unless there did not exist a method to solve it. So it becomes clear to us that we have a problem.
We begin to understand its nature, and we long for the solution to the problem. So just as this thirsty individual in the desert begins to search, there arises some kind of longing. One has some hope, reasonable, rational hope that there is a solution to the problem. So a longing faith arises which serves to energize us, which serves us to search out, to cease to remain a victim, a passive viewer, as if one had no responsibility or had no control. And then finally arriving at a place, begin to hear the water.
It’s over the next sand dune. You can’t see it, but you hear the trickle of water and say, I think that’s the answer to my problem. I a suspicion that’s going to solve my problem. It’s a great longing, and great emphasis and motivation, power, strength in search to keep on going. Just do the next sander.
Maybe that’s the answer to my problem. And then you find there’s a nice clear brook running and you drink the water, and then it slakes your thirst. And you’re convinced, because within your own experience you see your problem solved. And there arises convincing faith. So there are these three levels of faith.
Your faith has a sense of It’s a motivating force. Hate to use I don’t like the word used energy. I don’t know what word we can use. It motivates the mind. It catalyzes, it initiates change.
Faith has a sense of, in all of these various respects, of a possibility of solution. One gains that conviction. One gains a taste of taste of freedom. And it’s like one is never quite satisfied because one has this faith that based partially within one’s own experience, that one has had some moment of peace, some moment when one felt fulfilled and life was meaningful. And one has a sense that why couldn’t this be a way of life, a way of being?
Is it not enough just to cope? One begins to recognize one’s problems and develops a longing. And out of these moments of peak experiences becomes convinced that there’s another order of being. And this becomes the motivating change to take place. This is what causes, precipitates this redirecting, this reorientation.
The more faith, the more the clear clarity we have on our problems, the greater the longing to solve these problems, to find a solution, and the greater experience that we have in those momentary and partial solutions to the problems, the greater this strength and consistency of reorientation. This consistent choice in all of the seemingly insignificant choices that we have to make over the course of every day of our life, toward the ultimate solutions to our problems, towards growth. We realign our allegiance from a life passively based upon hopes and fears to one which is actively choosing growth in all of these seemingly insignificant decisions which life is continually confronting us with. And then there creates a path because we’re consistently making the choice of growth and then there’s growth. That becomes a direction, an orientation.
We have somewhere where we’re moving toward, there’s change, there’s movement. We have to somehow inspire ourselves, don’t we? Somehow keep possibility of human life, the possibility of another order being in front of ourselves during the course of our mundane activities, over the course of each day. The inner focus of our life becomes the Buddha. The Buddha within the side of ourselves.
This holding up the possibility to become a happy, loving, healthy, sane human being no matter what has happened in the past, no matter what difficulties or trials, abuses, whatever, deprivation, whatever has gone in the past, the next moment can be different. We can choose to be someone else. And that what we have not become up to now, we can choose to become, we can be. And we can hold out this possibility to ourselves. It has meaning even in the quality of effort, the trying, even that.
And we achieve this end by means of the dharma, that which helps, which facilitates this process of growth, that which raises the level of our consciousness. Within the context of a spiritual community. I mentioned this on Monday night, that we’re part a larger system, which is trying its best without intention to make us normal. And it’s a great battle, the hardest battle that we ever have to fight. And we have to fight it every day of our lives to be something more than normal.
Because normality is not quite enough. So we have to, as it were, create some kind of subsystem, a spiritual community, perturbs this system, which seeks to restructure so that we are as it necessitated, we propel to be the best we can, to be all that we can be, all that we should be. And this is what we can do for one another. And we can set aside the standards of normality of our society and a way of life which is based upon hopes and fears, and choose the parameters of growth and love and compassion and wisdom. Creative activity, exuberance for life.
And somehow create another order, higher order of awareness, higher order of being within this context. We’re interdependent with one another. Whether we’re aware of it or not, are affecting one another. And somehow we have to affect each other in a very positive fashion, trying to help each other to realize all the best that we can become. Through whatever means, both conscious and unconscious, to inspire one another, to guide one another, to teach one another, to cry on each other’s shoulders, to encourage.
And we need this very much. It is as if we’re swimming upstream. It’s not an easy process, don’t think. If it was, then there would be no psychiatrist, there would be no psychotherapist, there would be no need for your religions anymore. Long ago people would have solve their problems in the most basic of levels, but they haven’t up to now.
There’s no conspiracy. Everyone may be quite well intentioned, but it’s something which is self perpetuating within ourselves and within the system which we revolve. Mental health is a social phenomena. We are social beings. We exist in interrelationship with one another.
And we have to acknowledge this and we cannot achieve mental health in isolation nor in exclusion of others. Somehow we have to be concerned and take responsibility and thereby be able to respond. We have to acknowledge our interrelatedness and work within that context and help one another in whatever way we can facilitate others’ growth. Because in doing that, we ourselves will grow. So the process, the motivation becomes not simply to get chocolate cake for oneself, but to, in some small way, try to ease the pain of this great being of sentient life in our immediate relationships that we have in our everyday life.
If we do that, then this will lead to our solutions to our problems. We don’t have to concern ourselves. If you do this every day in some consistent manner, then even if you don’t want to become liberated, even if you don’t want to be healthy, happy, it will force itself on you. If you don’t do this, then with all your blood, sweat and tears and all your struggle and exaggerated self concern, all your planning, your worrying, it serves nothing. It only serves to bring you more pain.
So we have to in a way that we have no choice but to make this consistent choice. I go for refuge until I’m 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 am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly. In 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 the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient. So we’re going do some meditation. We’ll begin with the cultivation of love and compassion, and then we’ll do mindfulness of breathing. And then we’ll practice what is called the actual exchange of self for others.
There are two meditative traditions for the development of awakening heart. This aspiration to become a healthy, loving, sane person, to develop the skillful means to be able to benefit others, whatever we may call it. This altruistic aspiration to achieve highest enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. Or just simply to get yourself, get your act a little bit together so you can be of a little bit of service to others. However, somewhere between there, there’s some kind of thought, intention to be able to help others.
This quality, this altruism, beneficial intention is cultivated through two meditative traditions. One is called the sevenfold cause and effect instruction, and the other is called equalizing and exchanging self with others. Within this latter of these two, there is a system of five meditations, beginning with equalizing self with others and among others, and then the advantages of other cherishing, the disadvantage of self-cherishing, the actual exchange of self for others, and a meditative visualization technique called giving and taking. And I think it’s quite useful. We’re going to meditate on this fourth of these five.
It’s called the actual exchange of self for others. And in this we’re going to play a role. We’re going to give ourselves over. You know, the Native American Indians have this expression, Don’t judge a person until you’ve walked a month in their moccasins. Well, we’re going to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, as it were.
We want to give ourselves over as best we can to empathize by identifying with their feelings, their thoughts, and look at the world out of their eyes. How would it be to be them in their situation? And then we’re going to look back, we’re going to exchange our self right now. We’re going to give ourselves over, we’re going to play a role, imaginatively. And then we’re going to look back at ourselves, our former selves.
We’re going to, you know, what are we going to see? How are we going to feel when we see our former selves, our old selves? And we’re actually going to express what it is that we see that we feel. So in this, try to set aside your own agenda, your own issues. As best imagine to me as you can, how would it be to be that person?
How would it feel? You know generally we approach all of life from a single point of perspective, our own. So maybe we can begin to develop a multifaceted perspective. We can be able to see the same situations, the same events out of other people’s points of view, almost simultaneously. We become a little more flexible, a little less rigid in how we approach relationships, problems, and the world about us.
Developing some flexibility of mind of seeing others, know, others positions, points of view as just as legitimate, just as understandable, just as valid as our beginning to appreciate the authenticity of what others believe and see. So if you take a comfortable position, first let’s develop a simple friendly thought towards someone that we love, that we like. Just the kind thought, It would be wonderful if this person didn’t have any problems. That would really be wonderful. That would be great.
Just this kind, caring thought, gentle friendliness would be wonderful if you didn’t have these problems. Now try to strengthen that. May you not have these problems. May you be free of them. I wish you were free of them.
I wish you didn’t have this problem, this suffering. And then we’re going to strengthen that. I’m going to help you. I’m going to take responsibility to help you to solve your problem, to free you from this difficulty. I’m going to do that.
And we cultivate love. This would be first friendly gentle thought. It’d be wonderful if you were happy. That would be so great if you were happy. May you be happy.
I’m going to help you to be happy. I’m going to take that responsibility. In order to do that, I’m going to develop myself through meditation, listening to talks. Now, gently bring the mind to the breath. A gentle, even out, quiet flow of the breath.
Bring your mind back to the breath. Now think of someone that you love, that you like, that you care for. Imagine that person in front of you. If you can’t see them, doesn’t matter. Just feel that that person is there in front of you.
And as best you can, give yourself over to them, feeling their feelings, thinking their thoughts. Put yourself in their place. Look at the world out of their eye. How would it be to be them? And look back at your former self, at your old self.
What do you see? What do you feel? Do you feel loved, valued, respected, understood? Say to your former self what it is that you feel. Express what you see to your former self.
Think of an acquaintance, of someone that you see every day, someone that you work with. Imagine that person in front of you. Put yourself in their place, in their situation. Try to feel their feelings and think their thoughts. How would it be to be them?
Look back at your former self, your old self. And how do you experience your old self? Do you experience indifference, competitiveness, openness, caring, kindness, and express what is it that you see, what you feel to your old self, to your former self. Now think of a destitute, someone who perhaps lives on the street. Homeless.
Put yourself in their place. How would it feel to be them? Look at the world out of their eyes. Then you see your former self walking along, and you go up to your former self and you hold out your hand. What do you see in those eyes?
Do you see fear, compassion, indifference, pity? What is it that you see? And express what it is, how you experience your former self. And then finally, think of someone that you’re having some problems with, some difficulties. Imagine that person in front of you.
Put yourself in their place. Look at the problem from their side, from their point of view. How do you experience your former self? You see hostility, defensiveness, open mindedness, closed mindedness? Express what you see and what you feel.
So all four of these individuals, they’re different worlds. We experience them very differently, but they all want to be happy. All of them are suffering. Simply out of generosity of your heart, wish them all well equally. Wisdom, happiness.
And then bring your mind, take a breath, a gentle, even, even outflow of the breath. So we’re looking at the three principal aspects of the path by Je Tsongkhapa. The three principal aspects of the path: renunciation, the awakening heart, and the correct view. And we’re looking at the first of these three fundamentals, the way to develop the determination to awaken, to determine to grow. See the absolute necessity for change.
I’ve tried to emphasize that our lives are based upon sets of ideas, belief systems, and core assumptions. When talking about this, to a very large extent men and women are a product of how they define themselves. As a result of combinations of innate ideas and intimate influences of the culture and environment we grew up in, we come to have beliefs about the nature of being human. These beliefs penetrate to a very deep level of our psychosomatic systems, our minds and brains, our nervous systems, and even our blood and sinews. We act, speak, and think according to these deeply held beliefs and belief systems.
So in talking about determining to grow is to determine to become aware of and transform our erroneous ideas, our wrong beliefs, our mistaken assumptions, to ones which accord with the reality of our situation. To uproot these mistaken notions, to become aware of them, and to transform them, and finally go beyond all patterned modes of behavior altogether, ultimately. We’re experiencing freedom, spontaneity and joy. As I’ve said, we’re not trying to perform perfect actions in a perfect world. They’re simply appropriate actions in an imperfect world.
We have all of these erroneous beliefs about ourselves. We have to start to become aware of them. And with that awareness come a change.