Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Opening with the Dalai Lama’s provocative line — “if you are going to be selfish, at least be wisely selfish” — Ven Jampa Gendun uses this 28-minute talk to argue that developing bodhicitta, the awakening heart, is rationally necessary rather than sentimentally optional. He builds the case on three pillars: reason (genuine altruism returns far more happiness than self-centred striving); experience (holding our problems against the scale of others’ difficulties lifts the paralysing fog and makes solutions accessible); and intuition, drawing on Shelley and Thomas Merton to show that love answers something deeper than logic. He closes with Śāntideva’s image of bodhicitta as a “spiritual gene” that marks one’s continuum forever, then previews the two classical meditation methods — seven cause-and-effect instruction and exchanging self and others — planned for coming sessions. Accessible to general audiences encountering these ideas for the first time.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 10 H and M of B 1992 11 18.mp3
UUID: 868841a2-9753-4dfc-895c-88ec18b5de45
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Buddhism (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1992-11-18
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 28.0 minutes
Words: ~3,547
Maybe that’s why there’s so many unhappy people, so many unhealthy people in the world. It is true that we are called to wholeness, but the reality is that we can never be completely whole in and of ourselves. We cannot be all things to ourselves and to others. We cannot be politicians, stonemasons, and theologians all rolled into one. It is true that we are called to power, yet the reality is that there is a point beyond which our sense of self determination not only becomes inaccurate and prideful, but increasingly self defeating.
It is true that we are created to be individually unique. Yet the reality is that we are inevitably social creatures who desperately need each other, not merely for sustenance, not merely for company, but for any meaning to our lives whatsoever. So, you know, thus the absolute necessity of awakening our hearts to others is based simply not on sentimentality, simply not on some kind of romantic notion, but is based upon our own rationality and pragmatism. It’s rationally necessary to begin to open our hearts to some degree to others, to become caring and concerned with others. It’s rationally necessary to lead a happy life.
It’s pragmatically necessary. There’s a profit in it. It’s utilitarian. It’s necessary to make this effort, to take up this difficult task. As the Dalai Lama has said, if you are going to be selfish, at least be wisely selfish.
This is a quotation by Lama Yeshe, the founder of Buddha House, who died about seven years ago now. He founded Buddha House about ten and a half years ago. As the Dalai Lama has said, if you are going to be selfish, at least be wisely selfish. What he means by this particular peculiar sounding advice is that in a way bodhicitta, bodhicitta means the awakening heart. In a way bodhicitta is like a huge selfish attitude.
When you dedicate yourself to others with loving kindness, you get back far more happiness than you could have ever experienced otherwise. Ordinarily, we get so little happiness and it is easily lost. So if we want to be as happy as possible, the only thing to do is dedicate ourselves wholeheartedly to the welfare of others. When some people first hear about bodhicitta, they confuse it with a sentimental, highly emotional state of mind. Oh, how I want people to be happy.
I cannot stand to think of their suffering. They feel so overwhelmed by the needs of others that their mind becomes depressed. But true bodhicitta is not like this. It has nothing to do with such an upset and paralyzed state of mind. Instead it is clear and easygoing, possessing a calm wisdom as well as a deeply felt compassion.
It is an attitude of opening our hearts completely and leaving it open as much as we can. So the necessity additionally, the necessity to awaken our hearts to others is also based on our own experience. So we’ve looked at the necessity of opening our hearts to others, developing an awakening heart from the viewpoint of some sort of rationality, reason, but also from the point of view of our own experience, Again from Lama Yeshe. So often we make such a fuss of insignificant events in our life that we turn minor difficulties into major problems. As we develop the universal view of bodhicitta, however, these small concerns become unimportant and no longer bother us.
As the burden of self concern drops from our shoulders, we experience a small taste of the complete freedom that comes from full spiritual fulfillment. Experiences like this are encouraging because they demonstrate so convincingly the practical day to day value of training and transforming our mind. As I’ve mentioned before, one of our most basic problems is that we’re completely absorbed in our own problem. And when we have problems, we become tremendously myopic in our vision and we only see our vision become so narrow as if this one little insignificant problem is all the problem that exists within the world. And there’s no solution.
It is as if we’re on top of a mountain and feet and surrounded by clouds And our own innate sanity, innate wisdom, the sun of our own intelligence cannot shine through, cannot break through those clouds. We cannot simply cannot solve the problem. It’s not accessible to us. I think love and compassion are a type of wisdom or wisdom is a type of love and whatever. But love I think opens up an access to inner resources.
It helps us to have perspective to see beyond the immediate difficulty. You know, it’s not as if we are to avoid our problems. We can’t. We have to deal with them. But what is being said, let’s put them in some kind of perspective on a grand scale.
And then they become workable. We can get a handle on them. Immediately when you begin to think of the difficulties of others, that very moment the additional burden that we bring to our own problems is lifted off of our shoulders. The additional burden of our completely, our complete, in the sense of being overwhelmed, of being completely lost in our difficulty as if this problem is never going to go away and we’re never going to be happy again. This very subtle notion, this misconception that we that we that arises when we can become completely absorbed in our own difficulty.
But the moment we begin to see it in some kind of perspective on some more universal scale, then it becomes workable, becomes manageable. It’s not so overwhelming because we can It’s only relatively difficult. We still have to deal with it. We can’t avoid it. But we can deal with it more effectively, more efficiently.
We have more resources available to us. And it’s going to reduce in its significance when we begin to see it in relationship with others difficulties, with others problems. It’s not so overwhelming on the basis of our own experience. And two, the necessity to awaken our heart to others is also based upon our intuition. Some kind of the poetry of our own heart.
The inarticulate whispering of our own heart. When people are naturally themselves, perhaps they’re loving. And that perhaps love is an is our most authentic response to others. Our most authentic direct response to others. We that response we call love.
We gave it that name somewhere along the line. Being inarticulate whispering to our own heart There’s a verse by Shelley. There’s something which resonates at a very deep level of ourselves, which satisfies a very deep inner need within ourselves beyond our rationality, beyond perhaps our logic. But just as important in our way of being. For when the power of imparting for when the power of imparting joy is equal to the will, the human soul requires no other heaven.
And then it seems to resonate with something very deep, you know, beyond our rationality, beyond our intellect. Something very a very deep seed and need is is satisfied and loving others and caring for others. You know, we don’t have to be we don’t have to be saints. We don’t have to be superhuman. But but we must at least try in some small way to live the life of our waking dream.
To have our most deeply felt aspiration. I think there’s a verse there’s a line from from The Wisdom of the Desert translated by Thomas Merton where he says that that these deeply felt wishes, aspirations within our heart, if they’re not acted upon, then they’re like all our fine clothing that we leave in a trunk without ever taking out. Eventually they rot. You know, it’s necessary that we that we give them some kind of practical expression in our lives. You know, we’re in great danger of losing our soul, of getting out of touch, of leading inauthentic alienated lives.
Even to be happy in a in a very mundane way, we have to respect ourselves. We have to like ourselves. We have to feel that some part of ourselves, perhaps a part in which we don’t fully comprehend. You know, I talked about how the model of ourselves does not take in the total the totality of our being. There’s a part of ourselves which we simply don’t understand which we call perhaps when we come in contact with it, when we when we are in communication with it we call it intuition.
It doesn’t matter. But some part of ourselves which we perhaps do not presently completely comprehend, but which we believe in and which which brings meaning to our lives. You know, the the intellect operates on the basis of demonstration and proof. The soul operates on the basis of meaning and belief. We have to have something to believe in unless we have to bring meaning to our life in order to to be sane, in order to feel authentic and respect and like ourselves.
And that part of ourselves which we are presently out of touch with, which we’re in danger of losing. You know that part of ourselves when we are one with, we are one with the entire world. You know, some sort of oneness, some sort of integration beyond this self isolating patterns that we are habitually involved in. It takes place some kind of healing at a deep level, but the deepest level of our being is ruptured between within our side of ourselves, the schizophrenia. There’s Quotation by Suzuki Roshi, a great Zen master who lived in United States.
The result is not the point. It is the effort to improve ourselves that is valuable. Therefore, Buddhist vows. These vows are although sentient beings are innumerable, we vow to save them. Although our evil desires are limitless, we vow to be rid of them.
Although the teaching is limitless, we vow to learn it all. Although Buddhism is unattainable, we vow to attain it. If it is unattainable, how can we attain it? That we should. That is Buddhism.
To think because it is possible we will do it is not Buddhism. Even though it is impossible, we have to do it because our true nature wants us to. But actually, whether or not it is possible or not is not the point. If it is our inmost desire to get rid of our self centered ideas, we have to do it. When we make this effort, our inmost desire is appeased and nirvana is there.
We are selfish people, but we can try to be wisely selfish. I was talking about information, working with ideas. These are ideas that we haven’t known up to now. This is new information for ourselves, perhaps things that we have never looked at. We’ve been going around circling in the same circles over and over again, struggling, crying, sweating, tears, and blood, trying to find happiness on the basis of some mistaken premises, on on the basis of self centered attitude.
And it hasn’t worked. Now we’re being supplied with some new information. Maybe we can begin to reflect upon it and integrate it and begin to reshape our beliefs, our ideas about the real way to find happiness. And our worldview will shift. We will become more and more other centered.
There’s no reason why we shouldn’t if it’s if it’s the reality, if it’s accords with the way things actually are. The nature of truth is that the more we investigate, the closer we come to it, the more obvious it becomes. The nature of falsity is that the more one investigates, the more obscure it becomes until finally it disappears altogether. So we can look into our actual experience. And you know, Buddha is saying, look, look into your actual experience.
And he’s showing us where to look for us to discover. It is as if we have to discover everything that the Buddha, himself and have found and discovered for themselves. But we’re at a great advantage because we’re having other individuals point the finger for Show us where to look, what needs to be investigated. So it’s not unrealistic but even compellingly practical that we should develop a natural, rational, instinctively powerful altruism. Altruism is the most readily available means for our psychological well-being that is available to us.
You know, we can we can do a lot. We can study union psychology, we can study family therapy, can go through analysis, we can do rebirthing, reflexology, just about. Infinite number of possibilities. But I think religion in general. I know Buddhism in particular is saying, if you want to be happy, be loving.
That’s the most efficient, effective, available means to mental health. You know, it’s not to say that we we forego all these other methods, but these can act as a support, as auxiliary methods. But the emphasis is on the development of love and compassion. This is not some kind of some complex philosophic theory nor is it some kind of romantic flight into fantasy, but a simple and pragmatic statement about our lives. So the the awakening heart is a real internal revolution.
It’s a it’s a revolution against the tyranny of the normality of our society. You know, but as I have mentioned numerous times before, to be to be normal in an insane society is not to be very healthy. So you know it’s the awakening heart, this attitude of altruism, this attitude of loving compassion. Is so far removed from our everyday attitude. That it might seem like something reserved for, you know, like saints and holy people.
People coming from the mountains of the Himalayas. For people like the Dalai Lamas or the Mother Teresas. As if you know they they you know their the molecular structure of their brains was somehow different than ours. That they had loving electrons whirling around, compassionate protons, altruistic nuclei. Somehow they’re different.
We refuse to say, we don’t even reflect upon the possibility that they have not always been the people who they are now. That they never experienced discouragement, that they never had to struggle, that they never experienced doubt and failure in the course of awakening their hearts to others. But I think they did. You know, we can’t conceive of ourselves to be to be like them. What goes on in their mind?
What what what kind of feelings they feel? But just because we cannot presently conceive of what they may think, what they may feel, what their minds might be like. Does that mean in any way that we cannot create such a mind as the awakening heart? That we cannot feel such feeling? That we cannot consciously begin to that difficult task of opening our hearts to others.
The nature of the mind is clear knowing and this word clear can be interpreted in various fashions. One of the one of the interpretations of the word clear is it has no inherent quality. That it’s pure by its very nature. That it’s open ended. You know, this stuff of the mind, like clay, which, you know, by the the forces of our effort in the context of our skills can be shaped into a magnificent Pieta of Michelangelo or an ashtray.
It could be a beautiful sculpture or something which is next to nothing. It has that potentiality, you know, according to our skills and according to the effort that we make. Can we can shape our mind as we will. That it is we can create the type of person that we want to be essentially. You know, five or ten years ago you could not have conceived of the types of thoughts that you would now be thinking.
Now what you would be like, the particular qualities of your present attitude. Let your mind change. It changed, it evolved, it it, you know, perhaps haphazardly, but still a change without any particular direction. And then moving here and there, being buffeted by the waves of hopes and fears, seeking pleasure, trying to avoid pain, seeking gain, trying to avoid loss. Were perhaps our only parameters, our only standards of measure with which we guided ourselves by.
But what happens if we begin to create a real singular direction in our lives in terms of awakening our hearts? Know presently we may not be able to conceive of ourselves as ever becoming the person that we might like to be. But that does not in any way mean that should that that should stop us from setting up in the directions of the person that we would like to be. You know, our only limitations are those we acknowledge. You know, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single first step.
This week we know we’re putting a rudder on the ship of the mind and we can keep reorientating ourselves, redirecting ourselves towards awakening our hearts. The magnificent magnificent conception of this will to enlightenment is a central moment in the evolutionary career of a living being. The moment in which a new spirit of love and compassion pervades its whole life and destiny and its further evolution becomes the purpose of creative progress. From this moment a living being becomes a bodhisattva worthy of honor by God as well as humans. Śāntideva stated that as soon as the being conceives the spirit of enlightenment, that is to say the awakening heart, he or she becomes at once a son or daughter of the Sugatas, a Buddha child.
He or she should rejoice in the new found fruitfulness of their existence. This spirit is a kind of spiritual gene, a DNA molecule of universal evolution, life after life. Once one possesses it by conceiving the will to attain Buddhahood, the perfection of wisdom and compassion for the sake of all living beings, the quality of one’s experience and even one’s biological continuum is marked forever onward. There is no more noble thought in the world than this. There is no greater meaning than we can bring to our lives than this.
No more powerful method to go beyond our own suffering. No greater way to help others than to awaken our hearts, to develop love and compassion. Referring to Tsongkhapa’s text where he says, Thus the intelligent should generate the supreme altruistic intention to become enlightened. That is to say, Thus the intelligent should seek to develop the awakening heart. Next week we’ll speak a little bit more about the awakening heart.
I’ll just outline very briefly. We’ve talked about the awakening heart and trying to arouse the determination to develop it in terms of our reason, our experience, in terms of our intuition. To make it rationally and emotionally a necessity in our lives. But how are we actually going to go about it? What is the method?
And the method are the two meditative traditions of the seven cause and effect instruction and equalizing and exchanging self and others. So I’ll briefly describe those next week and then next year we’re going to go through those in detail. And then the week after I’ll go over the introduction to the awakening mind. You know, even though we may do, we may awaken our hearts, but that in itself is not sufficient. Even though we may have a sincere and spontaneously powerful wish to benefit others.
Still, if we do not understand the nature of the mind, the nature of reality, our situation will be very much like the blind leading the blind, very much like the nurse who can only apply a splint or a band aid when the patient needs a heart bypass operation. Without understanding the nature of reality, without awakening our mind, then no matter how sublime our aspiration may be, in practice we can never free ourselves, let alone others. That it’s only through developing the wisdom, understanding selflessness that we can eradicate ignorance and self grasping from our mind, and thereby liberate ourselves from these reoccurring neurotic compulsive patterns, and that we will have the skills, the experience necessary to be able to help others to do the same. So not only do we need to develop compassion and love, a very powerful altruism, but just like a bird needing two wings, we have to develop wisdom, wisdom, understanding emptiness. We’ll dedicate the positive energy that we created.
First, that’s on page ten, the long life prayer for the Dalai Lama. In the land in the so-called Potala Mountains, you are the source of all happiness and good. All powerful Chenrezig Tenzin Gyatso, please remain till the cyclic existence is ended. May I quickly become an awakened spiritual teacher and lead each and every sentient being to the enlightened realm through these skillful actions. May the supreme jewel of the awakening heart that has not arisen arise and grow, and may that which has arisen never diminish but increase more and more.
So those of you who like to have a cup of tea, we’ll have a discussion. Thank you and good night.