Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. What can cut the root of ego — and why does the sūtra path alone take three countless eons? In this 47-minute overview, Ven Jampa Gendun traces Buddhist practice across all three vehicles. Opening with the misconception of a permanent, independently existing self as the source of all suffering, he explains ethics, concentration, and wisdom through an axe-and-tree analogy. He then builds the case for why individual liberation falls short, and why compassion for all beings drives the Mahāyāna goal of Buddhahood. The six perfections are covered with Atisha’s pithy distillation of each. The talk culminates in deity yoga — tantra’s defining advantage — explained through a dry-clay analogy: wisdom of selflessness softens the fixed ego-image so practitioners can consciously reshape their identity around enlightened qualities. A short Q&A covers calm abiding and meditation as habituation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 3V 1988 02 09.mp3
UUID: 103454f1-d63a-4fdf-8e3a-3f60ce91cf35
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The three vehicles (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1988-02-09
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 47.0 minutes
Words: ~5,671
You don’t have this sense. You know, this I have an I. It’s it’s quiescent. It’s pacified. But the moment, we are threatened, the moment desire arises, then there’s a there’s a very strong feeling of I arises at that very moment.
Strongest when powerful emotions are occurring. All our problems, all our difficulties stem from this basic misconception of the nature of I, of self. Now there is an I, there is a self, and if I’m talking to you, you are listening to me, maybe not. So there’s no problem. There is an I, there is a self, But there’s no independently existing, permanently existing I.
This is when the problem arises. Trying the ego trying to maintain itself in space and time. Trying to secure its existence. It’s a miss based on a misconception. This is what we’re calling ignorance.
Within this this the stream of phenomena, a mental and physical phenomena, which constitute the mind and body, there is nothing which is an unchanging, independently existing self. Within the stream are mental and physical phenomena which constitute the eye, which constitute the mind and body. There’s nothing which we will ever find. There’s no factor, no quality which we can say this is a permanent, unchanging self. But to the depth of our being, we believe it’s there.
You you may hear my words and you think, oh, that’s right. What he says is reasonable. But the moment I call you stupid, you’re gonna forget everything, all that reasoning, all that intellectual value, and your ignorance is gonna rise, and you’re gonna get angry. And the angry is dependent upon that you’re grasping, that you’re trying to secure yourself, that you feel threatened, threatened, that you’re trying to protect a permanent unchanging self, which in fact doesn’t exist at all. But you think it does.
This is what is causing us to cycle through these six realms continuously. This is what ultimately has to be eliminated. This is what is eliminated by the third higher training, the higher training of wisdom. This is the wisdom which understands selflessness. In order to develop this wisdom understanding selflessness, must depend upon the second higher training, each higher training of concentration.
Without a penetrative mind, without a steady, powerful mind, there’s no way we can develop wisdom. We cannot develop this concentration, this steadiness of mind, this control over being able to focus our mind on any object that we wish without the first higher training. It is ethics, morality. Ethics, morality is not a goody goody practice. We’re not trying to be We’re not trying to please anyone.
We can roughly begin to diminish the power of ego in our lives. Can at least begin not to harm others as a basis of ethics. You know, I’m bigger than you. I can kill you. I’m more important than you, I can steal from you.
My pleasure is more important than yours than your pain. I’m gonna have sex with your spouse. I, I, I, I. This is the basis of ethics. It’s at least in some way, it begins chipping away at this this monument of ego.
In a very rough fashion initially, but we have to begin somewhere. So we begin to control the actions of body, speech, and mind. Abstaining from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, things like this. It’s a very skillful method. But not only this, by controlling, beginning to subdue our gross behavior of body, speech, and mind, we can begin develop We can begin to control the subtle factors of mind.
And as we can develop very subtle concentrations, powerful concentrations, it is impossible to develop a powerful meditative stabilization, a powerful concentration, ability to focus your mind if you have no ethics. If you cannot control the gross factors of body, speech, mind, how are you going to be able to control the very subtle factors of your mind? There’s no way. If you can’t even control your mind, how are you going to control your body? So we have to have as our foundation ethics in order to develop concentration.
We have to have concentration in order to have a penetrative insight in which we can develop wisdom. And we have to have wisdom in order to finally eliminate ignorance, which is the basis for all our problems, all our suffering. These are the three higher training. Sometimes they use the analogy of an axe and chopping down a tree. Now one way to approach spiritual practice, which is quite necessary in a temporal sense, is we begin to lessen all our afflictive emotions, Desire, anger, hatred, jealousy, miserliness, spite.
All these various afflictive emotions. We try to lessen them gradually. That is we try to chip away at our ego slowly, slowly. We can imagine that the ego is a tree, and we’re trying to begin to prune back the branches. Prune them out.
We prune them back, and when we look over here this one grows back. And it’s a never ending process, and we have to make effort at slowly beginning to prune back these branches in ego. Now if we’re very skillful, we cut the root of the tree itself. Then we don’t have to bother with the branches at all if we want to destroy this tree of ego. This is what we’re using with wisdom.
The wisdom understanding selflessness. If we eliminate ignorance and all the various mental afflictions which depend upon ignorance will be eliminated consequently. If we eliminate ignorance, then desire can never rise. Hatred can never rise. Spite, miserliness, all the other afflictions can never rise.
They have as their foundation, ignorance. This misconception of the nature of the self. We have to cut at the root of the tree of ego. We use the axe of wisdom. It’s a very sharp axe.
But just merely having the axe of wisdom is not enough. If we hit once up here, then once down here, and once this side, you know, we would never get anywhere. We have to hit at the same point again and again and again. Repeatedly hitting at the same point on this on this side of trying to cut down this tree of ego. This requires concentration.
So this ability to hit the same point again and again is the factor of concentration. But even if we have wisdom, the sharp axe, and even if we hit the same point again and again and again, if we don’t have any power, if we don’t have any strength in our arm, still we’re not going to be able to destroy the tree of ignorance. So we need the power of ethics, which is like the arm. These three in combination, we can destroy the tree of ego. We can cut the root of ignorance.
We can go beyond the six realms of dissatisfactory existence. These are the primary practices of the lesser vehicle, of the middling level of motivation. But we don’t stop there in our spiritual progress. We look around ourselves. Everyone wants happiness.
No one wants to suffer whatsoever. We’re all very much equal. We’re all very much interrelated. You know, we usually don’t acknowledge this. The reality of our situation is that we’re not independently existing.
We’re all interdependent. I think this is becoming very predominant in family therapy now, that they no longer view one individual’s problems in isolation. You know, a member of a family has a problem. They see this as a manifestation of a pattern that exists within a family. He doesn’t or she doesn’t exist in isolation.
Our problem is we don’t exist in isolation. We are a product of our environment. We’re very much interdependent with our environment. We try to deny this. We have a feeling that we’re isolated.
You’re out there. I’m over here. I talk to you. I make use of you. I manipulate you.
I use you as an object, etcetera. But we don’t understand that this mentality is actually working to our disadvantage. By objectifying others, we try to deny our interrelatedness. We would acknowledge the humanity of others, the feeling not only of their equality but our interdependence. There are two primary aspects to our personality, to ourselves.
There’s the private, experiential aspect to ourselves. And then there’s the social, public aspect which exists in relationship to others. If we’re going to really develop ourselves wholly, holistically, we have to use methods which are going to develop both aspects of ourselves. Not only our private experiential world, but the way we relate with others, our social self. So if we were to stop at really developing our own solitary peace, though in fact we have It would only be a partial.
It would only be an extreme of spiritual development. We wouldn’t have realized our full potential, the real goal of spiritual life. This is why the lesser vehicle is termed the lesser vehicle. Because it’s lesser in a sense, it doesn’t fulfill the full potential of a human capacity. It falls to the extreme of individual realization, of solitary peace.
One hasn’t developed the social aspect, that aspect of itself which exists in relationship to others. It’s a misconception basically of our real nature in that we aren’t independent of our environment. This is becoming, for example, an ecology now. If we destroy our environment, what are we going to destroy ourselves? We are dependent on our environment, not just through the food chain, but we are a product of everything that’s interrelated patterns.
There’s no single existing I or entity existing here independent of these patterns which are existing around us. That’s why we talk about a mandala. That’s why we we talked about communication, that all these objects that you see around you are communicating in some way. That some way you’re interrelating with them. You may be trying to ignore them.
You may be denying this communication. You may not be open to it just as you may not be open to acknowledging others equality. And they’re wanting to be happy. Because it’s difficult to use other people as objects if you see the equality that in fact they want to be happy just like yourself and they don’t want to suffer just like yourself. It’s hard to manipulate them.
It’s hard to objectify them. But this is the quality of ego. In trying to fulfill the two potentials of ourselves, when we see the necessity to go beyond the mere solitary peace, but in fact to realize our full potential that we exist in interdependence with others, that we have to develop our social aspect, our related aspect to ourselves, then our goal changes. We seek Buddhahood. You probably heard that term but maybe it doesn’t mean so much.
A person who experiences unremitting peace and acts in the world skillfully to benefit others through the force of overwhelming compassion is a Buddha. This is the paradigm of what it means to be a human being, a perfected human being. It’s the goal of the spiritual path. This is as far as Buddhism says you can go. There’s nothing more.
This is what we work towards. Once we begin to understand the nature of our situation and continually cycling through these six realms, the dissatisfactory quality of them, trying to grow beyond them, and beginning to open up to others to see our interrelatedness and beginning to see that our own potential is only realized when we manifest such a state, a state of enlightenment. We then go into the door of the great vehicle. When we develop the motivation to attain Buddhahood, this protected state if you like, for the sake of all sentient beings equally and we are practitioners of what is called the great vehicle. It is great because it carries a great burden.
It carries the weight of all sentient beings. Here we go on to the division of the great vehicle. We talked about the sūtra vehicle and the tantra vehicle. The sūtra vehicle and the tantra vehicle. We have the lesser vehicle, sūtra vehicle, tantra vehicle.
Three vehicles. The sūtra vehicle is primarily constituted of the practices of what is called a bodhisattva. A bodhisattva is one who has developed his mind that I must achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. It is characterized Enlightenment is characterized by a directly seen into the nature of reality. It’s characterized It has a feeling quality of a burning desire to help, to benefit all sentient beings like a like a mother for her only child is in suffering.
And has the experiential quality of spontaneity of creative actions. Of skillful actions working in the world creatively and spontaneously for the benefit of others. This is what we mean by enlightenment. This is what we have to attain if we’re ever going to realize the full potential that each of us has. This is the goal of the great vehicle.
How do we bring this about? We use the two methods of Sūtra and Tantra. So someone who has this mind, this goal of attaining enlightenment, of attaining Buddhahood is called a Bodhisattva. Bodhisattva actually literally means a hero with respect to contemplating enlightenment. He’s a very heroic heroic being.
He doesn’t wait to be given a certificate, a bodhisattva certificate from university before he goes out and works for others. He doesn’t wait for the morphine shot where he might not feel any pain in working for others. He just goes out and begins working for others. But he realizes in the course of his spiritual progress that he has to get himself together or his contribution to the world might be just add to the chaos. So he’s already been practicing the lesser vehicle.
He’s been training in the three higher trainings. But he didn’t stop there. He saw the equality of self in others and decided to solve the necessity and develop the love and compassion whereby he’s going to begin to work for others. So he has some skill. He’s got himself together.
He’s got his own house in order to a large degree. He begins to work in the world for others. He does this in his practice of the six perfections and the four means of cultivating the minds of disciples or students. These are his main practices. These are the way he’s going to develop his mind, the way he’s going to achieve his goal.
Six perfections. Sometimes it’s called six transcendences, doesn’t matter. Generosity, ethics, patience, effort, concentration, wisdom. Six perfections. These are his main practices in cultivating his mind.
Know, we can go into these all these various perfections and various divisions. But I think You know, for example, generosity, the first perfection. You know, it’s said that Śākyamūni Buddha, he attained the perfection of generosity. So what does that mean? You know, there are lot of beggars, aren’t there in India?
Probably in Adelaide. So he didn’t he didn’t didn’t cure the poverty of the world. But he still attained the perfection of generosity. So we can see that what we’re talking about here is an attitude of mind. In order to develop the perfection of generosity we don’t have to give one penny.
We don’t have to part with one penny. But we develop our attitude of openness to the degree that we are willing to give away anything. Anything of our possessions, of our body, of our we call our positive energy. In practices of the great vehicle, we’re continually giving things away in our mind. We make it a habit if we can, continually over and over again giving away.
At the beginning of any type of practice, we develop a motivation that we’re doing this for the benefit of others. And at the end, any type of positive energy that we create, I give it away. I dedicate it. I give it away. I’m not going to try to hold on to it.
This raising this level of willingness to give until there’s no limit. There’s nothing left to give. The feeling is you’re emptied. There’s no more ego holding on to anything. It’s the perfection of generosity.
So Atisha, who is an eleventh century yogi scholar who reintroduced Buddhism to Tibet, said that the highest generosity is non attachment. It’s simply we don’t try to hold onto anything. It doesn’t mean that we have to give away everything, it’s that we don’t try to hold onto it. He said that the highest ethic, the second perfection of ethics, highest ethic is a peaceful mind. When our mind is at peace, we’re observing all the precepts, all the laws, all the restrictions, all the virtues.
And he said that the highest patience is humility, And the highest activity, the highest effort is non attachment to activity. The highest concentration is a mind without pretense. And the highest wisdom is not grasping at anything as it appears. So these were the As Atisha saw them, the consummation of each of the six perfections. Their attitudes and mind that we’re trying to develop which the bodhisattva practices.
And then he practices the four means of cultivating the minds of disciples, of students. So providing for the material necessities, giving teachings, giving teachings and words of encouragement. Thirdly, he bestows vows and empowerments and initiations. Fourthly, he acts as a model for his students. These are the way he cultivates the minds of his students.
This is the way he actually interacts in the world, the way the bodhisattva is interacting. These are the practices of sūtra. It’s said by the means of this practice of sūtra that a practitioner can attain Buddhahood in three countless eons. I don’t know how long three countless eons is, but it’s a long long long long time. It’s billions and billions of years.
But a bodhisattva has the attitude that for the sake of all sentient beings, I’m willing to practice that long because I have to perfect myself in order to be a maximum benefit to others to alleviate suffering. So he has this attitude, this willingness. But he looks around him and he sees the suffering and he can’t bear the suffering. And he says, there’s gotta be some faster way. There’s gotta be something better than this way that’s gonna take me three countless eons.
And he looks around and if he’s extremely fortunate, he may come upon a tantric master. He may find someone who teaches him tantra. He may be able to enter into the tantra vehicle. So the motivation is not only that you’re trying to attain perfection, realization of your potential for the benefit of others, of all sentient beings, but that you must do it as quickly as possible. You just simply cannot bear.
You’re willing to, but you cannot bear the thought of others suffering three countless eons while you’re getting yourself together to help them. With such motivation, and through the kindness and great fortune of meeting a tantric master who can show you the tantric path, you enter into the tantric vehicle, The vehicle of tantra. By means of this vehicle, you can attain enlightenment in one lifetime. It’s said that you can attain it in sixteen years and as short as three years. What are the practices?
How do you do this? The main practices within tantra are the six perfections and the four means of cultivating the minds of disciples exactly as they are in the sūtra, in the sūtra They can differ from the point of view of either theory or practice, wisdom or method. So there’s no difference in theory in sūtra vehicle and tantra vehicle. Based on the exact same middle way philosophy, it is the view of emptiness. There’s no difference in the view of emptiness or I just say selflessness.
Understanding is exactly the same between Sūtra and tantra. So the difference between sūtra and tantra, the speed by which one can develop one’s mind, is not by means of a view or theory. So it must have something to do with the practices. You know we talked about sūtra. The main practices are the six perfections and the four means of cultivating the minds of students.
This is likewise true of tantra. But there’s one factor which tantra has which is not contained within sūtra. This is called the practice of deity yoga. This is the prime distinguishing characteristic between these two vehicles. This is what makes the tantra vehicle the quick vehicle, the lightning vehicle.
All these various deities that you see, is to my left, to your right, is the embodiment of compassion. As if we took compassion and we sculpted it and we gave it a manifest form, a visual form. This is the way compassion would be manifested, envisioned. And there are various other images. The image which holds a sword, that’s manjushri, embodiment of wisdom.
The sword is the wisdom understanding selflessness which cuts through the root of ignorance, cuts through the ego. And to his right is again the embodiment of compassion. And then next to is Tārā who was the the first radical feminist. Is the embodiment of female energy. Transcendental energy which is working in the world.
Direct action, engaging in skillful actions in the world. So these are qualities of a Buddha’s mind, of a Buddha’s behavior, of a Buddha’s actions in visualized iconographic form. We use these in our practice of deity yoga. Motivated by compassion with an understanding of selflessness. We engage in the practice of deity yoga.
First off, we’re trying to attain Buddhahood. Now there’s no sense in trying to attain Buddhahood. It not make sense if we didn’t have compassion. The only reason we want to attain Buddhahood is because of our compassion. It’s not a product of ego.
We cannot attain it for ourselves. We attain it for others. Therefore, it must be motivated by compassion. We can attain individual peace, individual liberation for ourselves alone. But then we would not engage in this practice of deity yoga.
We would not engage in the practices of the higher vehicle. We can do that with the lesser vehicle. Engage in these practices for the benefit of others. Therefore it must be present motivation of compassion. Motivated by compassion with an understanding of selflessness, we engage in deity yoga.
If we merely We’re going to imagine ourselves having qualities. Sometimes tantric vehicle is referred to as the resultant vehicle. The resultant vehicle. We take the result, what we’re trying to achieve, and we bring it into the path. We actually imagine that I’ve attained enlightenment.
That I have the compassion of that I have the wisdom of that I have the feminine, this transcendental quality of acting in the world with skillful actions, We don’t have the understanding of selflessness. We’re just putting costumes on our ego, aren’t we? It’s meaningless practice. We have a very limited negative identity which we hold to very strongly. We talked about the various realms that we cycle through.
These various mentalities. One of the primary characteristics of the human realm is the feeling of insufficiency. Seeing the objects which are necessary for your comfort, for your security, for your pleasure outside of yourself. Seeing everything outside yourself. Feeling incomplete within yourself.
Insecure. Limited. Holding onto this image of yourself is always going to restrict your possibility for growth. We have to go beyond this. Understand that we have unlimited potential.
That we have everything within us necessary to be happy, healthy, sane, loving, compassionate human beings. We have to find some method to break out of this bondage which ignorance is holding us into, which our ego is holding us into. It’s as if we had a clay statue. It’s fairly dry. All the features are fixed.
We take this clay statue of who we think we are and we put it in water. And we leave it there for a couple weeks perhaps. It gets gets a little bit soft. The clay gets soft, we take it back out. Begin to reshape it.
Yeah. So this dry clay statue is who we think we are. Very solid concrete identity. I I was this way when I was little. I was this way last week and I’m going I’ll be damned.
I’m gonna be this way when I die. You know? Hold on to this very tightly. We know who we are. At least we have some security.
We may not like who we are but at least I know who I am. But through an understanding of selflessness, take this fixed ego image of this dry clay image. We put it in the water of the wisdom of selflessness. In this state there’s a fluidity. Our identity becomes dynamic.
We’re no longer holding onto a fixed image of who we are. We can take it out of the water of wisdom and begin to reshape our self image. In state of selflessness, we are not holding onto any particular fixed identity. I can identify with an enlightened state of being, that I really am compassionate. Why?
Because we have the seed of compassion within us. It’s not as if we’re trying to take some quality and perform a transplant operation. We have the seed of compassion within us right now. We have the seed of wisdom within us right now. We have the seed of compassion and skillful actions in the world right now.
We can begin to develop these seeds by identifying with these enlightened qualities in the state of selflessness motivated by compassion. It is this which makes the tantric vehicle such a swift, skillful means to attain enlightenment. So we pass through an evolution of a spiritual practitioner From an ordinary materialistic person who is completely caught up in the world, completely caught up in status, objects, possessions, he begins to reflect on what are the sources of his happiness, what are the really meaningful experiences in his life. He begins to see that it’s more of his attitude than anything else, that simple pleasures are perhaps the most meaningful. Therefore he begins to understand that through development of his mind he can begin to change the quality of his life.
And he begins to think about means of developing his mind. He begins to practice a spiritual path, a psychological path, a path of inner development. He begins to differentiate between solving external problems with external means and solving internal problems with internal means. But if we go further into it we can see that we really solve the present difficulty. That the situation is not static.
It’s definitely going to change. And even in the course of one day we’re going to evolve through various mentalities. And also if one believes in future lives, we’re going to take rebirth in another realm. We’re going to have to leave everything that we possess in this realm behind. So we begin to develop the mind in such a way we begin to create actions, behavior patterns, which are going to benefit us in these dissatisfactory mentalities, where we might not be experiencing at this moment, which we can expect in the future.
Perhaps you aren’t angry at this moment, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t cultivate the antidote to anger because in the future, the opportunity for anger will definitely arise. Therefore, it’s worthwhile to cultivate the antidote to anger even at the moment you’re not being angry. Because you can expect it in the future, even today. So it’s worthwhile, for example, to meditate on love, even if you’re not hateful at this moment, because it will arise in the future. So he begins to concern himself with future states.
That is the doorway into the actual practice of Dharma. But he sees that all these various states, all these various realms have a marked dissatisfactory quality about them. None have complete happiness. Therefore, the thought arises to go beyond all dissatisfactory states, all these various mentalities. He develops the attitude to be liberated, to go beyond these states.
He enters into the lesser vehicle, practices the three higher trainings, ethics, concentration, and wisdom. But he looks around him and he sees everyone else is in the same situation that I’m in. I’m not so very special. In fact, I’m completely interrelated with others. Everyone wants happiness.
No one wants to suffer. Exactly the same. If this is the case, I’m just one person. Others are infinite. Who is more important?
In the one or this infinite number? If one of these is going to be taken care of, if we should be concerned with one of these two groups, who should we be concerned with? This one person or this infinite number of sentient beings, this infinite number of people? Logically, which we aren’t, we would have to choose others over ourselves. But we don’t.
But this person decides to do that. He enters into the great vehicle. He enters first into the Sūtra vehicle. He becomes a bodhisattva working for enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. This state of directly seeing into reality which has the feeling quality of a burning desire like that of a mother for her only child who is suffering to alleviate that suffering and its experiential quality of working in the world of spontaneous creative actions benefiting others.
But he can’t bear the sufferings of others with three countless eons. He’s willing to, for himself, to work that long, but he can’t bear the sufferings of others. So he must, as quickly as possible, achieve the maximum ability to benefit others. How can he do this? He enters into the tantra vehicle.
He practices six perfections, the four means of cultivating the minds of his students. In addition, he practices deity yoga. In this way, he can achieve enlightenment, a state of maximum benefit for the benefit of others in three short years. So this is the evolution of one practitioner through a spiritual path. If we can begin to understand this path, we can see that where we are on this path.
And we can understand where we should be concentrating our efforts to develop ourselves, our motivation, our practices. We should be becoming familiar with what is ahead of us so that we always have a complete path in our mind. So it’s said that the lesser vehicle practitioner has as his external practice ethics. As his internal practice, the practitioner of the sūtra vehicle practices compassion and love. The practitioner of the tantra vehicle as a secret practice practices yoga.
In this way one person can simultaneously be practicing the complete path of the three vehicles in one moment. So those are the three vehicles of Buddhism and how we can work through them. Maybe just if you have any questions, we could talk. Questions or comments? I I think what he means there is the mind was There are no fabrications arising.
The mind with the unfabricated The natural mind. Something attached to the heart. Yeah. The mind is naturally concentrated. It’s naturally at peace.
It’s the afflictive emotions which disturb this natural peace of the mind. By removing the natural the afflictive emotions, the mind can return to its natural state of peace. In concentration, we can suppress the afflictive emotions and therefore the mind is calmed. This is why we use the word calm abiding. We have mistaken idea.
Some people have mistaken idea that when we say concentration, we’re putting the mind in a straight jacket. You know, we’re trying to squeeze it. This is exactly probably what we’re trying not to do because all this energy that you’re putting back that you’re putting into concentrating, squeezing your mind is going to bounce back on you. It’s going to reflect It’s going to simply agitate your mind. When we talk about what is concentration, concentration is a calm mind.
It’s like it’s like a pond that’s been muddy, agitated. We just let the water, the mud settle to the bottom. The silt settles to the bottom and it’s crystal clear and we can see anything. This is the pure unpretentious mind, the natural mind, naturally concentrated. We don’t have to squeeze.
We just allow it to calm and so on. That’s That would be one of the I mean, specifically in the west we use the term meditation in a very loose fashion. In a more technical sense, most of what we call using thoughts, thinking about things, you know, whether it’s thinking about compassion or love, are more or less contemplations. Actual meditation is when you take a feeling when you’ve thought about love, example, you’ve actually generated a state beyond words, a state which you call love. Then you begin meditation.
You hold that, you fix your mind upon that state. The word in Tibetan is called gom and it means to habituate, to get used to. So we use contemplation, we think about loving others, we think about the precious opportunity that we have to develop our minds. Think about our Buddha nature. We develop some feeling and we fix upon it.
That’s actual meditation. We get used to that. We habituate it. We absorb it like a dry sponge. That’s meditation.
Developing this concentration is the means of meditation. How do all beings How does that affect all beings? Definitely has an effect. As I said, this idea of that we aren’t separate entities, that we have that we are existing in a field. And traditionally we would call this a mandala.
As you develop As a bodhisattva develops himself, he begins to develop a pure land. What is called pure land. His own pure land. This is his field. This is his environment that he’s generating.