Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The mechanics of self-defeating ego patterns take center stage in this 47-minute session by Ven Jampa Gendun, part of his series on Tsongkhapa’s Three Principal Aspects of the Path. Working through the first aspect — the determination to be free — Gendun argues its real foundation is confidence in one’s capacity to change, then maps in careful detail how patterns resist that change: we selectively notice data confirming our self-image while discounting the rest, misread others’ neutral behavior to fit our assumptions, gravitate toward relationships that mirror our patterns, and arrange situations to prove them right. A verse by Chögyam Trungpa and a recorded passage from Lama Yeshe ground the conclusion that human confusion is relative, not ultimate, and that Buddha nature is hidden beneath these patterns rather than absent.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 3 PA 1990 04 06.mp3
UUID: 99c0dc0f-d69b-4385-8765-a7419478c834
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principal Aspects of the Path 1988-1990 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1990-04-06
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.8 minutes
Words: ~4,721
Begin with mindfulness and breathing, using techniques of counting and noting, and taking a bodily posture of dignity one which reflects the quality or state of mind in which we are in control, that we are purposive, we know what we’re about, and become for just five minutes, try to be completely involved in this simple process. Give your total being over for five minutes only. Do something, to do it thoroughly with great dignity, with zest, enthusiasm. Then I’ll set our direction. Adjust your motivation.
There are various levels of motivation as I’ve explained in the explanation of the three capacities of being. Those who are seeking some sort of more meaningful comfortable state in the future. Those who are seeking to go beyond all patterned modes of existence. All manners of ego based existence. And finally, who are seeking to fulfill their entire potential for the sake of others.
And in accordance with the motivation, that’s the type of result that we’re going achieve. You know, if we can, in some small way, begin not only the initial reorientation process away from externals and seeing that our happiness and problems exist within our own mind. The solutions to all our difficulties, all our troubles lies within our own mind. But raising our level of our motivation and understanding that just as in my case that I have all of these difficulties, all of these problems, and all of these universal pains which confront everyone. And then no matter what the superficial differences may be that they’re simply scratching beneath the surface that everyone is very much like ourselves, no different.
And it’s beginning to accept the responsibility for helping others. In this acceptance of responsibility we can begin to extend ourselves much more so than we would have ever done so for our own selfish ends alone. You know, we tap into resources that weren’t known. We undertake difficulties that we would have shied away from for ourselves alone. And even in the case of a mother and her child, for the child’s benefit a mother has to extend herself so much more than she would ever extend it just for herself alone.
There’s no comparison. And likewise, the possibility of actualizing our complete potential and becoming a healthy loving sane human being is only brought about by accepting responsibility for others and thereby as it were being forced to go beyond our preconceived limits of who we are. Perhaps there’s no other way. As I’ve mentioned numerous times, our only limits are those we acknowledge. By the self image that we impose upon ourselves our life becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
And generally because our self image is quite negative and limited it becomes a self defeating, self fulfilling prophecy. But when one develops a greater vision of a greater world and begins to accept a greater responsibility, one has to forego the luxury of indulging in any particular self image which limits concern just for oneself. One has to begin to One has to pursue one’s ends consistently until you reach a point when you see it’s necessary to begin to forget about yourself. And in this, there’s a hope of breaking out of our these self imposed boundaries which we set upon ourselves, of our own selfish concerns, ours bringing about our own welfare singularly. And in doing so, there’s a possibility of tapping into a resource which I’m beginning to hint about at least in trying to suggest in some manner.
Calling on Buddha nature, activating our greater vehicle potential. Activating the potential to be boundlessly compassionate to develop all the skillful means to be able to benefit others. It would seem this is the only way that we can fulfill our potential completely. Now this is what Buddhism is saying. There’s no there’s no force which can take us beyond these the most subtle types of patterns which are imposed upon us, which we impose upon ourselves than to necessarily have to go beyond these limits for the sake of infinite number of sentient beings.
It is this driving force, the will to enlightenment, the awakened heart which breaks down the barriers to un-knowing of all phenomena simultaneously. There’s nothing else which has this power. So you know even on a very you know bringing it back down to perhaps a relevant level, a more practical, immediate level. If we could think in some way that if I begin to put my own house in order, that if I become a little more skillful on how I operate my own mind, if I begin to understand myself a little bit better, then I can begin to help others to understand themselves, to help them to begin to solve their problems. And this would be, you know, even to my immediate family or my immediate peers, those few people around me that I’m presently only concerned with.
That we can at least begin to broaden our perspective to that small degree. Beginning to take refuge in the direction of our own wisdom and the methods of Dharma and the spiritual community as a means of benefiting others even those few people around us. And then there’s that much more power. I think it’s And as I mentioned in the case of a mother and a child, a mother could extend herself far beyond her imagination for the benefit of a child. And how much more so when we begin to extend ourselves concerned with even just a few people around us that we might not go to the end for ourselves.
You know, people say for example, I can’t be bothered cooking for myself. Just one person. Not this grilled cheese sandwich or something. But you have five or six people coming up, wow. It’s a really an event.
I want to please all these people to see them smile to make them happy. And you go to a great length. You extend yourself a little bit further. And what to say if we begin to, in some way, begin to envision taking responsibility for all sentient life? Everything that breathes that being I want to be happy.
I want to be able to help it in some way to end its problems. I have to know all of the various methods. I have to develop myself, my capacities. Just my being has to reflect the possibility of benefiting others just by others being around me. It seems as if the possibility for growth, for transformation is enhanced, you know, infinitely by this redirecting of our concern.
We have to begin with ourselves, no doubt. But at some point, we must begin to envision a larger world other than the world with ourselves at its center. To take our rightful place that we have a right to happiness. We have a right to solve our problems. But I am just one person.
Sentient beings are infinite. And if just in the the democratic sense, if one is to be happy, isn’t it fair, legitimate legitimate that this other be happy as opposed to this one. You know, it’s difficult as we mentioned when we were talking about developing the awakening heart. It’s very difficult to begin to fathom, to readjust our perception that perhaps our self centered I may first approach isn’t an effective way to bring happiness in the world. Let alone happiness to oneself.
That there may be, you know, if we take these healthy beings as examples that perhaps there’s another radically or radical alternative to the approach that we’ve been using up till now. At least beginning to cultivate that idea. You know this a real beginning I think. This is a new idea that it’s in my own best interest, in my own best concern for my own happiness. To in some small way begin to concern myself with the happiness of others and begin to pursue my development for the benefit of others and myself.
Maybe fifty fifty as his holiness said. Maybe fifty fifty. Fifty percent fifty percent. At least, you know, we can begin to take that direction and think in that way. Taking a direction to develop ourselves so that in some small way we can begin to help others to solve their problems.
To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, I go for refuge until I am enlightened. Through the merit I create by practice and giving in the other perfections may I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, I go for refuge until I am enlightened. Through the merit I create by practicing giving and the other perfections may I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, I go for refuge until I am enlightened.
Through the merit I create by practicing giving and the other perfections may I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all beings. Buddhahood, the actualization of our complete potential, enlightenment, whatever we’re going to call it, awakening, becoming happy, healthy, sane, loving human being is a social phenomenon. It’s something which is done in relationship. It’s not a thing which can be possessed in isolation. Mental health is a product of relating, skillfully relating, enlighteningly relating with others.
So we’re discussing our text, The Three Principal Aspects of the Path, and within this short text by Tsongkhapa, the fifteenth century yogi scholar of Tibet. Amongst the three principal aspects of the path, give it determination to be free, awaken our hearts to others, and seeing deeper into the nature of reality we’re discussing the first, developing the determination to be free. And we have been working on this. determination to be free. The means to develop this determination to be free.
This is the foundation. If without this then to talk about developing an awakening heart, the mind of enlightenment, to talk about seeing deeply in the nature of reality fantasy. We can’t. This is the foundation for the path. This is the prerequisite, the the necessary forerunner to these latter two paths, the foundation of all our development. We have to determine to grow. We have to really long to grow or we won’t to become healthy.
So we have to and as was mentioned which is in all of these are quite important. It would seem that as a foundation, you know, one foundation after another, one prerequisite after another. The foundation of the determination to be free is this belief in ourselves that we can grow, that we can change. This confidence, this conviction, this diamond-hard conviction, this commitment to the possibility of becoming everything that we could ever hope to be. Everything that we probably could imagine ourselves to be and perhaps much more than we could have imagined ourselves to possibly become.
You know, believing in our basic goodness. Basic goodness, native intelligence, basic sanity, our traditionally called Buddha nature. And it’s quite difficult. I I I keep For me these things are difficult. Maybe I shouldn’t say they’re difficult for you maybe they come easily.
To in spite of our negative self images that most of us have of ourselves to commit ourselves to this belief, to make this choice to believe. You know, ultimately human nature is no nature and no nature is buddha nature. The mind has no inherent qualities. It has the primary characteristics of clarity, sometimes called luminosity, and knowing. This is the stuff called mind, the stuff that we’re working with.
Within this, there’s no inherent distortions. There’s no inherent intrinsic obstacles, obstructions within the mind. The mind has the primary characteristics of being clear, like space and knowing. This is its primary characteristics. It has no inherent distorted qualities.
It has no inherent obstructions, hindrances. It can know anything. There’s nothing which it cannot know. And we all possess these primary characteristics of mind because we all possess mind. And Therefore, we all possess Buddha nature.
There’s simply no state of mind that we cannot generate. Mentioned and I mentioned, this thought ridden mind of ours has one magnificent quality. That it can be transformed in any direction that we train it. It’s like you know, I use this image of of a lump of clay. Commiserate with our skill, we can we can mold that lump of clay into anything.
It doesn’t have any limitations inherent in it. We can make an ashtray out of it, a lump of clay, or we can make a Mona Lisa, a Madonna and child, like Michelangelo, or a Rodin sculpture. Something of transcendent and transcendent beauty. The same lump of clay, that same stuff of mind has no inherent limitations. It can be made into anything.
We can generate any state of mind. We can be you know, the we can generate infinite love, infinite compassion, infinite wisdom. There’s nothing that we cannot become, you know, that we can solve our problems. You know, conventionally, when you’re looking at at our situation very practically, it would seem that we have to develop a coherent ego before we can transcend it. Perhaps a stable ego, a healthy self image before we can begin the difficult process of going beyond all ego states of existence, transcending the ego, going beyond the ego.
In other words, maybe we have to be somebody before we can be nobody. And if we’re constantly trying to prop up our self image, all our activity and energy is directed along those lines. There’s no possibility of developing the wisdom necessary to transcend the ego because we haven’t stabilized it yet in order to transcend it. And then when we can begin to forget about ourselves is only that when we achieve such a state of health that we no longer preoccupied by having to maintain a particular self image, We can become somewhat self forgetful. We can start to concern ourselves with the methods for going beyond any necessity to maintain any self image.
So we have to we have to try to appreciate who we really are. And this is you know, we talk about the foundation of the path. The different traditions within Tibetan Buddhism emphasize different foundations. Some emphasize the teacher as the foundation of the path. The teacher in the sense of helping inspiring us, helping us to develop the confidence, and then giving us the actual guiding us along the path.
It’s actually no difference to to gain the conviction and the inspiration within ourselves that we can change, that we have this foundation for transformation, appreciating, valuing ourselves. You know, we don’t value ourselves, who we really are, even in a very mundane sense. You know, we feel we feel to appreciate our potential and that we possess all the necessary conditions to actualize this potential. Now I’m gonna talk a little bit about this, the way we the way we are stuck in our patterns. Perpetuate them.
You know, the main obstacle to an appreciation of our potential, to appreciate our basic goodness and the opportunity to actualize it, is our tendency to to ignore, to devalue ourselves and our situation. You know, we have a tendency to contract inwardly into ourselves and our situation. You know, contract inwardly into our ego and become absorbed and lost. In these isolating patterns, The world that we imagine ourselves to live in, to exist in, this fantasy fabrication of ego. It’s as if we are in a trance.
This may sound like a radical idea. The psychological constructions of ego is the primary delusion in which we live. This is our world. It’s a world of our own making. As I will as I have and will emphasize again and again, there’s no such things as an objective world.
It’s lying out there imposing itself upon us. The world is dependent upon how we view it. It depends upon how we view it. That is the way we will experience it. And how we view it is at present completely distorted by the psychological constructions of our ego.
We live in a fantasy world to a large part. You know, living in this construction, we are completely alienated from reality. We don’t touch the real world. We cannot cannot see that we are the displays, the patterns of ego. We cannot even begin to see the possibility to transcend them.
You know when we talk about transcendent, it’s not like we’re going to go somewhere. Beginning to go beyond the simple patterning of ego in its unceasing action of securing the self in space and time out of the fear of a fluid and open way of relating. This is ego, this mental event, this action of securing in space and time, something which endures unchangingly throughout time and which exert exists as a solid concrete entity within space. And it has to fabricate a fantasy to maintain this illusion because it is illusion. It’s not there.
There is nothing which endures throughout time and exists concretely and solidly in space from its own side, from its truly existing in that way it appears. This is the world. This is the fantasy which we construct for ourselves. This belief that there is this thing. This is our primary delusion in which we live, but we’re going to talk about that more.
You see when we talk about seeing deeply into the nature of reality. You know, on the contrary, you know, we’re talking about, you know, we can’t see the possibilities of transcending ourselves, what that might mean. All we know is our patterns. That’s all we know. That’s all we think we are.
You know, these patterns can be very We can talk about mundane patterns, patterns feelings of loneliness, rejection, I’m a bad I’m a bad guy. We can think of it in terms of traditional Buddhist terms, attachment, desire, hatred, anger, spite, jealousy, miserliness. You know, there’s various but they’re all simply reoccurring recordings trying to secure I’m the same person I was last week and the week before and since I was a little kid. I got the same hang ups and I relate to the same objects in the same way that the sense of permanency unchanging about that. Now that we identify with these patterns as the real me, this is the real I, we don’t see a possibility to transcend them.
You know, on the contrary, unwittingly we tend to perpetuate our patterns. And this this is what actually keeps us stuck in them. We tend to notice, to dwell on data that seemingly confirms our patterns. We notice and dwell on data which confirms our patterns. And we tend to not notice, we forget, or discount data that disconfirms it, that disconfirms our patterns.
For example, just taking a very simple example, someone who thinks of themselves as bad. I’m a bad person. There’s something wrong with me. I don’t know. I’m just rotten, I guess.
I don’t know how it happened. I was just born this way. Unkind. I hurt people. I’m really basically a pretty bad person.
That person with that pattern, this I’m a bad pattern, yeah, very simple example, would certainly dwell on those instances where he or she had let people down, had hurt people. That proves, you know, focuses, dwells upon those which confirm that pattern of I’m bad, I’m unkind, I’m no good. And all of those times when they acted caringly, kindly toward another, and even if you were to point out to that person, but how about this time, you know, when you acted very kindly, very lovingly, very sensitive, and very warmly. Yes. Yes.
But that’s an exception. Actually, I did that for my own benefit, my own selfish end. They would discount anything which contradicted this self image, this particular pattern that they’re taking security in, which disconfirms their pattern. They would discount any data which would serve to contradict that. They wouldn’t even remember it.
Even as once pointed out, they discount it. So the way we begin to perpetuate our patterns, which obscure our possibility of recognizing our Buddha nature. Another way we perpetuate our patterns, we set up present situations. We’re apt to interpret, or better misinterpret, data to fit our patterns, so they all seem to continually confirm. All our patterns are continually confirmed by our misinterpretation of data.
For example, you know, I have the pattern nobody likes me. I have the nobody likes me pattern. I would consistently interpret others’ behavior to fit that pattern. Know, somebody has a headache and they’re frowning. Oh, he doesn’t like me.
You know, that’s the way you It’s as if, you know, two hundred years ago people saw the sun revolving around the earth. That’s the way they interpret it. It was a misinterpretation. But it’s as if they saw the sun circling the earth. That’s what This is not what they really saw.
This is really their interpretation of what they saw. But they don’t But we don’t see it that way. This is the way it really is. The sun is revolved. I see the sun revolving around the earth.
They see the sun revolving around the earth. They didn’t see the sun revolving around the They interpreted the motion of the sun such that the sun revolves around the earth. It was a misinterpretation, but it confirmed their expectations, their beliefs. And this is what we do with our pattern. We’re consistently apt to misinterpret others’ actions to confirm a particular pattern.
Another possibility is that we’re apt to surround ourselves with persons whose patterns agree with ours, who we have a nice fit. You know, the person who has the it’s all my fault pattern is attracted to it’s all your fault pattern people. Or I’m no good, they’re intrigued with people whose pattern is you’re not much, are you? They fit. They do nice, but they confirm each other.
They perpetuate each other’s patterns. Also, we’re apt to set up situations which seemingly confirm our patterns. For example, there was an old cartoon. It was in a psychiatrist’s office, and there’s the patient sitting up off the couch that he had been lying on. And he says to the psychiatrist in a very loud voice, I said, I don’t understand why nobody likes me.
Matter? You got wax in your ears or something? Setting up a situation which confirms, which fulfills your expectations, your pattern. Everything becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Nobody loves me.
So you begin to prove that nobody loves you by driving people away from you. Uh-huh. See, nobody loves me. People can only take so much perhaps. You know we’re very much like the person standing in the rain crying because they’re getting wet and not understanding why.
So our world begins and ends with the limiting conceptions of ego in isolation from reality. We’re not touching reality. Just our conceptions, these patterns, our beliefs, wrong assumptions, misinterpretations. That’s the world. This is the fantasy we live in.
This is what it means to to transcend the ego, to go beyond is to touch reality, to be to know the way things actually are. So in other words, it’s difficult for us to even imagine that we can change because we are this pattern. This is who I am. Many of these are chronic patterns. Without these patterns, it’s as if we don’t exist.
These are survival patterns. In talking about these patterns, the way we impose a self image upon ourselves and thereby limit ourselves. And generally this image is rather negative. Lama Yeshe, who was the founder of the FPMT and inspiration of Buddha House, and he’s talking about tantra, but it’s not necessarily that it be in connection with tantra. But in this sense he’s relating it to the practice of tantra in which the self image is quite important.
That we’re trying to get in touch with a sense of divinity, divine self image, divine pride. It’s quite important in tantra, in our daily life. It’s quite important. We need this confidence, this conviction in our divinity, our ability to solve our problems, in our own power. Lama Yeshe:
The tantra. Main dealing. The main dealing, the problem. What is the problem? It is the ordinary recognition that I am poor man, poor woman. Do you understand?
Perceiving, holding as poor one, poor object, poor quality. And perceiving also such poor acting ugly, having lower opinion of our body, lower opinion of our quality. That is the worst obstacle to be healthy, to be liberated. That is the main dealing to eradicate, to cut. As long as you decided, having preconception that I am the self pity one, you decided.
You decided already that you are the bad guy. You decided already. So when you decided you are a bad guy, you do always bad actions. Anyway, I’m worthless. I’m a bad guy, so I do bad one.
Of course, that’s the way it’s true. And our life becomes a self defeating, self fulfilling prophecy. Just filling in the details to the plot as we go along, but we know what the outcome is going to be already. We’ve decided. So know, Buddhism isn’t asking us to believe in some kind of dogma.
But it is asking us to begin to open up, create a little crack in that thick wall to the possibility that we could be wrong about ourselves. I mean, could be wrong about the basic quality quality of who or what I am. But maybe it’s possible I’ve been wrong all these times. Who I am, what I am, I’m not quite sure. I am not my patterns.
Hatred, anger, spite, I’m no good, I’m bad, I’m not beautiful, I’m not intelligent, I’m not much, nobody likes me. I am not my self image. I am not my self image. You are not your self image. I am not my perception I have about who I am.
I am not my perception about who I am. So in discussing a verse by Chögyam Trungpa, the Tibetan master who died about five years ago in the United States and talking about the relative quality of who we are and beginning to point to something which is unconditioned. It’s just a very short verse It’s called Samsāra nirvana. A crow is black because the lotus is white. Ants run fast because the elephant is slow.
Buddha was profound. Sentient beings are confused. So the blackness of a crow, it only has meaning in comparison to the whiteness of a lotus. The quickness of an ant only has meaning in comparison to the slowness of an elephant. And our own confusion only has meaning in comparison to the profundity of a Buddha.
Now compared to a Buddha, okay, we’re confused. But that is only relative to them, not absolutely confused. We are not ultimately confused. If we remove the pattern of confusion, there’s no confusion. And I am not the pattern.
The only difference between ourselves and a Buddha is that they have removed their disturbing patterns. That’s all. These Buddhas, these people we call happy, loving, healthy, sane human beings, these people are simply people who have removed these disturbing patterns from their mind. Nothing more than that. When they removed these patterns, they didn’t go out of existence.
On the contrary, they became wise, loving, compassionate, and spontaneous, creative, skillful actions benefiting others. So there must be something else there besides these patterns, something which is really profound that we don’t see that’s obscured from us at present. It’s hidden from us. Remember I kept last week talking about this. These images that all the masters try to use like honey covered with bees.
A future king in the womb of an ugly old hag, a bean in a pod. All of these kinds of images they’re trying to present to give us some feeling that there’s something there which is presently obscured, covered. And once it’s uncovered, it’s like the the rising of the brilliant sun or the moon. Luminous, radiant, and odd.