Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A paradox opens this 47-minute session by Ven Jampa Gendun: the most important thing a meditator can do is nothing. He explains why striving defeats meditation, using a Zen image of a cow given a wide pasture instead of a narrow pen — without a fence to fight, the mind settles on its own. A personal story about discovering a Buddha statue buried under jungle weeds in Sri Lanka, which Gendun links to Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001 monolith, becomes the pivot for his central argument: our inner Buddha nature is already there, overgrown and unlooked-for. He then moves into commentary on the Three Principal Aspects of the Path, a fourteen-verse text, covering renunciation, bodhicitta, and wisdom, and why a living teacher is essential to make those teachings genuinely real rather than merely theoretical.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 3 PA 1990 03 02.mp3
UUID: c1ebc916-8358-4cfc-b93e-c6ea4855212a
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principal Aspects of the Path 1988-1990 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1990-03-02
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 47.1 minutes
Words: ~6,029
In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, talking about meditation and the quality of our attitude which is to accompany it. The world can be explored. It is workable wherever you go, whatever you do. But I would like to plant one basic seed in your mind. I feel that it is absolutely important to make the practice of meditation your source of strength, your source of basic intelligence.
Please think about that. You can sit down and do nothing. Just sit down and do nothing. Just stop acting, stop speeding, sit and do nothing. You should take great pride in the fact that you have learned a very valuable message.
You actually can survive beautifully by doing nothing. No one in this room can do nothing even when we try. The very fact of trying defeats our purpose. So, we have to sort of sneak up on nothing. Nothing happens by accident as it were.
Now, we begin the practice of our meditation with a very simple attitude. It is not based on trying to collect pleasure or to avoid pain. This is the way we’ve been operating our entire lives. This is the basic quality of all our repetitive patterns in which we’re involved. The fear of avoiding pain, the fear of pain and the hopes of procuring happiness.
The hopes and fears which bind us which constitute ego based existence. This is the dualistic struggle which we’ve been involved in our entire lives. So some way our meditation has to be a method which is in accordance with the type of result that we’re seeking to attain. The cause always has to be similar to the effect. Somehow there has to be a similarity.
And if our meditation, if our means or method to bring peace to our mind has within it the elements of struggle, then it’s not a method that’s going to accord with the results that we’re seeking. The cessation of the struggle, final finally beginning to develop the ability to, if not only temporarily, to set a burden aside. It’s a struggle that we’re always involved in seeking union with ourselves, with others, with nature, trying to secure ourselves, trying to maintain our identity, trying to reconfirm our existence, these perpetual compulsive patterns in which we call our life. Somehow we have to begin the to cut through this neurotic patterns of ego. And the way we can begin to do this of destroying ego’s games is the strict discipline of sitting meditation.
Whether it’s pleasurable or unpleasurable, we sit in equanimity accepting whatever arises within our mind without judgment, without you know, we give up. We drop the struggle of good against bad which we’ve been consistently involved in. This constant judging quality, this competitiveness, this ambitiousness of the mind no matter what it may be that we’re involved in. All the external conditioning. We begin to find out who we really are and what we’re really about.
So we’re not trying to use meditation or all the various so called spiritual techniques whether it’s visualization, mantra, prayers, rituals to create pleasure or to confirm our existence. You know to add simply to our speed another activity to add to our long list of activities. The things to occupy ourselves and distract us from our basic fear of being alone, of confronting our aloneness and the hollowness in our life. Now we have to be willing to confront perhaps some issues which aren’t very pleasurable. So the search for meditation is not It’s a way of a method designed as a way for us to be honest with ourselves.
Ourselves. You know, it shows our willingness to be realistic. You get bored. The ego has no place to perch. You know we cease entertaining the ego.
Nothing new, nothing fascinating. We take away all the things which ego is captivated by and we stay with the boredom and we begin to appreciate it. Just accepting whatever comes along, boredom and pain. And we’re constantly making judgments. It’s our preoccupation.
Now we walk into a room and either consciously or unconsciously we begin to discriminate. This is good. This is bad. This could have been better. This is not in very good shape.
I like this. I don’t like that. And you’re constantly making reference points to reconfirm who we are, our personality profile. And we simply like we can’t let things be and therefore we cannot be. We always have to be becoming, always have to be restructuring, reconfirming, reestablishing.
And this is a struggle. This is a burden. And this is the quality of our experience which we feel as distress. So we’re making use of meditation to cut through this pattern, to cut through all patterns ultimately, all pattern ways of being, of existing. And the first way we begin is to cut through ego’s games is the discipline, the strict discipline of sitting meditation.
There’s no intellectual speculation. There’s no philosophizing, no seeking a wonderful There’s experience, no colored lights, no magical sounds. Just your breath and you. So I’m trying to convey the sense of the attitude that we can bring, that we should bring to meditation. Know essentially the path involves a learning process whether this you know on this journey, this spiritual journey or process like psychological growth whatever we might term it.
And this journey involves a learning process whether it’s learning about the learning how our minds operate. We’ve never really taken a look at our minds and therefore we don’t operate our minds very well. And therefore it’s no great surprise that we suffer. You know all of these feelings arising, all of these thoughts, all of these discriminations, They arise and they abide for a while and they’re going to cease of themselves and we can simply become aware and we can get to know ourselves. And during this process we’re going to become aware of parts of ourselves that have until now been unknown because we’ve been distracting ourselves either consciously or unconsciously from much of what lies beneath the threshold of awareness.
Our usual. Usually we’re very much involved in distraction in our speed. And so we begin to learn about who we are. Lies beneath the surface of our gameplay and we have to confront a lot of issues. But again, we neither have to indulge or seek to repress all of these feelings, of these moods, these emotions which arise.
Again, the technique of simply noting whatever it is, whatever it feels like, we don’t have to make any judgment about it. Simply recognizing. Thoughts as thoughts, emotions as emotions, moods as moods. Simply noting, you know, think most of you are familiar with the process that we’re talking about when I talk about noting. We’re focusing on the breath.
That’s our object of meditation and in the process of focusing on the breath, many thoughts, feelings, emotions will arrive. And we simply note them mentally, not verbally. thinking, feeling, pain, fear, whatever, and we pass back to the breath. And they no longer and then we can begin to wear out the old patterns. You know if we repress, we indulge or simply reinforcing what is already there and perpetuating the problems.
So if we can simply develop the equanimity, simply the quality of noting without indulging. I use the analogy of passing the hot dog. We don’t have to bite into the hot dog of any of the emotions that might pass by, all the thoughts that might pass by. This is a you know we’re talking about a way of bringing peace to the mind. In the Zen tradition they talk about the best fence being a wide pasture.
You know the cow, when it’s corralled in a narrow pasture, the very effect of it is being confined. There’s a burden to it and it seeks to fight against that burden and it runs around and trying seeking a way out. But if you give that cow a big pasture, you know, it’s habitual behavior of seeking a way out makes no sense. There’s nothing to be run up against. And so it just runs around looking for a way out but it sees that it’s not necessary, that it’s not confined.
And it just slowly wears itself out and it begins to eat its grass and settle down and chew its cud and finally falls asleep. So if we can begin to use this type meditation and mindfulness of breathing to create a big pasture for our mind without any fences. And fences are repression and indulgence. We don’t have to repress our thinking. We don’t have to indulge our thinking.
Simply recognize that thinking is thinking. Emotions is emotion. And slowly, the mind will settle down of itself. We don’t have to force it to to do anything. And this quality of awareness, this quality of equanimity can begin to carry over more and more into our everyday life.
You know, whatever it is, you begin to relate things with in a more simplistic fashion with more equanimity whether it’s washing the dishes, it’s your job, whether it’s dealing with your your spouse. The The problems don’t go away. The people you deal with don’t become saints. But the situations are not as complicated as they once were. You begin to appreciate the simplicity of situations because you’re not overlaying any complicated factors upon them.
There seem to be all the various complicating projections, prejudices, the biases which were constantly associating with all our relationships and all our activities in the world. So we can begin to act in a complete way appreciating sitting, we can appreciate doing absolutely nothing and it becomes a very complete act. And we begin to exist more and more in the present moment. So, the essential message is bring to the meditation the attitude of not expecting anything. And this may this may seem well why do it in the first place?
If I can’t expect anything, it’s that very expectation which is going to defeat your purpose of meditating in the first place. You know this habitual quality of having to achieve, of having to gain. You know we don’t see this as it’s so much a part of us that we can’t see it as inhibiting the actual quality of our life. Know, we’re not going to figure out our life. Life is something very much which needs to be lived and the only time that we can live it is in the present moment and to be open to it and to respond to it as skillfully as we can.
There’s nothing more that we can do in this fashion and simply developing the ability to be and to respond is a great lesson, the ability to be able to do nothing. So if you’ll take a comfortable posture into mindfulness of breathing for the next five minutes using techniques of counting, counting your breaths and noting a fulfilling direction, a meaningful direction for our life. You know, this we have to each of us determine for ourselves. I talked about from the point of view of spiritual growth, from the point of view of psychological growth, the possibility of becoming a happy, loving, healthy, sane human being as one could choose that, as one could value that and take that as worthy of one’s time, energy. Know, one could set one direction towards that end, that goal.
And this is the goal as constituted by Buddhism. Know, traditionally it’s term awakening. Know, a Buddha is one who is awake. And we talked about the quality of what we mean by awake. The No.
What actually is going to solve our problems in a realistic fashion. Now we know as I mentioned the fact that we all have our various conceptions about what happiness is. We also have our conception about what our problems are. Now from where our pain is coming from which we all experience, which we don’t want, which we rightly want to alleviate. We all have our methods which we make use of.
So questioning whether our particular methods are working or not, being honest enough in that fashion to confront the issues of present state and to see whether we’re moving in a direction which is going to be fulfilling, whether we’re simply going to be repeating the same mistakes that we’ve been caught up in up to now. So we set a direction. You know, I talked about the fact of, you know, the past is determined. We can trace a very detailed chain of causes and effects to any past event and say this is how this is a sequence which brought about this particular effect. But the future is in terms of probabilities.
And within these probabilities are many hidden variables which determine which will eventuate, which are these possibilities. Some are outside of our control, the possibilities of what we eventuate. They are such that the karmic the power of the causes and effects which are proceeding are such that they cannot be changed by our present abilities. We have to accept that. But within these possibilities of future events, eventuations which we are going to experience, there are many which are within our control, in which we are able to exercise some choice, which we are our own mind is one of the hidden variables in determining what we eventuate.
And one of those variables is simply the direction of our mind, our goals, what we want out of our life, and they’re consistently making the choice in that direction. You know the you know it’s like a you know you you have a choice between going through a door A and B and you choose B. And then and B opens up and that opens up the possibilities of c and d and you choose d. The possibilities that would have presented themselves by going through a are no longer available to you. You’re you’re creating a direction amongst all the possible possibilities, all the variations, the probabilities, you’re creating a course of events which is shaping your future, what you will experience.
You know, the very simple choices that we make every day of our life will have far reaching effects. We have very few choices which have any earth shaking quality in determining our future. Know it’s these innumerable small choices that we have to make constantly and life is constantly confronting us with the possibility of alternative choices. So we make a consistent choice direction. And if we make a consistent choice having determined for ourselves what type of goal we’re achieving, it’s going to take us in that direction.
We’re going to achieve our goal. So we have to make sure that our goal is a realistic goal. That is actually some way to solve our problems. The problem of pain, the problem of loneliness, problem of alienation, fragmentation, the big list of suffering that we always experience, dissatisfaction, disappointment. So, within Buddhism, I think we don’t even have to use Buddhism perhaps it’s not necessary.
But we take as our paradigm of sanity, our goal, The the direction of our movement in our becoming, awakening, our own awakening, my awakening, my becoming a Buddha is the way I’m really going to solve my problems. You’re becoming a Buddha is not going to solve my problems for a minute. My wife, my husband, my children, they’re becoming Buddhas. It’s not going to solve my problem. It’s my responsibility.
It’s my mind. It’s my experience. I’m the one that’s creating my future. So, setting my direction toward enlightenment. And I talked about, you know, that’s an abstract idea perhaps.
And I know what the qualities of what we mean by enlightenment. You know, we’re talking about a loving, healthy, sane human being that which we’re using as our model of the someone who solved the problems of ego based existence. And I mean, wisdom. And simply what I mean by wisdom is awareness, knowing the way things actually are beyond our our preconceptions, beyond our misconceptions, prejudices, mistaken ideas, think things directly without any mistakes. And the quality of love and compassion, caring, going outside of our of our habitual egotistical concerns to to broaden our sphere of responsibilities to include others.
And the quality of energy, of mental and physical energy spontaneously responding to the needs of others. So this becomes this is this, you know, we see, if we look if I look at my life, I know that it’s my the quality of my mind which determines my happiness and my suffering to a to a large degree. Now there’s some sufferings which seem to impinge upon me. You know, the tree falls on my head it hurts. I do it doesn’t seem like it depends much on the quality of my mind.
So maybe we can set those aside for the moment. But in our day to day affairs with our relationships, all the problems which arise, things and people with the world. And then we can have nothing and be totally happy. Or we can have everything and be totally miserable. And the orientation is toward the mind.
The mind in its place, in its way can make a hell of heaven and heaven of hell. So, you know, for me, the the the solution to my wanting happiness and not wanting to suffer is found within the mind itself. And within the qualities of the mind that I’m that I see as a way of solving our problems are these qualities of wisdom, seeing things the way they are, love and compassion, broaden my sphere of responsibility to concern myself with others, and developing this mental and spiritual energy, and responding to life skillfully and to the needs of others skillfully. And this is the way I would like to solve my problems. This is the only way I can ever I see for myself that my problems are ever gonna be solved satisfactorily.
And in the sense that anything other than that, anything other than developing my own mind, growing within my own being, is at best a temporary solution. At best. And it may not be a solution at all. I may be deceived. But it may work.
And then we do, even a blind owl finds a mouse now and then. We all do come upon happiness now and then we they should be enjoyed in our business. Life is, you know, from the Buddhist point of view, we should all be blissed out. There’s a we should all we should be experiencing constant happiness. That’s our birthright.
Seeing this for yourself very deeply. I have to change my mind. This is my choice, my direction, just to grow, develop myself in wisdom, love, and energy. This is my refuge. This is what’s gonna solve my problem.
And I, you know, I I repeating myself. But we all have, you know, beginning to gain the confidence, which above all we need. And I talked about the the qualities of a spiritual master. You know, what they can do for us and what they cannot do for us. And one of the things that they must do for us is to help us to believe in ourselves, that we have the potential, that we have, you know, in this in this context, that we have some wisdom, some knowledge of the way things are no matter how faint and obscure that wisdom might be, it’s there.
Some seed, some spark of wisdom is there in everybody. Some love and compassion, some seed, some spark is there. No matter how limited, no matter how exclusive our love and compassion might be, it’s there. We all have some spiritual, mental and physical energy. No matter how unrefined, no matter how that energy might be, it’s there.
The spark is there. So, you know, in this in Buddhism is in many traditions is the very basis of spiritual life. It’s just beginning to deeply sense and to feel and express one’s own divinity. Otherwise, you know, we have this we have this self pity and the feelings of insufficiency for me, And our life become becomes a self defeating, self fulfilling prophecy. You know, our only limitations are those we acknowledge.
And we’ve all set what type of life we’re going to lead and we’re just more or less filling out the details. The theme, the plots already been written for ourselves. We wrote it ourselves. So we have to break out of this pattern of seeing ourselves as poor me. And we have to begin to believe in ourselves.
This is extremely difficult. I’m not seeing it. Easy. You know, my words are quite come come quite readily perhaps, but to actually feel this. But sometimes we do in our finest moments, our most noble moments.
We do get a sense of our what we called within the tantric tradition. We develop a divine pride, a sense of nobility about ourselves. But in a in a moment, for a moment, we’re on a higher order of being. And this we this becomes the the the root of the spiritual path, the root of development. We we become our own inspiration.
You know, but so we have the seeds of the solution to our problems within ourselves. But, you know, where does the idea of awakening come from? You know, can maybe it’s just an idealistic notion, some romantic idea that was some people with too much time on their hands thought about while they were sitting idling on the side of the riverbank once, you know, on the river Ganges. And it come the quality, idea of awakening comes from the history of of humankind itself. That there have been infinite number of women and men who have actualized, who have brought to full expression the potentials that exist within all of us.
You know, actualize all of these qualities which are qualities which are germinal within us now. You know, for example, in the Buddha, the Buddha was a was a a man. He was he was not an ordinary man. He became he was an extraordinary man. He became an extraordinary man by his own perfection of what was in him, by his own initiative, by his own determination.
He was not born an extraordinary man. He became extraordinary by a result of his own human effort. He actualized what is the potential within us all. Now, when I I might have perhaps I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before but about many years ago, eighteen years ago, I was in Sri Lanka. And Sri Lanka, there are many Buddhist ruins and many of them are quite out of the way in the jungle, overgrown with weeds in the forest, and they’re covered over with bushes.
And I was walking around in the woods and I came upon the section of a crumble down wall and I walked around the other side of the wall. And there, you know, overgrown with weeds, hidden by bushes was a stone image of a Buddha. You know, very much like this bronze image on the altar. And he’s sitting there patiently. You know, as if in one sense that Buddha with infinite patience had been sitting there for thousands and thousands and thousands of years waiting to be discovered.
You know, and look for unnoticed because, you know, unless we believe in ourselves, we’re never we’re never going to look for our own Buddhahood. Believe that we can really solve our problems. And this Buddha, you know, Sri Lanka was when Arthur C. Clarke was writing the movie script two thousand and one, he wrote it in Sri Lanka. And in Sri Lanka, in the movie script two thousand and one, it was such that whenever this one, let’s say a monolith or a marble pillar was present, there was always this tremendous evolutionary leap in consciousness of humankind whenever this pillar was present.
And it seems that in my imagination, I imagine that Arthur C. Clarke when he was writing this script for two thousand and one, perhaps he was walking through the woods through the jungle and he came upon a Buddha image, you know, overgrown with weeds covered over by bushes waiting patiently for an infinite number of years to be discovered. And that this discovery is like a precursor to our consciously taking within our hands our own evolution, solving our own problems, becoming all that we can become. You know, the Buddha within ourselves which is overgrown with the with the weeds of with our afflicted emotions, with our hatred, with our attachment covered over with the bushes of our self-centeredness, our pride, jealousies. Not notice because not look for.
So maybe we can begin to look for it, to begin to feel that it’s there, to begin to become aware of those moments, the sparks of divinity which are showing themselves every day of our life. When we do act with great wisdom, when we do act with real love, when we express a spontaneity of energy, physical and mental. You know, enlightened person, this awakened person is regarded as the highest being in the universe. Whether there are others or not, it doesn’t matter particularly. You know, this is our model of a loving, healthy, sane human being.
This is our paradigm of sanity that we make use of. Know, the the It’s for this reason that Buddha is respected and revered and worshipped in the sense that out of gratitude, for setting an example, showing the way, for demonstrating what we too can become. Without this example, it would be hopeless cause. We all that we would know of is what we see about us. There would be nothing more that we could aspire to.
So And so Buddhahood in other words, the Buddha is worshipped as a teacher, as an exemplar, and as a guide. And Buddhahood to be taken as our birthright, this awakening. And, seeing our own pain, our own confusion, we develop a conception of ourselves as being insufficient. We just don’t have quite what it takes. We’re actually worse off, you know, bad.
Something inside me is bad. So, we have a very negative self image of ourselves. And we relate with the world based upon that that image, that negative self image that we have. You know, however you may conceive of yourself, it is simply not who you are either conventionally or ultimately. It’s merely our idea who we are.
In your, you know, in your blackest moments when you when you look out of your garbage mind and you think that you’re the lowest thing in the universe, that the mud puddle on the road is higher than you are, in that very moment there’s a Buddha mind. You know, it’s saying, look, look, look at, look at where you’re at, look at where you’re going, look at your life, the quality of your life. You know, the beginning of wisdom is to begin to recognize our own ignorance, our own unawareness. So there’s a spark of wisdom there, isn’t there? Even at those most our lowest moments that we don’t want to to even think about.
It’s that very moment there’s compassion for yourself. You know, look at your life. Look at where you’re going. Be happy. Caring about yourself.
Caring about your enough about yourself to change, to do something, to improve the quality of your existence. That’s saying, you know, don’t go back to sleep. Stay awake. There’s energy there. So at the at those moments, there’s a Buddha mind with all the qualities of a potential Buddha mind, the spark of awakening, wisdom, love, compassion, and energy.
So rather than, you know, in those moments becoming depressed, rather than torching yourself, twisting the knife in your own heart. You should rejoice in knowing that your own brilliant sanity, your basic intelligence is beginning to break through. And it was like this monolith, catching a glimpse of it. And such a such a a spark is going is going to lead you to all that you can become. You know, we it’s hard to talk about in ordinary terms with the ordinary quality of mind that we usually bring to everything that we do in our normal activities.
That the the fact that we are unimaginably more than we could ever hope to be. It’s, you know, these words come perhaps easily, but to feel them is quite an extraordinary thrill. You know, it’s a transforming quality. But at least we can intellectually begin to recognize the validity that we have the potential in a very real sense to solve our problems. You know, we’re all Buddhist to be.
We’re all happy, loving, sane, healthy human beings to be. So we have to believe in ourselves. And, you know, use your wisdom, use your love and compassion, and your energy. And this is your ultimate refuge. This is the direction we need to consistently take.
This is the consistent choice to all these variables which present themselves in all the probabilities as life confronts us, which will ultimately solve our problems. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and Sangha, I go for refuge until I’m 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’m enlightened. To the merit I create by practicing giving and the other perfections.
May I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all being. 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 other perfections. May I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all being. So continuing with three principal aspects of the path. It’s very short text which is only fourteen verses long.
We’re discussing the preliminaries that lead into the actual composition of the text. And this, you know, the first of these preliminaries as was mentioned last week was homage to the Lama and it’s simply paying respect to a spiritual teacher. You know, we the importance of a spiritual teacher as was mentioned last week and what the spiritual teacher can and cannot do for us and creating a proper way of relating to the spiritual teacher. And it’s probably the the question of the spiritual teacher is probably one of the most profound topics within spiritual practice. You know, we are consistently, consciously or unconsciously empowering objects, other people with value, by means of value, such that they are able to influence our mind to a greater or lesser degree.
To know for, you know, this in a very simple sense, you know, that when we’re involved in romantic love, you know, whether our the loved ones smiles or frowns at at us, you know, or either be in ecstasy or despair. Just not as little movement of the mouth of our beloved. And we had we’ve empowered her so or him so much that they can influence our mind that much. So it’s very much the same with respect to a spiritual teacher. The spiritual teacher can become a very potent force in our lives to help us to go beyond the limitations that we have been habitually setting for ourselves, to go beyond our conditioned habitual patterns which we’re caught up in.
Patterns which we may never have the energy or the determination to be able to break out by ourselves alone. But through the empowering of a spiritual master and the skill for guidance, we’re able to develop the necessary energy to break up and dissolve the pattern. Our habits, and these bonds which we self imposed upon ourselves. And this idea of our self bondage. There was One Zen student went to his his master and he said, oh, master, master, my mind is in pain.
It’s suffering. My mind is in It’s in bondage. Help me, master. Free my mind. Free my mind.
And he looked at the master, looked at the disciple and he said, who was it that put it in bondage in the first place? You know, it’s we have in bondage to our own mind. And it’s only us who can, you know, ever break those bonds. You know, as was as we mentioned last week, the central role of the spiritual teacher is to instill a sense of confidence in us. That confidence, belief in ourselves that we can change and that we can go beyond our perpetual dissatisfaction and grow.
And grow in love, grow in wisdom, essentially. And to inspire us to work towards that end and to guide us to help us develop the necessary skills to actually achieve that end. And this is essentially what a spiritual master can do for us. To inspire us. Help us to believe in ourselves that we can change, to give us, to show us, guide us in developing the skills necessary to change.
We have to understand why it is both necessary and possible to abandon our ordinary limited view of ourselves and generate in its place the enlightened self identity of a fully evolved being. We have to realize that our low opinion of ourselves, which keeps us trapped in cycles of perpetual dissatisfaction, only arises because we are ignorant of our basic essential pure nature. By generating the prerequisite renunciation, bodhicitta and wisdom — renunciation, the determination to be free, bodhicitta, awakening heart and wisdom and by delving into the clear nature of our mind we create the space in which the true self transformation can take place. Yet it is not enough merely to know why such self transformation is necessary and possible. We must also generate the strength and confidence that will enable us to follow this radical approach to fulfillment.
In other words, we need to be inspired. We have to know that the attainment of enlightenment, completion, Buddhahood, totality, or whatever we want to call it, is not only a theoretical possibility, but something that people like us can actually do and achieve. Although it is true that the tantric teachings of Śākyamūni Buddha have been existing for two thousand five hundred years, do they exist for us if we have not yet met a qualified tantric master? Are they real for us or not? Despite the extensive explanations of such realized adepts as Naropa, Marpa, and Tsongkhapa, can we say that Tantra is a reality for us before someone has introduced it to us?
Of course not. And the same is true for the teachings of Sūtra as well. These are different systems of Buddhist teachings, Sūtra, Tantra. The fact that the Buddha taught the four noble truths a long time ago does not make them true for us. Just because the Buddha said that doesn’t make them true for us.
They only become part of our reality once we have realized them. And this depends upon having met a guru, a teacher, a spiritual teacher, who can show us their truth clearly in a way we can understand. If we do not have the living example and inspiration of an external teacher, our inner wisdom will remain weak and undeveloped. You know, the people tend to think that the the power of the spiritual teachings is somehow abides in these words, these books, these scriptures. Unless we have the key, that power is always going to remain apart from us.
You know what was true for the Buddha, we we have to rediscover for ourselves. It has to be our truth. Everything that the Buddha discovered, everything that he accomplished, and all the past Buddhas, the men and women who achieved awakening, we have to achieve for ourselves.