Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using a vivid analogy — a concert hall gradually drawing a distracted mind to hear a final quiet note — Ven Jampa Gendun explains how meditation refines mental sensitivity in this 45-minute commentary. He works through two of the five hindrances: restlessness, a coarse mind unable to settle on any object, and the subtle undercurrent of anxiety, showing how breath-counting addresses the first and deepening awareness addresses both. He then turns to Lama Tsongkhapa’s Three Principal Aspects of the Path, focusing on determination to be free. Reframing “renunciation” as a positive drive rather than deprivation, he traces how grasping at pleasure — a relationship, the desire to be loved — adds unnecessary suffering without extending that pleasure by a moment, and argues this recognition is the genuine starting point of the path.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 3 PA 1998 04 15.mp3
UUID: baf3dae6-141c-4244-9960-23cdc156025f
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principal Aspects of the Path 1988-1990 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1998-04-15
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.9 minutes
Words: ~5,331
We usually begin with meditation, the short meditation on the mindfulness of breathing. Normally out of necessity, our attention is always directed outwards. It’s quite easy to lose track of what is going on within ourselves, with our own feelings, our inner life. Meditation is a pretty simple method, a way to get back in touch with our inner life, what’s actually going on inside of ourselves, which to many people is quite a mystery, which to most of us I think. But it should be one of our major concerns since it’s our mind, which we’re going to talk about later, which is determinant of our world, which decides our happiness and our suffering, whether we’re going to be a benefit to others and ourselves or merely be another cause of suffering.
As I’ve said quite often, from the viewpoint of Buddhism, Buddhism is the study of oneself, the study of one’s own mind. The practice of Buddhism is applying that which you learn about yourself in your everyday life to solve your everyday problems. It’s of immediate importance to find out what’s actually going on in your own mind. How you actually feel, not how you think you should feel, ought to feel, would like to feel, but how it is you actually feel, what subtle fears, what subtle emotions, anxieties. Also possibly peace, positive feelings which we are out of touch with.
Actually the mind within itself is quite blissful, but usually we’re at such a gross level that we’re out of touch with this very subtle quality of our own mind. So meditation is one way we can begin to reestablish an intimate relationship with ourselves. We’ve been talking about some of the hindrances to meditation. There’s a list called the five hindrances to meditation. The major are the primary category of hindrances which confront us when we’re seeking to regain the subtlety of our own mind, to gain concentration, to be able to produce unlimited, uninterrupted, skillful states of mind, productive states of mind.
So there’s desire, there’s hatred, sloth and torpor taken as one, that’s three, anxiety and worry, and indecisiveness and doubt. So those are the five hindrances to this uninterrupted skillful production of states of mind. We’ve discussed the first two, desire and hatred, so we take those as a pair. Since they’re based primarily on craving, whether it’s a craving of a pleasurable feeling or an unpleasurable feeling. As in the case of desire, are craving desirable feelings, desirable objects.
When we’re meditating theoretically we shut out all extraneous stimulus. We’re very much concerned with the mental consciousness, not with any of, for example, the eye consciousness or the nose consciousness, hearing, thinking, hearing, smelling, tasting. We’re very much concerned with what is going on in our mental consciousness. Out of desire and craving, out of desire and hatred, we become fascinated. The mind begins to churn out images, memories, fantasies.
These become the distraction upon which our mind dwells upon, which our mind craves. These images, memories can be both pleasant or unpleasant. The point of view of ego it doesn’t make much difference. Both have a way of securing a sense of identity. You know we have various associations with positive feelings, with negative feelings, with pleasurable feelings, with painful feelings.
By going over these feelings again and again and experiencing these same feelings again and again in association with these particular memories, these particular images, we get a sense as if the same person has persisted through time. The same person is reliving these experiences as if the same person that was back then is present now. This gives us a great deal of security as if there’s something very solid or something very concrete which is passing through time. It’s a patterning of the way we respond. In this patterning in the way we respond we gain a feeling of persistence through time, that there’s something which is unchanging about us, in reaction to the same stimulus, the same idea, the same image, reacts in exactly the same way.
This gives us a feeling of security. It gives us an identity of who we are. We don’t have to be fluid and open to new situations, to new ways of interpreting the same situation, but we can react habitually in pattern. This is the action of ego, this securing quality, the reoccurring compulsive patterns. These occur through, for example, craving, whether it’s craving for painful objects or pleasurable objects.
When it’s desire, it’s a craving for pleasurable When it’s hate, anger then it’s a craving for painful objects. We simply keep churning these ideas over and over in our mind. He did this, that, and we keep churning it over and over again. And we keep getting the same responses over and over again. And this gives them a feeling of security in that we know who we are, we know our values, we know our principles, we know how we’re going to experience the same situation in the future as we did in the past.
So it’s a securing process. It’s the grasping for a concrete self. This is the process, the action of ego. The next hindrance has two components, is restlessness and anxiety. So restlessness is the inability of the mind to settle down.
So the mind has no particular purpose. It’s off track, it has no particular object. The mind is just more or less running around. Various thoughts, various images, ideas, fantasies are arising and the mind is more or less confused as to whether to interpret these images as desirable and therefore be attracted to them or whether they’re undesirable and therefore develop aversion to them. Since it’s confused it develops a feeling of indifference.
And therefore none of these objects hold any value for it Therefore the mind continually is churning out more images, more ideas, more thoughts. The mind continually just feels an indifference to them. Therefore it’s not able to dwell on any particular object, let alone the object of meditation. It’s a continual process, a confused state of mind and not knowing what for the mind to rest upon. In this situation we say that the mind is gross mind, a coarse mind.
It’s insensitive. There’s a lack of awareness. There’s a lack of subtlety of the mind. Or we can say it’s overstimulated. The mind in such a state has no particular inclination, has no direction to any particular object.
Now for this to occur, for the mind to actually begin to settle down on an object, to gain an inclination, to gain a direction, one of two things must happen. From the side of the object, must increase the stimulus, the power of the object in order for the mind to become interested in it, become fascinated, entertained, or in some way be directed toward this object, to be held by this object. We can either from the point of view of the object increase the stimulus. This is one of the things that we’re doing when we count in our breathing meditation, when we note in our breathing meditation, in, out, one, in, out, two. We’re increasing the stimulus.
This is going to help us to overcome restlessness. We’re increasing the power of the object in meditation in order for the mind to more easily become absorbed, interested in the object. Because it’s such a gross mind at this point, it needs a very gross object. Then on the other hand, from the point of view of the mind, we can begin to make the mind more subtle, more refined, more sensitive, more aware. This I think is an important key in understanding the method of developing concentration.
When I first began meditating I thought the development of say, for example, single point of concentration, is a very powerful state of concentration, was a matter of willpower that you were more or less trying to bang your head against the wall and sooner or later the wall would fall down. As I found out, you just get a headache after a while and nothing happens. If we were to take our breathing meditation, this Anapanasati, mindfulness of breathing, as an example, there’s quite a skillful method for the development of concentration. We can provide the mind with a very gross object initially simply by augmenting the process with noting, with counting, in out one, in out two, in out three. As the mind becomes more and more subtle naturally, begins to settle down, we can begin to drop some of the grossness of the object.
We can cease counting, in, out, in, out, in, We can begin to drop the noting, just knowing that we’re breathing in and out. As this process continues, the breath will become more and more attenuated. Will become more and more refined quite naturally. Just by sitting, even if you weren’t to concentrate, your breathing would become more and more refined, more and more subtle. Now what’s going to happen?
As your breathing becomes more naturally subtle, the mind is going to follow in a like pattern. It’s going to become more and more subtle. The more and more subtle the mind becomes, the more subtle the breath becomes. The more subtle the breath becomes, the more subtle the mind becomes. There will reach a point where it’s as if you weren’t breathing, and you are breathing, but the sensitivity of the mind is such that we even seek a finer, more subtle object.
At this point, if one were to pursue mindfulness of breathing and Anapanasati to very high stages for one reason or another, then you get into the area of creation of what is called a nimitta or an imaginary object. The mind is becoming so subtle that the very subtlety of the breath is coarse for it. It’s too gross. It’s seeking something even more subtle and therefore it’s going to actually create an imaginary object on which to focus itself. This becomes the new focus of the object of meditation.
This is a very subtle process. It’s a very skillful process of a means of developing concentration Through the settling down of the mind, the breath settles, the body settles, the breath settles, the mind settles, the breath settles, the body settles. Through this whole process the mind is drawn in to a finer and finer concentration. At the end of some orchestral piece, if you’re listening to a symphony perhaps you walk into the theater and to the hall and your mind is probably in a very gross state. You you’ve been driving in the traffic with horns and having to watch where you go and talking to people.
So the music, takes a while before the mind becomes subtle enough to appreciate their various qualities, various nuances of the orchestra, of all the subtle interplay of all the instruments in orchestra. Soon it begins to become drawn into these very subtle qualities of the music. It’s becoming more subtle, more refined, more sensitive. And if you notice, perhaps at the end of some pieces, there may be a great burst of music and then it begins to be drawn to a more subtle level, quieter, quieter. There’s a note where you no longer are able to follow it any longer.
Now if you were to take that note and you were to compare it with the if you were to play that same note at the beginning when you first walked into that theater or that hall, you would not have been able to hear that note. Your mind would have been too gross of a state. It would not have been sensitive enough to hear the subtlety of this sound that was being played as the last note of this particular piece. So your mind has been slowly drawn in to all this, become more and more sensitive to the nuances of the music, and literally, in a sense of the ear consciousness, has become more and more sensitive, more and more awareness, and actually begins to hear things which before it was completely insensitive to. Likewise, this process of developing concentration through the use of mindfulness of breathing works very much in the same way.
The mind becomes drawn into into more and more subtle sensitivities of seeking to follow the breath, seeking to penetrate into the breath until it actually becomes so subtle it creates a new object, a mental object, which is even more subtle than the breath itself. That’s the component of restlessness, the mind unable to dwell because it’s in such a gross coarse state. It’s insensitive. We can either seek to create a greater stimulus in order for it to create interest for the mind so it will be able to dwell upon a grosser type of object, or we try to sensitize, develop our awareness. In that way we’re able to maintain interest on a particular object of meditation.
So that’s the component of restlessness. The component of anxiety is the feeling tone of the mind. There’s a subtle feeling which we cannot quite reason out, but there’s an uneasiness, some subtle worry. Actually it’s some subtle fear. It’s nothing concrete.
We don’t have anything that we can put our finger on, but we feel uneasy about something. It’s like if you’re very sad, something tragic happened. Whatever you do, whatever you’re cooking, talking to someone, there’s a lingering feeling of sadness about everything that you’re involved in. Likewise, in our meditation, when this anxiety is present, there’s a subtle undercurrent like water flowing beneath ice of some fear, some anxiety, some uneasiness which which you can never quite put your finger on. Why?
Again, mind is in a very coarse state. Again, because the mind is in a coarse state, it’s not going to be able to get in contact with what this subtle fear is about. It’s just too subtle, too refined an inner quality for this coarse, this unrefined mind at this particular time to get in touch with. Just like this last note of this symphony, this coarse mind cannot hear it. Likewise, we have some subtle fear, some subtle worry, anxiety.
Because the coarse mind is in such a state, it’s impossible for it to get in touch with this and know exactly what is the problem. There’s this general feeling of uneasiness. This is the second of the two components, the component of anxiety. In such a state it’s very difficult to really penetrate beyond the superficial aspects of whatever our meditation is about. I think some people in this age of automation, high speed technology, do you call it, drive in service.
Everything is to be made available very quickly. It should be right there. Pop it in the oven and it comes out in five minutes. So we have this idea that any idea which is presented to us, we should be able to penetrate deeply into it, as we should be able to understand it immediately and realize it to its most profound depth. We have this feeling which we bring to just about everything in which we do.
But we don’t understand the fact that due to the very coarseness, the superficial quality of our usual states of mind, Initially, we cannot hope to come in contact with realizing the subtle aspects of just about anything that we hear, that we read, any ideas or even you know, sensual objects art, music, literature, I don’t know, good wine, whatever. It takes a certain training, a development of sensitivity, a development of a subtle, more subtle states of mind. This can be seen even with essential qualities. If you have to train yourself to be a wine taster, what need to say of someone who’s thinking about spiritual ideas, about very subtle ideas of the nature of the mind, for example, very subtle qualities of the nature of reality. At the beginning we can only get in touch with perhaps the coarser aspects of the doctrine.
As our mind begins to penetrate deeper and becomes more subtle, then more subtle qualities of that same doctrine become open to us which weren’t available to us before. So there’s a gradual deeper, more sensitized penetration into whatever we’re doing through the process of training our mind, becoming more aware, becoming more sensitive. New worlds begin to open up to us And this all occurs through the process of meditation. And one of the simplest and most fundamental ways of meditating is this mindfulness of breathing, which we begin the evening with. We can begin simply by knowing that we’re breathing in and knowing that we’re breathing out.
It’s getting in touch with the reality of the situation, stepping outside the fantasy of ego which we usually dwell within. This is actually what’s happening here and now. It’s not either a memory or a fantasy. It’s not wrapped up in the past or the future. It’s simply being here now.
It’s training. It’s natural breathing, neither prolonged or shortened. It’s the natural breathing, but when we breathe in we want to know that we’re breathing in, so we note mentally in our mind in. We want to know that we’re breathing out to help us. We note out, in out, in out, mentally we note.
Again, we use a technique because our minds are very coarse, so we need some coarse method, coarse objects for our mind to attend to, to become involved in. So we count, in out one. Mentally we count, in out one, in out two, in out three, in out four, in out five, up to five, back down to one, then up to six. One, two, three, four, five, six, back down to one, up to seven, eight, nine, ten. Okay.
So it’s just natural breathing. Just again and again, just like training a puppy dog, when you’re paper training it, very gently keep bringing the mind back. The mind will wander and be distracted. You simply bring it back and put it back on the paper again, and again, and again. So we try that for a few more.
We’re talking about the Three Principal Aspects of the Path. It’s a very short text by the Tibetan master, the fourteenth century yogi scholar Lama Tsongkhapa, sometimes referred to as Je Rinpoche. We’ve been talking about the Three Principal Aspects of the Path: developing the determination to be free, opening to others, and seeing deeply into the nature of reality. Can you hear me okay in the back?
Yeah? Okay. Was going to read a quotation about refuge, But we’ll talk about determination to be free. determination to be free. It’s usually referred to as renunciation, and renunciation probably sounds like a very heavy word, I don’t know.
Hair shirts and sleeping on nails and things like that. Coming from a word in Tibetan which literally means definite emergence, definite emergence. And I’ve chosen to use the words determination to be free, I think, we begin to identify with that much more readily than perhaps renunciation or definite emergence. What we’re emerging from are these compulsive patterns which keep reoccurring, which are dissatisfactory. We all have some renunciation, some definite emergence, some determination to be free.
You get sick, hunger, thirst, feelings of rejection, depression. We all renounce those, don’t we? Nobody wants those. We all want to definitely emerge out of those hunger, thirst, pain. We all want to grow out of those.
But even animals have that type of renunciation. So that’s not particularly spiritual, that’s not quite unique to humanity. Maybe there’s something, some deeper type of renunciation, some more meaningful type of determination to be free than this mere attitude which we share even with animals, this aversion to suffering, gross suffering. The determination to be free is the determination to go beyond any temporal state bounded by the ego, any compulsive reoccurring pattern. We’ve been talking about a great deal about the nature of these patterns and why they’re dissatisfactory.
It’s this fear of openness, of fluid states, which forces us to react in dependence upon habitual patterns in this way of relating as if these situations were mere repetitions of past situations. It’s this longing, seeing the unsatisfactory quality of this way of relating with others, with objects, and with ourselves by which we develop the determination to be free, to grow out of our particular ego’s version of reality. We all very much have our own particular version of reality. To step outside of this fantasy of ego and get in touch with the way things actually are. We have to renounce, grow out of, if you like, grasping at temporal pleasures as permanent.
You may not think that you do, you know, this particular pleasure, but you have, as I’ve spoken of before, some core assumptions, some beliefs, some sets of ideas which are quite in error, which are quite mistaken, but which you aren’t conscious of. And you base most of your actions, most of your feelings, most of your discriminations, most of your behavior upon some mistaken beliefs, emotions, ideas, assumptions. Based upon these we engage in unskillful actions. Unskillful actions simply can mean relating with reality according to your particular version of it and not how it actually is. In our everyday life we understand that if we misunderstand a particular situation it’s going to cause us problems.
We aren’t going to be able to deal with the situation skillfully. Somebody, a businessman, if he really wants to operate skillfully, he wants as much information, accurate information, as possible. He wants to know the actual situation so he can make intelligent decisions. If he’s given misinformation, he’s going to make wrong decisions no matter how intelligent he may be. One of these is simply that when we experience a pleasure, we act out, we respond from the viewpoint of that this pleasure is permanent.
We act to it as if it were permanent and we grasp to it, we cling to it. And it is this grasping and clinging which turns all our pleasure to pain. You may understand intellectually that pleasures are temporal, they come and go, but this is not how you act. This is not what you believe very deeply. You know, I can say this because we were just talking about how we can have many emotions, we can have many feelings, fears, worries, anxieties, which we’re completely out of touch with because of the coarseness, the grossness of our mind.
That we have another, you know, what Western psychology may call subconscious activities going on constantly influencing our behavior, our emotion, emotional life constantly, which is completely unknown to us. There’s a whole other world within our mind which we are completely out of contact with. So it’s not too far fetched to think that we have completely mistaken beliefs, ideas, assumptions, which we know nothing about, which we may intellectually think in the opposite way. But if we check up in our behavior, in the way we act in the world, we can begin to can begin to acknowledge the fact that yes, there must be some mistaken assumptions, beliefs, ideas, even though I intellectually understand the situation another way. I know it’s not good for me, but it feels so good I can’t help myself.
Our intellectual life, for the most part, bears little influence on our behavior. The priority of pleasure and pain takes priority over logic. The question of pleasure and pain takes precedence over our intellectual processes for most people. As long as we experience a pleasure, a pleasurable person, relationship with the person, a pleasurable situation, a beautiful sunset, pleasurable, sensual entertainment, chocolate cake, whatever. At the moment we’re experiencing that, we’re relating to it as if we’re seeing it and clinging to it as if it were permanent, as if it were going to remain, as if it could remain.
In this way, we relate unskillfully to it, and because of that, it becomes dissatisfactory. The clinging, the grasping turn this pleasurable experience into a painful experience. So at present, we cannot conceive of an alternative to our present conception of pleasure. Many times the lamas, the teachers, they come from Tibet and say, Oh, this is not pleasure. This is not pleasure.
This is suffering. This is dissatisfaction. Your chocolate, oh, chocolate, that’s not happiness. That’s not pleasure. And people think, this is all the pleasure they have, this piece of chocolate.
I’m using it as my example. If they don’t have this as pleasure, they have no pleasure, no happiness. What they’re thinking in their mind is, he is saying this simply because he doesn’t have any chocolate. If he had chocolate, he too would think in the exact same way I’m thinking. He would think that this is happiness, that having this piece of chocolate.
He could not conceive of another type of pleasure outside of this world of chocolate. So grasping to this present pleasure does not allow room for change, for growth, for the development of new conceptions, for the possibility of pleasure, of the possibilities of different types of happiness, more subtle, more refined types of happiness. Because we’re grasping onto this pleasure as if it has to last us the rest of our life. If I don’t have this particular pleasure, I’m never going to have any pleasure again. It may sound strange intellectually, but I think our behavior is based upon this way of thinking, on this belief.
You know, this evening’s pleasure, this person, if I don’t have this person, I’ll die. People do die. Actually, they commit suicide or they just die from a heart attack when somebody leaves them, as if they’re never going to experience pleasure again without this unique particular person. It’s the only person in the world that’s ever going to bring them their pleasure, their happiness. Their whole world becomes centered around this one object, as if this is only source of pleasure in the entire world.
And as if this pleasure could last forever if they can only hold on to it. And that very holding, that very grasping turns that pleasure into pain. This is the way we act. So this is this patterning, this habitual way of reacting, habitual attitudes. This is our style of relating.
All seek to perpetuate and repeat the same pleasures. Perpetuate and repeat the same pleasures again and again and again, trying to get that same pleasure again and again and again, trying to hold on to it as long as possible, and again and again, it brings dissatisfaction. Because we’re not relating with the way things actually are. That pleasure is impermanent. It’s temporary.
No matter how much pleasure we have, there’s always going to be something missing. There’s never going to be enough pleasure. Someone who’s developed this determination to be free, who’s developed renunciation, is simply not fascinated by trying to hold on to pleasure. There’s nothing wrong with pleasure. We should have pleasure.
We should all be blissed out, unremittingly in bliss. This is what Buddhism is saying. It’s not saying there’s anything wrong with pleasure. But if you try to hold on to it, if you try to cling to it, then you’re going to turn that pleasure into pain. But we should have pleasure.
We should have bliss. That’s like our birthright. So we don’t reject pleasure. That’s an ascetic trip. It has nothing to do with the spiritual development of psychological mental training or developing our mind.
But the person who has developed the determination to be free, he’s quite willing to experience pleasure, but he’s not seeking to hold on to it because he’s begun to get an insight into the nature of reality, into this insight of the nature, the quality of pleasure. So he’s not going to reject pleasure, but neither is he going to try to hold on to it. He’s not going to develop the conception that without this particular pleasure, I’m never going to be happy again. Conversely, he’s not going to think, with this particular displeasure, I’m never going to be happy again, as if this particular displeasure was going to remain forever. Quite often we get involved in our problems, difficulties as if they were some thick, heavy cloud which completely envelops us, engulfs us, and we can’t see any way out, as if this cloud was never going to go away.
It’s permanent, and that’s the only thing that exists. We lose perspective, and it becomes a very great source of suffering, as if we’re never going to be happy again, as if the sun is never going to shine again. In these repetitive patterns, trying to order our pleasure, we develop the patterns and habitual responses of shoulds and shouldn’ts, musts and mustn’ts, oughts and oughtn’ts, the way we should and should not relate, know, to find our happiness. Pleasure comes and goes in accordance with the reality of the law of karma. That is simply causes and effects.
If we create the causes, pleasure will arise. It will abide and then it will cease. No matter how much we desire it, if we have not created the cause, we will not experience that pleasure. People want to be loved. People talk about wanting to be loved.
They desire to be loved. How much more love does that desire bring you than if you didn’t desire it at all? If you create the causes to be loved, you will be loved. But that desire to be loved adds something extra. It adds a dissatisfactory quality of suffering which is completely unnecessary.
This came up in a discussion last week. I was thinking about this, this quality of desire to be loved. Actually, very feeling is dissatisfactory in itself, isn’t it? The desire to be loved, the feeling of insecurity. It in itself is an unpleasant experience to desire to be loved.
And does it accomplish its ends? Does it benefit anyone, the desire to be loved? Does it bring you any more love than if you didn’t desire to be loved? Does it make you more lovable by desiring to be loved? And then where is it coming from?
A feeling of insufficiency, of lack, of having to go out and get this love and pull it back into your own territory. This is a very painful experience. Actually, we can’t. The desire to love isn’t going to make us any more lovable, isn’t going to bring us any more love than if we didn’t have this desire. Actually, it may bring about the defeat of our own purpose and all the various pleasures, all the various desires that we have for these pleasures.
The pleasures are going to arise if we’ve created the cause. They’re going to abide and they’re going to cease. They follow the law of cause and effect. Our desire for them is not going to bring them about. Our clinging to hold them is not going to make them last one second longer, and our craving that they not go away is not going to disallow them to cease.
We’re adding something which is totally unnecessary, which is totally dissatisfactory to our own experience, which in no way benefits us but in fact brings us undesired suffering. We develop the attitude that this is the way the universe should be. This ordering, we want to order our whole entire life in order to gain control over this process of being happy, as if desiring to be happy. Desiring these pleasurable objects could in fact by itself bring them into existence. So we want to arrange, order, manipulate, contrive whole world, a whole universe for us to live in.