Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Jampa Gendun opens this 47-minute session with an unusual instruction: learn to sit and do nothing, taking pride in surviving beautifully without achieving — a deliberate challenge to the ego-driven ambition that can turn meditation into spiritual materialism. The main focus is the third principal aspect of the path, seeing deeply into the nature of reality. Using a table as his central example, he walks from everyday description through atomic analysis to emptiness — the ultimate absence of inherent existence. He then sketches four progressive stages of understanding (Hearer, Mind Only, Autonomy, Consequentialist Middle Way), comparing the journey to stepping off a firm riverbank and learning, gradually, to swim freely in the waters of suchness. The talk closes with the question “Who am I?” illustrated through a practical scenario of self-image under threat, and the key distinction between negating the misconceived self and denying that you exist at all.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 3 PA 1989 05 26.mp3
UUID: 6838a4dc-ee49-4abd-ba4a-d24b640a1657
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principal Aspects of the Path 1988-1990 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1989-05-26
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 47.2 minutes
Words: ~4,894
Breathing. Trying to emphasize the attitude to our meditation is probably and it’s part of the meditation. It’s part of what we bring to a meditation derives will determine what we derive from our meditation. And I think very much that our meditation has to be a method to solve our problems. And I think I’ve probably worn this idea onto the ground, but let me wear it a little bit more.
The purpose of meditation is to find a solution to our difficulties. And when we begin to analyze our difficulties, though they can be very complex, they can be very ambiguous, if we were to see them clearly and to analyze them down into their essential points. They are a misconception as to the nature of the self. You know, I talked about these two epistemological errors that we’re involved in, the mistaken understanding of the nature of the self and the ineffectiveness of self-centeredness as a means of finding the happiness that you’re seeking. Somehow, the cause that we’re trying to make use of, the method that we’re trying to work with, has to be in accordance with the result that we’re seeking.
Somehow, if it’s going to be an effective method to solve our problems, the solution that we’re seeking, the method has to be such that it’s not simply going to maintain or complicate or extend our problems, which I think most of us find is what experience in our lives. That the way we try to solve our problems, the various solutions that we come up with, more often than not simply complicate matters much further. You know, is my meditation a way of helping me to see through my mistaken understanding of the nature of the self? Is it moving me toward the understanding of the necessity for a radical transformation of the way I approach, the way I relate with others. If in fact these are our essential errors that we’re involved in.
If in fact these two are the essential sources of our difficulties in our life. And we have to find this out for ourselves. So somehow our meditation has to be in accordance with the solution that we’re working toward. Somehow our meditation has to go beyond the qualities of maintaining, extending, perhaps promoting our various deluding factors in our mind, our emotional afflictions, whatever they might be. The way we can begin to work with this is to develop the attitude in our meditation of making use of our basic intelligence, of allowing our basic intelligence, of not using our meditation as another source of spiritual materialism, if you like.
Not making it a source of another ambitious trip. Something more we can add to our various array of activities that we involve ourselves in, which haven’t perhaps brought us the happiness that we thought it would in the first place. Now the attitude that we can bring to our meditation. 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 could sit down and do nothing. Just sit and do nothing.
Stop acting. Stop speeding. Sit and do nothing. You should take great pride in the fact that you have learned a very valuable lesson, a very valuable message. You actually can survive beautifully by doing nothing.
You know, this quality of ambition that we bring to everything, the sense of having to accomplish to become something other than in fact what we are. The sense of, in meditation, rerooting our sense of identity in being rather than becoming, a new learning, a new way of approaching our life. Stepping outside of quality of ego, of having to constantly be reinforcing itself, constantly being necessary to establish its territory, to reaffirm its credentials, trying to become a perfect meditator, giving a perfect performance. Know, dependent upon our attitude, we can begin to step outside of all of these constant references that ego is manufacturing in order to validate its own existence. We can simply be for a moment.
We can practice that quality of that state. And it begins to carry over into our normal work a day life. So it gives us a chance, an opportunity to practice sanity, what I call. We can begin to just simply by accepting the fact, you know, you become bored meditating on the breath. You know, gosh, I guess.
Why do you become bored? What is there that what you know, what does it feel like to be bored? What is you know, what is it? What is boredom? It means you don’t want to be where you’re at now.
You want to be somewhere else. You cannot appreciate the present moment. You don’t appreciate yourself. Always having this quality of always having to, for example, entertain the ego. Always having to be somewhere else to be achieving something ambitious quality.
A sense of boredom is the initial resistance of the ego against being in the present moment, simply being here now. Simply watching the breath, example, beginning to appreciate the breath, taking that as your sole job. Not that you’re going to drive anything out of it, not that you’re going to have any mystical experiences out of it, but simply as a method of being in the present moment, not drawing on any fantasies or memories, beginning to short circuit this ongoing process of having to entertain your ego. You know, we can learn that we can survive beautifully without doing anything. But what we mean by anything, by doing nothing, is the quality of letting ourselves be.
The non ambitious, the quality of simply being here now. It’s not you know, we’re very much imbued with the puritanical the puritan ethic. We have to be doing something to feel good about ourselves. And to be able to do nothing and still feel good about yourself is a great lesson. And we can begin to drive that lesson through the simple minded sanity of mindfulness of breathing.
Just to feel good about surviving beautifully doing nothing. We’ll meditate on mindfulness and breathing for the first five minutes. Then we recite the verse of refuge. Did everyone survive beautifully? They’re going for refuge.
And this continual reorientation setting of priorities, readjusting your values of what you feel is important to yourself, what actually you see as real sources of satisfaction and meaning in your life. Autonomously derive values for yourself that you worked out for yourself. Creative values rather than perhaps reactive values. Within your own experience, what has actually worked for you? What has actually brought you happiness?
And recommitting yourself. So going for refuge is primarily committing yourself to growth, to happiness, and to actualizing all our potentials. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, I go for refuge until I am enlightened Through the merit I create by practicing and giving in 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. Through the merit I create by practicing giving any 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 through the merit I create by practicing giving and the other perfections. May I attain good root for the sake of all. So we’re discussing the three principal aspects of the path. determination to be free, opening your heart to others, and seeing deeply into the nature of reality.
We’re working on the third principal aspect of the path, seeing deeply into the nature of reality. When we talk about seeing deeply into the nature of reality, seeing again the way things actually are, that this is a healing process, a therapeutic process, a way of actually solving our problems. It’s because we don’t understand the way things are that we act in discordance with the way things are, that we come in conflict with the way things are, and therefore experience dissatisfaction, disappointment, have problems in general. This quality of seeing the way things are divorced, of our beliefs about them, of our assumptions about them, our preconceptions about them. Seeing things in and of themselves, how they in fact are.
This is what I mean by seeing. And when I say deeply, we mean ultimately the way things are in its deepest most sense, the final reality, the most basic nature, seeing deeply into the nature of reality. When I talk about seeing deeply, what we come to understand upon ultimate analysis, a type of analysis which we cannot go any deeper than final analysis. This is what I mean by seeing deeper. Know, beneath beneath the superficial appearances that we usually are caught up in.
You know, it’s like, you know, the story by Plato. Seeing beyond the shadows in our cave to what are the actual figures outside in reality which are casting those shadows. Seeing beneath the illusions or the appearances and down to the source of those appearances, of those illusions. For example, talking about the various levels that we can understand an object, and the various ways that we can look at an object. For example, this table.
We can look at this table on a superficial level, we can look at it all the way down to a very final level, its mode of existence. Superficially, if we examine the table, can say it’s made out of wood, it’s red, it’s about a meter long, thirty centimeters wide, thirty centimeters tall. And this is quite useful way of looking at things, especially if you need a table and something to set your papers on. It’s very function. It has its use.
It’s true. This table is made out of wood. It’s red and has such and such dimension. That’s one level of understanding the table. If we were to examine a little bit further, the table is made up of atoms.
It’s not quite as solid as it appears. Upon analysis, we begin to understand things aren’t quite perhaps the way they appear. That in fact, you know, this table is made up of more space than it is solid matter, even though it doesn’t appear that way. So we’re to use our reasoning. It’s not obvious to us, this understanding of the nature of a deeper mode of existence at the table.
But it’s useful. It’s useful to physicists, chemists, biologists to understand things on this level. And we could go to a deeper level, understand this table as simply probability patterns of some subatomic particles. And maybe this would be of use to I don’t know. Somebody knew.
A PhD thesis student or something like that. Anyway, that’s another level. That’s true. That’s the way the table exists on that particular level. But if we carry our analysis to its furthermost point, to a point which there seems to be no more subtle, no more deeper way of its existence, then we come to its final mode of existence.
This is what we mean when we say seeing deeply into the nature of reality. Its ultimate reality. Its ultimate mode of existence. And this is what we’re calling emptiness. The ultimate mode of existence of all phenomena.
Emptiness. When I say the word emptiness, kind of what appears in your mind. It’s kind of a vacuum, maybe. I don’t know. So we have to begin to work on this to try to understand to get a feeling for what emptiness might be like.
The deepest way the table exists, its ultimate mode of existence, we call this it lacks inherent existence. It lacks objective existence. It lacks natural existence. It lacks true existence. It lacks existence from its own side.
And these are all different statements of meaning the same thing, all trying to get at the same thing from slightly different angles, different points of view. It doesn’t exist objectively, for example. This idea of natural existence isn’t a concept which is being superimposed by some philosophical system. It’s our natural way of viewing the table, instinctively. We view the table as if it existed objectively, as if it had natural existence, for example.
So we’re not talking about some philosophic system, but an instinctive, natural way that we view all phenomena. So we have to become aware of how our mind is operating, how it relates with phenomena. That is, things are empty of a fantasized way of existing, that we impose, we project a certain way of existing upon things which isn’t there. The things are empty of that way of existing, as if things existed concretely, independently out there. Phenomena, tables, chairs, people, houses, cars, beauty, happiness, are things which are empty of inherent existence.
So the essence of Buddhism, essence of Buddhist practice hinges on the realization of emptiness. But when we say inherent existence, objective existence, natural existence, nothing appears to our mind. The notion of inherent existence is so far removed from our everyday way of relating, from our everyday way of thinking, that when we hear about it, when we begin to come in contact with it for the first time, it’s very difficult to begin to get a handle on it. Nothing appears to our mind when we say naturally existent. We have to understand what naturally existent means because to understand emptiness is to understand the absence of inherent existence, the lack of inherent existence, the negation of inherent existence.
But it’s completely removed from our everyday thinking because we think naturally in the opposite way, unconsciously, unknowingly, without awareness. So without identifying what inherent existence is like, we’re never going to be able to identify what its absence is like. And its absence is emptiness. And we’re trying to understand emptiness. We’re trying to see deeply into the nature of reality.
Of all of these levels of fantasized ways of existing that we impose, that we project upon objects, this lack of this inherent existence, the conception of inherent existence is the most subtle. I’ve been talking about the necessity to come to a gradual understanding. As a prerequisite to understanding the notion of inherent existence and thus emptiness, We have to understand coarser, fantasized ways of existing that we’re projecting upon phenomena, upon ourselves, upon every object. I mentioned last week about these. This involves progressing through four different recognizable stages that we’re going to work through.
I talked about the Hearer stage, the Mind Only stage, the Autonomy Middle Way school stage, and the Consequentialist Middle Way school stage. So these are just names. We’re not going to talk philosophic complexity, but how they actually relate with our mind from a point of view of practice, from a point of view of how our mind is operating. At this point, we’re not interested in the various philosophical complexities of Buddhism. All of these stages that I’ve just named, these four stages, are named after particular Buddhist schools that formulated them.
But in fact, they represent stages in the development of an individual’s understanding of the nature of reality. And you’re working through just like an archaeologist through levels, mistaken models of our notion of what reality is about, deeper and deeper, till you come to the bedrock, till we actually begin to work with our basic misbelief, our basic misconception. So each level of this understanding is going to build upon the preceding one. Each stage challenges more and more deeply held beliefs about the way things are. More and more deeply held views are models of reality, our projected fantasized ways that we see things to exist, that we hold on very tightly to as if our life depended upon them.
This is you know, letting go of these views, letting go of mistaken models of reality. It’s quite a a you know, all these fixed beliefs, it’s quite a it’s a difficult process. It’s said that those with little, we call personal power or positive potential, that when they first get some glimpse, insight into selflessness, they become very afraid, feel like they’re losing something. But those with great personal power, great positive potential, they have a feeling of exhilaration, as if they’ve had this bundle of thorns taken off their back, they’ve been carrying around their whole life wherever they went. There was this bundle of thorns attached to their back, always sticking up.
And they first get their glimpse of egolessness, of selflessness. So it depends very much upon the individual, upon their personal power. There was a case when Tsongkhapa, who composed the text that we’re looking at, he was giving a teaching. And one of the students during the teaching began the student caught some glimpse, initial glimpse of what selflessness was like, has an insight. And he became very afraid.
And he grabbed upon his robe, you know, trying to like a drowning man trying to grasp a straw, seeking some security. The world was a little bit shaky for a moment. And it is said that Tsongkhapa, you know, because clairvoyant power realized that his student had just had some insight to emptiness. And he announced to the crowd that such and such student just had realized emptiness upon his realization. It very much depends, as I mentioned last week, on how much personal power, how much fearlessness we have in working through.
And we have to be motivated. And this is the necessity for the prerequisite of developing a determination to be free. Without this, we’re not going to take up the difficult task of going beyond all our mistaken beliefs about who we are. Gaining insight, overcoming the resistance, and letting go. It’s a very gradual process.
It’s expressed through these four stages. Sometimes in Tibetan they use the analogy of someone standing upon the riverbank. It’s very solid, very firm, very secure. And this is compared to the naive realist. Things are the way they appear, no question, no doubt, not even the necessity to question.
But then, for one reason or another, begin to see that our view is invalidated, that somehow our particular models are seen as coming into conflict with our own experience. And perhaps we have the great fortune to come under the guidance of a teacher who says, Well, let’s take a look at your structures that you’ve developed, some of your beliefs. Maybe we can begin to restructure them, reshape them, more in accordance with the way things actually are, which are validated by your actual experience, which are validated by your own reasoning. So they begin to step out into the water, and test the water at the toe. As they begin to move out deeper and deeper into the water, to begin to look deeper and deeper into the actual nature of who they are, in fact, and what is the nature of reality.
At first, it’s quite a frightening experience. Perhaps they aren’t such good swimmers. They hold onto a log. Then they go out in the water, and they go out deeper, deeper analysis, deeper analysis. With great fearlessness and confidence in overcoming hesitation, finally they developed the ability to let go of the log.
This is the quality of coming to a deeper understanding. And they found, in the end, there was no need to be afraid. That even the necessity of fear was an illusion. But from standing from a fixed place upon that shore, you’re fixed with fear to playing like a porpoise in the waters of suchness, in the waters of reality. That’s a long journey, a long journey of learning, a long journey of overcoming resistance, a long journey of overcoming fear.
A long journey of gaining insight into operation of your mind, of what the mistaken models that you hold are, and beginning to restructure them. And then going beyond all models altogether, and dwelling within the reality, and the being there now. This unfolding, restructuring, letting go. Within Buddhism, there are four schools, four philosophic tenets, systems which had been formulated. The Buddha taught in accordance with the needs, with the disposition, with the capacity of each of his students.
Whatever would progress that particular student at that particular time along their particular spiritual path, that’s what the Buddha would teach. He even taught some that things exist truly, there is a solid self, a soul if you like. For their sake, this was the appropriate teaching. This was what they needed at that moment. So out of all his variety of teachings, different levels, different capacities in accordance with the various needs, these were later systematized into what became known as the four schools.
Tenets, the Buddha did not teach these four tenets. They were systematized by later students of Buddhism. The four tenets are four schools of Buddhism. Great Exposition School, Sūtra School, Mind Only School, and Middle Way School. Great Exposition School, Sūtra School, Mind Only School, Middle Way School.
As I mentioned, these schools represent a progression in the subtlety of understanding with regard to the nature of reality from the atomic theory of the great exposition school up to the participatory universe of the middle way school. And these represent stages in the development of an individual’s understanding of emptiness, reality. So for this reason, the first two schools, the great exposition school and the sūtra school, are combined into one. We call this the hearer’s stage because their view of the nature of the self, of the nature of the phenomenon in general are for all intents and purposes the same. We can combine those into one.
Again, for this same purpose, we divide the middle way school into two, into the stage of the autonomy middle way stage and the Consequentialist Middle Way stage because there’s a subtle difference in their understanding, in their view the final reality. You know, one of them is slightly holding on to a twig. Know, they all taught me at middle way school, they can’t quite let go. They don’t have that fearlessness, that confidence. It’s only the final thought of the Buddha which is reflected in the Consequentialist Middle Way school where they completely let go and they see reality as it actually is.
These four stages, hearer stage, mind only stage, autonomy middle way stage, Consequentialist Middle Way stage, represent the learning process in coming to a correct understanding of the nature of reality. You know, just like learning any technical subject, there necessarily has to be a gradual working through the very basics, and then upon that, building up more and more until one actually can understand the very subtle details. So we begin with the hearer stage. We begin to ask the question, Who am I? Who am I?
Maybe you might question in return, Who cares? Which might be a valid question. What does it matter? Who am I? Why bother?
Buddhism would say, you should care. It’s important to know that you would do well to ask that question and try as best you can to begin to understand it, to realize that answer. Because you’re presently unconscious and instinctive confusion about just who you are is the condition dependent upon which all your various difficulties, all your various sufferings, all your various dissatisfactions arise. Because you don’t know who you are, because you have misconceptions about who you are, you suffer. Therefore, it’s important to begin to understand who in fact you are.
What is the nature of yourself? What is the nature of the I? What is the nature of the person? It’s important because you want to be happy, and you cannot without understanding it. From a very it’s not something abstract and theoretical.
It’s based within our own existence, that we have to make effort in this direction to understand this question. As I mentioned, the two epistemological errors, a pathology of our miseries. One of these is misunderstanding who we are. Again, I talked about the point, to emphasize this point. Buddhism is not telling anybody that they should or should not believe in itself.
The Buddhist position is that when one looks at the way one thinks and responds emotionally to life, It is as if The way you respond emotionally, the way you think, if you look at that, it is as if you believed that there was a self that was singular, that was unchanging, that was independently existing. This is your emotional response. But upon analysis, no such self can be isolated. We can’t find such a self, but you respond as if such a self did in fact exist. And that such a life based upon such an assumption is marked by dissatisfaction by suffering.
But on the other hand, a type of life which is not based upon that assumption, in the belief of a singular, unchanging, independently existing self, is marked with nondissatisfaction, nonsuffering. Even more so, in the positive frame, spontaneity, meaningfulness, joy, peace. I say, Hey, stupid. I call. Oh, you’re so damn stupid, ugly.
You know, you know, if I singled out in front of you. Now why what how would you react? How would you respond? You know, you know we’re playing a game, so but still, singling you out, would there’d be some response. Just that fact.
But if in fact this were a you thought that I really meant that. Oh, you’re so stupid, so ugly. What would be your natural reaction? You respond emotionally with fear, shame, anger, aggression. That would be your natural response.
That would be your natural emotional response. You know, okay, we can look at it very simply, most simply. And we can see that your self image was under threat. The idea, the notion, the model that you have about who you think you are. I’m this much beautiful.
I’m this much intelligent. And if you’re a significant person and you’re threatening my model, watch out. Hurts, doesn’t it, to have your model threatened? But we don’t think of it as a model. I am this model.
My model is me. We completely identify with this model that we’ve constructed about ourselves. We don’t see it as a model. When my model’s under threat, I’m under threat. Without this mistaken belief we’re doing something on a very simplistic level.
Without this mistaken belief that I am my model of who I am, and we each have a model of who we think we are, our self image, our self identity, our ego identity. Without this mistaken belief that I am this model, then without this basic confusion, without this basic bewilderment about who in fact we are, your mind would consistently remain at peace. It would be impossible for qualities of afflicted emotions such as attachment, hatred, anger, spite, jealousy, miserliness to arise. You know, I call your model a bad name. You’re not hurting me.
You’re hurting my model. Why should I get angry? Therefore, asking and trying to answer the question, Who am I? And trying to understand it very deeply is extremely important. Ultimately, happiness depends upon it.
Your ultimate happiness depends upon it. It depends upon realizing the answer to Okay, but one important point we have to clear up that’s essential that we keep in mind throughout all of this discussion. You know, it’s very important to keep in mind that I, in fact, exist. Yeah? I’m talking to you.
Maybe you’re listening to me. You know, I exist. You exist. There’s no problem with that. Never has been.
What we’re talking about is the misconceived I, the misconceived self, the misconceived person. This is the source of our problem. Not the I, not the self, not the person, but the misconceived I, the misconceived self, the misconceived person. So we have to keep this in mind that I exist. What we’re trying to understand, what we’re negating is a misconceived I, which has never existed and will never exist.
What we’re negating is a misconceived self, a misconceived person which has never existed and will never exist. But simply because I negate, I refute, I understand the nonexistence of such a type of self doesn’t mean that I do not exist. In fact, I exist. Who is asking these questions? Who is carrying out this analysis?
I am. So the question about whether I exist or not, there should be no doubt about that. So the question about who am I? Who am I? It’s not strictly an Eastern question.
It’s been asked in the Western tradition also. But I think perhaps mostly out of an essentially a philosophical analysis. And maybe, I don’t know, maybe most of the inquiry into the nature of the self was not seen as therapeutic perhaps. It remained purely on a philosophic plan. For example, you know, some various Western philosophers and what they said about the nature of the self, the nature of the eye.