Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Jampa Gendun opens this 45-minute commentary with a question drawn from Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra: if another’s suffering causes me no harm, why should I protect them? That debate anchors his treatment of the second principal aspect of the path — opening the heart to others. He first revisits the first aspect, distinguishing momentary resolve to change from the steady, unconditional determination that genuine renunciation requires. Working through Śāntideva’s argument, he deploys the hand-and-foot analogy: a hand removes a thorn from a foot without deliberating ownership, because both are limbs of one body — and so compassion for all beings is rational, not merely sentimental. Wisdom and compassion are framed as two mutually reinforcing wings. The session closes with a structured loving-kindness meditation that expands outward from self to friend, stranger, and enemy, and finally through all of space.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 3 PA 1998 04 22.mp3
UUID: c21eafb2-4556-4538-82e7-0d361e51ac3a
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principal Aspects of the Path 1988-1990 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1998-04-22
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.0 minutes
Words: ~4,169
It’s advisable to use it only when you are having great difficulties. And at such times, it’s quite difficult to make skillful use of the practices. We’re talking about the expression of Dharma in the teaching by Tsongkhapa called the three principal aspects of the path. The path in the sense of that which takes us from our present dissatisfactory states as an ordinary person to the place where we can really begin to solve our problems in a very realistic way, where we become extraordinary. This path has three principal aspects: developing the determination to be free, opening to others and seeing deeply into the nature of reality.
So we’ve completed the first of these three paths. It’s determination to be free, determination to change. Again, when things are going badly, when you’re really depressed, you’re really hurting, almost everyone will think, I’ve got to change. I can’t go on like this. I can’t allow my life to go on any longer like this.
Almost anyone, even a very unintelligent, even a very unaware, unimaginative person, would think this. So this isn’t the determination to be free. It’s when there’s a consistent, steady stream of this determination, times are good, whether times are bad, knowing that the unskillful attitudes are still within your mind, that any compulsive pattern, knowing that any state bounded by ego is dissatisfactory, that you want to go beyond all these, that you want to grow out of all these dissatisfactory states, emerge out of all these reoccurring patterns, then you’re developing the determination to be free, not just when things are going badly, when times are difficult, the momentary inspiration to change. Seeing deeply into our own situation, the reality of our situation. Wanting to renounce the source of suffering, the cause of suffering.
What the warrior renounces is anything in his experience that is a barrier between himself and others. In other words, renunciation is making yourself more available, more gentle and open to others. We have two overall aspects to ourselves. There’s the aspect of ourselves which is private, experiential, not open to the public. And there’s the aspect of ourselves which is social, which stands into relationship with others.
So the method of the great vehicle, the method of the Mahāyāna, we talk about holistic, dealing with the whole being, whether it’s mind or body. In terms of mind, any type of mental training, if it’s going to deal with the whole being, it must deal with these two aspects of our self, this private experiential world which is not open to others, and our social self, the self which stands in relationship to others. Any type of holistic approach to mental health, to sanity, is going to have to take into consideration both of these aspects of ourselves. Taking merely one of them is going to be an imbalance. It’s not going to help us realize our complete potential.
We want to create a balance. We want to cultivate both of these aspects of ourselves completely. The needs of our private self and the needs of our social self. In a way, when we talk about our social self, if we take a greater perspective, we’re talking about fulfilling the needs of oneself and the needs of others. Are creating, just as we create this artificial division between our private self, experiential self, and the social self, public self, that we create this artificial division likewise, we create a division between self and others in a greater, broader perspective.
Neither of these divisions are ultimately existent. So if we’re going to become whole and healthy, happy human beings, we have to begin to see that these divisions that we’ve created within ourselves and between ourselves, between myself and you, are just merely conventional. They don’t absolutely exist. Self and others are not to be grasped as ultimately separate, as ultimately different, as ultimately distinct. That we grasp to the distinction between my welfare and your welfare as ultimately existent is through the epistemological error of self grasping and self-cherishing.
Epistemological error, epistemology simply meaning the way we know things. We’re making some mistake in the way we understand the world. We make a distinction between my welfare and your welfare. This distinction does not exist in reality. It does not exist ultimately.
It’s based on some mistakes. There are two types of mistakes: self grasping, conceiving of an independent, permanent, unchanging, partless self, soul, ego and then the affliction of self-cherishing of exaggerated self concern of thinking that we have to get ours first in order to be happy. Both of these are not in accordance with the way things are, but they’re very unskillful misunderstandings, misconceptions. They are in fact the source of all of our suffering. From the suffering of a mosquito bite up to the suffering of hell, are based upon these two mistaken misconceptions.
There’s one of the most important books within Tibetan Buddhism. There’s a book by Śāntideva. This is translated here as the Bodhicaryāvatāra. It outlines a system for cultivating what in Sanskrit is termed bodhicitta. It’s the altruistic aspiration to achieve highest enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings, which is a lot to say.
Basically we’re talking about love and compassion, or how I term it, opening to others, opening our heart to others. So he’s talking about these epistemological errors, these mistakes that we’re making. He’s trying to show us that there’s something crooked about our thinking, there’s something irrational. If we check up, which we don’t do very often, a great deal of our behavior is based upon irrational thinking, misconceptions. To that extent, we mistake, we create unskillful actions, and we suffer.
When both myself and others are similar in that we wish to be happy, what is so special about me? Why do I strive for my happiness alone? When both myself and others are similar in that we do not wish to suffer, what is so special about me? Why do I protect myself and not others? Now we’re going to have a debate.
There’s going to be a debate between the author, Śāntideva, and someone who is quite reasonable, who is quite reasonable. This other person who Śāntideva is debating says, But why should I protect them? If their suffering does not cause me any harm, then why protect myself? He’s saying, Why should I protect them if their suffering does not cause me any harm? That’s rather reasonable, isn’t it, at first glance? Why should I go out of my way to protect something that I’m not, something that is other than me?
We’re trying to develop a reasonable basis for opening our hearts to others. It can’t be simply a matter of sentimentality. It can’t be merely a romantic notion. It has to be rooted within reason, intuition, experience, pragmatism, utilitarianism. We have to have some real existential basis for opening our hearts to others.
Otherwise, if we develop love, compassion based merely on sentimentality, merely on romantic notions, when the sun is shining, everything’s going to be fine. But when the storm comes, when things become difficult, we’re going to forget all that nonsense and we’re going to go our own way and take care of ourselves. So we have to have something which is going to stabilize this opening our heart to others, which is going to serve us through difficult times and good times alike. The only thing which can serve is something which is based on a rational approach, which is based within our own experience, something which vibrates within our heart. He’s being asked, Why should I protect someone other than myself?
A reasonable question. Śāntideva answers, Then why protect myself against future sufferings? It causes me no harm now. Though he’s beginning to approach the idea, We save up for our old age, social security. That person is going to You’re giving up some money now that you could be spending enjoying yourself at this very moment.
The person who’s going to reap the benefits of you setting aside all that money isn’t the person you are now. That’s going to be another person. This is a little more subtle idea, isn’t it? The idea of change, of impermanence, that the person I’m going to be thirty years from now isn’t the person I am now. Yet, I’m willing to set aside money, I’m willing to forego some present pleasure in order for that person thirty years from now for that person to be happy.
So we’re starting to introduce the idea of helping another person, even if it’s only my projected self in the future. It is a mistaken conception to think that I shall experience the suffering of my next life, for it is another person who dies and another person that will be reborn. So this perhaps certainly has force for someone who has confidence, conviction in the idea of rebirth. In Buddhism, they talk a great deal about merit, virtue, positive energy, so that you will have happiness in the future life. In fact, that person isn’t When you die, when Jampa, this monk, when he dies, he’s finished.
It’s all over for him. The person who takes rebirth, is going to enjoy that fruit of that merit, who is going to enjoy all that positive energy that I built up, he may have a connection with me, but he’s not me. So why should I go to trouble for somebody like that when I’m not going to be enjoying it? But we do it anyway. We save up for our future happiness, even in this life, and many people who have conviction in the thought of rebirth create actions specifically designed for happier experiences, states in the future.
Now we’re going to go on in an argument and this debater, this objector. He says, It’s quite reasonably, surely whenever there is suffering, the sufferer must protect himself from it. If I’m suffering, it’s like it’s my responsibility to protect myself from my suffering. If you’re suffering, it’s your responsibility to protect your suffering from your suffering. That’s quite a reasonable argument.
The Śāntideva goes on to say, But the suffering of the foot is not of the hand. Why then does it protect it? If we can begin to approach this idea, you’re walking along, you step on a thorn. The hand doesn’t say to the foot, Hey, that’s not my suffering. You take care of your problems, I’ll take care of my problems.
What does it do? It reaches down. Even though the hand is not suffering in the least, but it reaches down and takes the thorn out of the foot. It’s a very compassionate hand. In the same way as the hand and so forth are regarded as the limbs of the body, likewise, why are embodied creatures not regarded as limbs of life?
So we’re getting into the idea of because the hand and the body are part of some greater whole, then it’s quite reasonable for the hand to take the responsibility to alleviate the suffering of the foot because they’re part of the same whole. Śāntideva is putting forth Because human beings, because all sentient beings are part of the whole, are part of this thing called life, then it’s quite reasonable to alleviate suffering wherever it is found. Because being no inherent owner of suffering, there can be no distinction at all between that of myself and others. Thus I shall dispel it because it hurts. Why am I so certain that I shouldn’t eliminate the suffering of others?
We’re getting back to the idea the ultimate nature of I and you. This does not ultimately exist, this distinction that we’re making. It merely exists as a convention, as a way of referring to ourselves. It does not ultimately exist, just as from the point of view of the far mountain and the near, you know, far and near. If we walk over to where far is, the far becomes near, and the near becomes far.
They’re not absolutely existent. They’re dependent upon each other, dependent which merely as a reference point. You have your reference point, I have my reference point, but this is merely a convention that we use, a manner of speaking. I and you, self and others, do not ultimately exist. That we think we do, that we grasp at these as ultimately existing, is one of these epistemological errors of self grasping.
It’s not based in actual fact. In this way, compassion is a kind of wisdom. Born out of an insight into our conventional and ultimate reality of ourselves and others. Know, compassion says there is suffering. It is to be eliminated.
When this this thought, there is suffering, it is to be eliminated when it’s directed towards yourself, we develop the determination to be free. When this thought, There is suffering, it is to be eliminated, it is directed toward others, we develop an opening of our hearts towards others. When it’s directed without distinction, without discrimination between others and self, then it becomes the objectless, the objectless compassion of a Buddha. The Buddha does not conceive himself in others. It’s said that the Buddha It’s like environmental generosity.
There is suffering, it should be eliminated. There’s no sense of my suffering, your suffering, it is simply suffering. The Buddha’s actions are compared to, for example, a wish granting tree. The wish granting tree has no particular intentions to grow fruit. It simply is responding to its environment, and people come and pluck the fruit, enjoy the fruit, become nourished by the fruit.
It’s simply responding to needs, responding to its environment without any thought of intention, without any thought of discrimination, that I am actually helping someone else. You’re simply suffering, and it is to be eliminated. This compassion is opening to others. Is the social expression of wisdom. It arises most forcefully by first seeing deeply into our own situation, our own and others, both conventionally and ultimately.
Just like myself, every sentient being wants to be happy, no difference whatsoever. Just like myself, every sentient being does not want to suffer. Just like myself, no difference whatsoever. Exactly the same. It’s said that wisdom and compassion are like the two wings of a bird, the two wings of enlightenment.
It says in the Entering the Middle Way that the bodhisattva, feathered by the two wings of compassion and wisdom, leads his flock over the fields of suffering to the shore of enlightenment, to the shore of Gone Beyond Sorrow. So we need both of these wings if we’re going to fly, if we’re ever going to make it, if we’re ever going to fulfill our complete potential, actualize all that we can be, all that what it means to be a human being. We have to develop both compassion, opening to others, and wisdom, seeing deeply into the nature of reality, the way things actually are. These two are both based on developing the determination to be free. This is the foundation.
Wisdom and compassion are the static and dynamic modes of reality, They’re inseparable. In aiming at our own growth, by means of that, we aim at the growth of all sentient beings. There’s a point when the bodhisattva he’s not it becomes like a positive feedback system Because he’s so bound up in benefiting others, that in benefiting others he benefits himself, and in benefiting himself he benefits others. It becomes no distinction. This development of altruistic aspiration to achieve highest enlightenment, that he makes the resolution that I must achieve the most skillful means by which to benefit others, by which to alleviate the suffering of others, his whole life becomes dedicated.
Sometimes it’s referred to as the dedicated heart. His whole life becomes dedicated to seeking the perfection of means to alleviate the suffering of others. Therefore, the greater is compassion, the greater is drive to grow in wisdom, which is the means. The greater is wisdom, the greater is able to actually benefit others. One fosters the other, one complements the other.
As he grows in compassion, grows in wisdom. As he grows in wisdom, he grows in compassion, and they both become one. He does not even differentiate between his own benefit and the benefit of others. There is only suffering which is to be eliminated, and there is only this unity of method and wisdom, compassion and seeing deeply into the nature of reality. And this is his life.
I think we’ll stop there. It’s difficult. We can talk about such a state of mind, such aspiration, but it’s difficult for us to conceive ourselves individually ever developing such a state. We look at Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, Mahatma Gandhi, And somehow we have the feeling that maybe they have loving molecules in their brain or something, carrying electrons, concerned atoms. Like they were born that way, that’s the way they are, that they didn’t develop in that way.
But if we look at ourselves, our own experience, we could not have imagined, conceived of the mind that we have now, the views, the ideas, the feelings that we have at present, we could not have conceived of them ten years before, how we would have felt now, what views we might hold now, what ideas we might value now, what principles we have now. Even though we may have had no direction in our lives, even though all these various states of mind were arising haphazardly, know, hit and miss, we had no particular goals, no particular ideas or principles, still we couldn’t have conceived of who we are now ten years ago. Why can’t we If we have some direction, if we make some effort consistently, why cannot we develop states of mind which we cannot conceive of now, inconceivable states of mind, if even in a mundane sense we developed we weren’t able to conceive of our mind, the present mind, ten years ago? There’s no reason why we can’t. You know, the mind in itself has no inherent qualities, either good or bad.
It’s like some soft clay. We can make anything out of it we desire, that we want, if we have the skill and means, and we make the effort. We can shape any type of mind, any type of life that we that we think is worthwhile. Even the journey of a thousand miles has to begin with the first step. And if we just make some small consistent effort, then I think we may become something which we hadn’t quite ever imagined we could be, that even now we couldn’t conceive of ourselves ever becoming.
Buddha is your mind and the way goes nowhere. Don’t look for anything but this. If you point your cart north when you want to go south, how will you ever arrive? If you point your cart north when you want to go south, how will you arrive? If we simply begin to choose what direction we want our life to go in, direction that we want our mind to develop, Then we will arrive there.
But if we never make this choice, if we are forever indecisive, if we are ever pointing our mind in the wrong directions, we are never going to arrive. Now we will meditate on loving kindness. Consider your own difficulties, problems, and the fact that you want to be happy. Whatever you may have done in the past, whatever mistakes you may have created, you can simply regret them. As best you can, determine not to repeat them again in the future and begin again.
However you may conceive of yourself, whatever identity you may hold, self image, you can change. You can become anything that you want to be. You can begin again. For the present, we have to accept ourselves, all of ourselves, both the good and the bad, become friends with all the various parts of ourselves, be gentle with ourselves, quit torturing ourselves, and wish ourselves well. Simply direct positive feelings towards yourself.
Have some compassion for yourself. May I be happy? May I not suffer? May I grow? Be well?
Direct good feelings towards yourself. Now think of someone that you like, that you love, someone of the same sex, and imagine that person in front of you. If you can’t see them, it doesn’t matter. Just feel that they’re there. And remember all the good times that you shared together, all the kindness that this person has shown you, the happiness that you’ve had.
Direct the warm, caring feelings which naturally arise, wishing this person happiness, radiating out positive feelings towards this person. May you be happy. May you have everything that you desire. May only good things happen to you. May you never suffer.
Now think of someone that you neither like nor dislike, a stranger, someone for whom you feel indifference. Imagine that person in front of you. And we have to try to go beneath the superficial appearances that we usually grasp at, whether this is a male or a female, beautiful, ugly, the color, social status, economic status, education, intelligence, personality. Try to go deep. Try to see the essential person.
That person who wants happiness, just like yourself. That person doesn’t want to suffer, just like yourself. Just as we wish our own self happiness, we have to begin to wish this essential person happiness because it’s very much a reflection of how we feel about ourselves deep down, since we’re exactly the same deep down. Direct positive feelings toward this person, wishing them happiness. Think of someone who disturbs your mind, who you have problems with, an enemy.
Imagine that person in front of you. This person wants happiness and doesn’t want to suffer just like yourself. Perhaps their method of finding happiness, eliminating their suffering, has come in conflict with your method of finding your happiness, eliminating your suffering. There’s just a conflict of interest. You’ve hurt others, either intentionally or unintentionally, the past to find the happiness that you were looking for.
Now this person has done the same thing to you. If we’re ever going to forgive ourselves for the mistakes that we’ve made, we have to begin to forgive this person for their mistakes. So just for the moment, set aside your grudge, your hurt, your anger, and try to see someone very much like yourself, someone who wants to be happy, trying the best they can to get some happiness out of their life, being confused about how to go about it, and making many, many mistakes along the way, and wish them happiness. Now imagine all four people together, yourself and these three other people. Try to see them from their essential equality, that they all want happiness, that none want to suffer exactly the same, no difference whatsoever, Radiate out wishes of happiness, positive feelings, equally to all four without any bias, without holding some close, without pushing others away.
And all the people in this room, people trying to take responsibility for their lives, for their happiness, People making effort. Radiate out positive feelings to everyone in the room. May you be happy. May you find peace. May you help others, love others, and be loved by others.
And all the people on the block, eating, cooking, reading newspaper, watching television, getting ready for bed, washing. Whatever they’re doing, whatever they’re saying, they’re doing it and saying it in order to find happiness. Radiate out positive feelings, touching everyone on the block, wishing them happiness. And all the people in Adelaide driving in their cars and buses, walking on the streets, in their homes. Radiating out, extending out further and further, opening your heart to all of South Australia, all the people, animals, insects.
Further, extending up further and further, Alice Springs, Perth, Darwin, Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Hobart, the entire country. And further and further, radiating out positive feelings, wishing happiness, New Zealand. Further and further the entire southern hemisphere, enveloping the entire world in your heart in your concern. All the people, black, white, red, yellow, all the animals, all the insects, everything that lives on the earth is touched by your caring. And further extending out into space, radiating out good feelings.
To finally, without any boundaries, without any center, pervading infinite space, Feeling may all things be happy. May all things be happy. Now we’ll dedicate the positive energy that we’ve created towards the fulfillment of that wish. Through these merits, may I soon attain the enlightened state of Guru Buddha, and may lead every migrating being without exception to that state. May the precious bodhicitta not yet born arise and grow.
May that born have no decline, but increase forevermore. Thank you.