Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Opening with William James, Sartre, and Gregory Bateson on the constructed, elusive nature of selfhood, Ven Jampa Gendun uses Western thinkers to frame a Buddhist investigation of emptiness in this 44-minute session. He argues that identifying the “object of negation” — the misconceived self we actually cling to emotionally, not the one we dismiss in cool reflection — requires evoking it under conditions of strong feeling rather than intellectual analysis. He then maps three experiential features of that habitual self: separateness, persistence, and autonomy. A Q&A explores what continuity of self means across lifetimes, leading to the Middle Way school’s view of the “merely labeled I” — a self that exists only as a designation projected onto the changing body-mind stream. The session closes with a guided meditation on the certainty of death as a spur to practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 3 PA 1989 06 02.mp3
UUID: 2fa8ad34-141d-4a3e-aa28-15bae88b111c
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principal Aspects of the Path 1988-1990 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1989-06-02
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.8 minutes
Words: ~5,105
What I call myself, I always stumble onto some particular perception or other. I mean, when he tries to find out who he is, what he sees are the various objects of consciousness. This is what he finds upon looking. He goes on to say, I never catch myself. William James.
William James concluded that the continuous self was a belief constructed out of endless sequence of thoughts which overlap and in the process pass along an illusion of ownership. Each thought dies away and is replaced by another saying, thou art mine and part of the same self with me. Out of the overlap of this sequence, this procession of thoughts, that there is constructed the notion of self, of something abiding throughout this stream of thought patterns. There is something abiding. It’s seen as due to the overlap in the thoughts.
There’s no space between the thoughts. If there was a space, then there be a discontinuity. There wouldn’t be a continuous thought. It seems as though the thoughts overlap. There’s a constant stream.
Jean Paul Sartre also talked about selfhood. He said, The essential role of the ego is to mask from consciousness its very spontaneity. Everything happens as if consciousness were hypnotized by this ego which it has established, which it has constructed, becoming absorbed in it as if it makes the ego its guardian and law. In all of this, it does not seem to be indicated that the therapeutic value, the healing quality, which is the significance from the point of view of Buddhism in looking to the nature of the self, the nature of the eye. Gregory Bateson goes on to investigate the nature of the eye.
He began to see the necessity, the necessity to restructure the nature of who we think we are. That looking into the nature of the self, the I, has a salutary effect. It has a healing effect. It has a health promoting effect. From what he says, from the little that I know of him, he doesn’t seem to quite know how to go about it.
He says, There is a difference between conscious self and the world and the true nature of self and the world. Elsewhere he says, I have worked to practice living in a world of truth instead of the world of epistemological fantasies, but I don’t think I’ve succeeded. Insanity, after all, takes psychotherapy to change it or some very great new experience. Six years later he said, If I am right, the whole of our thinking about what we are and what other people are has got to be restructured. The whole of our thinking about what we are and what other people are has got to be restructured.
Buddhism would totally agree that we have to restructure about who we think we are and who others are. So the Buddhist analysis, the question who we are, we begin to the question we can we begin with the question, how do I experience myself? You know, how do I experience my I? And we’re going to begin from, again, from a very rough notion. It’s absolutely important to understand this is the way we experience the I.
This is the type of I that we can assume that we believe in through the way we respond. This is the way we experience the self, when I call you stupid. When I talk to you rationally, intellectually, we mean it would be extremely difficult to get a notion of the type of I that we’re holding on to. What qualities does it have? We’re not experiencing the I at that moment.
But when I call you stupid, when you jump out of an airplane, you put piece of wood beneath your fingernail, you have to confront an issue with someone, what, you win a great award in front of thousands of people, These are emotional moments. There is a quality about from which you’re responding to what’s happening. There is an experience of a type of self, and we’re trying to become more and more aware of the qualities of this type of self we experience at these times. So it’s not what we talk about intellectually, rationally, about the qualities of this self. We cannot say that, oh, no, I don’t believe in that kind of self.
Logically, rationally, all of these types of self are untenable. They cannot be supported. But we do not conduct our life on the basis of logic and rationality. If we did that, we would have been Buddhas a long time ago. What does this say?
Pleasure and pain holds priority over logic. Our conduct, the way we relate with others and within our own internal world, is based upon emotional qualities. We have some mistaken emotions based upon mistaken models, and we’re trying to become intimately aware by actually experiencing them under emotional conditions. So in meditative process, for example, in meditation, we try to evoke very strong emotional experiences. And then with a corner of our mind, with a corner of our awareness, begin to develop the feeling, the sense of what type of self I am responding from.
How am I holding the self? What qualities does it have? What features does myself have at this moment? What characteristics? We’re going to begin talking about the self.
Again, it’s the self which is the misconceived self on a coarse experiential plane, you know, it’s kind of a coarse approach. And then we’re going to become a little more subtle, a little more subtle. We’re going to build up a model about what it does not in fact exist. You know, in coming to an understanding of selflessness, the very first point to understand is what is called the object of negation. We have to understand the type of self which we firmly believe in, but which in fact does not exist at all.
We have to develop an image of it, a picture of it. This is like developing a target, you know, with a bow and arrow. Unless you have a target, there’s nothing to aim the arrow at. There’s nothing to shoot with your analysis. The the arrow of your logic, your rationality has nothing to point to, has nothing to hit.
So we have to experientially begin to develop a model of the type of self that we’re believing in unconsciously, without awareness. It’s a very difficult task. It’s no good to take my word on it. It won’t cut it won’t begin to restructure the model that you’re You have to hear about it. You know, we talked last week about that all of Buddhism is structured around the three activities of hearing, reflecting, and finally meditating.
You know, I think perhaps Bateson was looking for a method to restructure his mistaken model about the nature of himself. He had a notion that perhaps he had a mistaken model, but he had no method. Perhaps, I don’t know. He said he’d take six years, I don’t know. So we have to have a method.
We have to listen. We have to hear, then reflect, and then meditate. So it’s important to hear, but it’s more important to understand that we’re talking about something which is experience, which is which at present is simply, you know, the below the threshold of our awareness. Don’t we you know, when I talked about initially, talked about emptiness. What appears to the mind when you hear the word emptiness?
Nothing appears to the mind. I mean, by nothing, I mean a vacuum. I mean, not emptiness doesn’t appear to the mind. You know, it’s that these things are so much out of keeping with our ordinary thinking that to initially begin to hear about them, it’s very difficult to gain for some image to work with. And when I talk about the characteristics of this type of self, from the basis upon which from which we’re operating, you know, we’re trying to get develop some picture of it.
First, we begin with a very rough image. You know, it’s like, you know, I said, I lost a needle up on Mount Lofty to somebody who just came to Adelaide for the first time. Oh, I see. I don’t even know where Mount Lofty is. I don’t So he give him a big map.
And he says, you know, you drive up the highway and then you go take the Cleland what is it? Cleland Park exit or whatever it is. And so you give a big map. Then they okay. We get to Mount they get Mount Lofty.
Then they give them a finer map. Mount Lofty has a big parking lot and there’s a, I don’t know, tower there. And there’s some bushes, and it has has bushes marked on it and different ponds. And he said, I’m I lost it in the right hand part there. And then you give a finer map, a finer map where there’s all these little what what just little markings for bushes now are huge bushes, and you give them a finer and finer and finer mark map, and and they can find the needle.
So we’re beginning with a rather gross map. We’re looking for something. We’re looking for emptiness. So we’re beginning with a very gross map to help us begin to locate ourselves and develop the qualities of our target, the characteristics, the features of it. We’re beginning with this coarser state, the notion of the self, a person.
So the first feature, you know, we’ve we might experience. Now this is experiential. This is the way we experience the self. It is not something that we can deduce intellectually. This is the way we could actually experience the self in an emotional situation.
We experience we have a sense of separateness. Sense of separateness. You know, there’s a our sense of as an individual, as localized, as personal. You know, this this self, this I, belongs to this little space over here as opposed to that space over there. And this this is feeling that we have.
Now this is feeling, right? The sense that we have. This I, this self, is located in this space over here. Maybe like like the skin encapsulated ego. You know, we begin to develop a boundary of what is me and what is not me.
This table is not me. Something over here is me. You know, we’re not quite sure yet. But, yeah, I’m pretty sure that table is not me. Now we can always definitely can make that conclusion.
And we, you know, dig into develop a localized nature of the self. This feeling about where I exist in space, for example. Example. You know, if there’s me, then it must be not me. And if there’s not me and there’s me, then there’s some kind of boundary.
There’s some kind of separation between the two. This boundary might not be very sharp and might not be very well defined, but it still exists. And there seems to be some kind of central command, some kind of headquarters about who I am. I am in charge. There’s an experiencer.
Because there are feelings, there must be a feeler. Because there are thoughts, there must be a thinker. Because of their actions, there must be an actor. Someone you know, there’s someone behind all of this. It’s just not happening, floating in space.
It’s being held down some way. You know, if I, you know, if I am this, then I’m not that. I am not the table. The table the table doesn’t feel my feelings. The table doesn’t feel my feelings.
But am I the body? And they’re beginning to question, but am I the body? Or do I have a body? Am I the body or do I have a body? Is my body feeling my feelings?
Now I have a headache, but I don’t but I am not a headache. And I have a headache. But sometimes when I stub my toe, I’m sore. Or if I strain a muscle, I’m sore, but I’m not a headache. What’s what’s the difference?
Begin to you know, upon when you begin even initial analysis, many ambiguities begin to arise about how we conceive of our self. We begin to understand that we really don’t have a well defined self. It was always held very vague like a cloud. And sometimes I say I’m angry, but does that mean I’m anger or I have anger? I am anger or I have anger.
You know, I have these emotions. As if there was a possessor of my emotions, a possessor of my mind. There’s somebody with my mind. I’m not my mind. I’m not my body.
Sometimes I’m upset. So we begin to, you know, and begin to get the notion that there’s some uneasy feeling about asking these questions. We can’t quite once we begin this analysis, we can’t quite come to understand that we can’t quite pinpoint. We’ve been making lots of assumptions about who we are without ever having seen ourselves, who we in fact we are very clearly. Another feature or characteristic of the self is, you know, this is a normal sense of self, is that we have persistence.
There’s something abiding, you know. I was born in the United States. I went to school in Ohio. I moved out to California. Then I went to India.
I became a monk. I came to Australia, and I gave a talk at Buddha. And there seems to be some thread continually running through all of these eyes. And there’s some some unit, some consistency, something persisting throughout this. When I was young, I did this, then I grew up, then I went to school, and then I there’s some I, continuity, some persistence, some element that seems to be running through this entire process.
Some kind of unchanging essence, which is me. This has always been me. And this is like the I think they call it the famous Tasmanian axe. Yeah. This is old I don’t know.
They call them lumberjacks in the United States. Woods person. Woodsman. There’s an old woodsman. He’s he shows you this.
You see this axe here? I’ve had this axe for twenty seven years. Same axe for twenty seven years. Well, I’ve had this axe has had six different handles and three different blades on it. And that’s I’ve had the same axe for when you when you have an axe for that long, it’s like grows to be a part of you.
You know? So we have that feeling about ourselves. This the same acts he’s been working with for twenty seven years. The same person that’s been around going through from birth, from childhood, through all the training, coming, whatever. Some kind of essence, unchanging, that’s in, that’s conceived of.
And the third feature, the nature the characteristic is a sense of autonomy. Autonomy. Much of my experience seems to happen to me. Things impinge upon me from outside. You know, I hear the heater, for example, or I see people riding.
Things come in from the outside upon me. And it’s not I don’t feel involved. I don’t feel that these things are dependent upon me. They’re coming. They exist out there, and they come over to my side.
So, you know, again, we talk about internal things even. So external things seem to impinge upon me. We don’t have particularly any control. They seem to to move into my territory, to move upon myself, and even internal things. Know, we wouldn’t say, for example, that I’m gurgling my stomach.
It’s not quite we don’t you know, we wouldn’t it’d be difficult for us to say even, you know, I’m beating my heart. I’m beating my heart. I’m guru you know, there are many times when you go over your stomach when you rather you wish you didn’t. You know, that’s very some people find it very embarrassing. So even many internal events.
You know, we even talk very strangely sometimes. You know, I I I didn’t mean to do that. You know, I tried to control myself. What does that mean? I tried to control myself.
That’s a really difficult one. I tried to control myself. As if, you know, you split yourself up in the tube, there’s yourself and then the I, and there’s a war going on, and this I couldn’t control that self. Anyway, you know, think you need to understand that there seems to be things that we have control over and things that we don’t. That’s the way we feel at least.
You know, but we have some feeling, at least to some extent, that we have control over thoughts and actions. Maybe I can’t stop my heart or I can’t stop my stomach gurgling or I can’t stop that heater from making that noise. But I have some my actions and thoughts. I have to to some limit extent, I have some control. You know, I’m talking to you.
I thought it over and I decided not to go. You know, we can make these decisions. We have a sense of I as a producer, as an initiator. Let’s think that there’s something in control. You know, all the various questions that we can begin to the qualities that we begin to bring into question.
I reason, I choose, I decide, I initiate, I evaluate, and sometimes I change my mind. Behind the act, there is some there’s a feeling that there’s an actor who’s initiating. And because there’s this actor initiating, then I’m entitled to any praise or blame that my actions accrue. I am and feel responsible. So this, okay, we’re developing a feeling, right, a sense of a initial approach of the characteristics of a type of self which we believe in unconsciously.
We’re making a first rough approximation. This is our big map, just showing the rough outlines of the territory we’re going to begin to investigate. The sense of self as a separate, as persistent, as autonomous. And we have to try to actually experience that in our meditation, try to actually begin to gain a sense of it, that there is this model with these qualities. Right now it’s like a vague notion, a cloud.
We have to begin to cut through this cloud. Next week we’re going to begin to see if such a model accords with the reality of our reasoning and experience. Now we’re going to set up a target and then we’re going to shoot our arrow of logic and experience in our rational examination to see if such a model can stand up. This model that we built up a very rough model, certain features, separateness, persistence, autonomy, and we’re going to test that model to see if it’s valid. So I hope I thought we’d you know we haven’t normally had very much time for questioning but I think it’s important that we know even though we’re just initial beginning to this what maybe a long road.
I don’t know. But we have some discussion, maybe have some questions about what I’ve said. But I hope you keep in mind that the type of of self that I’m talking about, we have to it’s a little bit difficult for me to describe since we’re we’re trying to get a sense of a type of self. And this is the most important from from what I’ve just said to be the most important conclusion to be drawn. Not that it is a academic intellectual subject that the self has separateness, that has persistent, that has autonomy.
This is not important. This isn’t going to benefit you. But it’s a it’s a like a finger pointing to to give you an idea of what to look for when you do begin to investigate and analyze what is the nature what kind of self am I actually adhering to, am I grasping to, in in my actual experience, the reality of my being? Any questions about what’s been said? I have a request, please.
Yeah. Please read William James quotation. William James. William James. He concluded this is just William James concluded that the continuous self, the self, was a belief constructed out of endless sequence of thoughts which overlap and in the process pass along an illusion of ownership.
Each thought dies away and is replaced by another saying, thou art mine and part of the same self with me. Anybody have a question? Point? Observation? Yeah.
So what does that tell us about the self, if in fact there is a self? If in fact there is a self, what quality must it have? What feature must it have characteristic? What would one of its essential qualities be if in fact it existed? Is the self discontinuous or continuous?
By self, I, person, self are synonymous. I’m going to use them synonymously. So is the person, the I, the self, is it continuous or discontinuous? Does it have any relationship to what has gone in the past with respect to its same type? It’s a continuity.
Yeah. So it’s not the same. So something’s there’s something the same but also different. There’s similarity. It’s not the same.
What do you mean by it’s not the same? What is your name? My name. I’m sorry. Don’t know your name.
Bob. Bob. So was Bob a three year old child? Yeah. It was a three year old child.
Was what was his So that was Bob. And then Bob became seven? There’s nobody else. I mean, why do you have to qualify that statement like that? Bob was three, seven, twelve.
So, okay, one of the qualities that you pointed out is the Self must be changing, constantly changing. It’s not permanent. It’s not unchanging. That seems like it’s one of the necessary qualities. What else?
That it’s some continuum, that it’s a similarity of type, you know, that we don’t one moment I’m a I’m a person, another moment I’m a frog, another moment I’m a duck. That I’ve been a person all this life. There’s a similarity of type. So, yeah, this this yeah. Do you have some comment?
Contemplate on the eye, was. It is continuous. Yeah. That’s a become like implement by from a present thought. Becomes a victory.
You Well, my wife, you see it as contradictory. You’re chicken passport. Yeah. I was I in my last life, I was a dog. Does that make sense?
Does that does that make sense? I said I was I will be reborn as a camel. Does that make sense? What sense does that make? It’s typical to No.
I’m I’m I’m thinking that you you hang in the future. I was dog in my past life. I don’t know, probably. No, I’m just using that as a point of it, just an example. I talked about these four schools, Great Exposition, Sūtra, Mind Only, and Middle Way School.
Each of them has a different presentation of what goes on from from past life to present life to future lives. Now, according to what goes on, that’s the conception of the nature of the self. The self is that which goes on to future lives. Now, of them has a different understanding of what the self, how the way it exists. We’re going to investigate how they conceive of the self from each of these four schools.
It’s a so as far as the Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka school, what goes on is the mere eye. That’s the mere eye. The mere eye. Okay? You have and we’re kind of jumping ahead, but roughly.
You have, let’s say, body and mind, essentially body and mind. What is your name? Ian. Ian. So Ian was born and it didn’t have a name.
But it was a body and mind. And the parents said, oh, let’s call it Ian. Ian. Ian. So Ian arose in dependence upon that name.
So in dependence upon this body and mind. Now this body is eventually this mind is constantly changing. The body is constantly changing. But in dependence upon this, there’s labeled, designated. I, Ian, I.
Okay? I upon this. It’s been designated. Projected upon this eye. Projected upon mind and body.
The mind’s constantly changing. Body’s constantly changing, but the eye is constantly being projected. You know? So this body dies. You know?
This body is sloughed off. Now, some another body arises. The constant but there’s this I constantly being designated. Self constantly being designated to this mind body complex. And this body can be a dog and then the dog dies.
And then the mind is constantly changing. Then it develops into takes repress as the monk at Buddha house. Constantly I is being designated. Whether the whether whatever that body mind complex is, we can still designate it as I. Just as we could call you Ian, we could call you John.
You know, John comes into existence, in dependence upon you being labeled. Ian comes into existence, in dependence upon you being labeled as Ian. The I comes into existence, the self becomes into existence, in dependence upon being termed, labeled, named, designated eye. This eye, this mere eye is what goes on to future life. This be this designation, the body drops off, dies.
In in combination with this body with the mind, a new com the mind is attracted to a new closer pattern of energy which we call body. We call it, we call it, we project, we designate I, I. So it’s constant evolution. All this churning going on. Mind, body constantly changing, but there’s a constant designation of I.
I, I, I, I. So the kind of consistent mere I going from one life to another. Yeah. Yeah. So this is the way we Oh.
Sounds good. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you’re trying to understand and analyze the nature of the eye. Trying to, you know, in order to refute, to restructure our models of our misconception of the nature of the eye.
So, you know, coming to an understanding whether it existed in past or future lives maybe is not so important. In a way, what I what I what I was in my past life, what I will be in my future But what is the nature of the eye itself? Anyway, this is, you know, this is what understanding a mere I, I think it’s quite difficult what that means. And, you know, this is kind of what we’re we’re going to work toward. The nature when I said that I, in fact, exist, that you exist, this is the I that we’re talking about, the self which we’re talking about.
The merely labeled I, the merely designated I. Nothing more than that. How do I how do I know that I what reason can I establish for my sitting here? I am sitting on this throne. What reason can I get to establish that?
Why? Because my body is on the throne. Therefore, I say I’m on the throne. What my body does, I can say I do. What my mind is thinking, I can say I’m thinking.
Whatever the mind and body are doing, that is what the eye is doing. I, which is designated merely labeled to that complex of body and mind. That’s all. Nothing more than that. What am I I’m sitting here because my body’s here.
I’m thinking angry thoughts, therefore, I can say I am angry. Nothing more than that. Anyway, we’ll we’ll work with that. I don’t know. We’re gonna progress through these medi teachings, this graduated path.
Maybe we take one minute to stand up and then we’ll spend five minutes on meditation. I think I make everybody work hard, I think. So, you know, we’re going through a system of meditation called the graduated path. Initially we have to begin to appreciate who in fact we are, our potential. Whether we call it or understand that we have basic sanity, that we have the basis for transformation, the Buddha nature or whatever.
And then we go on to understand that we have the circumstances, both external and internal, to actualize this transformation, that there’s nothing that we lack. And we have to begin to appreciate this. Otherwise, we are not going to be motivated to actually begin the necessary work to change. But if we don’t take advantage of this opportunity, this chance to change, of having all these internal and external circumstances, we’re going to lose them. It’s definite that we’re going to die.
And this becomes the so we contemplate death begin to appreciate life, not to waste our life, to make it meaningful, to make it useful. That’s the only you know, it’s not a morbid subject. It’s a life enhancing subject think about your inevitability of death. This chance to change isn’t going to last forever. So we’ll begin with this meditation.
There’s a three part meditation. The first is with connection with death and the first part is the inevitability of death. Death is certain. Okay? Okay.
We’re gonna think about this. I’ll lead you here. This fact. And then no matter who it might be, whether it’s the kings, whether it’s dictators, musicians, artists, philosophers, saints, criminals, ordinary people, they’ve all died. That there’s not one person who is alive a hundred and fifty years ago who is alive now.
They worked, they ruled, they thought, they wrote, they loved, they enjoyed their life, they suffered, and finally they died. And you think about all the various types of people in the world, whoever they might be, that none of them can escape the inevitability of death. And your lifespan is decreasing continually. And even as we sit here now, the moment of our death is approaching, moment by moment, whether we’re aware of it or not. You know, it’s as if we boarded a train in a long journey.
And during that train journey, we laugh, and we eat, we sleep, we meet people. But moment by moment, the train is traveling to its destination, whether aware of it or not. Even as we sleep, as we laugh, the train is constantly moving. And a moment will arrive when we have to get off without choice. We have to step off the train.