Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A story about an old man circumambulating a monastery anchors this 47-minute session, part of Ven Jampa Gendun’s commentary on the Three Principal Aspects of the Path. When Geshe Drom tells him that circumambulating, reciting sutras, and meditating are still not Dharma practice, the punchline lands: nothing counts until you renounce attraction to this life. Gendun unpacks what renunciation actually means — not abandoning pleasure or retreating to the mountains, but giving up the eight worldly concerns: hope for pleasure, gain, praise, and fame, and fear of their opposites. He walks through Tsongkhapa’s four reversals as the practical method, quotes Longchenpa’s image of practice bobbing like an uncooperative vegetable in soup, and closes with a discussion of ego as mental action rather than a fixed entity.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 3 PA 1990 03 16.mp3
UUID: a41ac026-2366-4d91-9656-910269e52d46
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principal Aspects of the Path 1988-1990 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1990-03-16
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 47.2 minutes
Words: ~5,357
Second basic division, the main body of the actual text itself and this has four parts. An explanation of the determination to be free, an explanation of opening our hearts to all others, an explanation of seeing deeply into the nature of reality, and finally some strong words of encouragement to practice. And those are the four parts. And we’ve begun the discussion of this first part, an explanation of developing the determination to be free. And again this has three sections.
Why should we try to develop the determination to be free? First section. Then the way to actually develop the methods that we’re going to cultivate to make use of to actually develop the determination to be free. And thirdly, the point at which we have actually developed it. What is the measure of having developed a real, sincere determination to be free.
So you know last week we were discussing the first of these three sections. You know why we should develop this determination to be free. Very very briefly. Without this determination to be free we’re going to perpetuate and remain stuck in all of our reoccurring compulsive patterns, neurotic patterns. And by neurotic patterns I mean the ways of behaving, modes of behavior, ways of thinking which are in conflict with the reality of our situations.
And not only that, it comes along with that combined with that a Concomitant to that way of thinking. A demand that reality conform to our expectations. So not only do we think in terms, mistaken terms of the way things actually are in terms of other people and things around us, but we demand that reality conform to our demands, to our expectations. And this is what I mean by neurotic thinking, neurotic behavior. You know as long as our demands and expectations are not in accord with the way things are then it becomes obvious.
It doesn’t become obvious perhaps because we’ve never taken a look at it. But upon examination becomes obvious that we can only experience frustration and disappointment, unfulfillment. In general we say dissatisfaction. expectations are never fulfilled. Our demands are never met.
Our needs are never realized. So this is the nature of our situation. This is what we’ve got ourselves trapped in. And it’s essential. It is the essential characteristic all of the afflictive emotions.
And by afflictive emotions such emotions as desire, hatred, spite, jealousy, miserliness. That they all in some way exaggerate or deprecate their objects. The objects of attachment anger don’t exist the way they appear. The way they’re appearing at that very moment. There’s always an exaggeration, a heightening of desirable qualities, a depreciation, a decreasing of the negative aspect of the object.
We don’t see the object in its realistic, in a realistic balanced way. This is the nature of afflicted emotions. This is why they cause problems. This is the only reason because they don’t accord the way the object actually exists and therefore we act inappropriately with respect to those objects and we experience disappointment, frustration, dissatisfaction. We aren’t we under the influence of the afflictive emotions, we don’t deal with real people, with real situations, with the real things about us.
We deal with idealized, projected, fantasized people, situations, and things. This is why I keep saying over and over again that more than that we can say that the world of ego is a world of fantasy. And to to step out outside of the world of ego is to step into reality. No matter how much no matter how many times we try to to satisfy our neurotic satisfy our neurotic needs. They’re never going to be fulfilled.
It’s not possible. The objects don’t have that potential, that capacity. In reasonable needs, reasonable desires, reasonable wants, rational desires wants, needs can be fulfilled, our expectations can be realized. But neurotic needs can never be. It’s not possible.
The objects don’t have potential, that capacity. So our neurotic needs never being fulfilled, we will forever be stuck in perpetually seeking to satisfy unrealistic desires and demands. And in this is experienced as conflict and distress. So within realm of ego based desires there is nothing worth having or becoming because they will never be what they appear to be. They’re like a mirage, a mirage of water which can never quench our thirst.
It’s not in their nature. In fact on the other hand sometimes the fulfilling our seeking to fulfill our neurotic needs becomes like drinking salt water. It just increases our thirst more and more. It is never never able to actually gain satisfaction. We’re talking about the developing the determination to be free and by to grow I mean to begin to step out of our neurotic patterns and then beginning to emphasize this idea of patterns modes of existence.
On the right, to go beyond our egocentric demands to give up our cocoons and determine to deal with real people in real situations and the real nature of things. So you know if we can do that which is difficult then we can then there’s the real possibility of finding fulfillment. You know some kind of satisfaction, some kind of real contentment dealing with real people, situations. And it’s a real possibility to have our our rational needs and desires met. And with the real possibility of finding some kind of of some kind of new harmony.
Beginning to find some kind of peace. And therefore Tsongkhapa says therefore in the beginning determination to be free should be sought. That is to say in the beginning we have to develop the determination to be free. So this brings us to the second section in the explanation of the determination to be free. The way to actually develop this determination.
And this is set out in the next two verses. Leisure and fortune are difficult to find and life has no duration. Through familiarity with this, emphasis on the appearances of this life is reversed. If you think again and again about these and their inevitable effects and the sufferings of cyclic existence the emphasis on the appearances of future lives will be reversed. As I’ve been trying to emphasize, our lives are based upon sets of ideas upon systems of belief.
We have some core assumptions. And there’s a quotation from a book called Shifting Worlds Changing Minds. This is the author is a PhD physicist. He’s talking about the way in which we base our lives upon these systems of beliefs. To a very large extent men and women are products of how they define themselves.
As a result of a combination of innate ideas and the intimate influences of the culture and environment we grow up in we come to have beliefs about the nature of being human. These beliefs penetrate to the very deep level of our psychosomatic systems, our minds and brains, our nervous systems, our endocrine systems, and even our blood and sinews. We act, speak, and think according to these deeply held beliefs and belief systems. So the determination to be free is the determination to become aware and transform our erroneous, mistaken ideas, belief, core assumptions which find their expression in our neurotic compulsive patterns and to transform in them into ideas, beliefs, and assumptions which accord with reality. With the way things actually are with which reflect the nature of things.
And this is experienced as healthy patterns. But ultimately to go beyond all pattern modes of existence, beyond all conceptions about reality and simply to dwell in the substance of the reality. Not idea about reality but actually exist within reality. Free of all our fabrications and all our limiting projections about what we think of the world and the people about us. And this is experienced as freedom, wholeness, and bliss.
Talking about the fact that we have many erroneous mistaken conceptions, beliefs about ourselves, assumptions about ourselves. And the path becomes very much simply becoming aware of coming in contact, bringing to conscious awareness, contradictory, reshaping, reforming as mistaken beliefs for correct beliefs and then going beyond all that, all beliefs altogether. So coming in contact, becoming aware of how a great deal of our behavior, our thinking, our life is based upon mistaken beliefs. Now we believe ourselves to be limited, to be insufficient, to be incomplete. We act as if we are going to live forever.
And even if we were to admit that we’re going to die sometime it’s not going to be very soon. It’s going to be some long time in the future. Do we feel as if we’re victims of society, victims of our family, our mother, our father? That somehow we have no choice, that that our happiness and unhappiness isn’t ultimately our own responsibility, that our happiness and unhappiness aren’t ultimately in our own hands. We hold that which is dissatisfactory by nature to be satisfactory.
That these objects have the potential to bring us complete happiness, permanent happiness. We hold that which is impermanent as permanent. We believe that that this me first self centered approach to life is an effective way to find the happiness that we’re seeking. We believe that and we’re constantly trying to secure a self which in fact can never be secured. So these are just you know some of the of the beliefs that we have.
And these beliefs range all the way from very coarse types of beliefs to the most subtle which as was pointed out go almost you could say into that very being, into our very blood. And beginning to deal with them, to begin to bring them to awareness and begin to consistently contradict them. Because they don’t accord with the reality and because they end inevitably in relying on upon them as a basis of relating, as a basis of action, we must experience disappointment and frustration, distress. See, it’s like if we if you believe a photograph of a piece of chocolate cake is an actual piece of chocolate cake, no matter how much you may eat that photograph, your expectations are never going to be fulfilled. You’re never going to find the contentment that you’re looking for.
That object doesn’t have that capacity. It doesn’t have that potential. We only find disappointment and frustration. So we have to develop a very strong determination to be free because without it we’re not we will never really take up the difficult task of change, of transforming our most deeply held, most deeply seated mistaken beliefs. And these are ego forming tendency and ego centering tendency.
So a quotation by Tsongkhapa who is the author of this the text three principal aspects in the path but in a text called The Great Exposition of the Stages of the Path. He’s talking about the necessity to develop a very strong determination to be free. About this attitude, it’s just the way described it. Was a great master of the Kadampa teachers which was previous to the Gelug tradition. Suppose it’s no stronger in your heart than a thin film of barley powder spread on the surface of some homemade beer.
So they used to use barley to make beer so you have it on the the surface of the beer you have some thin film of barley flour. Then your feeling that you want to avoid the cause of cycle of existence, what we call the origin, will be no stronger than that. Then your aspiration to reach nirvana where you stop both suffering and its origin will be exactly the same way. And then you wish to practice the path that brings this nirvana will be nothing but empty words. So too for compassion the state of mind where you no longer bear to see other living beings wander through the cycle.
There’s no way you will gain it. And finally you will never find a genuine form of the wish to achieve matchless enlightenment for living beings. A powerful wish that you can urge that you on. And so the greater way becomes for you nothing but some flimsy understanding of the descriptions you find of it in books. So this process whereby to actually develop the determination to be free involves training in what are called the four reversals.
Or like I said, maybe four transforming thoughts or four contradicting The way we can consistently contradict our mistaken assumptions. You know we have to be we’re beginning on a course level and beginning to work through. And as we do this, the inspiration and the ability to to become aware of and transform those more deeply seated and more subtle types of mistaken conceptions will arise. Without this there’s no way to actually attack the very root of our problems. So these four what call them contradicting attitudes.
Reversals. Number one, becoming aware of our potential and appreciating our chance to actualize it. Becoming aware of who we are, our capacity, and appreciating the opportunity, the chance that we have to develop our capacity. Two, the certainty of the time, the certainty of death. That death is definite.
And the uncertainty of the time of death. And that and the fact that at the moment of our death the only thing which can be a benefit to us is how much we’ve actually developed our mind and the various healthy patterns that we’ve developed. Our karma. The third is the is karma itself, the law of cause and effect. Coming to understanding that that there is a consistency.
There is a a concordance between a cause and an effect. It’s an inevitable consistency just as we see about us in nature that from apple seeds come apple trees, and pear trees don’t come, arise, grow. And likewise, certain types of actions predispose us to experience suffering in the future. Certain types of actions whether body, speech, or mind predispose us to experience happiness in the future. This is simply an operation of a law of nature.
The fourth of these contradictions is the dissatisfactory quality of all states bounded by ego. You know we last week we were talking about the six realms and trying to come under trying to understand that there’s nothing worth having or becoming with any of within any of these six realms of existence. And within all the pursuits of ego, all fulfilling all the desires of ego, the plans of ego, There is nothing worth nothing worth having or becoming. That is by its very nature dissatisfactory. I’m seeing this very deeply and thereby developing a determination to go beyond ego, transcend ego.
So in developing the determination to be free, Tsongkhapa divides the training into two parts. First reversing emphasis on the appearances of this life and then secondly reversing emphasis on the appearance of future lives. And talking about what does that mean to Tsongkhapa says emphasis on the appearance of this life is reversed. So somehow we have to reverse the emphasis on the appearances of this life. Reverse the emphasis on the appearance of this life.
And what does that mean? And there’s a little story, a little quotation by, there was one great master, Dromtonpa. Here he’s referred to as Geshe Drom, and he was another great Kadampa master and he was the direct lineage holder from Atisha who many of you probably have heard of. One of the three most influential teachers that ever lived in that ever talked in Tibet. They actually came from India.
One day an old gentleman was circumambulating a Kadam monastery. This Kadam monastery was a monastery which Dromtonpa had founded. Geshe Drom said to him, sir, I am happy to see you circumambulating, but wouldn’t you rather be practicing the Dharma? You know, circumambulating, it’s considered a virtuous to to walk around a holy object showing it respect whether it’s a monastery or reliquary monument or something, a stupa, something like that. So this old man was walking around the monastery as a way of showing respect.
And Geshe Drom said to him, sir I’m happy to see you’re circumambulating but would you rather be practicing the Dharma? And thinking this over the old gentleman felt it might be better to read Mahāyāna Sutras, the teachings of the Buddha. While he was reading in the temple courtyard, Geshe Drom said, I’m happy to see you reciting sutras but wouldn’t you rather be practicing the Dharma? At this the old man thought that perhaps he should meditate. He sat cross legged on a cushion with his eyes half closed.
The teacher Drom said again, I am so happy to see you meditating but wouldn’t it be better to practice the Dharma? Now totally confused the old man asked, Geshe-la, please tell me what should I do to practice the Dharma? The teacher replied renounce attraction to this life. Renounce it now. For if you do not renounce attraction to this life whatever you do will not be the practice of Dharma as you have not passed beyond the eight worldly concerns.
Once you have renounced this life’s habitual thoughts and are no longer distracted by the eight worldly concerns, whatever you do will advance you on the path of liberation. To renounce attraction to this life, to renounce this life, to give up this life, to give up on this life means to give up the eight worldly concern. What does it mean to give up the eight worldly concerns? Sometimes called the eight worldly dharmas. In other words the eight principal preoccupations of ego-orientated existence.
That is the eight compulsive patterns which control our everyday life. To give up this life to what? Reverse emphasis on the appearance of this life is to give up the eight principle preoccupations of ego-orientated existence. That’s what now how else can we give up life? You can’t.
It doesn’t mean committing suicide, surely. It doesn’t mean leaving your wife, your husband, giving away your kids, going to the mountains. It has to be something within your own mind. To give up on this life means to cease identifying yourself with these eight patterns. To begin to disassociate yourself from them.
So this is the real beginning of the spiritual path. To begin to cease identifying with these eight principal concerns. And another quotation by who wrote a commentary to this present text, The Three Principal Aspects of the Path. Talking about his eight worldly concerns, what I call the eight principle preoccupations of ego-orientated existence. It doesn’t matter who you are, some great sage or some saint or master or meditator.
And no matter how profound the practice you imagine you are doing it is all hollow sham if it’s mixed up with the eight worldly thoughts. We find this truth in the words of Longchenpa, a disciple of the victorious Kumaradza. So is quoting another master and here the master says, It doesn’t do any good that the teaching is the holy and secret great completion. The Great Completion is one of the highest practices that’s taught within the methods of Buddhism. It doesn’t do any good if it’s this holy and great teaching of the great completion.
The person himself has to become holy and secret, great We see a whole pack of cases where the way a person describes his spiritual practice, it would buy a whole herd of horses. But the person himself isn’t worth a dog. Religion that’s all words and never gets put into daily practice is all the same as some talk as some talk a parrot a parrot’s been taught to squawk. The person in the practice are miles apart. His mind and his religion never quite mix into one.
There’s a lump there’s lumps of flour that never get dissolve in the batter. Babbling on about spiritual practice and never letting it sink in, leaving it to bob around on the surface like some uncooperative vegetable in a soup is missing the whole point of spiritual practice. I tell you all what I teach as the crux of all practice is to give up on this life. So to give up on this life. To give up on the eight principle preoccupations of ego oriented existence.
What are these eight preoccupations? Preoccupations? So they’re set out in four pairs. Four complementary pairs. Pleasure, pain, gain and loss, Praise and blame.
Fame and infamy. Pleasure and pain, gain and loss. Praise and blame. Fame and infamy. Now, you know, when you hear about that, like especially when you hear about this you hear these first four, pleasure and pain.
These are eight worldly concerns. Eight preoccupations of ego. Pleasure, pain, gain, and loss. You know, we should question. Then the question should arise.
Do you mean that if I want to grow, if I want to practice the spiritual path I have to I’m supposed to give up working for gain, trying to avoid loss. And give I should give up trying to find pleasure, trying to avoid pain. Is that what it means? So his holiness the Dalai Lama in a talk. He said that human beings by nature want happiness and do not want to suffer.
With that feeling everyone tries to achieve happiness and tries to get rid of suffering and everyone has the basic right to do this. So we want to be happy, we don’t want to suffer and we have a right to do this. And what does it mean to give up these eight occupations or preoccupations? To give up pleasure and pain. You know, doesn’t if it doesn’t mean to forego pleasure and to invite pain which is nothing but a preferred asceticism.
You know, what are we supposed to give up? To give up on this life, to give up on the eight principle preoccupations of ego-orientated existence is to give up our hope for pleasure, our fear of pain. Our hope for gain, our fear of loss. Our hope for praise, our fear of blame. Our hope for fame, our fear of infamy.
And so this is what it means to reverse the emphasis on the appearance of this life. And we should be happy and we have every right to strive to be happy and we shouldn’t suffer. We have every right to strive to rid ourselves of suffering. These are quite reasonable in rational aims, rational goals. Indeed this is the sole purpose of the Dharma, the sole purpose of the spiritual life, of the path to bring ourselves happiness and seek to bring out all others happiness.
To rid ourselves of suffering and to rid all others of suffering. To alleviate all the pain. And so in this this path of growth, path of spiritual development, you know of a flexible, creative behavior of a rational human being are qualitatively and completely different from the rigid repetitive activities of a life conducted on the basis of the patterns of hope and fear. These patterns just in general, they can’t be reasoned with. Cannot be communicated with and are by their very nature capable of only repetitive rigid reactions.
Repetitive rigid reactions. They’re not reasonable. They’re not open to logic. They’re not able we’re not able to communicate with them, to appeal to them. You know, okay, we’re talking about hope and fear as in terms of these various eight types of activities.
Two overall types of patterns which constitute, which run our lives, which don’t allow us to be free whether we’re aware of it or not, whether we’re conscious of it or not. By hope. Sometimes we this word is very trying to think of what this word meant. And what does the word hope mean? What do we mean when we say hope?
Sometimes we say it in terms of I wish, I hope you get better. I wish you get better. I would like to see you get better. Even though I know it’s not true, I hope it I hope it comes about. As as hope can be understood as ego’s attempt to establish its own priorities.
The attempt of ego to arrange a world in which it can achieve perfect egohood, perfect mastery. This is This is what it’s hope this is what all its hopes are directed toward. Fear on the hand other hand is ego’s reaction to to threats, to its survival. So if you know, the priority of growth of a path cannot be the priority of ego. They’re too opposed ways of operation in the world.
You know in very fact, if we think about it, the very path of growth is a threat to the survival of ego. Know completely opposed to one another. The ego cannot voluntarily accept suffering, pain. You know even in modern day they talk about growth methods. Pain, no gain.
And it’s quite true. But that takes a certain maturity. That takes a certain stepping out of the framework of hopes and fears of ego. To be able to accept a difficult situation, to enter into it voluntarily knowing that it’s the way of growth. That it’s going to be ultimately beneficial to you even though immediately it’s painful.
One would never go into retreat for example if you lived according to the hopes and fear, the pleasure pain principle of only of ego. There’d be no maturity, no perspective in which you would enter voluntarily into that difficulty. Coming to understand that if we voluntarily accept suffering, difficulty, take chances, then we can hope to end our dissatisfaction, frustration, disappointments. If we never accept voluntarily difficult situations then our difficulties will never end. We’re always going to be under the influence of the hopes and fears of our own ego.
So and then we’re not we are not our patterns. And as long as we identify with them there is never going to be a spontaneous creative response to the present moment. And there’s never really going to be we’re never really going to go be be able to go beyond the walls of our prisons of patterns. The The patterns constitute the prison in which we we built around ourselves. There’s no real communication.
There’s no there’s no real touching of other people. There’s no real love. There’s no real wisdom which is the awareness of things as they are in their reality. There’s only a filtering view of how we look out from our own patterns, our own projections. So the hope for pleasure, the fear of pain, the hope for gain, the fear of loss, the hope for praise, the fear of blame, the hope for fame, the fear of infamy.
Whether we’re aware of or not, the majority of our actions are based upon these hopes and fears. Unconsciously probably. So these all of these hopes and fears are not just expressions or actions of ego as if is it running under? Yeah? All of these actions, all of these actions of hopes and fears are not just expressions of ego as if ego were some real thing which perform certain types of actions.
You know, ego is the action. The the ego is this mental event. Ego is the grasping. Ego is the struggle for security, the maintenance of our real identity. You know, the hope for something other than what is and the fear of something other than what is.
So, you know, ego is is these mental events. Ego, there is there is is mental action. There’s there’s there’s no one or no thing which is performing these actions. You know, we we are we are not our hopes. We are not our fears.
We are not our patterns. We are not our egos. You know, if we were our ego then then how could we ever transcend ego? This I think is quite useful. If, And if we can begin to feel this deeply for oneself and and relating with other people that we can that I am not my pattern.
I am not my attachment. Hatred. I am not my pride. Nor is that person out there even though they’re angry at me they’re not that anger. And therefore I can begin to distinguish between the person and their patterns.
I might not like their patterns but that doesn’t mean I have to dislike that person. They may be under the control of their patterns, and they may be expressing things which I would not which I don’t like, but that doesn’t mean I have to dislike them. The ultimate goal of spiritual life is to transcend ego. And this is, you know, this is the way we can begin. To not allow our hopes and fears to dominate our life.
And this takes, you know, the actual practice we begin to set our in terms of what will help us to grow. Not in terms of hopes and fears. Not in terms of simply what will fulfill our hopes, what will eliminate, alleviate our fears. Not in terms We’re to go beyond the pleasure pain principle, the praise blame principle, the gain loss principle, the fame infamy principle. As guidelines, as priorities by which we set our values, how we’re going to conduct our lives, in practice.
You know just in if you’ve ever a necessity to become aware of your fears. I know one master in Buddhadharma in Thailand. It was Ajahn Mun who was one of the great masters of this century in northeastern Thailand. He said, Find out what you’re afraid of and that’s what you should do. And I think many more what?
Many psychologists are beginning to see the truth of this. That without chance taking, without being willing to to go into your fears, then you’re you’re never going to control your fears but your fears are going to control you. Without going beyond your hopes, the ups and downs being tossed between the waves of fear and hope, and there’s no possibility to find a direction for yourself, for your for your ultimate development. This is It become like just like a leaf blowing in the wind. I used to call myself the ping pong ball.
Know, ping pong ball is very hollow. It gets knocked around. It’s very light. And you simply get tossed around by by whatever. There’s no center, there’s no principles.
It’s simply your life is completely based upon pleasure, pain, loss, gain, and the hopes for these, the fears of these, then there’s no direction, there’s no course. And there’s since there’s no direction, no course, there’s no achievement, there’s no growth. So this is what it means to give up this life. To begin to give up a life of ego, of struggle, of conflict. So in our last week we began to we talked briefly about the six realms of existence.
What I call ego based existence. And within within that, the human realm. You know how the human realm is characterized by this constant constant churning out of ideas. plans, hallucinations, fantasies, dreams. And the mind is constantly searching for some way for some ways of improving the situation and manipulating the situation, magnetizing.
And this is all created out of hopes and fears. Our our hopes for pleasure, our fear of pain, our hopes of gain, our fear of loss, our hope for praise, our fear of blame, degradation, our hope, our fame and our fear of infamy. That we we we are forced to manipulate, that we are forced to turn out all of these ideas, these plans, and this quality of ambition. And even even our practice of Dharma can become just another object of ego’s preoccupation. And it becomes a matter of spiritual materialism.
And then more than more than becoming good Buddhists, more than becoming good practitioners, more than becoming good meditators, we should want to grow. There’s a prayer. There’s one category of text called mind training text, sometimes called thought transformation text.