Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute talk, Ven Jampa Gendun opens with a vivid image: meditation as refusing to bite into a hot dog — once you bite, you have started a drama — framing practice as “deliteralizing our fantasies,” watching thoughts arise without identifying with them. He then returns to Tsongkhapa’s Three Principal Aspects of the Path at the fifth step of the sevenfold cause-and-effect instruction: great compassion. The practical core is a three-stage training — a gentle wish that others be free from suffering, a stronger aspiration, and finally the active resolve “I will free you” — with the insistence that these be directed at specific real people by name before extending to strangers and enemies. He also distinguishes genuine compassion from pity, which he calls one part arrogance and one part sympathy. For practitioners already following the series.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 11 3 PA 1988 08 12.mp3
UUID: aeacad4f-f12f-44a4-83ea-4727743e2052
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principal Aspects of the Path 1988-1990 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1988-08-12
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.5 minutes
Words: ~5,217
Lama Thubten Yeshe, who is the founder of Buddha House. Silent meditation without thought, totally open, awake and aware. This is absolute prayer. The type of meditation that we’ve been doing in the beginning of each session, I’ve described it from various points of view. I’ve described meditation from many points of view and some of the possible hindrances that can arise in meditation.
In a way, meditation is helping us to, what I call, deliteralize our fantasies. An easy way to, simple way to express that perhaps is to quit taking ourselves so seriously. Quit taking our various thoughts which arise, emotions and feelings as concrete and solid and necessarily to be identified with and thereby be enacted out the various stories, the various dramas which arise in our mind. You know, I’ve talked, I’ve touched upon the fact that we’re constantly recreating our reality, You know, that we’re selecting out various scenarios, various characters. You know, I was trying to think of the quote from Shakespeare that I couldn’t quite I couldn’t find it and I couldn’t quite remember it.
Something to this the sort that, you know, all the world’s a stage and we are but actors upon it, strutting and fretting our parts. Something like that. I can’t try to remember. And I think to a large degree that’s what we’re involved in. You know, you’re sitting there.
The various thoughts arise. And they’re very concrete. I mean, they feel as if this thought is you and you identify with this thought. And once you, you know, as I’ve explained it from the rather mundane point of view, of a hot dog, you bite into it and that begins the to the part that you’re going to play. It begins some sort of drama.
You know, we’re sitting there and we start getting bored and the thought, I’m bored, arises. And before we know it, we’re getting up from our meditation and we’re we’ve we’ve bit into that. We’ve taken that quality, that state, that thought which arose very literal literally, very concretely as if this were in fact the actual situation that in fact we are bored rather than simply seeing it as another thought amongst infinite possibilities of thought which could be arising. And we develop a theme around that and we enact it out, and we’re writing our own scripts. What meditation can help us to do is begin to relax, that we don’t have to follow any character, we don’t have to follow out any theme, any particular scenario unless we choose to do so.
You know, if we feel in some way that it’s in our best interest. You know, we can quit evaluating ourselves, quit judging ourselves. This is a source of a lot of suffering, I think. There’s no way out of this, this dualistic puzzle of the ego, always trying to keep up with some sort of arbitrary standard that we set for ourselves. And when we don’t aren’t able to achieve it, we feel guilty, we feel bad.
And when we achieve it momentarily, our ego is satiated and we feel that we’re lovable, that we feel satisfied. But this feeling doesn’t last very long. And most of our life is spent through a constant struggle bouncing back and forth between the two extremes of this all these relative standards that we set for ourselves. We don’t have to pick any either one of those two possible sets of relative qualities which we assign, which we’re always striving for. We don’t have to take these qualities literally.
You know, we can make the choice of being someone, anyone, or nobody, no one, that we can choose to be nobody and we can just be. It’s a very rare opportunity to be nobody for a while. You have various thoughts and these thoughts are the thoughts of who you think you are. They sort of fit in with your pattern And so you identify, Well, this is my type of thinking, this is my style. And in pursuing this type of style, we pursue a certain type of life.
And it’s usually very dissatisfactory because it’s completely bound within the prison of the ego. And this puzzle of duality in conflicting emotions which is the essence of ego, is the essence of saṃsāra, the essence of suffering, being caught between the jaws of conflicting emotions constantly and the ensuing dissatisfaction which results from that. So we don’t have to be anybody. We can sort of have a script without any words and we can choose to be in that situation by choice. That is to say we can simply choose to be and reroute our sense of identity in being rather than becoming.
You know, we can cease judging constantly this, that, good, bad, desirable, undesirable, beautiful, ugly. You know, as I’ve said, it’s not that we want to give up discrimination altogether. Sometimes it’s quite necessary, but to a large extent it’s simply a burden. It’s completely unnecessary and not only not necessary, but unproductive and self defeating. So the simple process of maintaining awareness, of simply noting without attaching, without identifying with the various thoughts which arise, emotions which arise, states of mind can help us to can begin to free us from the habitual compulsive identifying with all the garbage which is simply bubbling up in our thoughts in our mind.
And we can begin to choose what types of scenarios, what types of themes we want to act out, what is most beneficial to us. And otherwise we can be nobody for a while and just be in our daily life. I don’t mean just in meditation sessions, but just taking a walk, eating your lunch, talking to a person. In all these various occasions it’s just a matter of being in this situation without unnecessarily evaluating and simply responding in a very open and fluid manner, you know, to the the nowness of what is happening. You know, I talk about It’s kind of a a catchphrase, the quality of nowness.
And I think if if it’s anything, it has any meaning, this is probably what it means. It’s simply to be in this situation without any judgment without any discrimination. Unnecessary judgment discrimination. So we’ve been doing this mindfulness of breathing and the various types of methods either just counting the general breath and noting the mental factor of thought arises thinking if you’re if your attention goes to hearing hearing feeling pain pain whatever arises simply being aware maintaining constant moment by moment awareness. Or me or being mindful of the breath as it begins at the nostrils and goes down to the navel and counting one, two, three, four, five, and back up one, two, three, four, five.
And then after we’ve done this, just maintaining awareness, you know, generally a choiceless awareness. Whatever our mind attends to, we’re not trying to direct it to influence but allowing it to flow whatever is most interesting to it, whatever is most stimulating. But just knowing what it’s involved in. And at first, you know, it would be of use to note, Keep the noting going, thinking, thinking, imaging, you know, pictures come up, for example, sounds, hearing, hearing, pain, pain. But then, cease even noting, you know, using his mental effort to note and simply be aware.
Just be aware. Whatever your mind is attending to, from moment to moment, just in silent awareness. Now, if you don’t attach to the thoughts, you’re simply aware of them, then you begin to understand that we don’t need to identify with them. They’ll just you know, the very quality of for example, you get bored in your meditation. And then you’re sitting there home, and the thought arises.
I’m I’m bored, I’m bored. Normally, immediately, we it hooks us. And before we know it, we’re getting up and walking away from our meditation cushion without any awareness. We don’t like, we went into a a dream. We live in a dream.
I think many of you noticed this, aware of this. You know, before we know what’s happening, we’re already, you know, walking out the door. If we can become aware and have constant awareness, we can simply see that the feeling or the thought, I’m bored, is one thought, one feeling amongst an infinite number of thoughts and feelings which are constantly arising. We don’t have to hook onto it. We don’t have to identify with it.
If you don’t, at that moment, it’ll go away. You’ll return to your sitting, your meditation in complete contentment. Returning to the mindfulness of breathing, for example, and proceed. Maybe five minutes later, again it’ll arrive. So you have a choice.
It gives you some control, some freedom over the states of mind and the various themes and the scenarios that you want to follow after in your life. Your thoughts will ultimately lead you to non duality itself if you can maintain your awareness to an insight into selflessness. Okay? So let’s try that. Awake, when the mind is empty, awake and aware, touching, nearer reality than when it’s completely involved with all its intellectual fantasies no matter how profound they may appear to us to be.
To the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, I go for refuge until I’m enlightened through the merit I create. 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 my Dharma, may I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. I go for refuge until I am enlightened.
Through the merit I create my Dharma, may I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all. We’re discussing the three principal aspects of the path, a text by the fourteenth century scholar Yogi Tsongkhapa. His image is on the top most level between the two pictures. The three principal aspects of the path are developing the determination to be free, opening our hearts to others, and seeing deeply into the nature of reality. And we’ll be going through the second of these.
Developing an open heart, opening our hearts to others. Within this there were two systems, two methods, techniques to bring this about. The first was the sevenfold cause and effect instruction, and the second is exchange of self with others. We’re going through the first of these two, the sevenfold cause and effect instruction. We’ve talked about the foundation of the sevenfold cause and effect precept is equanimity.
We’ve discussed the first of the seven precepts is recognizing all sentient beings as our mothers. The second was remembering their kindness. The third was developing the wish to repay their kindness. The fourth was affectionate love. And now we’re going to talk about the fifth, which is great compassion.
The Buddha was asked by a leading disciple, Would it be true to say that a part of our training is for the development of love and compassion? The Buddha replied, No, it would not be true to say this. It would be true to say that the whole of our training is for the development of love and compassion. Nāgārjuna, who was perhaps the most authoritative source for the explanation of the perfection of wisdom as taught by the Buddha, who is included within, for example, the lineage of the Zen patriarchs, who is perhaps the is often called the second Buddha, an Indian master. In a text called The Precious Garland.
He says, If you and the world wish to gain the highest enlightenment, its roots are the altruistic aspiration to enlightenment that is firm as the king of mountains, compassion reaching to all directions, and a wisdom consciousness not relying on duality. There are three causes to attain enlightenment. And if I enlightenment, having knowledge unmistaken, without deception, without error, love and compassion overflowing and burning desire to benefit others, and inexhaustible spiritual mental energy to bring this about in reality. These are the qualities of an enlightened mind, the feeling tone. Content.
There are three causes for attaining such a mind. The first is great compassion. The second is developing this altruistic intention to benefit others, an awakening heart. And the third is nondual wisdom, deeply understanding the nature of reality. So in this process of developing great compassion, initially we developed the or we looked at the methods of developing the determination to be free.
You know, it’s very much necessary to confront our own difficulties, own problems, own dissatisfactory quality of our life. You know, the feeling of unmanageability, feelings of loneliness and quite often meaninglessness. If we’re honest, if we stop and really take a look, a deep look into our lives, we begin to recognize the deeper sources, not the superficial sources of our difficulties, but the deeper causes of our problems. And we develop determination to be free, that is to emerge out of these causes, that is to renounce the causes of suffering, the causes of our dissatisfaction. So this is an insight, some new knowledge, something that we haven’t known before.
Insights are simply understandings that we didn’t have before or the growth of present insights. So with such an insight there arises in the mind the thought to be separated from suffering, to be separated from the causes of suffering, dissatisfactions. And when we simply direct this same thought to be separated from suffering towards others, and it becomes compassion. The thought to separate others from their suffering. So all you know, I think from my limited knowledge understanding that all valid systems of spiritual growth, of spiritual development share the same point that our present conception of who we are, our present identity is a restriction.
You know this encapsulated I, skin encapsulated ego. So the main energy necessary to help us to break out of this conception, of this restriction, this encapsulated ego, this I, is sympathetic concern. Sympathetic concern both for ourselves initially and then for others. You know, the concern to help them grow as well as ourselves. Compassion grows out of this of a sense of openness and intimacy and a sensitivity.
And these qualities are very much concerned with seeing deeply into the situation of other people and feeling their needs and their wants. So the beginning of compassion is to see directly and clearly into our own needs, own wants, our own situation, and then simply redirecting that attention, that same quality of mind to others and seeing deeply into their needs, their wants, their situation. You know that all sentient beings want to be happy and don’t want to suffer exactly the same. There’s no difference between myself and everyone in this room and amongst everyone in this room. No matter who they may be.
Compassion has this sense of that we somehow are all sharing in this predicament of life, this sharing in the common humanity. So without this basic understanding and this basic insight to the quality of self and others, then our compassion or the way that we emotionally relate to others can simply be a matter of pity. Our wanting to help others rather than compassion is simply based on pity. Pity is one part arrogance and one part sympathy. There’s a feeling of unequality, a feeling of superiority.
You know, on the other hand sometimes compassion can be mixed with attachment. You know, it’s just going to be directed at the people that we like, that somehow enhance our existence. So we develop when they’re in difficult situations, when there’s suffering, we develop compassion. It’s very narrow minded. It’s only directed towards a few.
It’s very much involved with our self interests. So when you know, we can compassion can be either mixed with the various afflicted emotions such as attachment, desire, or it can be unmixed with the afflictive emotions. When it’s unmixed, the more we examine the object of our compassion, the more we investigate, the clearer and the steadier our compassion becomes. No matter over what period of time it becomes firmer. We become more involved in that compassionate feeling toward this individual if it’s not mixed with afflictive emotions, for example attachment.
When it is mixed with afflictive emotions, then it’s going to remain a few days and then it’s going to go away depending upon how our self interests are being met by this individual. In a real compassion, this compassion which is unmixed with the afflictive emotions, is rooted in understanding our own situation and the situations of others. Had a last Sunday there was a Christian Buddhist dialogue here. And there was some there was talk about with helping others in the world and that in fact Buddhism may at least superficially talk a great deal about compassion and love and helping others, benefiting others. But in fact, are they doing that in the real world?
And as contrasted to Christianity, is very much involved with social engagement, with working in the world. So it’s a very difficult problem. There’s no easy solution to it. If you want to solve the world’s problems, you have to put your own house, your own individual life in order first. That is somewhat of a paradox.
People have a genuine desire to go beyond their individual cramped lives to benefit the world. But if you do not start at home, then you have no hope of helping the world. So the first step in learning how to rule is learning to rule your household, your immediate world. There is no doubt that if you do so, then the next step will come naturally. If you fail to do so then your contribution to the world will be further chaos.
So we can ask, you know, how do we actually help the world? You know, I have some compassion. I want to help others. How do I go about helping others without making a nuisance out of myself, without perhaps having the best intentions, but in the end causing more problems than I’m solving the problem? You know sometimes I use as my model I would say to a large degree my various teachers that I’ve had.
I’ve been very fortunate in having met some of from my limited exposure, some of the most highly realized spiritual masters that have lived in the last thirty or forty years. And I know in their methods of helping, that is to say, the way in which they express their compassion. You know, sometimes when somebody’s hurting, when somebody is suffering, then they’ll give them they’ll speak some kind words, they’ll give them a cuddle. And this is one way of expressing their their compassion. But sometimes it may be necessary to be wrathful, to shake somebody out of their rut, their indulgence in their own self pity, for example.
So this wrathfulness is also an expression of their compassion. And sometimes it’s necessary just to give a very logical, rational explanation of doctrine, some particular meditation technique. And this is also an expression of their compassion. So we can’t predetermine our preconceptions about the outward manifestation of compassion, how it’s to be expressed. But we can talk about some of the qualities in which it is imbued with.
The qualities of caring, sensitivity, respect, and knowledge. So the quality of caring is simply, a feeling which is concerned with is happening to another person. A feeling of involvement in sharing their situation. Maybe we can call it empathy, being able to identify with their circumstances, a feeling of sharing, a commonality, a sensitivity, awareness, what the consequences of what you’re saying and what you’re doing, how they’re affecting that person, how they’re affecting the situation. Not being completely wrapped up in one’s own preconceived program of dealing with a particular problem as you see it, categorizing the individual and his problem and simply working on the basis of your preconceptions of how best to solve this problem, but actually being with that person with awareness and sensitivity and seeing how what you’re saying, what you’re doing, and how the situation is evolving and how it’s affecting you and adjusting what you’re saying and doing.
It involves respect. You know, it’s said that not only does a student have to respect his teacher, but a teacher has to respect his student just as much. So this respect takes the form of an unconditional regard, a valuing. Seeing this person as a feeling being, as worthy of one’s regard. I’ve seen, for example, their Buddha nature.
I’ve seen that they’re exactly equal to us in fact that they want happiness and they don’t want to suffer. There’s no difference. In this way, respecting that person and their integrity and their worthiness and valuing them. Then also, compassion has the quality of knowledge, Being able to use your resources, your talents, your abilities, your wisdom, and coming to creating a situation, an environment, a condition where some kind of insight can occur. You’re not laying your trip on that other person, but creating I think I might call it a gestalt or something but a situation where that other person can resolve their conflict, they can come to a resolution, they can understand their problem, have insight, create some harmony within them.
So these are some of the qualities of what compassion and mind might have. In the actual development, the cultivation of compassion, it begins with just a gentle concern. How nice it would be if this person were free from suffering, if you were free from suffering. A feeling of how nice it would be if you weren’t dissatisfied. It’s kind of a gentle caring in a way, just a pleasant thought.
Initially, we can direct these pleasant thoughts as how nice it would be that if you were free from your difficulty, we can direct those at people we like, that we love. Because these are the easiest people to begin with. But eventually we have to begin to direct the same thought, even though initially it’s artificially, towards neutral people, strangers, and those people we feel indifference toward, and ultimately to people who give us a hard time, who we have difficulties with, people we might consider our enemies. So he goes through this process of simply, initially, even though it’s perhaps artificially, directing the thought how wonderful it would be, and trying to develop some sincerity. If you were free from that difficult situation, if you were free from suffering or your problem, it’s not so difficult with respect to the people we like, But we train ourselves and we consciously and artificially direct the same thought or even the same words.
Perhaps there’s not much sincerity behind it, but the sincerity will follow toward neutral persons and then finally our enemies and people who give us problems. Then we are going to repeat this same procedure, but with a stronger mind, a stronger thought, a stronger type of compassion, a very strong wish. Not only how nice it would be if you were free from suffering, but may you be free from suffering, may you not have this difficulty, this problem. So it’s a little bit stronger of a mind. And we begin likewise to direct it toward the people we like, our friends, the people we love.
But as we did before, we begin to direct it toward neutral persons and our enemies, people who give us a difficult time. So we try to we should try to cultivate this wish wishing that people be happy to as many individuals as possible, particular people. You know, without you know, all types of many, many, many, many particular people, Naomi and Allison, you know, really picking out people and simply wishing your mind, may you be happy, may you be happy. If we don’t use particular people, it is almost impossible to develop the same sincere thought towards an undifferentiated mass of people. May all sentient beings be happy.
It doesn’t mean very much. But when it’s based on having gone through this process with many, many, many particular people who have real faces, real problems, real difficulties, then there can be some sincerity behind it. We can actually develop the thought, May all sentient beings be free from their difficulties. So it’s quite necessary to actually direct it consciously to many, many particular individuals, this wish. Then there’s a third and even stronger mind of compassion that we’re going to develop.
This carries over into the sixth of the sevenfold cause and effect instructions. It is the exceptional resolve. And this is a thought, a strong feeling of compassion that I will separate you. I will free you from that difficulty, from that suffering. So it’s a taking of a responsibility, isn’t it?
It’s a very strong type of compassion. So we’re developing three types of compassion. There’s three different strengths of compassion. Compassion which expresses itself in the thought, how nice it would be if you were free from that suffering, that difficulty. A little bit stronger, the expression and thought, May you be free from that difficulty, from that suffering.
In the strongest type of compassion, I will free you from that difficulty, from your suffering. So these are the three levels of compassion that we have to work with, that we have to develop. It’s also said that there are three types of not only three levels of compassion, but three types of compassion. This is a little bit perhaps abstract, but it may be worthwhile to consider the three types of compassion. There’s to be the compassion which observes sentient beings, people for example.
There’s the compassion which observes phenomena and the compassion which observes the unapprehendable. Unapprehendable. So all these three are compassion, different types of compassion. By compassion simply being the it observes all sentient beings. That’s object of observation.
But its aspect of the mind, the subjective quality of the mind is the wish and the thought that they be free from their suffering. So all these are alike in this quality of observing all sentient beings and the thought that these beings be free from their suffering. But they have slightly different qualities and it becomes very significant, the qualities, the differentiation between these. Due to our ego grasping, we develop based on ignorance, we develop a sense of a solid concrete ego, a sense of I. Me.
in dependence upon developing the sense of solid concrete I, we develop conception of a real mine. This is mine. Know? in dependence on both of these, we enter into various afflictive emotions, desire, anger. And dependence upon desire and anger, we engage in various unskillful actions.
And dependence upon engaging in unskillful actions, we experience the karmic result, which is suffering dissatisfaction. So this is the situation that we’re in, and it has a very logical sequence. It’s understandable. That is to say, suffering, the dissatisfactory quality of our life, is not inherent to life itself. That simply by eliminating the causes of the sequence of chain reaction, that is the basic ignorance, ego grasping, we can eliminate suffering dissatisfaction completely from life.
Suffering dissatisfactory quality of our present life is simply a quality of a type of life bounded by ego. If we can transcend this, if we can eliminate the causes of ego grasping, we can live a life completely free of suffering. If we recognize this very deeply, then we’re going to develop, have a real wisdom as a basis for our operation of compassion. We’re going to be able to see people, sentient beings and ourselves included, undergoing dissatisfactory states, undergoing problems which are totally unnecessary to be going through. Something that someone when you see it very deeply it’s said that the intelligent practitioner first realizes emptiness and goes on to develop an awakening heart.
Why? Because he begins to see the complete I want to use a stronger word it’s totally unnecessary to suffer. It’s not a necessary inherent part of our life. He sees people putting themselves through suffering. He sees people under the control of ego grasping, ignorance, bringing on their own suffering to themselves even though they don’t want it, even though they want to be happy.
They’re completely out of control. You realize this very deeply, that if only they could eliminate this basic cause of their suffering, they could be completely happy. Based upon this understanding, this wisdom seen into the nature of the situation, a tremendous compassion arises for them. It’s not as if suffering were a part of life. It’s not inherent to existence.
We just can’t do anything about it. We have to make the best of a bad situation. That’s not the situation. It’s totally unnecessary. So through this understanding, an overwhelming compassion arises.
It’s like seeing little children who are crying, wanting to grab hold of the moon even though they can’t. And they suffer, and it’s totally unnecessary. We usually we have a tendency to devalue people, to objectify people due to the force of our self-cherishing, to create objects out of people for our own pleasure, for our own manipulative ends. In this process, we lose sight of the fact of our basic equality. You have to devalue a person in order to manipulate them, to make use of them.
If for a moment you see them as wanting happiness deeply, seeing they want happiness and don’t want to suffer, just like myself, it’s very difficult to simply take advantage of another person. The mind which it’s only a self-cherishing mind, a mind which is totally out of balance, is able to take advantage, objectify, manipulate others for its own ends. But this is exactly what happens, you know, through our self-cherishing. And this is how the sense of pity comes about. You know, we were talking about this quality of mistaking pity for compassion where there’s a feeling of inequality.
Even though we may want to help others, we may have a sincere desire but we have to check up from what is the source, what is the intention of our wanting to help others. Love means an interior and spiritual identification with one’s brother, so that he is not regarded as an object to which one does good. The fact is that good done to another as to an object is of little or no spiritual value. The fact is that good done to another as to an object is of little or no spiritual value. Love takes one’s neighbor as one’s other self and loves him with all the immense humility, discretion and reserve and reverence without which no one can presume to enter into the sanctuary of another’s subjectivity.
So in this sense, good done to another as if to an object, you know, when there simply is pity as the basis for our relationship, as a basis for our helping. You know, as I mentioned before, it’s one part arrogance and therefore is of no spiritual value.