Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 47-minute talk, Ven Jampa Gendun opens with hands-on guidance on when to drop counting and noting in breath meditation, then explains correct spinal alignment: vertebrae stacked like coins, the back resilient as an eggshell under axial pressure. After reviewing renunciation and the awakening heart, he turns to the equalizing-and-exchanging-self-with-others tradition, introduced through the Śāntideva story — the “three-realization monk” who floated up to a high throne and ascended out of sight while delivering his lecture on emptiness. Gendun argues this tradition suits Westerners because it requires no conviction in rebirth. The central visualization places the listener in a concentration-camp queue approaching a gas chamber, dissolving habitual distinctions of friend, enemy, and stranger. He closes with a verse from the Buddhist logician Dharmakīrti tracing all conflict to the delusion of a truly-existing self. Suited to practitioners already familiar with Lamrim foundations.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 11 3 PA 1989 03 17.mp3
UUID: e47680d8-58e9-40dc-8699-9b2bf334ac07
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principal Aspects of the Path 1988-1990 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1989-03-17
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 47.4 minutes
Words: ~6,166
In the practice of mindfulness of breathing, if we’re using these techniques just to use these as a system that they’re not particularly necessary, but if you find them valuable you can make use of them. That is the counting and the noting. So, you can experiment on your own. If your mind becomes calm and relaxed then the counting might be actually an obstruction. It might be more of an agitation.
You might your mindfulness might be such that it’s not necessary to have such a gross object and that you can draw simply on the breath itself. So in such a situation that you can stop counting. You don’t need to use that technique any longer and perhaps later on you might want to use it again according to the situation and the state of your mind. And the same for noting. So, begin to experiment as to what works for you best.
You know whatever works I think that’s what you make yourself in general. So if you’re in a comfortable, in a purposeful posture, that you have some intentional quality of your bodily posture. We talk very much about these days in modern psychology about the body language. That the posture is in the gesture of the person physically can give some indication of what the mental state is, what their intentions are, what their thinking is. So the physical posture is an indication of mental states and the mental states interact or mutually dependent with our physical posture.
If we sit in a very, what you might say, sloppy posture, then this is going to be reflected in the state of mind which is generated in dependence upon our bodily posture. If on the other hand, if our body posture reflects some purposefulness, some intention, some stability, you know like the quality of the Buddha sitting in this painting, Perhaps as I mentioned before we don’t know what the Buddha looked like. There weren’t any news photographers around then. And so this is just a symbolic pictorial representation of the Buddha. But it has some meaning beyond simply being a symbol.
It has to have it creates a visual impression upon the mind. Stability that the Buddha knows what he’s up to. He knows what he’s about. That he’s grounded. You know his hand is actually touching the earth.
That he’s not floating up in space. He’s not kind of spaced out. That he’s very much connected, grounded. So there’s a feeling of stability, of purposefulness that he’s not going to be blown over by the next wind that comes along. This reflects in the mentality in which such a physical posture will generate.
And so likewise, if our physical posture has a sense of stability, sense of purposefulness, a sense of groundedness that we aren’t going to be blown over in the next moment. A feeling that, you know, that we can in the context of this posture that we can relax but at the same time knowing that we forget our body but it’s not going to degenerate into an uncomfortable position. So as far as the bodily posture perhaps I didn’t mention a word. Perhaps, you know, system of bodily posture called the seven fold posture of Vairochana which is one Buddha who is white in color. And he sort of is the model for perfect posture.
I don’t know if you’ve seen him. He sits up very nicely, very straight. Put his hands together like this and looks very nice. Makes a good impression. Perhaps we can’t model ourselves after him or her at present length but there are some of the essential features and one which is most important is simply keeping a straight back.
When I mention a straight back, people have a tendency automatically not knowing what a straight back is like because most westerners aren’t used to sitting cross legged for one thing nor are they used to having their back straight. Usually they’re slumped over. So immediately when I say straight back people throw their shoulders back and bending their spine super flexing backwards. This is not the proper posture either. So it’s very much like stacking up coins.
You know, one on top of the other, one on top of the other. If we start to move off center and the stack begins to move to to in one direction and we have to compensate in order to keep a balance and we have to go back the other direction and we end up with a really twisted spine. Likewise with the vertebrae. If we can simply imagine sitting one on top of the other stacking up coins so that the center of gravity is pulling down through them. As we can begin to use this, we need less muscles.
This tension is created in such a posture that we it’s as if the body can hang centered around this one point. And they’re like a structurally it’s very sound. You know like an eggshell. I don’t know if you’ve ever taken eggshell. Eggshell seems very fragile and it is quite fragile except in one aspect of its structure.
If you take it from end to end and try to break it in your hand, you know, with the pressure going straight down with both the in the same along the axis of the length of the A you can’t break it. It has that quality to its structure. Likewise, if we stack up our vertebrae one on top of the other then we can simply hang our weight on it and keep it we can keep the back board remain straight. We’re using less muscles, less tension, less energy and we can relax into this posture and we won’t get any backache. Can maintain this posture for a long period of time.
Also, has an effect upon the what we refer to in the meditative terminology as the psychic wind. The energy flows in the body. Keeping the back straight allows energies to move freely and clarifying the mind itself by bending over, by cramping ourselves in any way, restricting the flow of the psychic energies and this results in an inability to concentrate and lack of clarity in the mind. So there’s a if we can do one thing only amongst the various techniques of the sevenfold posture of Vairochana, stick with the bodily attitude of purposefulness and stability and with a straight back in the sense of straight spine like sometimes it’s described as an arrow, arrow shaft. Just straight up and down.
One one vertebrae on top of another. So maybe we can try that. So it is said within the context of the great vehicle, within Buddhism there are the two overall vehicles of the lesser vehicle and the greater vehicle. And within the greater vehicle the orientation is to between self and others. Others are to be considered more important that the psychological center of gravity moves away from our self centered position towards other centeredness and that our practice becomes other orientated and realizing that in fact by fulfilling the welfare of others, our own welfare is indirectly fulfilled.
So it’s very much concerned with raising our level of perspective from a very narrow and very singular orientation to a more universal perspective seeking to the welfare of all sentient beings, acknowledging our ultimate lack of isolation, the ultimate necessity to open our hearts to others. And so in developing and going for refuge, this idea of reorientating ourselves toward what in fact may be our best interest over and above our usual preconceptions of what that might be. In this process of going for refuge there are said to be three causes. Three causes in going to refuge in the great vehicle sense. The first is anxiety.
Sometimes referred to as fear but perhaps anxiety is the more appropriate word. It’s a little more subtle. It’s the undercurrent of our very existence. There’s a certain amount of dread involved perhaps unconsciously. In its most superficial form it simply means that understanding that if we don’t change then things aren’t going to change.
Understanding that we need to undergo a transformation. That we aren’t afraid or we don’t have fear of any particular one suffering, but the undercurrent of the unsatisfactory quality of our lives. That the patterns which are these themes, these styles of suffering. This dread of the reoccurring neurotic patterns which we’re very much caught up in. Not that each individual particular suffering but their whole you know, the in in music, the sometimes there’s a base rhythm.
There’s something there’s a rhythm. There’s a I don’t know what they’re called. There’s a there’s a rhythm which is going out through the whole piece. The the piece in itself might be changing constantly varied. There’s there’s a recurring pattern throughout the entire piece.
And this is what dread implies, or anxiety, knowing that we have to change. And this is the first cause. And the second cause is the conviction that we can. That we have the potential, that we aren’t the poor, limited, negative self that we haven’t always imagined ourselves to be. That in fact we have the resources, the ability, the potential for transformation.
And then the third, especially in the great vehicle going for refuge, is to raise our level of understanding that we’re going for refuge for the benefit of others. This is the second two lines within this four line verse that we’re going to develop ourselves in order to help others to do the same. Going through the necessity of transformation that the transformation occurs within one’s own mind, within one’s own mind. You know I am Buddha. In the Zen tradition they often talk about the fact if you see the Buddha on the road, kill him or her.
And then what do they mean by that? If you keep constantly thinking of Buddha outside of yourself then you’re looking in the wrong place. The Buddha is within yourself. The potential for transformation is within your own mind and nowhere else. That your ultimate happiness lies within your own mind and nowhere else.
So therefore we take refuge in that fact. This is We orientate our direction towards that fact that the mind is determinant of all things and the methods for bringing about this transformation we call the Dharma. It is anything which is able to raise the level of your consciousness from desire to generosity, from hatred to love, compassion, from confusion to clarity. Anything that any method, any teaching. That’s a source of refuge, source of orientation for ourselves.
And context in which this transformation takes place, the spiritual community, is a source of refuge. Others acting as examples of God, as supports, as friends, as teachers, inspirations which are all very necessary. And we orientate ourselves again and again to take refuge to redirect our attention towards these actual methods for solving our problem. So these are the causes of refuge and sources of our refuge and the needs for transformation and to find the solutions to solve begin to solve our problems in a very realistic way. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, I go for refuge until I am enlightened.
Through the merit I create, I practice in giving, and the other perfection. May I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all beings. To the Buddha, Dharma, and the Sangha, I go for refuge until I am enlightened. Through the merit I create by practicing giving and the other perfections, may I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all So we’re reviewing the three principal aspects of the path. That is the two principles which we’ve already completed and as a lead up to the third a quick review of these two principles.
So the first two principles are the Three Principal Aspects. That is the developing determination to renounce. Developing the seeing the absolute necessity to change as a necessary prerequisite to creating the space to allow change, to give us the energy to become unstuck from the habitual neurotic patterns in which we’re long involved in. It takes this determination, this will to enlighten, energize us, energize us, to motivate us, to take those necessary leaps into possible unknown consequences. But having conviction in the faith that that the the the the the the basic sanity is at work.
And that we’re going to land on solid ground in a far better place than where we took off. And the second principal aspect of the path, how to open our hearts to others, and then the third which we’ll take up the next session which we’ll be talking about for a number of weeks is looking into the nature of reality emptiness, selflessness, actual mode of being. So with respect to the second principal aspect of the path, Opening our hearts to others, the two traditions, the meditative traditions of the sevenfold cause and effect, and equalizing and exchanging self for others. Within the first, the sevenfold cause and effect precepts on the foundation of developing equanimity. Seeking to hold so tightly to the categories of friend, enemy, and stranger, developing the understanding that the arbitrary and changeability of these categorizations, creating some space and fluidity in the way we relate with others, and hopefully developing some positive regard and conditioned positive regard for others.
On this basis then we go on to begin the actual Seven Causes and Effect Precepts. The first beginning with recognizing all sentient beings as literally having been our mothers in the past. Remembering their kindness as the second. Developing a wish to repay their kindness as the third. Affectionate love, simply seeing others as pleasant.
Getting to like people. Developing great compassion. Developing exceptional resolve, determining to achieve sanity for the sake of helping others to do the same, leading to an opening of a heart which is the awakening heart of the mind of enlightenment, bodhicitta. So that’s the method, the sevenfold cause and effect. Now we’re going to go very quickly through the second of these two traditions that is equalizing and exchanging self with others.
This is in a lineage coming down from Śākyamūni Buddha to Mañjuśrī and to Śāntideva, the author of this book which is one of the finest of all books in the development of this tradition as a source. Śāntideva down to Atisha, and finally down to an unbroken lineage to the present time. So there’s this unbroken teaching lineage.
There’s unbroken energy of insight, of passion which has been transmitted in teacher to disciple. And grew to student for two thousand five hundred years to today. Śāntideva, just very briefly. There He was eighth century Yogi scholar who lived in the University, the Monastery which is in the near Rajgir in Bihar, modern day Bihar India which was probably the greatest center of learning probably in the world at that time. He was known sarcastically as he who had the three realizations.
He who had the three realizations. I kind of identify with Śāntideva because I have also these three realizations. Realizations. But he was famous for that. The three realization, eating, sleeping, and going to the toilet.
That’s that’s all that all the monks and then he appeared very lazy like me. He had been doing. He was everyone looked down upon him. Everybody you know was always belittling him. And finally but they they also didn’t like him very much because they thought he was bringing down the whole tone of the monastery, bring down the morale.
He was just so lazy. He wasn’t doing anything. Was good for nothing. Was just eating the food without contributing to the welfare of the monastery as a whole. So they had to think of some way to get rid of him.
So they thought we’ll humiliate him so much that I’ll have to leave. They asked him to give a teaching, a very profound teaching and he agreed. And so they built this, they announced that Śāntideva would be giving us this teaching and thousands of people came to listen to his lecture on the Dharma. And they erected this very high throne, extremely high. And as a method to humiliate him they didn’t put any steps up to the throne.
So the day of the lecture came and the people, thousands of people had gathered and walked up to the throne and he saw that there were no steps so he simply floated up, landed on top of the throne and sat and began to deliver the teaching upon which this is based. This this book is the written commentary of the oral teaching given by Śāntideva. And when he got to the ninth chapter, the ninth chapter is on nature of reality, understanding emptiness. And it said he began to float up in the air. He slowly began to rise up and higher and higher and he still was delivering his lecture.
And finally, about when he got to the tenth chapter no one could see him. They could only hear his voice and then finally he was never seen again. So they did get rid of him. But maybe, I think maybe, maybe they regretted it after that. We’re going to talk about this particular meditative tradition for developing the awakening heart and as I’ve said before I think it’s perhaps much more applicable to Westerners since we have very little confidence and conviction in rebirth and in order for the sevenfold cause and effect precept to really be transform our mind we have to be convinced that all sentient beings literally, you know not figurative, have been our mother and have raised us with kindness again and again just like our mother I just left.
So that’s difficult isn’t it for us? Even those who profess from their mouth have some conviction in rebirth probably couldn’t have that much power over their mind. That much force to see each and every person in this room, all the different shapes and sizes. Males and females, what to say of dogs and cats. Having been my mother, that’s very difficult.
So this in this tradition is not necessarily to have any conviction whatsoever about rebirth. So perhaps this is a little more accessible and it’s a very profound technique and it has a very psychological, workable technique I think very appropriate for Western. So we’re going to be dealing with five main meditations, a series of meditations. First is very much like the foundation for the sevenfold cause and effect precept but it presented a little bit different. It’s called equalizing self and other.
And then we’re looking at the disadvantages of self centeredness and the third is the advantages of other centeredness. And then the fourth is the actual exchange of self for others and the fifth is giving and taking a visualization technique. So begin with the first of these. You know, I’m just going to we’ve explained it. We’ve discussed these last year.
And so, know, if you want to listen to these this explanation in any extensive form, I think the tapes are still available. I’m just refreshing your memory. It’s kind of jogging your mind a little bit because it’s good to keep planting these seeds again and again. So I’m not going to go into detail. I hope that I’ll get through this technique tonight and we can begin these Three Principal Aspects we have in our next session.
So the first equalizing self and others with others and this is done through from the conventional point of view and from the ultimate point of view. From the conventional point of view it also has two divisions from the side of others and from one’s own side. We want to begin to understand essentially other all other sentient beings are just like ourselves. Everybody wants happiness, nobody wants to suffer. Just like myself, completely equal.
You know, everybody has different appearance with all these different shapes. Some are female, some are males, some are rich, some are poor. You know all these different superficial appearances which we usually judge people by. You know when we do this loving kindness meditation I say these words over and over again so you’re probably sick of it. But these are what we this is the way we relate with people.
We don’t relate to them, we relate to the superficial characteristics. We relate to them as form being, to their form. We don’t relate to them as feeling being. And the feeling essentially is wanting happiness not wanting to suffer. That in this sense there’s no difference whatsoever.
There’s no being that does not want to be happy. We can almost say it’s the nature of the mind. What it means to be a sentient being is to seek an approach and avoidance which is the most basic reactions of what we call life. It seeks something which is going to enhance its existence. It avoids those things which are going to inhibit its continued existence.
Approaching happiness and suffering that everybody wants to happy, nobody wants to suffer. So this, you know, we’re trying to develop this understanding. And the meaning of equalizing the exchange of others ultimately is simply to develop an unconditional positive regard. No matter what sentient beings may appear to me as, no matter what in fact from their side they may be doing or from what my side I may perceive them as to over and above this having unconditional positive regard. Unconditioned positive regard.
No matter, you know, over and above the superficial labels that I’m usually applying a friend, enemy, stranger for example. Over the first superficial labels of beautiful, male, female, ugly, rich, poor, all these qualities that we’re imputing to others that we we determine our way of relating with the in dependence upon. Over simply having unconditioned regard. This is kind of the outcome of this first step. So from the side of others that others are completely equal.
Know first as I’ve been just mentioned that others want to be happy, they don’t want to suffer just like myself. So we know, I think we can I don’t I think it’s necessary to think about that? I think most of us would say that true but I don’t think it quite strikes us. In many things we can enter into in our heads. I was talking with someone today and they mentioned quite wisely that we can think of things intellectually, rationally, but we don’t have the feeling accompanying them.
They don’t really move us to the seed of our depths of our being. Developing this ability to see that in fact there is nothing from the smallest insect up to the presidents of countries. In this sense there’s no difference. They all want happiness. However they make a conception of that happiness, that’s what they want.
None of them want to suffer. How would they conceive of that suffering? They don’t want it. You know there’s different strokes for different strokes. We all have our perception of what happens is and what we want But still the fact is we want happiness.
How will we conceive of that? So as method this is an elaborate system but essentially we can use the as a method of using imagery and working with our mind. I use the image. There are more traditional images but I sort of updated the image of a Nazi concentration camp. Okay?
So you’ve just gotten off the train and you’ve just been routed out of your nice comfortable home in the middle of the night back into the railroad car with one hundred and fifty other people who have done the same. All your possessions lost. You can split up from your children, your family. It’s cold and snowing on the ground and have the clothes on your back. You developing some kind of imagery here.
This is the way we should work with our mind and meditate something which has meaning, something which has an impact on our mind. So you’re standing in line and they say, well you’re going to take a shower now. We’re going to de louse you or something like that. You have to go in and take a shower. And and know obviously, not obviously but as we know it’s not a shower is it?
They’re going to be gassed. They’re all going to die. And they’re standing there in line. They open the door and a few go in and the door shuts. The line shortens and they’re moving along.
And there’s all these people. There’s old people, young people, there’s rich people, there’s poor people, there’s highly educated people, there’s illiterate people, there’s beautiful people, ugly people, crippled people, healthy people. And who are you at that moment as you’re approaching that door? In a few moments you’re all going to be dead. You know, who are you going to you know, at that moment, who doesn’t need some comfort?
Who doesn’t need a kind word? A gentle touch, a smile, you know, some some caring or cuddle. Who amongst all those various different varieties of things who are in that line with you doesn’t need that comfort? You know, are any of them immune to suffering? Are any of them immune to care?
To fear? To to what what they’re experiencing? Who are you going to at that moment, who are you going to clutch to? You know those people who are rich, you know, if you can see from their clothing, oh they must be well off. I should should befriend them because it might help me in the future.
Or maybe it’s them, they’re natural. Maybe because of your attachment. But doesn’t mean that you know, while you’re clutching your small child here and this this child has been suffering from its parents. Does that child need any comfort any less than your child does? And this kind of quality of looking in all those eyes and seeing the tear and the fear in all those eyes that they all need a kind gesture from you with something just a word of smile in this moment.
That they’re all equal in that respect. No difference whatsoever. All these different possibilities of dispositions, statuses, backgrounds, they all need this. All sentient beings need to understand. We’re all waiting at doorstep.
You know? Something like that. They quote from their own side that they all want to be happy. They don’t want to suffer no matter what different varieties of appearance they may have. And then using this quality of this imagery and trying to see very deeply for yourself that you have this is true.
Trying to feel that. Seeing equality of others from their own side and seeing equality from your own side. And we’ve gone over this habit when we discussed the foundation of the sevenfold cause and effect precept, the equanimity of meditation that all sentient beings on their side, quite kind to us. And we went over this, I won’t go into any detail. That you know, obviously, you know the people we like, the people we love, you know, they’re that we more than not the reason we like them, the reason we love them because they are kind.
So we don’t even have to talk about it. These people that they’re kind to us. But what about the you know, what about strangers? They’re not kind. They don’t care about whether I live or die.
They don’t care about my welfare. But you know this house, you know, again we’ve gone through this reasoning but roughly this house, the fact that we’re sitting here, this table, the food that you ate tonight, the fact that you’re probably alive depends upon people you don’t know that you never will know, that you’ve never met and probably will never meet. Due to the kindness of all these people we don’t have to work that we’re alive, that we don’t have to work out in the fields to feed ourselves that day, that we aren’t cooking, we can have transportation, that we have cars, that we have all these modern I gave the but they said, Oh, they just do it for the money, right? Okay. They just did it.
They’re not interested in me personally. They’re just doing it for the money. And the question about whether we are going to be controlled by others intentions or whether we are going to decide autonomously in our best interest what our response to others is going to be. You know are we going to be continually controlled by how we perceive others intentions to be whether we’re right or wrong. Know we could be wrong but even when we’re right you know, as if there were objective right about it, which I don’t think there is.
And I use the example of, you know, your your child is is you your your only child that you love so much is is had an accident. And all you could all he or she could just die. Mortally ill, you rush them to the hospital. They take them into the the operating room. All your thinking, all your thoughts are for the welfare of your child.
The only thing that you want in life at that moment is that your child be well. Know, take my life, I don’t care. Just my be well. That’s all I want out of life at this very moment. The doctor comes out and says everything’s okay.
Your child’s gonna be okay. You know, what do you have? What kind of response is a healthy response? We can give it, you We can say, oh, that doctor just did it for the money. Yeah?
That doctor’s gonna send me a bill. This hospital’s gonna send me a bill. That anesthesiologist’s gonna send me a bill. All those nurses are gonna are gonna get paid. They don’t care about me.
But what would be a healthy, what would be a humanistic response in such a situation? The quality of inappropriate human response would be a sense of thankfulness and gratitude I would think. A sense of thankfulness and deep gratitude that you got what you wanted most in life at that moment. You know that’s what matters the most. You’ve got what you want.
When people give you what you want most in life there’s a great involved in that. Whether they intended that or not, you you can respond as if they were in time because you’ve got what you wanted. So a sense of even though they’re going to send you a bill in a few weeks, even though it’s not necessary to respond, to take that perception. You know we can we the world doesn’t objectively exist. And depending upon our attitude, we can shape it, we can create it depending upon how we perceive it.
We can have a banker’s mentality, simply seeing things in terms of incoming and outgoing figures. Or we can begin to become a little more skillful, become pragmatic in what is actually going to benefit me the most in my ultimate welfare. What is going to be the healthiest type of response, type of mental attitude that I could develop, the healthiest way to perceive a non objective situation would be a sense of thankfulness and gratitude. You’re gonna have to pay the bill anyway but why not make it a really meaningful experience, a growth experience? The quality of others from our own side in the effect of their kindness.
And there’s equality of others from our own side from the fact of death, that death is the great level that we’re all going to die. So what is the use of clutching onto to some pushing others away where tomorrow they might not even be there anyway. That you’re not going to be, you might not be there. And then ultimately, an ultimate point of view. And this was touched upon when we talked about the equanimity meditation, the arbitrariness, and the changeability of our labeling process of friend, enemy, and stranger.
That most of this process we’re unaware of. It’s a preconscious process. But these people appear from their own side to be strangers. They appear from their own side to be enemies. They appear from their own side to be friends, loveable, hateable, indifferent, and they’re having a quality of indifference about them.
We don’t we’re not aware because it’s a preconscious to this point that we’re actually creating a friend and that they aren’t they don’t exist that from their own side as such that we’re projecting this imagery, this labeling process, this designation individuals. Having labeled in that way then we react accordingly. We react according to the friend, attachment. We react in response to labeling the enemy, we react with aversion of hatred and indifference to stranger. That we we are creating this world and we react we respond to what we’ve already created.
And of course they they react to that. They react to our response and reinforcing reinforcing our perception. And we’re very much creating these people. They do not exist objectively. Friend, enemy, and stranger.
Then from the point of view that in dependence upon self, that in dependence upon developing the conception of self, we create other. There’s a verse from Dharmakīrti which says, in dependence upon conceiving of self arises mind. Once mind has arisen then there it becomes my nose, my arm, my books, my house, my country and we develop that attachment. In dependence upon developing the conception of the truly existing I, we develop other. Once there is I and other, there’s conflict, there’s aversion, there’s hatred.
It all comes down to development of I. That we conceive of all of these labeled projections as existing objectively from their own side. In fact, they’re only a manner of speaking. That I and other, self and other are just modes of conventions. They’re just designations.
They’re manners and ways of talking. They don’t exist objectively, but they don’t exist truly. And know, from from the point of view, they only exist relatively as in the case of far and near. Far only exists relative to near. Near only exists relative to far.
They don’t exist objectively. If far existed objectively, then no matter how how much we walked toward what was far, it would always be far because it objectively is far. It would never it would always have to be far since it was objectively existing as far. So in in creating on the base basic misconception of the nature of the self, we create others. And dependence upon that arises conflict, aversion, hatred, anger, and all the various other negative emotions.
So there’s a sense that being being able to be more fluid and open in our way of relating to others, understanding that these feelings of conflict and isolation, know, this skin encapsulated ego that we’ve developed for ourselves is an illusion, is based on delusion. And this begins to lessen the feeling of distinction between self and other. That this is only a manner, a way of speaking. Self and others is only nothing more than that. And we take it to be objectively, you know, hardcore concrete reality, but it’s just a way of a manner of speaking.
So, you know, we’re trying to discover that we’re quite loving people. You know, we are we are trying to allow ourselves to be lovable in all the various situations that arise. You we we we discovering our own self-existing warmth. You know, we get in touch with some of those tender spot inside of ourselves. And then we discover that we have a light within.
And this is all these mental processes are in a way creating the space for our for our basic sanity, our basic Yes. A self existing love, compassion, giving it a chance to be able to express itself. You know, it’s like you know, it’s like an area overgrown with weeds. In the ground there’s these seeds but they never get a chance to grow. They never get to see those the light of day.
The sun never strikes that place. So we’re trying to clear away some of these ways and cultivate. Right? It’s something which very much is already there. You know, the egoless state has always been there.
It’s not something that we have to invent. So, you know, very much the discovery is is an unlearning process. Unlearning some some basic misunderstandings and misconceptions and unskillful patterns that we’ve developed which inhibit.