Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using a personal story about dreaming he was failing a Dharma exam in Nepal — oscillating between panic and lucid calm as he lost and regained awareness that he was dreaming — Ven Jampa Gendun opens this 47-minute commentary by grounding the doctrine of selflessness in lived experience. He explains how suffering in dreams and movies arises through identification: we make fiction real by believing we are the character. He then introduces the Four Point Analysis for realizing selflessness, focusing in depth on the first essential — ascertaining the object of negation — and uses the rope-snake and thief-in-a-room analogies to clarify what must be identified before it can be dissolved. A Q&A on afflictive versus wholesome emotions precedes a closing guided loving-kindness meditation extending goodwill progressively to self, friend, neutral person, and a difficult person.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 12 3 PA 1989 09 15.mp3
UUID: 95c79a56-446b-4dca-ab6f-28f334299219
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principal Aspects of the Path 1988-1990 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1989-09-15
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.6 minutes
Words: ~4,668
Most of our thinking, our patterns of thought are reinforcing our ignorance, our misconceptions, our mistaken belief, our wrong model, inaccurate assumptions. So to begin to cut through this is quite a challenge, it’s a lot of work. It takes a lot of energy. But ultimately it’s very necessary if we’re ever going to bring an end to our suffering. We have to commit ourselves even though it might be a long journey.
So we’re using the example of a dream at the Hearer’s level. You know, in a dream there’s a sense of being a person with a body and mind living in a world of things. So, okay, we’re in a dream. You have a sense that you’re a body and a mind living in this dream world. Within this dream, there are things which you are attracted to and things which you have aversion for due to their various appearances.
As long as you do not realize you’re dreaming, one takes all these things as real, and one feels either happiness or sadness in relationship to these various objects that appear to you. You know, we suffer, we can suffer in a dream. You know, within a dream a dream mother can give birth to a dream child and experience dream joy. And then as a child grows up she experiences dream satisfaction and then perhaps her child dies and she experiences dream suffering. Within the context of that dream, everything that she experienced is very real.
You know, one, for example, you might dream that you were hit by a car or that you were being burnt in a fire. Ultimately, no one has been hit, no one has been burnt. But still in terms of that dream, in the context of that dream, for the unaware dreamer one would really suffer as if one had been burnt, as if one had been hit. So, the suffering arises simply by virtue of the fact that one identifies oneself with the person in the dream. As soon as one becomes aware that it’s only a dream, Even if that dream doesn’t stop, even if you maintain your awareness, have a lucid dream, you know you’re dreaming, one is nonetheless free to think, Oh, it doesn’t really matter.
It’s only a dream. I’m going to wake up. It’s not really happening to me. I remember this was a number of years ago. I did a meditation course.
This was in Nepal. And after the meditation course, I had a dream and I dreamt about having to take a test in Dharma. We were sitting in the classroom. I was very worried. I was doing very poorly on my examination on Dharma.
And there was a nun who was going around, walking around the class room, checking the examination paper. And as she was getting closer, was getting uptight, I was really very worried, I was really doing very poorly, I was really suffering. And I thought, why is going to a dream? I relax. Why bother?
Why get worried? And then I began to lose that thought that it was a dream. And again, I saw her getting closer and again I started getting worried. Again, I became I panicked. And then again, thought, it’s only a dream.
And I went back and forth like this a number of times. Finally I woke up, thank goodness. And another dream, I was going into a bad dream, a nightmare, and I wasn’t into this at all. So I said, I better wake myself up. So I pinched myself.
And the pain of pinching myself woke me up. So there was this moment of identifying with that, for example, person who was taking that examination. Therefore that situation became real. And then there was a moment when I disassociated myself. I realized this isn’t me.
I stepped outside of the dream context and therefore there was a cessation. There was no longer this identification. The person that was suffering in a dream only arose as a temporary manifestation dependent upon the condition of one not being aware that it’s only a dream. That person who suffered in that dream only arose due to the temporary condition of not being aware that it was a dream. That person in that dream had no separate, independent, lasting self of its own.
The person in the dream had no independent, separate, lasting self of his own. Only when I identified, I gave him that quality of being me, of being separate, lasting, independent, only then is it possible for the situation to become real and the suffering to become real. Anyway, you can begin to think about the dream analogy is quite worthwhile to make use of, to think about. Why is it that you suffer in a dream and you do suffer in a dream? You suffer dream suffering, which in the context of that dream is real.
When you step outside that dream, it’s no longer real. Why is it when you go to a movie, when you become totally absorbed in the action, you forget that you’re simply a member of the audience watching some flat projection on the screen. That you begin to identify with the character and the action, the situation as real. You experience all these various suffering, emotion, joy, whatever. But sometimes when somebody next to you or somebody in the audience coughs and you come back and you realize, oh, it’s only a movie.
And you step back, gain some perspective. This is quite worthwhile to think about. You know, understanding this intellectually is not enough to free oneself from the strongly ingrained habit of clinging to one’s mind and body as a separate, independent, lasting self. We have to begin to examine the stream of our mental and physical experience again and again. Begin to this continuum of mental and physical experiences.
We have to begin to reflect on what we do find and what we don’t find when we begin to examine the continuum, the stream, this flux of mental and physical events which we call ourselves. Begin to look into it, begin to analyze it and see what we do find and what we don’t find. Until we reach a conviction and some kind of certainty. We have to become convinced of what is the case. And then we meditate on that.
Once we gain some conviction, we begin to rest the mind on our conclusion that we’ve arrived at. Resting the mind of this newfound knowledge until the veils of this are caused by one’s habitual patterns of thought have finally dissolved. At that point, there’s some direct unmistakable realization of selflessness that arises. And this is the genuine experience that actually liberates one from suffering. So we’re going to use a method.
What the Buddha discovered is that the experience of suffering is always associated with a strong emotional attachment to a vague sense of self. The experience of suffering This isn’t a doctrine. This is an experiential fact which we can find out for ourselves within our own experience. The Buddha discovered that suffering is always associated with attachment to a vague sense of self or I. As I’ve emphasized, that Buddhism does not ask us to believe or disbelieve in the self, in a self, whether it exists or not, how it exists.
But when we look at our emotional response, the way we actually act in our everyday life, we will see that we are attached to a certain type of I, certain type of self which we feel forced to protect, which we feel forced to foster, which is our preoccupation of every waking moment and every sleeping moment of our lives. And this attachment to a fiction which has never existed and will never exist is the basis for all our suffering. Have to Buddhism turns its attention to our strong emotional responses associated with that sense of self, associated with that sense of I, and begins to investigate the nature of that I, begins to investigate the nature of that self, the ego. How is it experienced? How does it arise?
What do we mean by the self? What do we mean by I? Can it withstand analysis? Analysis? You know, the fact that we do experience an eye, we do experience the self.
But the fact that our senses are susceptible to illusion, as in the case of seeing a striped rope as a snake is evidence that experience is not a guarantee that an object in fact exists. This person sees a snake, believes it as a snake, has great fear, great suffering, but in fact a snake never existed at all. So just because we have experienced an object, a type of self for example, doesn’t mean that that type of self in fact actually exists. It doesn’t guarantee the reality of that perceived object, our experience. We have to actually analyze using reason, penetrate, look into.
So for our knowledge to go beyond you know, subjectivism, or how do you say, ego deception, or narcissism, for our knowledge to go beyond pure speculation, it needs to be based on some kind of discipline of an ordinary regular practice of attention or inquiry, giving attention to something, an orderly fashion, an orderly methodical inquiry into the nature of the object. Here, we’re talking about the body and mind and how it relates to the self. We’re going to perform an inquiry in a very orderly fashion. So the technique which is used to gain this cognition of selflessness is based upon generating controlled and well formed contradiction. Controlled and well formed contradiction which when given the requisite commitment to reason force one into realizing selflessness.
And this is becoming very much the basis of cognitive therapy to begin to show up people the contradictions between their emotional thought patterns and when these thought patterns are brought to real light of rational analysis. I can’t do anything. You tied your shoes this morning, didn’t you? Yeah, I did that. And it is showing simple contradiction to these emotional sweeping statements, beliefs that we have about ourselves.
We can begin to dissolve them. And this is in a very superficial level. Here we’re going to use it in a very profound level. You know, see that our particular viewpoint or attitude as baseless and has no reference in reality. So at the hearer’s level, the technique that’s going to be used is called the Four Essentials, sometimes called the Four Point Analysis.
It’s said that if one meditates according to these four steps, then there’s no danger of coming to a wrong understanding. So this is what we’re going to be discussing today, slightly, and then next week. The four point analysis, the four essentials. The essential of ascertaining the object and negation. We try to really go beyond the words and try to really find out what they’re talking about here.
The first point, the essential of ascertaining the object of negation. The second, the essential ascertaining the pervasion. Third, the essential of ascertaining the lack of oneness. And the fourth, the essential of ascertaining the lack of difference. This is the way that through this methodical analysis, we can begin to dissolve thought patterns which have no basis in are baseless and have no reference in reality.
They are complete fantasy. The first, let’s begin to look at that. The essential of ascertaining the object of negation. It’s the most important of these four. In that, the meditator will never know if he has succeeded in negating a false object if he doesn’t know what that object looks like in the first place.
We’re going to negate an object. For example, said there was a thief in this room, but you didn’t know what he looked like. And you stuck your head in the room, you looked around, you wouldn’t know whether that thief was in the room or not. So I want to ask you whether there’s a thief in this room or not. I’m looking for a thief.
Without having ascertained him, without having identified, you know, what does that thief look like? There’s no way you can tell whether that thief actually exists in that room or not. We have to begin to identify, recognize what the thief looks like. We have to begin to identify, recognize what this singular, unchanging, independent self looks like. What does it feel like?
We have to get some kind of taste of it, some sense of it within our own experience when we are emotionally responding to situations. We are developing some kind of image in our mind of what it must feel like, what it must look like. We are bringing to conscious awareness something which is presently unconscious, which is unknown to our awareness presently. We have to develop this ability to become aware of what is now unconsciously held. So the object of negation, the object of negation.
In this case, it’s a singular, unchanging, independent self. In which we believe this to exist due to our mistaken conception, due to the force of ignorance. Just as in the case in conceiving a snake upon a rope. If we analyze, if we go up close to that rope, the appearance of that snake disappears. We can’t find that snake.
We can never that belief that was holding that this is a snake and the consequential fear and suffering disappears, dissolves. We can no longer support that belief upon analysis that there’s a snake there because we’ve looked, we’ve examined it very closely, we see it’s a rope. This coming to see the way things actually are will dissolve our mistaken conception. Coming to see that this is in fact a rope contradicts that that object is a snake. It eliminates from the mind altogether the ability to hold that object as a snake and therefore eliminates completely the fear and the suffering which arises from that mistaken conception.
The existence of the snake is negated. That’s what we mean by the word negate. It’s gotten rid of. It never existed. In reality, it never existed at any time, but we held it to exist.
We believed it to exist. We grasped at it to exist due to this force of mistaken conception. A singular, unchanging, independently existing self has never existed. It will never exist. It does not exist now, but we believe it does due to the force of mistaken conception of ignorance.
So it’s important to understand that the snake doesn’t really exist. But we have to be able to identify this, to be able to identify it in order to examine and to see whether it really exists or not when we look at the rope. What is the basis of our fear? What is the basis of our suffering? It is this object being held by misconceived ignorance.
We have to be able to identify that object if we are going to ever gain the understanding that this object doesn’t exist and thereby dissolve these mistaken thought patterns. Just begin to negate this mistaken model, mistaken belief. And thereby all the various fears, all the various sufferings which are dependent upon that foundation of this mistaken belief will dissolve. We have to know what we’re looking for. Otherwise, we’re never going to become convinced that it doesn’t exist.
Just like looking in a room. If we don’t know what that thief looks like, we’re never going to convince that he’s not in this room. We’re always going to quite not be sure whether that thief is in this room or not. There’s no way we can really know for sure. So we have to gain a sense, we have to gain a feeling, some kind of recognition of what a singular, unchanging, independently existing self would look like.
What does it feel like? If we are ever going to be able to ascertain whether or not it in fact exists. So, if you’re not convinced that you behave emotionally as if you had this singular unchanging independent self, then you have to begin to think carefully about your pain and suffering. And ask yourself, Who or what is it that is suffering? Who is it that’s so afraid of what’s going to happen tomorrow?
Who feels bad about what happened in the past? Who does death seem such To whom does death seem such a threat? This fear of death.
Tomorrow I have to take what? I have an interview. I’m afraid. I don’t know what’s going happen. Who is it that’s so afraid of what’s going to happen tomorrow?
Who feels so guilty about what you did in the past, so ashamed? Then you’re going to know that there’s a type of self which you’re holding on to which you never realized existed. You’ve never brought it into question. We’ve never really looked at the self. We had this kind of vague abstract notion at best.
Now, Śāntideva, one of the greatest of all Indian masters said in text called Engaging in the Bodhisattva Deeds that without contacting the imagined existence, its non-existence is not apprehended. We have to come in contact with something which is purely an imagined existence. It’s a product of our imagination. Without contacting it, without getting to know it, without touching it almost, we’re never going to understand the fact that doesn’t exist. If one does not firmly identify this self or I, then the analysis cannot proceed.
For the reason that there is either there is no object to be analyzed, we don’t know what we’re looking for, therefore we’re never going to be able to say, Ah, it doesn’t exist. Or if it’s held in some kind of vague blurry image, then the analysis loses its strength through not having a well defined object. We’re trying to bring to conscious awareness an unconsciously held model or conception of a type of self upon which our emotional life is based, which acts as the root cause of all our suffering. In order to realize that such a model or conception is baseless because it has no reference in reality and the real world. It’s a pure fiction.
It is simply created out of a network of wrong beliefs. So the analysis that we’re going to carry out is only effective to whatever degree we’re able to identify within our own experience this network of wrong beliefs, this model of a type of self we are creating. So we’re setting up a target and we’re going to shoot our arrow and reason at it. We’re not looking for an empirical, everyday conventional self. We’re not looking for an empirical, everyday conventional self.
You know, the self that wakes up in the morning, the self that has breakfast, self that goes off to work, has lunch, comes home, plays with the kids, watches television, brushes its teeth, and goes to bed at night. This is not the self that we’re trying that we’re looking for. This self exists. This self is no problem to anyone. This self cannot be negated.
That which exists cannot be negated. It’s the nature that the the more that one analyzes truth, the clearer it becomes. The more that one analyzes falsity, the less clear it becomes until such a point it disappears altogether. The conventional self which goes about these various activities, I’m talking to you, you’re listening to me. These types of cells are no problem whatsoever.
They’re not the cause of any problem. They exist. We can analyze. We can find them. But the singular, unchanging, independent existing self, which is the basis for emotional life, in fact, does not exist.
But we believe it does. It is the basis for this conception of its existence. It’s the basis of all our problems. This is what we’re trying to identify. This type of self, which we imagine to exist.
This is what we’re going to negate. So we instinctively identify ourselves with our body and mind. We have a very strong emotional attachment to them. Even though our whole idea of self, you know, is very kind of is very vague is very confused. For example, you know, just to give you something to think about, you can go home and think about it during the week.
For example, when we say we say we are sick, we sometimes say, you know, if you’re sick, you sometimes say, oh, I am sick. And then you say you would go on to say, because I have a headache. I am sick because I have a headache. When we say something like that, what do we mean? I am sick because I have a headache.
Do we mean do we mean I is one thing and the head is another? Or do we mean that the head is the same as the I? So you have to begin to investigate, you know, with this common sense notions of I and self. You know, what is the I the doer? Who is the I the experiencer?
So we’re going to continue with this this first essential of ascertaining the object of negation and then the the following three essentials next week. And then to begin to try to identify this misconceived eye and then begin to negate it. So stop there if you have some questions about what what we’ve talked about. Do you understand? Yes.
I’m sorry, Kim. But can you speak up a little louder? They wouldn’t have you would have the type of you know, you know, we can talk about the different types of emotions. Those emotions which are concordant with reality, are in keeping with reality, such as compassion, love, and those those emotions which are which are in not in harmony with the actual situation, such as attachment and hatred. That that there there are emotions which are can which are appropriate.
For example, that people do suffer and therefore compassion is an appropriate response wishing that they not suffer since one would wish that for oneself. This is not based upon any misconception whatsoever. It is quite reasonable. It’s in keeping with the reality of the situation. Whereas all the afflictive emotions, those types of negative emotions such as anger, hatred, attachment, pride, jealousy.
They have a tendency to misconceive the object. That the object of all afflictive emotions does in fact not exist. There is either a depreciation or an exaggeration of that object. There is a focusing upon the singling out of characteristics to the exclusion of others and therefore one sees it in a very unbalanced manner and was not actually seeing the object as it actually in fact exists. And this arises in dependence upon the basic misconception of ignorance or misconception of the nature of the self that all the other afflictions arise out of this.
So all those afflictions, all those afflictive emotions arising out of and basic misconceptions would be eliminated. But those emotions which are appropriate, which are based upon the appropriate response would remain. So when when we could even if you didn’t have an ego, you would be remain as a compassionate loving person. But that that was that’s not that’s not based upon any misconception whether superficial or deep. Self image is very much bound up with those feelings that Being a sympathetic person is very much in that situation is bound up with feeling frustration, disappointment, helplessness.
And you’re trying to hang on to that particular self image. Do a short meditation. Alright. If you’d to stand up for a minute. We’ll do do a meditation on loving kindness.
Initially, begin to consider some of our difficulties, some of our problems, and the fact that we want to be happy. Whatever you may have done in the past, the various mistakes that you may have created, you can simply regret them as best you can determine not to repeat them again in the future. You can begin again. And whatever identity may hold to, whatever conception you may have of yourself, you can change and become anything that you want to be. And for the moment, we simply want to begin to make friends with ourselves, all the various parts of ourselves, be gentle with ourselves, and wish ourselves well.
Just try to generate, develop some positive, caring feelings for yourself. May I be happy. May I grow. May I be well? Just be kind to yourself.
Wish yourself well. Wishing yourself all the good things that you’ve ever wanted. Treat yourself with caring. Think of someone that you like, that you love, someone of the same sex, and imagine that person in front of you. If you can’t see them, it doesn’t matter.
Just just feel that that person is there, and remember all the good times that you shared together, all the happiness that this person has shown you, the kindness. And begin to direct radiate out the feelings of caring and wishing well which naturally arise when you think of this person in this way. May you be happy. May may all the things that you’ve ever wanted come to you. May you be well.
Carrying kind thoughts, direct them toward this person. Then think of someone that you neither like nor dislike, someone you feel indifference toward. Imagine that person in front of you. And we want to try to go go beneath the superficial appearances that we usually cling to, that we usually judge people by. Whether they’re male or female, whether they’re young or old, rich or poor, beautiful or ugly, educated, uneducated.
You try to go beneath all of that and try to see the essence of that person that that there’s someone there who wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer just like yourself. And just as you wish your own self happiness and not to suffer, wish the same for this person. Since we’re exactly alike, It’s very much a reflection about how we feel about ourselves deep down, how we feel about this person. As you radiate out some kind caring thoughts as you were towards yourself. Then think of some someone you got some problems with, someone who disturbs your mind, someone you don’t like.
Imagine that person in front of you. This person wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer just like yourself. And perhaps their method of finding their happiness, eliminating their suffering, has come in conflict with your method of finding your happiness, eliminating your suffering. It’s just a conflict of self interest. You’ve hurt others either intentionally or unintentionally in the past.
You find the happiness that you were looking for, and perhaps this person has done the same to you. And this is you have to forgive yourself for the mistakes that you’ve made. You have to begin to forgive this person. So just for the moment, set aside your hurt or your grudge, your anger, and try to see someone very much like yourself, doing the best they can to get some happiness out of life, often being very confused about how to go about it and making many mistakes along the way and wish them happiness as you would yourself. And then imagine all four of these people together, yourself and these three others.
And though they appear very differently to you, though you have different feelings for each one of them, try to see that essentially, basically, each of them wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer. There’s no difference. If you look into their eyes, there’s someone there who wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer. No difference. And without any feelings of bias, radiate out some kind caring thoughts to all four equally.