Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The paradox at the heart of tonglen opens this 29-minute talk: Ven Jampa Gendun argues that willingness to take on others’ suffering actually increases one’s own happiness — a direct challenge to the self-cherishing mind. He reviews the meditative sequence that completes the second of the three principal aspects of the path: equalizing self and others, recognising all beings as feeling subjects, and the sevenfold cause-and-effect method leading to bodhicitta. He reads Śāntideva’s verses on the awakening heart as “supreme ambrosia” and “inexhaustible treasure.” The talk then moves through impermanence, karma, and precious human rebirth, before closing with a guided tonglen meditation that takes listeners through taking suffering from themselves, then from others. A brief note at the end signals that the third principal aspect — seeing into the nature of reality — will begin the following year.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 12 3 PA 1989 11 25.mp3
UUID: 682cdddb-d73b-4438-93a1-6cd6bb0379e7
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principal Aspects of the Path 1988-1990 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1989-11-25
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 29.1 minutes
Words: ~2,734
This practice, this imaginative technique, is said to be a powerful method to increase our altruistic commitment to other people and to living beings. Interestingly, I think ironically, it’s said that the more that we’re willing to take upon ourselves the suffering of others and to give away our happiness to others, the more and more happy we become, the more and more impervious to suffering we become. This was kind of the irony of the practice. The more you’re willing to take on suffering of others, the happier you become. And the more you’re willing to give away your happiness, the less suffering you experience.
This is kind of paradoxical. It’s kind of It doesn’t quite fit into our usual way of thinking From the point of view of our usual mundane consciousness, which is imbued with self-cherishing, which thinks that the more we have to try to find more and more happiness and get rid of more and more suffering. That’s the way to be happy. That’s the way not to suffer. But in fact, perhaps we’ve been deceived all this time.
But we have to check up within our experience to see whether that’s the case or not, whether in fact maybe this is an alternative attitude which might help us to experience a different type of reality. So we went through a series of meditations in this tradition of equalizing and exchanging self with others. First we saw the equality of ourselves in all sentient beings. Everybody wants happiness. Nobody wants to suffer.
I think even this, and I don’t think it has a profound effect. It’s not an easy You know, we talk, I talk, and I’m using all these intellectual ideas and these words. But to see that, to see that everybody in this room, and each person in their own way, that people will be staring out behind their eyes at me and I’m looking at you. That behind these eyes there’s someone there who wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer just like myself. I think to acknowledge that, become aware of it, and maintain that awareness will have a significant effect on the way you relate with others.
You can no longer quite see others as an object as you once did. You can no longer quite bring happiness to yourself at their expense. In order to do that, you have to devalue them, make them into an object, an unfeeling object. So maintaining that sense of equality, maintaining the sense that they’re feeling beings primarily, then we can never quite give in completely to our self-cherishing, our selfishness. Then we considered the disadvantages of self-cherishing and advantages of cherishing others.
And we did the actual exchange of self with others, exchanging our roles, you know, first developing a sympathy, and how this sympathy arises in empathy, and all of this empathy arises true compassion, true love. Understanding someone else’s situation, you know, walking a while in their shoes. To understand yourself is to love yourself, and to understand others is to love others. If we understood our situation, our real situation, you know, what are in fact is happening to us. Identifying with others, and then using the enhancing technique of taking and giving.
So this is the meditational tradition of equalizing and exchanging self for others, which leads to an awakening heart. An awakening heart, you know, bodhicitta. Technically, it’s the altruistic aspiration to achieve highest enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. There is no more noble thought than this. There is no more powerful method to go beyond one’s own suffering than this.
And there is no greater way to help others than this. This one thought to generate that one thought in your mind. You want to become a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being so that you can help others to do exactly the same. This is Śāntideva who is the source of this practice, the lineage of this practice. Talking about an awakening heart, you know, opening to others.
It is the supreme ambrosia that overcomes the sovereignty of death. It is the inexhaustible treasure that eliminates all the poverty in the world. It is supreme medicine that quells the world’s disease. It is the tree that shelters all beings wandering and tired on the path of conditioned existence. It is the universal bridge that leads to freedom from unhappy states of birth.
It is the dawning moon of the mind that dispels the torment of afflictive emotions. It is the great sun that finally removes the misty ignorance of the world. It is the quintessential butter from the churning of the milk of Dharma. For all those guests traveling on the path of conditioned existence who wish to experience the bounties of happiness, this will satisfy them with joy and actually place them in supreme bliss. This completes the second of the three principal aspects of the path, opening our hearts to others.
So, you know, we’re traveling a path. It’s a long journey. It begins with the simple appreciation of ourselves. Perhaps not so simple, but generally overlooked. You know, the simple fact that we can grow, that we can change, you know, that we aren’t helpless, that we have some basic sanity, some native intelligence, that we all have some love, that we all have some compassion.
Therefore, we all have the seed of being a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being. The seed is there within us all right now. We have to begin to appreciate this fact. And that we’re very fortunate people, that we’re very special people. Not in the sense that we have to in the sense of having to take pride, because pride is an inflation, you know, of some quality.
But this is the actual fact of the situation, that we’re very fortunate. You know, we have the chance to grow. Not everybody has that chance. Not everybody has the opportunity. Not everybody has the internal and external conditions necessary to bring about growth, though in fact everybody has the seed, the main cause.
To become all that we can be, to make these seeds grow. We’re very fortunate in the sense that we have all our material necessities met quite easily. You know, most of the people in the world, they don’t have this. Most of the people in the world, they don’t have this. We have the time, we have some leisure, we have the environment, the social system, you know, we have teachings, books, you know, we’re intelligent, we have some love, we have some compassion, we have some energy of aspiration, some intention.
So, you know, it’s all there, all the necessary internal and external conditions for our growth, just waiting to be used. The opportunity to be happy. But it’s not going to last forever. The fact is, this chance can be lost. It’s definite that we’re going to die and the time of our death is uncertain.
You know, all the various deaths, not even excluding the big death, but even the small deaths which occur throughout the process of life. You know, at those times, at those moments, what use are all the possessions that we spend all our time gathering about us? What use are all your attachments at these moments of death? The small deaths and finally the big death. And it’s talking again and again about the quality of our mind, the attitudes that we have determine our happiness.
Not the things outside of ourselves. All the things that we gather, all the things that we try to hold on to. You know, any small deaths, the process of change that we go through, what is it that makes this process of change a source of growth or a source of suffering? It’s the attitude and the quality, the state of our mind we bring to these deaths, and finally to the big deaths at the end of our life. Not the things that we have about us, not even the people who try to comfort us, but the tendencies of our own mind, the quality of the states of our own mind.
You know, what actually is the source of our happiness? You know, Blake said, the mind is in its own place and in its way can make a heaven of hell a hell of heaven. And the mind is the determinant of all things. You know, it’s when we talk about mind, you know, we’re talking about its tendencies, its patterns. This is karma.
What we are now is what we have done, and what we do now is what we will become. And we’re creating the tendencies, the becoming of something else, even now as we sit here. And what we are now is a result of the tendency we created in the past. This is karma. The significance of karma is that we don’t have to remain victims of our history, of who we once were, that we can change.
That we can begin to reorient ourselves from who we were once to who we can be and understand that that potential is at the present moment, exists within the present, if we’re willing to use it. And these are the seeds of wisdom, our basic sanity, love, compassion. This is our potential in this moment. If we use those, we create the tendencies whereby they can be actualized in the future, and we can grow. We can become anything that we want to be.
We don’t have to remain victims. Very much our destiny is in our hands. We have to summon up the courage, summon up the resolve, to go beyond ego, to emerge. Understanding the quality of our situation, understanding very intimately, very deeply, that no state bounded by ego is satisfactory. No matter what you do, no matter where you go, no matter what you may possess, you cannot find satisfaction there because it doesn’t exist.
And we’ve been running our entire life on a treadmill, trying to find that perfect happiness, that perfect pleasure, that perfect peace. And as long as it’s bounded by qualities of ego, we’re simply never going to find it. It doesn’t exist within that realm. Being willing to emerge, try to break out of this prison of repeating patterns of existence that we’re bound within. So you have to develop this determination to be free.
determination to be free. So determination to be free, the first principle of the path. determination to be free is simply having compassion for ourselves, understanding our situation. As our heart begins to soften toward ourselves, as we begin to understand ourselves and treat ourselves with a little more gentleness, become a little more kinder with ourselves, Likewise, it’s reflected in the way we relate with others. We become a little more gentle, a little more kinder to others.
And our hearts slowly begin to open to others, and we begin to develop compassion toward others understanding their situation. Then we use in completing this tendency, this direction of opening our heart to others, brings us to the second of the three principal aspects of the path. And we use two traditions, two meditative traditions to complete this awakening of a heart. The sevenfold cause and effect method, and the one that was just explained, exchanging and equalizing self with others. In the sevenfold cause and effect method, first we develop equanimity, then we recognize all sentient beings as our mothers, remember their kindness, develop the wish to repay their kindness, develop affectionate love, great compassion, exceptional resolve, and finally, leading to the seventh, bodhicitta, an awakening heart.
So this is the first two principal aspects of the path. All my mothers, I shall go with you and be your guide. In your most need, be by your side until upon the vantage ground of truth we stand together in love and wisdom’s incomparable pleasure. So we still have a way to go. Our journey is not quite finished.
We still have to find the vantage ground of truth. And this is the third of the three principal aspects: seeing deeply into the nature of reality. Without seeing deeply into the nature of reality, then all we’ve talked about up to now, developing the determination to be free, opening your hearts to others, never passes beyond simply a noble ethical system, a sublime idea. It doesn’t have the quality to ultimately liberate us from the dissatisfactory quality of any state bound by ego. But by standing on this vantage ground of truth, seeing deeply into the nature of reality, Then we can transcend the ego and be free.
By sharing this vantage ground of truth with others, we can become, by working to help them, by going with them and being their guide, and leading them to the same vantage ground that we have found, then we can become everything that we could ever hope to be. That we become everything which it means to be a human being. That we fulfill our ultimate destiny, that we become a Buddha. So we’re going to, next year, finish the journey along this path, beginning to see deeply into the nature of reality. I walked this path before, it was in the twilight of my years.
I walked this path before and it laid all my fears. So I’ll stop there. And we’ll meditate on loving kindness. You will meditate on tonglen, on taking and giving.
So I know if you become comfortable, we’ll begin with ourselves. So just, you know, as best you can, and just imagine yourself in front of yourself. And if you can’t see yourself, doesn’t matter. Have the sense that you’re there and work with the proper feeling, getting the feelings and the states. Consider some particular suffering that you may have experienced recently, that you may be experiencing now.
I want to develop the wish that this person not suffer. Actually have some genuine caring for yourself. You do deserve your sympathy, you deserve your compassion. You don’t want to suffer, you want to be happy. You’re wishing that person happiness.
Deciding to wishing that you’re not suffering and deciding to take that suffering on yourself. And then imagining a black egg at your heart, self-cherishing. You know, this this thing which has caused all your problems, your frustrations and difficulties, which has been a burden, a source of difficulties your entire life. And taking on that suffering of that person in the form of a thick black smoke, which rises in a stream, enters into your nostrils and down, It begins eating away the black egg that’s self-cherishing at your heart like acid. Now you’re not suffering anymore, but still you’re not happy.
Wish yourself some happiness. Wish that you were joined with the counterpart of your previous suffering. And in your heart, it begins a pulsating brilliant white light forming. It begins to rise up in a stream and flows out your nostrils. And just as it’s about to reach you, transforms into whatever is the counterpart of your previous suffering, making you happy.
And watch the smile on your face and sparkle in your eyes, how happy you are, and sharing that happiness. Consider some suffering that you may have to experience in the near future. Developing compassion, taking on the suffering, destroying the self-cherishing at your heart. Giving away your body, possessions, positive energy, transforming it to white light, transforming it again to whatever makes you happy. And finally, looking at yourself and seeing that you haven’t found complete happiness, you haven’t found complete peace, that the source of your difficulties is still within you, the self-cherishing and self grasping, having compassion and taking it on yourself.
Giving away everything that you have, transforming it to love and compassion and wisdom. And now you’re completely at peace and bliss and sharing your own bliss, your own peace. We dedicate positive energy from the practice of listening and meditating. Through these merits, may I soon attain the enlightened state of Guru or Buddha, and may I lead every migrating being without exception to that state. May the precious bodhicitta not yet born arise and grow.
May that born have no decline, but increase evermore.