Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The image of compassionate aspirations left to “rot like old clothes in a trunk you never wore” opens this 47-minute commentary by Ven Jampa Gendun on the culminating stages of the sevenfold cause-and-effect method. He traces how compassion expands outward — from those we like, to strangers, to enemies — and deepens inward, from a vague wish that someone be free of suffering to the firm resolve “I will free you,” arriving at exceptional resolve and, finally, bodhicitta. He then confronts the rationalization that one must wait for enlightenment before helping others, arguing that each practitioner’s karmic affinities give them specific influence no realized lama can replicate. The Jātaka Tale of the bodhisattva feeding himself to a hungry tigress anchors the discussion of total self-transcendence. A candid Q&A closes the session on the practical tension between inner development and outward service. Suited to students already working through the Lamrim sequence.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 14 3 PA 1988 08 19.mp3
UUID: 4a179c2c-4043-48f4-9cbc-07db0ac02ba4
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principal Aspects of the Path 1988-1990 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1988-08-19
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 47.1 minutes
Words: ~5,471
We’re waiting for the morphine shot, for example, before we help someone to make sure it doesn’t hurt. Or we’re waiting for a graduation certificate from Bodhisattva School before we actually do anything. It’s going to come. Helping others isn’t necessarily a happy experience. There’s no time other than the situations as they present themselves in their daily life for us to actually express what is now merely an aspiration.
If you simply allow these thoughts, these aspirations, even though they may be sincere to remain merely as that, they will just rot in your heart, like old clothes left in a trunk that you never wore. So we have to find in the course of our daily life, in the various whatever happens, some moments when we can make small leaps. They don’t have to be big leaps. We don’t have to be pretentious or deceive ourselves, but we do have to make some effort. We’re talking about growth.
Fundamentally, means enlarging and expanding our horizons, enlarging and expanding our horizons. A growth of one’s boundaries inwardly and outwardly outwardly in perspective and inwardly in-depth. Initially, we’re talking about in the context of compassion, the development of great compassion, the fifth of the sevenfold cause and effect method. Initially, our compassion is directed toward someone we like quite naturally. It simply consists of a general concern.
How wonderful would it be if you were free from that difficulty, if you didn’t have that problem? It’s just a very pleasant thought directed towards somebody you like. This is the beginning of compassion. Then we begin to expand the boundaries outwardly. We begin to expand our perspective.
By cultivating the same thought, but now we cultivate it with respect to a stranger. We take up many, many individuals whom we like. I It would really be nice if you didn’t have to have that problem or that difficulty or if you weren’t sad. But now we begin to actually expand that perspective and direct it toward a stranger, someone we don’t even know. We have no likes or dislikes toward.
We feel indifferent towards. Begin to think, How wonderful would be when you see someone in difficulty, someone has a problem thinking, trying to develop the feeling behind the words. I wish you didn’t have that problem. I wonder, it would really be wonderful if you were free from that difficulty. We begin to expand our perspective even further, and we begin to include our enemies, people we don’t like, people who we we have problems with, seeing their difficulty.
Usually, rejoice in our enemies difficulties. We wish they would increase, you know. How wonderful it would be if you had even more problems, you know, which never got us anywhere. So, it may be difficult, but we have to There’s no reason why we can’t change our mind. The mind is dynamic.
It can go It will go in any direction that we that we that we lead it in. And so we can lead the mind in that direction, and it will follow, it will change. What was difficult when you were a child is no longer difficult. It’s a part of your nature at present. Likewise, it’s possible direct the mind upon any minds that you desire.
So we can begin to direct this towards our enemies, those we don’t like. See, when they’re having difficulties, even initially it’s going to be artificial. You know, they can’t be expected to be sincere. But we have to begin somewhere. We have to try a little bit, make some effort.
So with respect to our enemies, you know, we’re having problems, how wonderful it would be if you didn’t have that difficulty, you were free from that difficulty. And this is a way of growing outwardly by broadening our perspective. And then we begin to deepen our boundaries inwardly by strengthening our compassion. The thought of, you know, developing our compassion, cultivating a sincere wish, may you be free from that suffering. So this is a little bit stronger.
And at first it was just, wouldn’t it be nice if you were free from this suffering? Now it’s, may you be free from this suffering. It’s more of a a firm affirmation. So we do this with many particular, many, many particular people, picking out individuals, real faces, real people with real difficulties, with suffering. And this becomes a basis for expanding until this thought becomes universal.
May all sentient beings be freed of suffering, expanding. In the development of the cultivation of great compassion, we begin to deepen it even more. You know, begin to take in the responsibility. You know, I will free you from that suffering. How wonderful it would be if you were free from that difficulty.
May you be free from that difficulty. I will free you from the difficulty. So there’s a gradual deepening in our sense of compassion, in our sense of willingness to go beyond our self concern and to be concerned with another person, another being. There’s this process of expanding outwardly our perspective and there’s a process of inwardly deepening in that strength of our compassion. So when we finally develop the sincere wish, the aspiration, I will free all sentient beings from suffering, This total commitment, taking the responsibility to bring this about, then this is great compassion.
This becomes the first part of the sixth of the sevenfold cause and effect method, exceptional resolve, sometimes called special attitude exceptional resolve. Accepting the responsibility to free all sentient beings from their difficulties, from their suffering. So with respect to exceptional resolve, we’re going to ask a series of questions to ourselves. We have to check up. We begin to wonder, Isn’t this just a fantasy?
Can I really free all sentient beings from their suffering? I can’t even free one person from their suffering. I can’t even free myself from my suffering. This is maybe a nice romantic idea, but it’s not realistic, is it? It’s just a fantasy.
Then why should I accept sole responsibility? Know, there’s lots of people around here, lots of lamas. What are they doing? You know, why should I take all the responsibility on myself? I have my troubles too.
Could use some help, something like this. Isn’t there anybody else to help me? There must be infinite Buddhas dedicated towards helping all sentient beings. Why do I have to take all the responsibility? And, you know, what can I do anyway?
Wouldn’t it I mean, look at me, erotic, confused. Wouldn’t it be just a matter of the blind leading the blind? I’d probably cause more chaos than it would help. So these are some of the questions we have to ask ourselves when we give off an exceptional resolve. The blind leading the blind.
Okay. Maybe when I become a Buddha, then I’ll take care of it. But until then, there is another mistaken idea that many people have when they first hear teachings on bodhicitta. bodhicitta, awakening heart, opening their hearts to others. Because it is necessary to develop our own inner potential in the full in order to benefit others in the deepest, most complete way, they believe they cannot do anything to help others until they finally become a Buddha.
First I must study hard for many years, they think, and then I can begin the practice of mental training. After a long time I might develop renunciation and bodhicitta, and then sometime in the distant future when I become enlightened I can begin to benefit others. Such an attitude is completely mistaken. We are only burdening ourselves with rigid conception of how our spiritual life can develop. It is just another restraint, another fantasy.
If we believe strongly in such a fixed program for our life, before we know it, our death will come and we won’t even have started. The fact is, while we are cultivating love, compassion, wisdom and all the other insights that lead to enlightenment, we can be helping others continuously. First of all, merely by living a simple life with a dedicated heart to overcoming self-cherishing, we automatically benefit others. Secondly, each stage of spiritual development from the first to the last has its own power and ability. Depending upon which level we have reached, we can help others to that extent.
To be realistic, we should help others to the limit of our present capacity. The thought that we cannot do anything until we are enlightened is in fact egotistical and ignorant and reflects the basic misunderstanding of what spiritual training is all about. This understanding is related to an attitude we have had throughout our lives. At school, for instance, we thought, I must study these boring subjects now so that eventually I can pass my examinations, receive my degree, get a good job, make a lot of money, and then I’ll be happy. All this emphasis on the future, when I have enough money, when I own my own home, when I retire, is easily transferred to our spiritual practice, when I have finished practicing, when I am enlightened.
But to think in this way is quite deluded. The dreaming fantasy of an unreal future makes our present actions unrealistic as well. It is important to understand that true practice is something we can do from moment to moment, from day to day. We do whatever we can with whatever wisdom we have and we dedicate it all to the benefit of others. We just live our life simply to the best of our ability.
This in itself will be of enormous benefit to others. We don’t need to wait until we are Buddhas before we can begin to act. But we ask, you know, we’re asking these questions, but why should I cultivate, you know, this attitude accepting sole responsibility to ultimately free all sentient beings from suffering? In fact, are infinite number of Buddhas who are working towards that same end. You know, why should I take this responsibility?
Okay, I’m going to work for sentient beings. I’m going to help sentient beings. But do I have to help all sentient beings and alleviate all suffering. It’s kind of can I make a deal something like this? You know each of us has our our own unique sphere of influence, we call, what we call karmic affinities, karmic relationships.
At one particular time, with one particular person, you know, just simply a smile, a few words can dramatically affect that person, you know, and their future, their thinking can change the course of someone’s life. Another time with another person, we could spend all our energy, all our understanding, all our wisdom. It wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference. So we have from moment to moment different karmic affinities, different karmic situations arise allowing for different possibilities of influencing the lives of others. Even sometimes, you know, even when we try to help another person, it may be actually turn out to be detrimental.
It may have exactly the opposite consequences as we desire. All these are in accordance with the law of cause and effect, with our karma, the various karmic relationships that we develop, our spheres of influence that we have with different individuals, and these are constantly changing. The Śākyamūni Buddha, it’s referred to as the fourth universal teacher, and it’s said that Maitreya Buddha will be the fifth. Now when we say universal teacher, we’re simply what we mean is that during their training as the bodhisattva, that they build up such a vast number of relationships with individuals that when they finally attain Buddhahood, that their spheres of influence was very vast, very great, that they were able to benefit, work with, relate with a great number of people. Therefore, they’re called universal teachers.
So this is why when we’re cultivating compassion, that is emphasized that we cultivate it with particular people, with many, many, many particular people. Actually real people with real faces with real problems, not just simply abstract people and with abstract suffering. So we’re not only In such a way, we’re not only developing our compassion within ourselves, but we’re also developing relationship with all these various people. We’re developing some kind of affinity, which will later be of use in working with them and relating with them and, you know, showing them, helping them to work with their own problems, their own neuroses and confusion. This regard, one teacher said that it’s even better to have a bad relationship with a spiritual master than no relationship.
At least there’s some lines of communication which are open. Some kind of relationship has occurred and that this will, in the future, can grow and transform itself. So each of us relate with individuals from time to time. We can and do significantly influence other people. This influence can be positively greater you know, than even a highly realized spiritual, loving spiritual master.
Because of our karmic affinity, because of our possibility of relating with another person at a particular time, our ability to influence that person positively could be considerably greater than if a highly realized master with great wisdom, great compassion were to try to communicate, to work with that person, our potential, our ability may be even greater than his or hers because of our karmic affinity with that person. Therefore, you know, this kind of throws the responsibility back upon us. You know, we have our particular sphere of influence, our particular people who we have very close relationships with, who affect a great deal in what we say and what we do. So, it’s not so much that we have to become like the Dalai Lama or Mother Teresa, but in the context of our relationships, we have to make effort in helping them. Because in fact, our help may be significantly of greater use than Mother Teresa’s, than the Dalai Lama’s, and due to our unique connection with this person.
So we’re not helpless. On the contrary, we have a great deal of power within our limited sphere of influence with a few people that we do relate with. But we have to be careful, this idea of helping others. In some ways it’s actually deceptive to think that we can help others. We can help them to help themselves in a way by sharing, by communicating.
I talked about this, I think, last week. A bodhisattva, this hero with respect to enlightenment, tries to understand himself and tries to open himself up to others and to remain open. So he realizes himself, he understands how he operates, he goes beyond his neurosis, his confusion, and he opens up this understanding to others like a flower. He tries to open up a channel of communication. You know, sharing.
There’s a verse by not a verse, something by Fritz Perls. In the sense that this is in a way all we can do, this idea of how we may be deceiving ourselves when we think of I’m helping this other person. That if we can simply try to develop ourselves, understand ourselves, develop our compassion in the sense of opening ourselves up and sharing our understanding and simply communicating. But that’s about all we can do. In this verse by Fritz Perles, I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations.
You’re not in this world to live up to mine. If we meet, it’s beautiful. If we don’t, it can’t be helped. So this idea of having to accept the reality of our situation, the reality of our karma, honesty. Dishonesty is demanding that reality be some way other than it actually is, at present.
So we have various relationships with various people, and the best way we can help them is to develop ourselves and open ourselves up to them and communicate who we are. Hopefully, if they have done the work on their side, there’s going to be some resonance and some insight and some growth on their side. So we all have some insight, some understandings, all have some love and caring. We can help some people in this sense at some time, as if we were Buddhas. The aim of a bodhisattva is to help all people at all time as a Buddha.
I talked about universal teachers. Of this eon, they said there had been four. The fifth, the next Śākyamūni Buddha was the fourth, who lived two thousand five hundred years ago. In about two thousand five hundred years, they said there would be another universal teacher, Maitreya, Maitreya Buddha. And he has a prayer.
The prayer says, May I be all things to all people, that by some means I might be able to save a few. Becoming whatever a person needs at once, simply responding in this idea of environmental generosity, becoming all things to all people without preconception of what they should need. Now we’re getting to the heart of the matter, think, which is very difficult for me to express. One of the marks of our dissatisfactory state, our dissatisfactory quality of our lives, is that we never really dedicate ourselves to anything, that we never really commit ourselves to anything, that we never everything is only partial. There’s always some holding back.
There’s never a total involvement in whatever we do. In our various relationships, our husbands and wives, they don’t dedicate themselves to making the relation work. Therefore, the first moment that it doesn’t begin to work, that it’s no longer the pleasure that it was, they go off to a new relationship. The inner way where we act like butterflies, flitting from one superficial pleasure to another. Or we simply become dilettantes in our shopping and spiritual supermarkets going from one to another.
There’s always this holding back. There’s never this total involvement. There’s never the experience of totality. Therefore, deeper levels of our being never become activated. It’s this dedicated attitude of an awakening heart which has the power to completely transform our minds, which transforms us from an ordinary being into an extraordinary being.
They talk about the awakening heart as an elixir. Alchemy, it is the alchemical mixture which changes base metal to gold, which takes an ordinary person and makes him into an extraordinary person. That’s the power of transformation. It’s his dedication to the welfare of others. So I’m talking about we’re talking about the transforming capacity of compassion in the sense of taking responsibility, of dedicating, How to a larger extent we have it’s because of our unwillingness to commit ourselves to anything, to become totally involved.
It’s as if we want to possess compassion rather than be compassion. We want to be able to turn it off and on whenever it’s convenient. We want to be able to take it out of our pocket you know, on special occasions. So, there’s this you know, part of ourselves is quite is holding back to allow yourself to be compassionate rather than to have compassion. There’s a series of birth stories by the Buddha’s previous lives when he was a bodhisattva called the Jātaka Tales.
It describes some of his experiences on his journey, on his spiritual journey. It recounts many stories of acts that he performed. One of these stories, there was a hungry tigress and she was starving and she couldn’t nourish her cubs. Says in this story that the Bodhisattva, the future Buddha, gave his body to his hungry tigress to feed her so that she could nourish her cubs. In talking about this particular story, the Bodhisattva, comes on He’s in the jungle.
He comes upon this scene where there’s this hungry tigress. She’s starving to death and her cubs are starving to death and she can’t feed them. So he goes up and lays his body in front of her and feeds himself to her. To the modern man, such a story may appear unreasonable and exaggerated because he judges from a purely intellectual, that is external, point of view according to which the sacrifice appears to be out of proportion to its cause. The preservation or rather prolongation of the life of some wild beast does not seem to be worth the sacrifice of a human life.
The Buddhist, however, sees the story in quite a different light. To him it is not the factual or objective reality that matters, but the motive, the power of compassion, which caused the bodhisattva to act in this way, irrespective of the external consequences. The spiritual and symbolic meaning of this deed goes far beyond the frame of its apparent cause. That the lives of the tigress and her cubs are saved is not of such fundamental importance as that the bodhisattva experiences within himself their suffering and despair in all its terrible reality, and that he proves by his deed that there is no more difference for him between his own suffering and the suffering of others. In this supreme sacrifice he overcomes the illusion of his own self and thus he lays the foundation for his own later Buddhahood.
To a large extent our lives are marked by hollowness and the conflict, doubt, hesitation. So we’re much alone, vulnerable, isolated people. In our seeming reasonableness, we have lost our dignity and we’ve got out of touch with our dreams and our ideas. In trying to protect our own territory and trying to find a sense of personal security, we’ve become poverty stricken and afraid. So in our life there’s very little dedication, just unending calculations.
And there’s no wholeness. There’s just fragmentation. In this process, we commit ourselves. The bodhisattva commits himself to the bodhisattva idea, to totality, all beings, all suffering. I’m talking about why we take the responsibility to alleviate all suffering of all beings.
Maybe it doesn’t sound so reasonable. He resolves to live such a life of a bodhisattva, of an awakening warrior, of a hero with respect to attaining enlightenment. The essence of the bodhisattva’s existence becomes the perfection the essence of taking the path, of trying to develop oneself spiritually, of the spiritual journey becomes to try as best we can to perfect ourselves. Thereby we can perfect the means in order to be able to help others to go beyond their suffering, to become skilled in the means. We look at ourselves and we aren’t particularly so skillful at present.
Though we may, in fact, develop their exceptional resolve, the willingness, the desire to take responsibility to alleviate suffering, all suffering of all sentient beings, we don’t have the skillful means as it has been pointed out. So, the thrust of our spiritual journey begins not for one’s own self welfare, but specifically to develop these skillful means to be able to benefit others. This becomes the motivating force of our practice, not for our own ends, but to develop the wisdom and the skill and the ability to help others go beyond their I use these words over and over again. Our motto of a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being is what we call Buddha. Someone who understands himself, who has fearlessness, who has the skill and means, has compassion, equanimity.
All these necessary in order to help others. So we look at ourselves and if we have actually cultivated some degree of compassion, love and developed this exceptional resolve in some way to some degree. And we have to look and see, can I actually, in practicality, express this wish, this resolve in reality? You know, I built this castle in the sky and now I have to put some foundation under it. Therefore, you know, I must develop the skillful means, the abilities, the wisdom necessary to really be able to benefit others in a substantial, you know, workable way.
We see through our understanding that this model, this paradigm of sanity becomes our goal. This is by attaining this, by becoming this, by being this, then we’re going to develop all the skillful means that are necessary. So one’s mind naturally turns toward that. This becomes the goal of your spiritual life. So as this begins to arise, there will develop from the depths of your heart an overwhelming aspiration.
For the sake of all that lives, I must become a Buddha. I must become a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being in order that I can help others to become happy, loving, healthy, sane human beings. This is an awakening heart. This is the outcome, the result of the sevenfold cause and effect method. It has its foundation in equanimity and upon that we begin to develop through recognizing all sentient beings as a mother, remembering their kindness, developing a wish to repay their kindness, developing affectionate love, great compassion and exceptional resolve.
And finally, we develop the fruit of this practice, which is the awakening heart, the aspiration to seek highest enlightenment, to seek the model of sanity, so that we can be a real benefit in the world, that we can really help others in a significant way. This becomes our way of life, our journey. There is no more virtuous mind than bodhicitta. There is no more powerful mind than bodhicitta. There is no more joyful mind than bodhicitta.
To accomplish one’s own ultimate purpose, the awakening mind is supreme. To accomplish the purpose of all living beings, there is nothing superior to bodhicitta. The awakening mind is an unsurpassable way to accumulate merit. To purify obstacles, bodhicitta is supreme. For protection from interferences, bodhicitta is supreme.
It is the unique and all encompassing method. Every ordinary and super mundane power can be attained through bodhicitta. Thus, it is absolutely precious. I’ll stop there. I’m really confused on all this.
Do you mean you don’t you don’t don’t you don’t by going out and doing good works, sir? You mean by the individual seeking to put themselves in order to and to become more open to people. I know you seem not to wake and become a Buddha. I don’t mean that. But but when you say to to devote yourself to all sentient beings, you you you obviously don’t mean going out and doing a lot of actual physical voluntary work and stuff like that.
But rather the way you relate to people by becoming open and opening yourself and trying to work on yourself so that you’re becoming become more open, that that’s the sort of thing that you can transmit or offer to other people. It seems we have to be concerned with the temporal and ultimate benefit of ourselves and others. Temporal and ultimate. It means we have to be concerned with the particular instances of suffering that we see about us. Within our own case we have particular instances of suffering, but we have to and this has to a large extent been a preoccupation our entire lives to alleviating particular instances of suffering and not seeing these as expressions of an underlying theme of our existence.
That these particular instances of suffering on the whole are impermanent and will go away of themselves. But to see them as to see the necessity to begin to remove the underlying causes so that these particular instances will not keep arising, it’s like we’re on a treadmill. We can constantly alleviate particular instances of suffering one after another after another after another. It will be an endless process. Ourselves, other people, it doesn’t matter.
We’re looking at ourselves first. Sometimes you have to become aware, you have to develop some perspective and see that all these particular instances have some commonality. There’s some theme running through all of these. Therefore, rather than cutting off the branches of the tree constantly, if we can go to the root we can solve the problem once and for all. So in dealing with ourselves we have to be practical and deal with all the particular instances of our suffering, but understanding at the same time that these are only branches and that we have to begin part of our attention, part of our effort, and slowly a greater and greater part of our effort will be directed toward cutting at the root so we can remove the situation entirely.
We no longer have to deal with this in this process of cutting off the branches. Likewise, in turning to others, we have to deal with their particular instances of suffering. But also, if we’re going to be of ultimate benefit of others, we have to help them to cut their root. In order to help them cut their root, we have to know how to go about cutting our own roots. So if we’re ever going to be a really ultimate benefit to others, in order to help them go beyond their neurosis, their confusion, we have to know how our neurosis and confusion operates, and if we’re ever going to really be able to solve their problems once and for all.
Otherwise, process will be endless. It’s not to say So there has to arrive at some balance, right? Obviously, as I said, from moment to moment we’re going to incur various situations in the world and we have to make small leaps in some way beyond our own self concerns and dedicate ourselves in some small ways as best we can to alleviating the particular instances of suffering that we see around us. But all the time understanding with some perspective that we have to take a more universal attitude, a bigger perspective and begin to develop the means by which within ourselves which we can help to bring others to where none of these particular instances will arise again. So, it’s like a two fold process.
If we get completely caught up in doing good in the world, being a do gooder, then our contribution to the world may be simply add to the chaos. But they cannot excuse us from trying to make effort in our karmic situation we’re going to come in contact with various difficulties, other people suffering. We must do what we can, but all the time realizing that this isn’t an end of itself, that there’s a deeper underlying problem than simply this particular person’s difficulty at this very moment. We have to be able to be understanding this, we’re going to be working on ourselves to develop the skillful means to be able to help them see beyond the superficial level of their problem and to see it on a much deeper level and to help them work on it on a much deeper level. So, people are going to, due to our various situations that we’re in, to our various karmas, our tendencies, they’re going to, as is going to be interpreted, it’s going to involve different courses of action.
For some people it might involve going into a jungle and meditating in a cave for fifty years and then coming out and helping others. Other people it may involve a type of life which is more externalized, very much involved in social work, voluntary work, in the course of your daily life, helping others. The internal work might not be much opportunity. So this is a consequence of our karmic tendencies. Ultimately, we have to become a Buddha in order to be of maximum benefit to others.
So we have to create the causes to do this. Actually, there’s no real question here. Many of these discriminations aren’t Well, it is because if you mean, compassion is such an important part of Buddhism, and it’s something I that I believe is important. But when you talk about and so I’m really trying to understand exactly what you mean. So if you can help people, like, in small degrees, I’m following everything you say, and then doing working on yourself at the same time as observing yourself, working on yourself, doing small things.
Are you suggesting that that you would hope to get to a point where you could help those people you have common connections with to see that the causes of their suffering are the root rather than the branches? Yeah. And do you mean verbally? Verbally. Because I find that people a lot of people I mean, perhaps I think a lot of people resent that.
So I can’t tell them that what they need is I mean, I’ve been putting it very crudely, but I don’t agree with you. You don’t agree with that? I don’t agree that I think it’s enormously difficult for ordinary people to to have any sort of influence over other people’s inner life.