Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Jampa Gendun opens this 43-minute session by framing exchange of self for others as vivid moral role-playing: you imagine yourself as a destitute stranger in the park — cold, friendless, holding out a hand — and look back at your former self through their eyes to see what stares back. From that foundation he walks through a graduated sequence of the same exercise using a spouse, a coworker, and someone you are in conflict with, building the argument that self-cherishing is a prison we construct for ourselves. The second half presents the taking-and-giving meditation in full: three levels of compassion, two levels of love, and a central visualization of the self-cherishing mind as a black egg at the heart dissolved by black smoke, paired with a white-light practice for giving happiness. The session closes with a guided exchange meditation and a Robert Thurman passage on bodhicitta as a spiritual gene that marks a being’s continuum forever. Suited to practitioners already familiar with basic mind-training concepts.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 14 3 PA 1989 03 31.mp3
UUID: f01714e4-9be0-4bb2-8615-2218f0f4a343
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principal Aspects of the Path 1988-1990 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1989-03-31
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 43.1 minutes
Words: ~4,511
Geshe-la: As we can begin to dedicate ourselves more and more to happiness, but not only to our own happiness, but the happiness of others. To take more and more responsibility for happiness, but not only our own happiness, but that of others. This doesn’t mean that everyone’s happiness, all people right now. The present, we have some limits. To some degree or other, our ability to help others is limited.
We talk about, for the sake of all sentient beings, we can’t help all sentient beings. But we can set our direction. We can set our goal and move toward that direction. Maybe make some kind of determination to develop ourselves more and more, more and more, more wisdom, more skill. And this becomes more and more the motivating force behind all our actions.
So it’s this type of motivating force which carries an individual to enlightenment. It’s with this motivating force that we actually begin the exchange of self for others. What we are going to seek to do in exchange of self for others is exchange the object of our cherishing. Rather than as at present cherishing only ourselves at the exclusion of others, we are going to change that attitude and seek to make others the object of our cherishing. This requires some kind of death, doesn’t it?
As Thomas Merton was pointing out, inner transformation. We have to become, in some sense, the person we love or that we’re seeking to love. So we’re trying to develop some kind of new perspective, trying to see the world, including ourselves, out of someone else’s eyes. You’re trying to identify with someone else’s feelings, their situation, what they’re going through, their lot in life. The American Indians have a saying, Don’t judge another person until you’ve walked a month in their moccasins.
We go beyond our own narrow, parochial, you know, directed perspective. We gain a more universal perspective. We develop a flexibility of mind. We are able to see the situation from a many faceted point of view, from other people’s point of view, not just their own. And we develop this ability, this flexibility, this skill in our mind by making use of this practice.
We are putting ourselves in another’s position. In other words, we’re playing a role, role playing, completely identifying. Based upon equality of self and others, having meditated on that, having contemplated that, we understand that no matter what their superficial differences may be, this person wants to be happy, doesn’t want to suffer just like myself. This allows the possibility to identify with that other person. If we persist in our cultivated unawareness and rejection of the equality of ourselves and others, then there’s no way that we’re going to be able to identify with their mentality, that they’re just like me.
They want to be happy. They don’t want to suffer. There’s no difference. So this is a prerequisite, understanding they’re just like myself, in order to come to first sympathy, then empathy, and then complete identification. I’m going out of oneself and completely identifying with that other person’s situation, mentality, feelings, their emotions, what’s happening in their life.
Training in this practice of exchange of self for others, we use all the various categories of beings, all the various varieties of people that we know. We’re very much stuck in seeing everything from only one point of view, our own. So in exchange of self for others, we’re developing this universal point of view. We understand other beings more and more. We begin to see how their world appears out of their eyes and how, in fact, we appear out of their eyes.
They may not be very pretty from their point of view, their perspective. In this way, to understand someone is to love them. For example, categories of beings, there are various possibilities of various categories, varieties of beings, to mention a few. In the traditional method within the text, the exchange is first made with somebody who you feel superior to in some way. Then someone you feel equal to in the sense of appear, but you feel a sense of competition.
Then someone who you feel inferior to, you feel have a sense of jealousy, envy toward them. This is one type, one grouping of categories of individuals that we can exchange. Maybe another more workable, more accessible category. For example, exchanging places with your husband or your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your mother, your father, someone that you like, that you love naturally, that you have a great caring for. You exchange.
You put yourself in their position and completely identify with their situation, their mentality, their emotions, their feelings. What are they going through? You look back at yourself, first understanding their situation. How does it feel to be my spouse? Coming home from work, maybe cooking a meal.
And then you look back at yourself, and what do you see? What do you see when you look back at your former self? How do you feel? Do you feel loved? Do you feel respected?
Do you feel understood, valued? How would you experience your former self? Then we exchange places with someone that we are acquainted with, perhaps someone that we work with, that we go to school with, that we see every day. Again, yourself as best you can in their position, their situation, their mentality, their emotions. Looking back at your former self, what do you see?
How do you feel? How do you experience your former self? Then maybe you feel indifferent, competitiveness. Again, exchanging yourself for maybe a destitute, a wino in the park. You put yourself in their position, shabby clothes, cold, dejected, alone, frightened, having no self worth, nowhere to go, no future, no present.
Come up to yourself, your former self, you hold out your hand begging. What do you see in the former self’s eyes? What do you feel? Do you see fear, indifference, pity, hate? Then another possible category, exchanging yourself with someone you’re having an argument with, some disagreement.
Try to put yourself in their position. See their situation, their feeling. How are they perceiving that same situation that you’re creating a disagreement, that’s creating conflict? How do they see you in that relationship with that disagreement? In what way are you presenting your side?
Is there hostility? Is there closed mindedness? Possibility of communication. Now we see everything and everyone within a frame of reference of self-cherishing, of self centeredness. The world is perceived and evaluated in terms of ourselves.
That’s all. Are our own egos. So we have, to a large extent, created a prison for ourselves. To a large degree, we’re continually torturing ourselves. We’re constantly dedicating all our energies, all our time, all our efforts to the struggle of figuring out the secret of happiness.
Never seen that it is this very struggle of our own happiness at the exclusion of others that prevents us from ever really being happy. Exchange yourself for others. Then the fifth meditative technique is taking and giving. This is an imaginative visual technique. It’s kind of the culmination of this entire process, making use of all these previous contemplations and then using them all together a systematic fashion.
We’ll just talk about this. We’ve gone through four contemplations previously, four meditations. Equality of self and others, trying to gain a sense of that others want to be happy and don’t want to suffer just like myself, and developing in some way an unconditional positive regard. We talked a lot about that. I think maybe just feeling that other people and including yourself are worthy of your concern, of your caring, no matter what’s the superficial, no matter what the relationship might be.
But still above that and beyond that. You know, if we don’t make this effort, if we don’t try to relate to people in this way, then our own inner world is always going to be filled with conflict. Part of ourselves is always going to be alienated. We’re never going to be whole, integrated. We’re always going to have this conflict within ourselves simply as a reflection of the way we relate with others outside of ourselves.
We can use all kinds of psychological therapies, psychoanalysis, which are quite worthwhile to bring about integration to our various conflicting tendencies within our own mind. But if we seek to, if we don’t see that their parallel relationship outside of ourselves, then we’re missing the entire point in our therapy. Our becoming whole will never work. To become whole, we have to become part of a great whole and recognize that we are all part of this whole called sentient life. And then in this there’s a real integration.
By integrating our lives with others outside of ourselves there becomes the parallel integration within our own mind. All the various conflicting factors and tendencies which are presently causing us so much suffering within ourselves. Seeing the equality of self as is, trying to understand the disadvantages of self centeredness. Self centeredness is like twisting a knife in your own heart, feeling everyone is in conflict with you. We went over many of the reasons.
Check up within your own experience. It’s not to say that we are to solve our own problems, that we are to take responsibility for our own lives, that we are to find happiness, but this should never be at the expense of others. Developing unconditional positive regard for everyone, including yourself. If you regard yourself that way, really, then in affirming yourself, have to affirm others. This is the only real way to ever affirm yourself.
Otherwise, it’s simply more self centeredness. Seeing that the advantages of cherishing others, of going beyond one’s egotistical boundaries, that all our pleasures, our greatest, happiest, peak experiences that we find within our lives somehow are associated with going beyond the present boundaries of our own ego, whether it’s simply being carried away by using beautiful music, finding union with the beloved, whether it’s aesthetic, whether it’s sensual, being part of nature. Somehow they’re always associated with the highest moments and creative moments in our lives as somehow going beyond our usual boundaries of our own ego, of self centeredness. So the advantages of cherishing others as a way of life, as a process, than exchange of self for others. This culminates in this practice of taking and giving.
Now we’re going to take upon ourselves the suffering of others and give away our happiness imaginatively. Imaginatively. In many ways, reality is imagination. The way we experience the world, as I’ve oftentimes repeated, There is no objectively existent world. We’re recreating our world moment by moment.
This type of world that we’re creating is dependent upon images within our own mind. So we’re going to make use of images. It’s a very skillful method. A very profound method. Whatever we can imagine can be.
If we can’t imagine it, it can never come to be. If we can’t imagine ourselves taking on someone else’s difficulties and giving away our happiness, it can never come to be. That’s where it has to begin. This is the precursor. This is the first step in a long journey.
Simply imagine the possibility. Developing that image of yourself. Dependence upon that image, begin to experience the world slightly differently. We relate with the world differently. We experience it differently.
And that reinforces our changing image. Again, we experience the world, we relate with the world slightly differently. The type of self image which is willing to forego, you know, we’re not foregoing our own pleasure, but we’re going to take this suffering on our own self-cherishing, our own self centeredness, this thing which is our worst enemy. If we have to hate something in our lives, this should be the one thing that we should hate. Our own self centeredness, our own ego centeredness, our exaggerated self concern, our willingness to make use of others and other things and other people at their expense to find our own happiness.
This quality of our being. This is the greatest enemy. This is what’s destroyed all our happiness. This is what never allows us to find any peace and real satisfaction in our lives, which is always a constant source of conflict with others and with ourselves, within our own mind. We’re going to begin with various objects.
We’re going to use, again, many categories. The easiest category we can begin with is in ourselves. If we can’t take our own suffering on ourselves, then there’s no hope. We’re going to use this imaginative visualization technique, imagining yourself in front of you, just yourself. This may sound strange, but we have to get used to this idea.
We have to actually sincerely want to take on our own suffering. And if we can’t sincerely develop the wish to take on our own suffering, how are ever going to develop the sincere wish to take on someone else’s suffering? Impossible. If we don’t understand, we aren’t willing to solve our own problems, how are we going to become sincerely at work to solve someone else’s problem? We think about, we imagine ourselves in front of us, and we develop some real caring for ourselves, some compassion, and these various levels of compassion from a whole gamut of possibilities.
We begin with the mildest type toward ourselves. Look at yourself in a situation there’s some particular difficulty you may be going through at that particular moment. By compassion, here, a simple thought. Wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to undergo that suffering, if you weren’t experiencing that dissatisfaction, if you didn’t have that difficulty? Actually trying to develop, generate that feeling for yourself, very sincerely, actually trying to evoke that type of mind.
I was thinking today, many people, they want to be loving people. This question of taking refuge, if you see that a loving mind is a source of refuge, that it helps to solve your problem, compassion and love are a possible way of solving your problem, then it seems, how are we going to develop a loving mind? It’s not going to arise by no cause. It’s not going to rise out of a discordant cause. It doesn’t rise out of anger, hatred.
It only arises out of small moments of love, lesser moments of love, lesser moments of caring, concern. Beginning to habituate the mind to love, even in the small sparks of it from time to time, but increasing it. This is meditation. This is getting used to a productive state, in this case, love, caring, or compassion. We increase the capacity of the mind, habituate the mind, the frequency and the power of these states, until the mind becomes love.
This seems like the only logical way to go about it. To express hatred is to habituate yourself to hatred. You’re never going to go beyond hatred. If you want to become a loving person, the only reason we call a person a loving person is because they have a predominant, the predominant mental states are loving mental states. Habituating, getting used to these states, getting skillful in being able to generate them, to develop them.
So here, just for ourselves, trying to develop a little bit of compassion in a very mild, kind of kind way. I wish you didn’t have this problem. Actually developing that sincere wish, even at this stage, is not even wish. It would be nice if you didn’t have that problem. It’s a thought.
It’s a possibility that you can generate that even towards yourself. Working at that in your meditation, actually trying to induce that state sincerely, feeling that state beyond words, And then strengthening it. We’re going to go a little bit higher in our compassion, having developed that state. I wish you weren’t suffering. I wish you didn’t have that difficulty.
Become a little more involved. And then increasing it again, even more. I’m going to help you out. I’m going to take responsibility for your problem, for your suffering. I’m going to take that problem on myself.
I’m going to take that dissatisfaction on myself. And a real commitment to the real involvement in the other person. In this case, your imagined self in front of you. So when you’ve developed these three levels of compassion, you’re actually trying to sincerely generate them, get your mind habituated, develop the skill. And We’re going to use a visualization technique.
We’re going to imagine that our heart is a black egg. A black egg. It’s a black egg of self-cherishing or self centeredness, ego centeredness, exaggerated self concern right in the center of your chest. This is the thing that’s robbed you of all your happiness. This is the thing that’s caused you all your pain your entire life.
This is the thing that never gives you any peace. This is the thing which needs to be destroyed. This is the thing that needs to die. I’m going to take all that suffering, and I’m going to use it to destroy my own self. Something like that.
And this is why we had to meditate, make use of the disadvantages of self-cherishing. If one doesn’t have a strong sense that all your problems stem from this one thought, the self-cherishing thought, this ego centered thought, and it was not going to work. You really have to feel it. And I’m going to show that self centeredness where it can get off. I’m going to destroy it.
I’m going to take this suffering on. And we imagine this suffering in a form of thick black smoke coming from the object of our compassion, in this case, our self, the present difficulty. The thick black smoke comes up, the visualization comes down, begins to eat away at the self-cherishing egg of our heart, just like acid eating away at the black egg of self-cherishing in our heart, again and again taking on that suffering, again and again eating away at hard self-cherishing egg of our heart. Then, considering having contemplated the advantages of cherishing others, how going beyond oneself, one’s self imposed boundaries, limits, ego, territory, is really the greatest source of happiness. First developing love towards yourself.
Okay, you don’t have that present problem at the moment, but still you’re not happy. You develop a mild type of love. Love, in this case, is mild type, is mild level. It’d be nice if you were happy. It’d be wonderful if you’re happy.
Just a pleasant friendly thought towards yourself. Working on that, trying to generate that thought, and then trying to develop and increase its strength a little bit more. I wish you were happy. A little more involvement, a little more commitment to that person. And finally, I’m going to make you happy.
That’s my responsibility. In response to that type of love, in the context of understanding the advantages of cherishing others, a white light begins to appear at our heart center. This white light is the transformation, the imaginative transformation of all our possessions, of our body, of all our positive potential that we’ve created. There’s nothing else. Everything is transformed.
Everything that you are, everything that you hope to be, everything that you possess is transformed into this brilliant, blissful white light centered at your heart. And developing this love, I’m going to make you happy. The white light begins to rise up and flow out your nose. And just before it reaches that person, we give them the counterpart of their previous suffering, whatever it was. Maybe they were suffering from loneliness.
Maybe they were suffering from feelings of maybe sickness, self-worthlessness, whatever. That transforms into whatever would make them happy. If they were lonely, a beautiful companion, a friendly, understanding person. If they had a sick body, a healthy body. And we see them full of happiness, full joy.
And we sympathetically have empathetic joy with them. We share in their happiness. So this process, this is the basic technique of taking and giving. Then we that’s the present difficulty, then future difficulties. Maybe the suffering at the time of death, maybe they have to go to the dentist the next day, we’re talking about whatever the object is, in this case yourself, maybe they’re going undergo some kind of difficulty in the future, take on that, give away your happiness, the counterpart.
The general quality of their life, their particular style of suffering, take on that, give away your happiness. And all their hindrances to becoming a happy, loving, sane, healthy human being, take on those. Develop three levels of compassion. Destroy the egg of self-cherishing at your heart. Transform all your possessions, positive energy, your own body into this blissful, brilliant white light, transforming into whatever counterpart, enlightenment, Buddhahood, Christhood, whatever.
Doesn’t matter. You give them whatever is going to make them happy. And you exchange that object, you take someone that you love, your spouse, your mother, your father, your child. Go through the same process, three types of compassion, two types of love. Take their present suffering, their future suffering, their general suffering, and then their ultimate suffering.
Giving them present happiness, future happiness, general happiness, and ultimate happiness. And then just keep taking and giving, taking and giving, taking and giving. And slowly the image of yourself as having the capacity to give, the capacity to take upon yourself the difficulty begins to change. Your entire image of yourself begins to change, and the way you relate with others begins to change, and your experience begins to change, and your world begins to change. So the imaginative process is not something unmeaningful.
It’s a very profound technique, and it makes use of all these prior four contemplations. Without some basis in this, it’s not going to work as well. You know, whenever, if you’re depressed, then rather than following the depressed mind, rather than indulging that depression, practice giving and taking. That’s a more profound method to go beyond your difficulties than turning on television or something to distract yourself. So that’s the way we can develop and open our heart to others, an awakening heart.
That’s the time. As I’ve said many times, all my teachers, everyone, it was asked, What is the essence of Buddhism? Essence of Buddhism is a kind heart, benefiting others, not to harm others. Opening our hearts to others. Developing this, there’s no more noble thought than has ever been contemplated.
Seek to become a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being whereby experiencing unremitting peace within oneself and to work, dedicate oneself to helping others to experience the same. I’d like to read one quote. It’s by an American teacher, Robert Thurman. He’s talking about this awakening heart, opening our hearts to others, this mind of enlightenment. The magnificent conception of this will to enlightenment is a central moment in the evolutionary career of a living being, a moment in which a new spirit of love and compassion pervades its whole life and destiny and its further evolution becomes a purposive creative progress.
From this moment a living being becomes a bodhisattva, worthy of honor by Gods as well as humans. Śāntideva states that as soon as a being conceives the spirit of enlightenment, he or she becomes at once a son or daughter of the Sugatas, a Buddha child. He or she should rejoice in the newfound fruitfulness of their existence. This spirit is a kind of spiritual gene, a DNA molecule of universal evolution life after life. Once one possesses it by conceiving the will to attain Buddhahood, the perfection of wisdom and compassion for the sake of all living beings, the quality of one’s experience and even one’s biological continuum is marked forever onward.
There is a real awakening, a real revolution. So we’ll stop there. Next term we’ll begin with seeing deeply into the nature and reality. So if you sit comfortably, maybe you’re sore. We’ll do an exchange of self for others.
Maybe you’d like to stand up for a minute, for a minute to stretch your leg, then we’ll sit back down and do five minutes of meditation. Okay. Okay. I want to get used to standing up. This is something which I think you can develop more and more capacity, facility to be able to do this.
That is, to be able to identify with others more and more. That’s a development of the flexibility of your mind, the ability to empathize with others. So we’re going to exchange self with others. Just imagine if you can’t see the person, it doesn’t matter, but just feel that there’s a loved one in front of you and try to put yourself completely in their position, their situation, their mentality, how are they feeling, their emotions. Try to become that other person.
Allow yourself to become that other person. And look back at your former self. Do you feel loved, valued? Do you feel respected, understood by your former self. And express how you feel to your former self.
Think of someone that you work with or that you go to school with, an acquaintance that you see quite often, in a special relationship. Try to put yourself in their position, their situation, Feel their feelings, their emotions. Become them. Look back at your former self. How do you experience your former self?
What do you see? Do you feel indifference, competitiveness? What do you feel when you see your former self? Express how you feel. Think of some destitute, a beggar, someone in the park perhaps, wearing ragged clothes, cold, hungry, poor, friendless.
Try to identify with their situation. Feel their feelings, their emotions, what they’re going through. Become that other person. And look back at your former self. You hold out your hand to your former self.
And you look into the eyes of your former self, what do you see? What kind of eyes are staring back at you? Contempt, pity, indifference, fear, hatred? What do you see in your former self’s eye? Express what you feel.
And think of someone that you’re having some difficulties with, some problems. Imagine that person in front of you. Put yourself in their situation, their position. Think their thoughts, feel their feelings. Look at the situation out of their eyes.
Look back at your former self. What do you see? How is your former self presenting the problem, presenting the situation? Is there openness, hostility? Express how you feel.
And then we’ll dedicate the merit, the positive energy that we could from our listening and meditating. Through these merits may I soon attain the enlightened state of Guru Buddha and may lead every migrating being without exception to that state. May the precious bodhicitta not yet born arise and grow. May that which is born have no decline. Increase.