Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Jampa Gendun frames meditation, in this 46-minute session, as revolt against the world’s relentless outward demands — a return to the neglected inner life. He unpacks mindfulness and awareness through a vivid image: walking a boulder-strewn road with a bowl of water on your head, needing both to see the obstacles and to remember what you’re carrying. Working with distraction is illustrated through training a puppy with patience rather than force. He names the five hindrances (desire, hatred, sloth, anxiety, doubt), explains gom (familiarizing the mind with reality), and leads a brief sitting before pivoting to Tsongkhapa’s Three Principal Aspects of the Path — opening on the first aspect, determination to be free, and identifying ego-grasping and self-cherishing as the two core misconceptions fueling the mind’s perpetual conflict. Accessible to newcomers as a standalone introduction to meditation practice and the Lamrim framework.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 15 3 PA 1988 09 30.mp3
UUID: 7aab01f4-24d9-4b38-939e-bc67de30da46
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principal Aspects of the Path 1988-1990 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1988-09-30
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.4 minutes
Words: ~5,973
The world is constantly making demands upon us, demanding that we direct our complete attention outside of ourselves. So the process, the activity of meditation is a way we can revolt against that process and begin to get back in touch with the neglected, neglected, dormant part of ourselves in our inner world. And by creating some space and some time for us to get back in touch. Almost all the spiritual practices have some sort of meditation. But it’s, you know, if we’re honest, it’s it’s we’re very complicated people.
And in our complication, our ambition and drive to accomplish, we make what is could be, and ultimately is, a very simple activity. And it’s something very difficult, very complicated. We’re habitually trying out. Habitually trying to figure out our experiences so that we can manipulate them, repeat them again, to try to fulfill some of our preconceptions or expectations. There was a teacher in Sydney.
I was just in Sydney two weeks ago, Sogyal Rinpoche. And this was an advertisement for his talks, and I went to hear him. And I’d like to read you one quote from this advertisement concerning meditation. In the stillness and presence of meditation, we discover a pure awareness beyond the ordinary sinking mind and catch a glimpse of a view of our true nature, something we have long ago lost. We’ve lost sight of amidst the business and turmoil of our lives.
The core of the practice of meditation is releasing the heart and mind in deep ease and relaxation, where tensions are dissolved and we find ourselves connecting with a tremendous source of healing which we all have within. For health is a state where all aspects of our body and mind are in balance. So the essence of meditation is relaxation. And without the naturalness, but that’s something we’ve lost, this quality of being able to get in touch with what naturalness is. We’re trying to, in trying to figure out what naturalness is, we lose the very thing which we’re looking for.
So whenever there’s any expectations, any sort of compulsions, preconceptions, then it’s going to be invariably complex. That’s the nature of the ego. Conflict, the nature of cyclic existence. The nature of the dualistic nature of the mind, of ordinary mind. Conflict.
So somehow in our meditation we have to avoid making our practice, the activity of meditation, a battleground, a struggle that is carrying over our habitual tendency of conflict into that which we are using to transcend the ego, that which is a problem to begin with. We’re simply perpetuating and supporting our problem in activity of meditation. Somehow we have to find a way to circumvent this, to transcend the ego and its quality of struggle, of conflict, if meditation is actually going to be of any benefit, if we can even find it as a source of relaxation. Atisha, perhaps one of the two most important Indian masters in Tibetan Buddhism, he was he brought the second wave of Buddhism to Tibet after Padmasambhava originally introduced it. And he went through a period of degeneration, Atisha traveled from India.
It’s said out of great compassion since his he was told his life would be shortened by something like eleven years if he went to in if he went if he left India and went to Tibet. But out of compassion for the Tibetan people, he he still went and brought the regeneration, to reinstitute the Dharma in Tibet. The teacher said that the highest meditation is a mind without pretension. A mind without pretension. So this is what I think he means is an unfabricated mind, an uncontrived state of mind.
That is to say, a natural state of mind, a mind in its natural state. So, you know, natural here means unfixed. That is to say, without preconceptions, without expectations, without any compulsions, without interpretations, without, you know, a predetermined plan. It’s simply a natural basic awareness which is the ultimate which is the conventional nature of the mind, the quality of knowing or awareness. The natural awareness is a natural state of mind.
So you also said, Atisha also said that the highest precept is mindfulness. The Buddha said that without mindfulness it is that we’re dead. So basically when we’re talking about meditation, we’re talking about two mental factors. The mental factors of mindfulness and awareness, mindfulness and awareness. So mindfulness is like a container in which we put objects in, Whatever we want to what we might want to do with that object.
Perhaps we want to bring information to a situation. Perhaps we want to simply hold that object in front of us. So mindfulness becomes the container which holds our particular object in mind. And awareness simply knows that object, is aware of it, casts its aspect like a mirror. And the mind is very much like a mirror.
Simply, in its own nature, it has no quality. In the sense it’s pure by nature. It’s clear. Just like a clear glass mirror. It will reflect undistortedly any object which is presented in front of it.
And so in this respect, the mind is said to be very much like the mirror, the quality of awareness. Objects cast their image into the mirror of the mind, and thereby they’re known. So this is the basic quality of our meditation, this factor of mindfulness and awareness. Now, I’ve talked about these factors. Maybe we can now I can use this example again that I’ve spoken of before.
Because it doesn’t need to be a confusing matter. It doesn’t need to be a mystical matter. And the more we can understand the basic properties of a proper meditation and of what we’re trying to do and the factors involved, then I think we can approach the situation, the activity of meditation much more intelligently and much more successfully. So, the factors of mindfulness and awareness. It is as if, for example, an analogy, you were walking down a road and it was a dirt road full of holes and stones, large boulders.
And on top of your head was a glass of water, a bowl of water. And someone was behind you with a sword. And they said, If you spill one drop of this water, I’m going to cut your head off. So, you have a predicament. You’re in a difficult situation.
So, in this situation, you have to go to the other end of the road. You have to walk down the road. So we have to make use of two mental factors in this process of walking from one end of the road to the other: mindfulness and awareness. Awareness is going to know the situation. You know, what is the lie of the road?
If we didn’t know the lie of the road, we’re going to fall into a hole. We’re going to trip over a rock, and then all is going to be lost. So we have to know the actual situation. This is the factor of awareness. But simply, awareness itself would not get us successfully to the end of the road.
We could see a hole the road, jump down, jump back up, jump over a rock, jump on top of it. That is to say, we would be reacting properly, but only from a certain point of view to the situation. We wouldn’t be mindful. We wouldn’t remember that we wouldn’t be bringing certain information to the situation, which is necessary to complete the task which is set before us efficiently. That is, we have to remember that this bowl of water is on our head, even when we’re aware of the hole in front of us or the boulder in front of us.
So we have to bring some kind of information to the situation. The container of mindfulness that’s going to hold a particular type of information in front of us, you know, constantly while we’re maneuvering, while we’re walking down this road, working our way around these various obstacles. So these are these two qualities of mindfulness and awareness. Awareness simply knows the situation. Mindfulness brings certain information to that situation, you know, whatever is conducive, whatever our value system, whatever our priorities might be.
So in the basic meditation that we practice, mindfulness of breathing, The object of mindfulness of breathing is the breathing. Yeah? That’s what we’re going to hold. That’s what we’re going to put in our container. It’s like holding a glass.
You know, the mindfulness is that which is like the hand holding the glass. It determines if it lets go of the glass, glass is going to drop and break. It’s awareness which tells us whether we’re holding the glass or not, and how tightly we’re holding the glass. Perhaps we’re holding it too tightly, unnecessarily tightly, and expending energy unnecessarily. So there’s these two factors which we have to make use of in our meditation, which basically is meditation.
So using the object of breathing, we stabilize our mind. We anchor our mind. We hold the mind to the breath. By breath, simply the sensations, the tactile sensations, the bodily sensations, which are associated with the breathing process and the rising, falling of the chest, abdomen moving in and out, perhaps the air rushing on the upper lip inside the nostril. All these tactile bodily sensations are what become the object of a meditation.
The object with mindfulness is going to hold to, it’s going to anchor to. So again and again, we’re bringing our mind back to the breath again and again. You know, the mind is like a little bird flicking in a tree or like a butterfly flying from one flower to another flower to another flower, or like a monkey. It’s quite it’s usually usually use the example of a monkey jumping around in a fruit tree or something like that. In that way, it never comes to rest.
It never comes to a peaceful state or calm state. It never is able to relax. It’s constantly flicking from one object to another. Never quite being satiated by any particular effort. Never finding satisfaction.
Never finding any rest in one particular object. The way we can begin to calm the mind, to relax the mind, is simply bringing it again and again back to rest on a single object. Again and again, we simply rest the mind, put the mind, place the mind on a single object. In this case, the breathing, the breath. In this way, you know, I’m bringing it again and again on one single object.
The mind is naturally will naturally become calm. It is not as if we’re trying to strap the mind down in a straight jacket. I quite often, in talking about this process, use the analogy of training a puppy dog. In training a puppy dog, you know, the puppy is intelligent, comparatively intelligent. It simply does not know what you want it to do.
You have to approach the situation from that standpoint. He would probably or she would probably like to please you. You would like to develop a good relationship with this puppy. But the puppy simply doesn’t know what you want to do, so you have to show it. And in training a puppy, if you get uptight, if you get upset, if you, you know, your training will not go well.
You will develop a poor relationship, a poor rapport with your puppy. You won’t be happy, your puppy won’t be happy. Sooner or later you’re going to give up. You’re like paper training a puppy. Take the puppy and with patience and gentleness you simply place, you know, the puppy has to pee, okay?
So you place the puppy, you know that, you’re intelligent. You place the puppy on the paper, Of course, the puppy has no idea what it Doesn’t have the conception of what paper is, or what to say, what it’s for. He’s not going to read it, for example. So he just starts walking off. And so he just pick up the puppy again, and he place it back on the paper again.
And of course, he’s walking, he walks it off, he just, with gentleness and patience, keep bringing the puppy back to the paper, bringing the rest back to the paper. Then he will eventually get the idea that the puppy isn’t unintelligent. He can understand. He has a mind which is able to understand. She has a mind which is able to understand.
Likewise, initially our mind simply has not used, has not been trained in the process of coming to rest on a single object repeatedly. It’s very seldom demand is made on it in the course of normal activities. So we’re training the mind. In training the mind, we want to develop a harmonious relationship with our mind. We don’t want to, you know, if we get uptight with ourselves, if we, say, make demands of, impossible demands on ourselves, unreasonable demands on ourselves, and of course things aren’t going to go well.
We make judgments about ourselves, oh, can’t meditate, there’s nothing wrong with it. Everybody else can meditate, but me, everybody else is sitting in bliss, and I’m the only ones having a hard time. All these negativities which may arise, considering ourselves, you know, are just another expression of our ego. They have nothing to do with the reality of the situation. You know, the mind is clear and knowing.
That’s its nature. If we can become Buddhists, then obviously we can meditate on the breath for a few minutes. There’s no question. It’s just a simple matter of patience and gentleness with ourselves. That is to say, being skillful in how we go about it.
So, you know, we’re working with this situation without any sorts of judgments, without judging ourselves, you know, without, we’re not trying to decide whether our meditation is good, whether meditation is bad, whether we’re good or whether we’re bad, whether I can gain enlightenment, whether women can gain enlightenment, maybe they can’t gain enlightenment, maybe men can gain enlightenment, maybe there’s no such thing as enlightenment. Maybe I should join another tradition. Maybe Zen Buddhism. Or maybe I should become a born again Christian. This is too difficult.
You know, whatever. We’re just simply repeatedly bringing our puppy back to the paper in a very gentle and patient manner. We want we try to are trying to avoid the struggle that and the conflict that we normally bring to our various activities. We’re not even trying to relax. The very trying to relax will agitate your mind.
Know, try to well, you try to relax. I should try to relax. I try the harder you try, the less relaxed you are going the more agitated you’re going to become. All we can do, you know, developing the relaxed quality, which is just said as the essence of meditation, is present the conditions necessary whereby the mind will, the natural response of the mind is relaxation. It gives a sigh of relief and says, Wow, I can rest.
You know, something like that. Again and again, bringing the mind back to rest on a single object in a gentle, patient manner is the way we can develop the conditions, the internal conditions, whereby the natural response of the mind is relaxation and letting go. So in this practice, the basic practice is just simply being here now, being present in this situation, being aware. This is the way we can begin to transcend the ego, the way we can begin to heal the conflicts, inner struggles. So, you know, meditation is very much, you know, working with our speed, you know, our restlessness, our constant busyness, know, our ambition.
And our ego is ego’s constant desire to find something outside of the present moment. You know, if we you know, we’ve talked about the five hindrances to meditation. The five hindrances to meditation. What is that saying? If we say that the essence of meditation is relaxation, returning to the natural state of the mind, then mind is naturally at peace.
We don’t have to contrive. We don’t have construct a peaceful state. It is already present within the mind naturally. So there are hindrances arriving at this natural peace within the mind. And we’ve talked about some of these hindrances from one point of view.
That is the five hindrances to meditation. The desire, hatred, sloth and torpor, anxiety, worry, doubt and indecisiveness. Now what are those? Those are actually simply expressive These states, certain patterns which are reoccurring within the mind, which are expressions of ego. The ego trying to extend itself, secure itself in space and time.
And this is the very nature of our problem, which is causing the conflict, is prohibiting us from returning to our natural state of peace. So in this sense we can begin to cut through some of our ego games, to begin to transcend the ego in a very simple way. It’s a very simple minded approach to sanity. It’s actually very profound, we’re looking perhaps for something more exotic, something our ego can get its teeth into, perhaps. So the meditation in Tibetan is the word gom.
This is called a gompa, this room, which means a place in meditation. Gom means to get used to, getting used to, familiarizing yourself, habituating yourself. But this idea of getting used to, basically, we’re getting used to dwelling in the reality of the situation, in the present situation, rather than in the fantasy world of ego. We’re trying to step outside the fantasy world of ego and dwell within the actual situation in the present moment as it actually is. So this quality of relaxation, this natural response of the mind to the conditions, just sitting quietly, you know, and repeatedly developing the qualities of mindfulness and awareness.
Simply acknowledging, for example, our thoughts, our emotions, feelings, images, without either indulging them, indulging in them, or repressing them. So, you know, we’re beginning to learn a very valuable lesson in this simple practice, seemingly simple practice, that we don’t have to react to everything which our mind is churning out. Basically, we think we’re very important. Therefore, what we think must be quite important, But it’s not. I’m sorry.
That all the various feelings, all of these dramas, our mind is inventing, churning up of this primordial ocean of dialogue that’s constantly occurring in our mind. You know, we don’t have to react to it. We don’t have to hook onto it. We don’t have to bite into this hot dog, this hot dog. You know, we are constantly taking a position.
Whenever you take a position, there necessarily is conflict. That’s why the dualistic mind, the mind which thinks this is good, this is bad, this is tall, this is short, this is friend, this is enemy. This discriminating mind, which operates in a dual nature, must by its very nature be involved in conflict. If this is bad, if I think this is good, then I’ve created bad. And then if I meet that badness, I’m going to be unhappy by its very nature.
Once I create goodness, once I create white, I’ve created black on the other side. You know, this quality of the relative quality of our values. So in taking a position, there’s always ensuing this conflict. So we can begin we can begin to let go of the constant reference point that mind is continually creating. And the mind is constantly, you know, even the the basic reference point of subject object.
You know, if there’s a subject, there must be an object. If there’s an object, there’s a subject. Standing apart from the actual experience itself concept, is a dualistic quality of ego. And by stepping outside of this constant reference, creating reference points of ego that mind is constantly manufacturing, we can begin to step beyond our thoughts, step beyond our thoughts. Normally we grasp at thoughts.
That is to say, we identify them. We identify with them rather than simply recognizing them. That is to say, a thought arises, you become that thought. Anger arises, you become angry. Pleasure arises, you become pleasurable.
Now we don’t have to identify with all the thoughts which arise in our mind. We can simply recognize them, acknowledge them. But the mind is obsessed with this inner dialogue. I imagine most people in this room cannot stop thinking. And it’s strange, isn’t You know, we try to stop the wars in the world, stop the bombings, and stop the pollution, the destruction of the ozone.
But nobody can stop this chatter that’s always going on inside their mind. Therefore, we know we can never relax. We can never be at peace. So when we talk about controlling the mind, you know, we often hear about controlling the mind, subduing the mind. It sounds like putting ourselves in a straight jacket, doesn’t it?
To control the mind simply means that we cease reacting. That we cease reacting to the we cease the obsessed mind. Obsessed mind is a mind which impulsively, uncontrollably reacts, either repressing certain thoughts or indulging in certain thoughts. It has no choice. It’s programmed to either indulge or repress and react one way or the other.
This is an uncontrolled mind. So when we talk about a controlled mind, a subdued mind, we’re talking about a mind which is able to not react and has a choice whether it wants to react or not, whether it wants to bite into this hot dog or not. So, you know, meditation begins to teach us the skill of not reacting. Sometimes it’s called passive resistance. Not reacting to the obsessed mind.
Not reacting to the obsessed mind. You know, all these hooks that the our mind is churning out, trying to catch us. By catching, I mean to identify with. The hook of desire, the hook of hatred, the hook of worry, the hook of indecisiveness, doubt, the hook of sloth, torpor, all these various types of patterns which are reoccurring compulsively again and again and again, which we have no control over, but which hook the awareness factor of the mind. We identify with them, and we become angry.
We become desire, compulsive neurotic patterns of our mind. So it becomes in the process of developing our meditation, it becomes necessary to expand our awareness beyond the realm of this inner dialogue. To begin seeing the dialogue, for example, in a context, you know, to loosen up and to open up. It’s like as if you were looking at an aquarium with the various fish just swimming back and forth. And they’re swimming back and forth in a medium clear water.
And rather than if one can simply stand back, create the space, the perspective, simply to appreciate, if you like, but just to watch, observe the various fish as they swim back, we don’t have to identify them. We can see the context in which all the various fish, which all these activities are occurring without having to become involved in them. In this way, mind becomes very silent, and we naturally begin to develop a state of relaxation. This unnatural quality of the mind to return to its peaceful state. So when the mind is still, you know, all the images, all the thoughts are said to be like drawings upon water.
You know, draw a picture on water with your finger. It doesn’t last very long. So we don’t have to react to all the complicated fabrications of our mind. We can just be. So as I’ve said before, meditation is a rerouting of our sense of identity in being rather than becoming.
We’ve lost the ability to be. Ego by its very nature cannot be. It always has to become becoming something else. It can never exist within the present moment in the reality of the situation. It’s basic ground is an illusion.
It’s not based in the actual situation of fact. Meditation is simply a question of being, of melting like a piece of butter left in the sun. It has nothing to do with whether you know anything about it. So we don’t have to figure out how to meditate. Know, that is, we don’t have to try to we don’t stand outside of our meditation reporting back information to central command.
You know, how are doing, fella? Normally, want to identify with. Normally, we want to manipulate. We want to capture our experiences so that we can prolong them, we can repeat them, manipulate them. We want to be able to report back to ourselves that it’s an enjoyable experience.
So if we can begin to drop the concepts of, you know, of my meditation, my experience, my awareness, then we can begin to experience you know, we we become one with the actual experience itself. The actual idea of my meditation, my experience, the very idea, and it is just an idea of subject and object, is is a hindrance to becoming one with this situation, one with the meditation. It’s another concept, the very idea of subject and object, which we filter all our experiences through. In the sense that, you know, we can arrive at a place where nobody is meditating. And this involves a very deep healing process, you know, transcending the ego and conflict, getting used to a natural state of being.
So this first step in destroying ego’s games is a strict discipline of meditation. So try it now. K. So if you take a a comfortable, firm posture. I I think yeah.
I think, you know, we’re just noting, taking the object of our meditation as the breathing, the breath. We can use the technique of counting. One through five, one through six, one through seven, noting, knowing that you’re breathing in when you’re breathing in, noting in, out, in, out. Using this noting process a help to recognize rather than identify with our thoughts, for example. We don’t get lost in our objects that arise.
By noting, we’re able to stand, create some space, have some perspective. By noting, we recognize thoughts and don’t identify with them. So we’re talking about the three principal aspects of the path, which is a short text written by the fourteenth century yogi scholar, Je Tsongkhapa. In the in the first three principal aspects of the path, developing the determination to be free, opening our hearts to others, and seeing deeply into the nature of reality. So these are the the three areas that we can concern ourselves with, that we can direct ourselves in our practice.
Just as when we take refuge, for example, going for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha. You know, in the course of our days, especially more so yourselves and myself perhaps, you know, you have to deal with the practicalities of life, studying, earning and living, families. But in the midst of this, all these various activities, we can still be mindful in this quality of mindfulness, bringing some information to the various situations of what, in fact, is going to be the most effective way of solving our problems, no matter what the problem may be. A very practical problem. If Dharma isn’t very if it isn’t practical and applicable to our everyday situation, then it’s quite useless.
It’s just a museum piece, which is of no real benefit to anyone. You’re going for refuge to the Buddha, the quality of enlightenment. Perhaps we don’t know what enlightenment is. Perhaps it just sounds like an abstract concept, an idea that someone invented. But we all have some understanding of what perhaps it might be to be a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being.
And the qualities of enlightenment of simply knowing the situation as it actually is, rather than how we might like it to be, how we might fantasize it to be, how we wish it to be. But getting in touch with the real situation and accepting it and working on it from that point of view. To the degree that we’re willing to, that we get in touch with the actual situation, accept the actual situation, work with the actual situation, to that degree we’re going to be able to solve our problems more effectively. So the enlightened mind, this quality of sanity, is simply knowing the situation, knowing the reality of the situation. And we all have that ability to some degree, because we all touch reality to some degree each day of our lives.
And the quality of love love and compassion. You know, perhaps not like a mother and a child, the burning overflowing compassion. We’re willing to devote one’s life, dedicate one’s life, lives to developing oneself in order to alleviate the suffering of all sentient beings. But still, even we all have some experience of compassion and love, though it might be limited, it might be mixed with attachment, still it’s presence in all of us, spark of these qualities. And the lightened quality of inexhaustible energy, spontaneity.
When we go beyond our own self conscious contrived, self centered ideas and begin to act spontaneously, respond spontaneously, environmental generosity towards others. We all have that to some degree. And if we can understand and see those sparks of enlightenment within our own actual experience, our everyday experience, and see that these are the ways that we’re really going to solve our problems, that these are real sources of happiness, real sources of refuge, then our going for refuge to the Buddha becomes a very practical it’s not simply a fiction, not some museum piece. It’s simply an abstract conception, going for refuge to the Buddha within yourself because that’s only Buddha that’s ever really going to ever solve your problems once and for all. Going for refuge to the Dharma, you know.
You know, generally, can talk about the techniques, the teachings, the methods. But anything which is able to raise the level of your consciousness, anything which is able to take you from desire to openness, from attachment to generosity, from hatred to love, anger to compassion, and confusion to wisdom, you know, no matter what it might be. Dharma, you know, it’s a method to raise the level of your consciousness. No matter whether it’s a text, meditation, simply walking, going for a walk in the woods, talking with a friend, and going for refuge to the Sangha, the spiritual community, and those like minded individuals who have made a choice, have made a choice to grow and see this as the most important quality of their life and have a commitment to grow. So these three types of refuges are workable refuges.
They’re very practical types, practical types, methods, ways we can actually solve our problems, deal with the real life situations and the various activities of our day, being mindful of that refuge and bringing it to the various situations which arise. You know, our lives are based upon various sets of ideas, various core assumptions, belief systems. To the degree that our model, our paradigm of reality is erroneous, to the same degree we’re going to experience dissatisfaction, frustration, disappointment, suffering, pain. So, you know, when we talk about this first principal aspect of the path, the determination to be free, We’re talking about the determination to transform our paradigm, our model, into perhaps a more accurate one, a model which reflects reality to a greater and greater precision, a model which conforms to reality. Very much it’s stubborn refusal to cultivate an unawareness, to accept the actuality of situations, the reality situations which causes us most of our problems.
Ultimately, we have to see the absolute necessity to develop the skill and energy to uproot and transform two of our most fundamental beliefs, two of our core assumptions upon which we base almost all of our actions, all of our activities, all of our thinking, all of our feelings. And if these two aren’t true, a belief in an unchanging, independently existing self, ego grasping and self-cherishing. The efficacy, the effectiveness of self-cherishing as a means to find the happiness that you’re looking for, as a means to alleviate the suffering that you don’t want. These two core assumptions, these two beliefs are the foundation, the models upon which we relate with ourselves in the world. And these are erroneous.
Are epistemological errors. They are mistakes. So essentially, when we’re talking about the developing determination to be free, what we’re saying is that we’re stuck in a particular pattern, a dissatisfactory pattern. And that this pattern is based upon certain misconceptions. This pattern is based upon the struggle, for example, for security, the maintenance of a real identity, the fear of an open state, the fear of separation, the hope of union.
These are the ongoing struggle to secure the self in space and time. It’s like a whirling firebrand. For example, a stick with it has a flame on the end of it. If you whirl it fast enough in the same pattern, it appears to be a solid circle of flame. It’s an illusion, and it gives the illusion of solidity.
So ego grasping, this is you know, these all these various actions, all these various events, these mental events which are reoccurring, There’s no one performing them. But it’s one of our most basic assumptions that there is. So, you know, when we talk about the determination to be free, we have to get a feeling for the quality of any state bounded by by ego, by this struggle, by conflict. You know what I’ve been talking about? That it is dissatisfactory by nature.
That there’s no state within the bounds of ego which is satisfactory. There’s no state which is bounded by dualistic conception which is satisfactory. No state which is not in accord with reality which is satisfactory. An illusion can never be made secure. You’re always going to have to be ruling that firebrand to keep up the illusion of solidity.
Once you stop, it’s finished. It’s gone. It can never make this We can never relax for one moment in order to keep up this illusory quality, this appearance. And that’s all the ego is, is a mere appearance. It must be continually recreating itself.
And this is the ongoing struggle of ego. The ongoing reconfirming itself, reestablishing its credentials, reasserting its image. That’s why we talked about meditation, the ongoing activity of becoming the ego can never be. In being, there’s a stillness, there’s a quieting, there’s a letting go, a relaxing, and then the illusion of solidity disappears is no longer present. So there’s a resistance.
So the ego by its very nature cannot deal with real situations with real people. Required know, real people dealing with real people in real situations demands an attitude of openness and fluidity. And this is exactly what, you know, ego cannot afford, openness and fluidity, Openness and fluidity. Openness and fluidity demanded that we deal with situations as they present them as they present themselves, as they actually are, and not how we remember that they were, not how we fantasize them to be or that we wish them to be. But it’s in a way, it’s it’s openness that ego fears most.
Because with openness, there comes a feeling, an awareness of the lack of control, that there are just events occurring in space and time. And that these events