Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute talk, Ven Jampa Gendun opens with an unexpected comparison: meditation is like eating — a daily, ordinary act of mental health, not a solemn ritual. He walks through mindfulness-of-breathing practice, showing how recognizing thoughts as mere objects of mental consciousness removes the need to struggle against or indulge them. He then unpacks three kinds of faith in the Three Jewels — intuitive, reasoned, and experiential — arguing that only the lived experience of one’s own progress can sustain real practice. The second half addresses the first of the three principal aspects of the path, the determination to be free: unlimited human potential (Buddha nature), the urgency created by impermanence and death, and how karma and rebirth operate through a subtle mind-energy continuum distinct from the gross body. The talk closes on ego-grasping — how ignorance leads us to mistake the merely imputed self for something independently real.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1987 03 11 3 P A P (2).mp3
UUID: 5efbdbea-0e43-4364-aad4-5afada428fd5
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 1987-1988 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1987-03-11
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.7 minutes
Words: ~5,219
Is everyone comfortable? Do you need the windows closed? Is it too noisy in a draft? Is it okay? Okay.
So in meditation, we’re doing something very ordinary. I recently took a course at COPE called Training in Group Dynamics. And the group leader was talking about strokes, that is affirmations, compliments. He said that, just as when people go without eating, they become sick. Likewise, when people go without strokes, they become sick.
This was his thought. And I have a feeling likewise that going without meditation, and become a little bit sick. That’s one way we can become well, one way we can, heal ourselves is through the regular consistent self discipline of meditation. But it’s I think it should be looked on something like eating. You know, we don’t think taking lunch is particularly a special event in our lives unless it happens to be a very special meal.
It’s something we do regularly as part of our physical health. And likewise, meditation should become part of our mental health program. Something very ordinary just like eating food, we sit down and meditate regularly. Doing something very ordinary. It’s important not to begin to invest it with extraordinary qualities of being some sort of ritual, that it’s a very solemn occasion.
I want you to feel quite natural and spontaneous in meditation. It’s something you sit down and you do, just as you sit down to have a meal. And whenever thoughts arise in our meditation, we simply observe them as thoughts. Generally, when thoughts arise, we take them as being the subject. We identify with a thought as if I’m this agent thinking these thoughts.
Usually when we have thoughts, we’re not aware that we’re thinking. We’re not aware of thoughts as thoughts. Like, for example, when we’re planning a holiday and we’re thinking about perhaps going to Queensland up on the Barrier Reef and the nice white sand and the crystal clear waters and the beautiful coral with all the beautiful neon colored fish floating around and snorkeling in the clear clear water and the warm water washing over you. It’s as if you’re there, you know. It’s as if you’re actually experiencing being in Queensland on the beach.
It has this quality because we’re not recognizing thoughts as thoughts. It’s as if when we when we go to the movie, we forget that we’re at the movie, and the movie becomes almost a reality. But once we become aware that this is merely a movie, that that the patterns, the appearances of people on the screen aren’t really people, Once we become aware that our thoughts aren’t the agents, that we aren’t our thoughts, then we can begin to notice their transitory quality, their translucent quality. We don’t have to identify with our sinking. Can simply accept the thoughts arising They were by for a while and they’re going to cease.
Like any object, you know, when we’re sitting in meditation, if we hear a sound, sooner or later that sound is going to cease. We know that very much. Likewise, thought is just another object as is sound, as is or as visual objects, you know, tactile objects, whatever. Thought can be thought of as simply another object. And this is object of the mental consciousness.
So we begin to see thought as merely an object, nothing more than an object. So we don’t have to suppress thoughts nor do we indulge in them. We can just begin to, in our meditation, begin to see them as transitory, as translucent, as merely an object of our mental consciousness which arises, abides, awhile, and will cease. And so we can begin to accept thoughts without having to struggle against them. So in meditation there’s no need to control, there’s no need to suppress, there’s simply acceptance, just observation.
We don’t need to discriminate, that is good thoughts, bad thoughts. We don’t need to become involved in any kind of struggle at all with our thoughts. So this is the basic meditation, the cultivation of acceptance, the reorientation of the root of our identity in being rather than becoming. So this cultivation of accepting quality, and this carries over into our everyday life. Events can happen to us and they no longer we no longer have to struggle against them, try to control them, suppress them, try to manipulate them as we once did.
We can become more accepting because we realize just as our thoughts, all the various events which are taking place in our life arise and abide for a while and are going to cease. This doesn’t mean that we can’t act in the world. In fact, we act much more clearly because we see the situation much more clearly and not clouded by any need to act. As Atisha once said, the greatest patience or the highest patience is non-attachment to activity. But the feeling where one can merely observe.
There’s no compulsiveness to act. So this meditation is a very simple and direct method. We simply use the breathing because it’s there. It’s something very simple to get in touch with. We don’t have to create the object in meditation.
So the technique is simply to know the breath. When we’re breathing in, we know that we’re breathing in. And if thoughts arise, to know that we’re that thoughts have arisen by we can note that thoughts have arisen by thinking, by mentally noting thinking, for example, to help us to know the breath from moment to moment. So the technique becomes the goal. There’s nothing more than nothing less than that.
Simply knowing the breath. That’s the technique and that’s the goal of the meditation. So we’ll meditate on mindfulness and breathing. So we go for refuge to the Buddha and the Dharma and the Sangha. I I keep talking about going for refuge and what is possible various meanings might be.
There are as many levels of refuge as probably there are individuals, and we all have our particular interpretation. We all have, in fact, our own individual refuges. For some of us, it might be money. For others, it might be their job or their spouse. So refuge is not particularly a new thing for any of us.
We’ve been going for refuge our entire life. And the Buddha is going for refuge and going for refuge to the Buddha and Dharma and the Sangha. And merely reciting the formula, now I go for refuge to the Buddha, go for refuge to the Dharma, to the Sangha. Perhaps it’s not of much benefit. It’s very much of the feeling behind that.
What is the motivation? In fact, it’s very much a degree of faith. I think the the word faith is used quite often in Buddhism, but it has a distinct meaning as perhaps it has in the Christian religion, the word faith. It has the idea of aspiration, of a movement toward. It means where we’re placing our heart.
It’s something that we respect and that we wish to emulate. We wish to become that object that we have faith in. For example, we take refuge in a particular state, a state of Buddhahood, enlightened state. They say we have faith in that. This faith is developed upon our intuition, reasoning, and our own experience.
Developing faith in the Buddha Dharma and the Sangha, the enlightened state, the state of seeing directly into the way things actually are, the love and compassion and creative spontaneous actions in the world, the qualities of an enlightened mind, enlightened state of being, enlightened way of acting in the world, the the Dharma, the methods for actualizing, state, the truth, the way things are. In the Sangha, the context where these things can be brought about, the spiritual community which acts as a support, examples, inspiration, guidance. So these are our refuges, and we have to develop faith in these refuges. Intuitive faith is in by way of developing we have a sympathetic vibration. You know, when some vibration of what we might say our Buddha nature, something within ourselves touches a cord in our hearts which is very rarely touched, knowing what is said is is true beyond words, beyond logic, beyond intellect.
And in in in the silence of our heart, we know that’s that’s right. So it’s hearing perhaps some words spoken by someone or something that you read or it’s something that you see next and saying that’s that’s true. And it needs no explanation even to yourself because it touches something very deeply within you beyond intellect, beyond the need to verbalize. So we can have faith from the point of of intuition when someone talks about enlightenment, the necessity to develop love, compassion in your life, if you’re ever going to have a fulfilled, satisfying way of life, The possibility of real wisdom beyond mere information, beyond mere knowledge, but actually seeing very deeply is the way things are. That sound there’s something right about that.
Especially when you have come in contact with, as I fortunately have, many realized beings whose words have a great power over one’s mind. You know, it’s very interesting. Two people can say exactly the same words as has been my experience. But for some reason, when one of my teachers says these same words, it can be a very moving experience when another, possibly a bit, meaningless. Something is touched very deeply and there’s some kind of movement of the mind beyond words.
I remember Lama Yeshe used to say that words are for weak minds, that the truth of things is beyond words, and that’s where we have to feel. We have to try to reach beyond the intellect, the conceptions that we have about things, and try to work with it, you know, try to see things directly and feel things within our own heart. So it’s this faith which is born out of intuition, this sympathetic vibration when a cord in our hearts is struck by something that is said or something that we read. And then there’s faith born out of reasoning, and you’re coming to understand the logical possibility of an enlightened state, possibility of liberation, the possibility of sanity. I mean, it’s coming to one understands the information, sees the reasonableness of the possibility that there is a state beyond sorrow, beyond all our problems, beyond all our difficulties, a state of enlightenment which is characterized by seeing directly into the way things are, loving, compassion, spontaneous actions for the benefit of others in the world, that these are not a romantic notion.
They are they are simply not being made up. They are logical possibilities once we begin to understand the nature of the mind, the nature of our problems, we can see that there are methods, you know, very logical, reasonable methods whereby we can solve our problems, and we can reach the state of enlightenment. Seeing the connection between, for example, the the moral, intellectual, spiritual qualities of, kindliness, sincerity, fearlessness, wisdom, love, you know, all these various qualities that these realized beings have. A sense of humor. That somehow there’s a connection between those who practice the Dharma and these very qualities.
There seems to be some consistency between those who who are who are devoting some part of their life to the cultivation of their mind and these qualities of love, compassion, wisdom, humor, sincerity, kindliness. We can see that, and we can reason that there must be some connection. These people are actually expressing or exemplifying the possibility of development developing the mind using these very methods. So we have evidence that people who actually are going beyond the ego Mhmm. Or reducing the power, the influence of ego in their lives.
Happy, sane, healthy people that the dharma actually works. It’s not that we all would like to think hope it works, that there’s is some realistic method to get ourselves out of these problems. So in the beginning, it’s a longing faith. We hope it works. We’re not sure, but we hope because the other methods haven’t seemed to work very well to this point.
So we’re gonna try this method, and I’m not sure about it. I hope it works because I’m putting a lot of work into it. But if we can see using our reasoning that it must that the methods logically work, that there are those who are practicing the methods and expressing or achieving the realizations of these methods, that it is working for them, then we can develop some real faith. So we can develop faith through intuition, reasoning, seeing the logic of the methods. And then through our own experience, which is probably the most important of the three, that we actually begin to find some peace within ourselves.
We actually begin to experience some of the fruit of practice ourselves, some of the fruit of, practice of Dharma. We find one day that we’re happy people. It’s a kind of a surprise. It kind of sneaks up on you, think. From time to time, you just look at yourself and your situation and you look back perhaps ten years, fifteen years, and you realize that you’re a much happier person, more fulfilled, more satisfied, more beneficial to others and to yourself.
And you wonder why. And you realize it’s not an accident. It’s not some chance happening. It’s because you’ve been cultivating your mind. You’ve been cultivating causes for happiness, for a meaningful way of life, for being able to benefit others and yourself all along.
So we begin to realize the fruit of our practice within ourselves, within our own experience. And this is a great great source of inspiration. It’s a great source of faith. It inspires you to apply yourself even more. So faith is very much an affirmation of of our own goodness and the goodness of life.
And the greater our faith, the greater this affirmation of the goodness of ourselves and the goodness of life. We begin to believe in ourselves that we can really be happy and we can really benefit others and that there’s a that life can be a meaningful, fulfilling experience. Through this faith. Faith through intuition, faith through reason, and faith through your own experience. So it’s this faith which really brings about change.
This space is our refuge. We’ve been talking about the three principal aspects of the path. We have to have faith that these three principles that these three paths actually exist and they actually lead us somewhere, that there are methods to help us travel this path, that they actually work, and that we ourselves can do it. We have to develop this faith through intuition, through reasoning, and through our own experience. This is going for refuge.
You know? It’s not the saying of the formula, the words. It’s this faith which goes beyond words, but it’s only born out by listening, by examining. And by practice. Developing the determination to be free, opening to others, and seeing deeply into the nature of reality.
Somehow these three paths encompass all the necessary methods to actualize our full potential. There’s nothing left out. There’s nothing that needs to be added outside of these three. As a foundation, we have to develop the determination to be free, to realize our potential. Within our potential, there’s our own private experiential world and our potential relating to others.
So as our foundation, we develop the determination I’m going to grow. I’m going to realize my potential. Whatever we might call that potential, we call it Buddhahood, enlightenment, Christhood, whatever. It has two aspects, our own experiential quality, our own private world, our own peace. And it’s going beyond sorrow, our own afflictive emotions, which disturb the natural peace of our mind.
We have to have some method to go to find that peace, to realize that potential of ourselves. This is seen deeply into the nature of reality. And we need to fulfill our potential to its utmost, that is being able to relate with others, our social self. And we very much are interconnected, interdependent with others. We’re not we don’t live in isolation.
We don’t exist in isolation. And therefore, our happiness and realizing our full potential cannot be realized in isolation. We have to develop that aspect of ourselves which exists a public in relationship with others, a public self. And this is realized in opening to others. So these are the two aspects of our personality.
You know, this is an existential approach to fulfilling our potential. Through these three paths, we can realize everything that we are. We can have faith in that. We can begin to understand it through our intuition reasonably in our in our own experience. So we’re talking about the first, the foundation, developing the determination to be free.
We’re stuck. We’re stuck in ruts, ingrained patterns, the fantasy of ego, however you like to put it. And we need some real energy to to get us ourselves unstuck, to bring to break up these patterns, which are unskillful patterns. By unskillful, I mean those types of habitual compulsive reoccurring patterns which are going to bring us suffering. That’s unskillful.
Nothing there’s no there’s no sin involved. There’s no evil involved. It’s just mistaken ways of acting which are going to bring you suffering, and you don’t want to suffer. Therefore, we say it’s unskillful. That’s all.
We’re we’re making some basic errors in our understanding, in our way of knowing the world. We have to develop the energy to begin to break out of these patterns. First, we want to develop skillful patterns. That is that is those type of patterns which are going to bring us happiness. And then ultimately go beyond all patterns altogether and exist in a spontaneous, creative actions like a wish fulfilling tree.
Often times, they compare the Buddha to a wish fulfilling tree. You know, anyone can come along and pluck the fruit. The tree doesn’t say, come and pick me. The tree doesn’t say, oh, I think I’ll grow this fruit so I can help that person. Situations arise spontaneously with communication, there’s benefit.
The tree is there. Someone picks the fruit. Spontaneous creative actions with beyond thought, beyond conception, beyond all patterns, perfectly fluid and open to the needs of the present moment and the present individual who we’re trying to communicate with. No preconceptions. So we’re talking about the methods to develop this determination to be free, to energize ourselves, to be able to break out of these unskillful patterns and begin to develop more skillful ways of responding to the world, of acting in the world.
We can begin by looking at our own potential. You know, we call this Buddha nature, the dynamic quality of mind, that it’s changeable, that the identity we have, the conception of it we have, that who we are is not who we are, in fact. For various reasons, we are usually have a very negative self image. This very acknowledgement of that type of self image limits us in what we will be able to achieve, what we will even try to achieve. You know, they talk about it’s very much talk about women’s liberation these days.
You know, a woman says, I think I’ll be a nurse. What she really means is she wants to be a doctor, but she doesn’t think she can become a doctor, does she? And this works in many, many ways like that. You know, our own conception of what we can’t do is going to limit what you can what you are trying to do, and not only that, what you will be able to do. Our world is very much shaped by our conception of it and our conception of ourselves.
So we have to get in touch with who we really are. And the fact is that we have an unlimited potential, and we call this potential Buddha nature, dynamic quality of the mind. It can be changed just like molding clay. It can be created into something very grotesque, something very utilitarian like an ashtray, or something very beautiful. But it can be changed using the, you know, the conventional reality of the law of cause and effect.
We have this potential. We have all the necessary conditions. We have the leisure and fortune to realize this potential. We’re born in a free country. We met the dharma, the various methods.
We aren’t we’re healthy physically. We’re healthy mentally from the from the point of view that we have intelligence, that we have some kindness in our hearts, some aspiration, some perspective on our problems. There’s nothing stopping us except our own lack of initiative, our own lack of motivation to change. Everything is there that we need. It only lacks effort.
But this chance to change isn’t going to last forever. It’s definite that we’re going to die. You know, we may think that we’re special, but this is misconception, another epistemological error, some of these errors that we’ve been talking about. Why should you know, someone in this room is going to be the first to die. No one wants to be the to die.
It’s sad. It’s very unfortunate, but it’s normal. We must accept there’s nothing to that why should the universe single us out that we aren’t going to die? Someone in this room will be the first to die. We don’t know who.
We don’t know when. So this chance, this opportunity to realize this potential isn’t going to last forever. It’s going to come to an end. So this is beginning to help energize us, to motivate us. I I better do something for, in fact, if the mind does go on, if there is such a thing as rebirth, the possibility of of, less desirable future states, It’s possible.
You know, if we look at our lives, what are the predominant characteristics of our mind in our daily activities? You know, are they love? Are they positive states of mind, Wisdom? Are they anger, desire, hatred, attachment, jealousy, misery, and spite? You know, which are most predominant in your everyday life?
The Buddha said if you if you want to know what what what you’ve done in the past, look at your body. If you want to know what will happen to you in the future, look at your mind. So we’re going to look at that aspect from the point of view of karma. karma simply means action, work, Work of body, work of speech, work of mind. It’s the various actions.
karma and rebirth are very much tied up together. So essentially, you know, we’re talking about, when we talk about rebirth, what goes on to a future life. And we have to begin to develop some feeling about what it is that actually takes rebirth. What does what does rebirth mean? Now I remember I used to think that, you know, this idea of rebirth meant that when you die, the somehow this body goes somewhere else and kinda transformed or somehow I really didn’t go into it very much.
I wasn’t didn’t have a very good picture of it, but somehow I couldn’t see how this body was gonna go somewhere else because, you know, it gets smashed up in a car accident or it gets it gets buried in a coffin and it rots or it gets burnt in a crematorium or something like that. So it didn’t, you know, it didn’t make any sense, the idea of rebirth. Cause I was the body. You know, I’m the I’m my body. I’m my brain.
There’s this identity with the physical aspect of myself. What we’re talking about is the subtle mind and subtle body which is going on to a future life. And the subtle mind is supported by a subtle energy pattern. This is what I mean by body. And this is a gross energy pattern.
Know, I think about Einstein’s theory of relativity. What is it? E m e equals m c squared, anyway, that matter and energy are interchangeable. So what we have more or less is a pattern of energy taking on a a particular form, and we call this our body. And this supports the consciousness.
It supports gross consciousness. And likewise, there are various levels of consciousnesses. And we talk about gross consciousness such as eye consciousness. That is eye consciousness that sees this table, for example, that sees forms. Your consciousness that hears sound.
Eye, ear, nose, smells, taste, body consciousness, feels, textures. Gives it what our gross consciousness is. And there more subtle types of consciousness. For example, a dream consciousness is more subtle than a gross sensory consciousness is. We can come to a level of subtle consciousness.
This is what is going to go to a future life in common. But consciousness and energy always go together to compare it like a horse and a rider. You know, the the rider guides guides the horse, You know, wherever the where the the rider reins the horse, the horse goes in that direction. But it’s the the horse which provides the motility, which provides the the conveyance for that rider likewise. The mind is always existing conjunction with energy. The energy has the quality of motility, movement.
So the mind has a vehicle, some way to convey itself. So you have this subtle consciousness which is supported by a subtle energy. Okay. Upon this, we label. We we designate I, person.
Okay. Who is the person? You know when we say I, me, Jampa, monk, but who is that? It’s it’s not the body, is it? It’s not the mind, is it?
It’s neither one of those two. We can we could examine this. We’ll examine this later on when we talk about seeing into the nature of reality. We’ll look into this more deeply. The person, the I, the self, the being, jampa, the monk, is it is the being which is being designated, imputed, projected, labeled onto the body and mind.
There’s a body and mind acting as a basis. Upon that, we designate, we impute person, eye, soul, monk, jampa. This is who I am. This is the actual conventional self. Upon the basis of a subtle mind and subtle energy pattern, we impute self, I, jampa, whatever, on the basis of this very subtle mind, this very subtle energy pattern.
This is what goes on to the future life. This in this way, we can talk about taking rebirth. We have certain dispositions, both mentally and physically. In accordance with these dispositions, the subtle energy becomes associated with a grosser energy pattern. Perhaps that grosser energy pattern is the the bodily pattern of a dog.
Dependence upon that gross energy pattern, a gross consciousness will arise, which will be the consciousness of a dog, a dog consciousness. Upon that dog body, dog mind, we impute dog. So therefore, I can talk about taking rebirth as a dog. There’s a subtle consciousness, subtle mind associated with the subtle energy pattern existing within me right now. Upon that, we designate I, person.
That’s all the person is. The person is not something more than that. You know, we can we can designate that on the gross mind, on gross body, and that’s who Jampa is, a particular instance of this long continuous, stream of subtle consciousness associated with subtle energy pattern. Now you can say Jampa is here. The gross body, gross mind, we designate Jampa.
But through this continual taking of rebirth, dying, there’s this subtle stream of mind, subtle stream of energy which is associated with that. This is the mere I. This is the self which has existed from beginning of this time and will exist forever and never comes to an end. The mind is always replicating itself in its own similar type. Likewise, the energy.
This energy this subtle mind and energy is going to continue forever. It’s going to take become associated with grosser types of energy patterns, bodies. You know, the body of a hell being, the body of an animal, the body of a human, various types of energy patterns taking on various configurations in accordance with their cause, law, cause, and effect. in dependence upon these gross physical patterns, gross consciousnesses will arise. Opportunity we have now.
The fact is a dog cannot achieve enlightenment in that particular gross pattern of energy that it’s associated with. Its mind cannot realize its potential in association with the physical physical energy pattern of a dog. Aside from a few exceptions, it’s only this particular gross energy pattern which has the potential to support the consciousness in such a way that it can realize its full potential. It’s a very rare possibility when you consider all the possible patterns that we could be associated with. You know?
All the infinite possibilities of beings throughout the universe. But what happens? We take this we take this particular the subtle mind in in conjunction with this this subtle energy pattern becomes associated with a particular gross energy pattern becomes which generates a particular gross consciousness on the base of this weak designate I, Jampa, self. We begin to identify, grasp at this I as no longer being imputed, no longer being designated. We have a we have a gross mind, gross body.
Upon this, designate and then we name, you know, protagonist, Jampa, I. What happens? Due to the force of ignorance — but I don’t want to say this — Due to the force of ignorance, which obscures the actual nature of the I, we we think that the I exists independently of the mind and body. It’s not in dependence upon the mind and body.
We just imputed it. We just designated it. We just labeled it upon the mind and body. But due to the force of ignorance, we no longer we think it’s independent of the mind and body. So now we have an I.
We grasp at an I. We cling to an I, which exists as substantially independently. That is where you create ego. This process of grasping and clinging to an eye which exists independently. So now we’re stuck.
This is who I am. You know? I have these qualities. I have this potential. I have this particular identity, this particular self image, existing independently of my mind and body, independently of the other various states of mind which are continually arising because they’re transitory, because they’re impermanent.
Independent of my situation, my culture, my peers, my value system, my my social that I live in. This is a very substantial identity independent of any other factors. We’re very much stuck with who we think we are, this conception of who I am. This way, we don’t deeply feel that we can change. You know, I talked about this last week, about when in connection with with dying.
One aspect of dying is the dying of the ego, this fear.