Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A wealthy man who appeared to have everything — and one day shot himself — opens this 47-minute talk, as Ven Jampa Gendun uses the story to show why we fail to recognise suffering in people whose style of suffering differs from our own. He then walks through the Three Principal Aspects of the Path in sequence: renunciation as honest recognition of personal suffering patterns and the creation of space for change (he shares candidly what drove him to become a monk); opening to others as that same compassionate impulse turned outward, dissolving the neurotic self-obsession he likens to a hamster on a treadmill; and wisdom as seeing through the ego’s illusion of permanence, explained through a flip-card analogy. The session closes with a guided loving-kindness meditation that expands from self outward to all living beings.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1987 09 25 3 P A P (2).mp3
UUID: e80b9e1c-541e-4d3d-9fe3-f05756007cb5
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 1987-1988 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1987-09-25
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.7 minutes
Words: ~3,959
We want to emerge out of our particular samsaric situation. Each person in this room has a particular style of suffering. And that’s their style. That’s the way they relate with the world. And when we see somebody else who has a completely different style of suffering, we often don’t recognize the fact that they’re suffering.
A very, very rich person, for example. Poor person just can’t it’s hard for them to conceive of that person suffering, isn’t it? I was reading I read a poem the other day. Should have brought it. It was about this idea that they saw this rich person come, and this rich person was always appeared extremely happy because he had all the good things of life.
And then one day they heard he shot himself. It’s extremely difficult to identify with very distinctly different styles of suffering, we each have our particular style. We each have our own hell, if you like, that we go through, our own twist, Our own you know, sometimes you look at you look at other people and their suffering is, what’s wrong with you? You know, you’ve got everything that you could want. You’ve got a lovely house, lovely wife, lovely husband.
You’ve got a car. You’ve got a good job. You just can’t understand how they could be suffering, how they could be experiencing the the hell that they may be going through because we don’t understand their particular style of suffering. We only understand it from our particular point of view, our particular style. So we have to make a determination.
We have to create some perspective on our particular style. You know, if you look back in your life, try to see the patterns of the reoccurring suffering. You’re going to see that you’ve probably been making the same mistake over and over again within years, but also within maybe just the days, very minor sufferings, the way we put ourselves through hell each day. We only generally see the major sufferings. We generally only see the trees.
We’re blinded by the trees. We can’t see the forest. And there’s this tree, then there’s this tree, and this tree. But we don’t see the forest. We don’t have an overall perspective, the patterns, or the way our mind is operating dissatisfactorily.
So it’s this recognizing our patterns, becoming fed up with these patterns, which develops a determination to be free out of them, determination to emerge from them. I remember, for example, I’ll share some of my personal life with you. I’ll take a chance. I used to have a neurotic need which expressed itself in my sexual relationships with women. I didn’t treat them as objects, but as a means of manipulation, a means of gratifying need for affection, for love.
And so I objectified women. I didn’t relate to them as human beings, only a method of fulfilling my own neurotic needs, manipulation, domination. And so I became rather disgusted with this this way of not relating with another human being, objectifying and making them something they aren’t. And so I needed to have some perspective, some way to draw back, to create some space, to heal my mind. And this is one of the contributing factors of my becoming a monk, to gain some space.
Yeah. That’s one of the reason we take vows is to help even artificially to create a little bit of space so we can get some perspective on that problem, so we can allow our own sanity, our own wisdom to work on that problem. We aren’t stuck with it. Now we’re creating some space. This determination to be free is the creating of space, allowing new, more skillful ways of relating to rise.
Without creating this space, there’s no way for a wisdom to operate. There’s no way for new patterns to come into existence, more skillful ways of relating. This is what renunciation is. It’s not depression. It’s not wearing hair shirts, laying on beds and nails.
It’s It’s really getting to know yourself, isn’t it, and becoming fed up with your suffering. But first, we have to know that we’re suffering. That may seem strange, does it, that we don’t know we’re suffering. We don’t know the nature of our suffering. We don’t know we don’t see the source of our problems.
We are always running away from our problems, always running away from our suffering. Sitting in meditation, we can become we can sit still and quit running. We can begin to recognize, identify where our problems are coming from and get fed up with them and allow our own basic sanity to work on our difficulties. We determine to grow, to change Without this determination to be free, there’s no way you’re ever going to actualize your potential. Your potential to be aware, loving, compassionate, spontaneous, alive human being.
Nowhere you’re stuck with what you are now. Of course, all these patterns are very deeply ingrained, and we have to make a great deal of determination to emerge from them. We’re trapped. So this is the creative expression of wisdom, this determination to be free, the creative expression of wisdom. That’s the first principal aspect of the path.
The second, Opening to others. You know, sometimes it’s called the mind of enlightenment. It is simply called opening to others. Developing love and compassion. So we develop we have a thought, the thought to separate to be separated from suffering.
When we direct that thought towards ourselves, we develop the determination to be free. When we direct that same thought, this thought to separate from suffering towards others, begin to open to others, to their needs, and to their suffering. It’s the same thought. It’s just the object has changed. So such a thought is a clear you know, is a direct insight of the situation that we are in and merely seeing that others are also in that same exact situation.
Everyone in this room, we’re all in the same situation. Different styles, situation. Different styles, but the same basic result of suffering. If you don’t like the word suffering, you’ll say it’s a discontentment, dissatisfactoriness, not finding the things that we seek, not finding fulfillment. That’s all.
So in this way, in this idea of opening to others is a social expression of our wisdom, recognizing that others, understanding that others are in the exact same position that we’re in. You know, the Dalai Lama said, you know, if you’re going to be selfish, you should at least be wisely selfish. You should be wisely selfish. What does that mean, to be wisely selfish? We have to see within our own experience, not just take the Dalai Lama’s word on it, not take Jesus Christ’s word on it, not take the Buddha’s word on it, Mother Teresa, or whoever.
That it is in giving that we receive, that it is in loving that we are loved, It is in devoting ourselves to others that we are going to experience a greater happier happiness than we could have ever received otherwise. It’s kind of a revolutionary thought to think that by trying to bring happiness to others that you’re going to find a greater happiness than you could have ever experienced otherwise. So we can’t take anyone’s word on it. We have to look within our own experience, even in our small experiences, which our ego allows us from time to time. When we actually feel fulfilled, joyous, We go beyond our own petty lives, our own petty problems, our own petty ego.
But we can go we you know, we can begin to see this idea of opening to others on even a less profound level than that. You know, when we’re concerned, you know, all the problems, completely caught up with ourselves, completely concerned with I, I, I, me, me, me, mine, mine, mine. All our problems, even minor ones become insurmountable. They become like a thick, you know, black dense cloud enveloping us, like it’s never going to go away. The greater the I, I, I, the greater the me, me, me, the thicker and denser the cloud becomes.
I think maybe this is why most people go crazy. I don’t know. Seems like a lot of people have been going crazy lately. I, I, I, me, me, me. I don’t know.
Completely preoccupied with themselves. My needs, my wants. You know, all our self-cherishing, selfishness, exaggerated self concern, everything relating back to I, to ego, everything becomes a problem, a threat, you know, a threat to our well-being, a threat to our security. You know? Maybe I’m not good enough.
Maybe maybe there won’t be a left maybe there won’t be enough left for me. Oh, I lost my you know, constantly. Always the whole world. You’re the center of the entire world. Everything you always see things relating to you.
And I think finally the mind freaks out. So we can begin to break free from this, this neurotic obsession with ourselves by opening our hearts to others. You know, when we’re truly concerned with another person, we forget all about ourselves, our problems, at least for that time being. Right? When you’re truly feeling the suffering in another person, truly involved in that person’s problem, There’s a going out of yourself, identifying with the other person’s difficulties.
And your problems don’t exist for that matter. And then we begin to to replace compassion. We begin to we begin we begin to replace our own self pity with compassion for others. We begin to take on a universal more of a universal character to ourselves, to go beyond the, you know, the boundaries of one ego, one individual, to consider ourselves ultimately with everything that lives, but at least with the other people around us. You know, this automatically, we’re beginning to release ourselves from our problems, which are based on always referring back to how things are affecting you.
We begin to concern ourselves how things affect others. You know, it has a a liberating quality. It creates space again, this idea of space. Can we find some new perspective, a more skillful way of relating with others? So this opening to others, going beyond our own petty problems.
We have to solve our problems, but I think you know, we I think so. Most of our problems are created of our own self indulgence. You know, the neurotic maze that we travel through. It’s just like a hamster running on its treadmill. It never goes anywhere and it suffers.
Of course, a hamster probably gets healthier from it. It’s good exercise, but for me, it’s just that. It’s just suffering. We keep rolling over, gnawing over the same problems, finding new complexities, finding new styles of suffering. You know?
You can sort of leap out of that. At least try. Now this is what I was saying about the refuge. Take that as a possible working basis for your life of trying to open up to others. That’s the second principal aspect of the path, opening to others.
And the third, seeing how things really are. Seeing into the way things really are. Determining to grow was a creative expression of our wisdom. Opening to others is a social expression of our wisdom. Seeing how things really are is what I call an existential expression of our wisdom.
It’s the way we relate with ourselves and the things about us. It’s the way we finally find inner peace. So this wisdom that we’re talking about is the direct antidote to all the mistaken conceptions we have about how things exist, about how we exist, about our nature, the actual reality of ourselves. More or less, we’re we’re trapped in a world of our own projections. We are creating our own prison.
I don’t think we realize that. We’re condemned to creating, to developing, to going through the mistakes over and over again because we have misconceptions over the nature of ourselves, who we actually are, and the nature of objects around us. You know, there was a Zen master, and once one of his one disciple came to him. And he said to the Zen master, oh, please, please free my mind. Free my mind.
I’m in suffering. Free my mind. And the Zen master said, first tell me who it was that enslaved it, who enslaved your mind, that it has to be freed. You know, we are the ones that have enslaved our mind, and it’s up to us to free it. Nothing outside of ourselves is causing us problems.
So we have to see very deeply into the nature of our existential problem, the nature of ourselves, of who we are. All the various afflictive emotions, all the dissatisfaction, all our suffering have take as their basis ignorance. Any desire, hatred, pride, jealousy, miserliness, all these afflictive emotions, all arise out of ignorance. Mistaking the nature of who we actually are. So if we train and develop prajna, if we, if clear mindedly investigate, you know, very deeply into our nature, this will act as an antidote where we can finally break up mistaken unskillful patterns which generate all our problems.
And we actually discover the way in which we actually exist. And we we think to ourselves, you know, I’m this way. I’m that way. You know, we have a very definite self image of who we think we are, and we’re stuck with that, skillfully, can begin to adjust that self image. For example, we talk very much in western psychology.
They are concerned with developing better self images of oneself. Tantra is interested in developing a better self image of oneself. These are various meditational deities that we identify with. We with the compassion and love of Chenrezig. We identify with the wisdom of Mañjuśrī.
We identify with the creative energy, the creative activities of Tārā as a way of adjusting our self image, as a way of activating, awakening our potential to actually develop those in reality. But we have the problem is in developing and adjusting our self image is that we have a concrete we conceive of our image as being of the self, the I as being concrete, fixed, unchanging, permanent self. You know, this is the way I am. I am this way and I’m always going to be that way. You know, through all the changing happenings of our lives over a period of time, through all the various events, there’s a cling to some constant factor which we call I.
It is this ego seeking some security. Right? So the, you know, the ego is constantly trying to repeat patterns. This is the way it substantiates its existence. You know?
The ego does not exist except as a projection, as a fantasized way of existing. Therefore, it has to be we have to keep repeating the creating recreating it over and over and over again. If we create it fast enough, it’s going to have the illusion of actual existence. You know, there used to be these flip cards with drawings on them. You know, one drawing would change just a little bit to another drawing, then the next one.
And if if you flip through them, it looks like some some object is moving. Or if you just take a movie screen, you know, what you have is individual frames. If you went through those frames quickly enough and you lose your sense of reference, it actually looks like real people moving about. So it’s idea of speed and losing our frame of reference that really create an illusion of some actual entity who is consistent, permanent. Over all the various changing situations of our lives through time.
We are anchored in this. You know, we try to relieve relive memories. We try to, create fantasies, to to enact other fantasies. These are all symptomatic of what we could call ego grasping. The speed, the repetitive patterns all give the illusion of something substantially existent.
An ego which endures through time and situations throughout our entire lives. You know, we have something, you know, you may leave me, things may change, but I’ve always got my ego to depend upon. There’s something that’s always there that I can go back to, that I can take security in, a constant companion, my friend who’s always looking over my shoulder watching every move I make. And we keep creating, recreating this fixed image because it gives us some security, some sense of something to fight against the fear that there’s nothing there, that we may, in fact, go out of existence. Perhaps we don’t exist at all.
The fear of not knowing who we are. You know, they say when individuals, they, get their first deep insight into the nature of selflessness, Those with little merit develop great fear. Those with great merit develop great joy, a sense of freedom. So, you know, we have that’s why it’s necessary. They talk about building up your merit, your sense of personal power.
It’s like losing a friend who’s always been there. For those with little personal personal power, it could be a rather fearful experience, a lonely experience. But ignorance is terribly intelligent, but it’s making a basic mistake. You know, ignorance is grasping at that which changes to be unchanging, that which is merely we have to really we’ll have to talk about this. That which is merely imputed to be substantially existent, which is ignorance is grasping at that which is merely conventionally existent to be ultimately existent.
It’s grasping at that which is dependently existent to be independently existent. It projects a fantasized way of existing on ourselves, on all the objects around us. You know, it’s as if we try to hold on to a rainbow even while the sun is setting. Or it’s as if we’re running away from some monster in the darkness, which is merely a projection of our own mind. We’re running away and grasping onto things which are as if they were substantial, as if they were solid concrete.
In fact, they’re just projections of our own mind. All our fears, all our dissatisfactions have as their ultimate source ignorance. Seeing the way things are, we can free ourselves of fear, of dissatisfactoriness, of all our suffering. This is the third aspect of the path, seeing how things really are. So each of these three aspects of the path, they support one another, they sustain one another, and they nourish one another.
Each has you know, if we looked at the qualities of each of these, each has the quality of growth, opening, freedom, determining to grow, opening to others, seeing into how things really are. They are all expressions of wisdom, creative wisdom, certain social expression of wisdom, existential expression of wisdom. The three aspects of the path. It was like wisdom calling to wisdom. It’s like Buddha calling out to Buddha.
It’s like our basic sanity crying out to us to be heard. So those are the three principal aspects of the path which we’re going to go into. So take a comfortable position. Think about yourself, which we usually do anyhow. Now we’re going to do it in a healthy manner, hopefully.
Consider your suffering. Now if we don’t consider our sufferings, then we our mind will be unmoved. We’re going to go through the mechanical process of of superficial thinking, of intellectual thought. It’s only when we become sincere with the moment, we get serious with the moment, that nothing else better is going to come along, that this is what’s happening now. There’s a chance to change.
And the only reason we want to change is because we’re suffering, because things are dissatisfactory. You want happiness. I don’t want to suffer. So you have your ideas about who you think you should be the way you think you should be. And perhaps they’re correct, perhaps they’re not.
But for the moment, you have to start with where you’re at now. You have to begin to make friends with who you are now. That’s all you can be for the moment. The person you are now with all your faults, all your hang ups. Wish that person well.
Wish yourself well. May I be happy. May I grow. May I open up to others. May I see into the way things are.
That person. Think of a friend, someone you like, you care about the same age, same sex. Just imagine they’re in front of you now and wish them happiness. Some positive feelings radiate out. I wish that they might be well, be happy.
Now think of a stranger, someone who you have no feelings for, who you don’t care whether they’re happy or whether they suffer. Imagine that person in front of you. This person is no different than yourself. This person wants to be happy. This person does not want to suffer it.
Just like you, completely equal. No doubt about it. And just like you wish yourself happiness, This person is exactly like you. Wish them the same happiness you wish for yourself. Radiate out positive feelings to this person.
Now think of someone who you have problems with, who disturbs your mind, an enemy, someone you don’t like. Imagine him in front of you. Go deeper into this person. See that this person is suffering, that this person wants happiness. And they are trying to find happiness.
Perhaps they are conflicted with your ways, methods of finding happiness, in their confusion, in their stupidity and ignorance. How can you hold that against? Deep down, there’s a suffering being who only wants happiness. Just for a moment, see that suffering being and set aside this hurt, this hardness in your heart. And open up to that suffering of that person and wish them happiness.
Just for a moment, let go and wish them happy. Imagine all four, yourself and these three other people, all exactly alike. We’re all exactly alike. We have our own style of suffering, but we’re all exactly alike. We all want happiness.
Equally radiate out, wishing that they all might be happy. Positive feelings and well-being to all equally. And all the people in this room. All the people who are aspiring to grow. Wish them happiness.
All the people on the block watching television, cooking, eating, Whatever they’re doing, they’re doing it to find happiness. They’re doing it to get away from their suffering. Every action of body, speech, and mind that they’re all going through is directed toward that end, to find happiness, to get away from their suffering. Wish them all happiness. Give them what they want.
And all the people in Adelaide going here and there, going toward happiness, always seeking Now, the people in South Australia, just open your mind, spread it out, open your heart, radiate it out. All the people in Australia, all the living beings Further and further, all the continents, all the oceans, all the lands, black people, yellow people, red people, animals, insects, everything that lives within the whole world, covers the entire world with this feeling from your heart. Finally, without any boundaries, without any center, beyond thought, I wish, may all things be happy. Through these merits may I soon attain the enlightened state of Guru Buddha, who may lead every migrating being without exception to that state. May the precious, bodhi mind not yet born arise and grow.
May that born have no decline but increase forevermore.