Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. “Can you love someone you don’t like?” — this distinction drives Ven Jampa Gendun’s 95-minute session on equanimity as the basis for an awakening heart. He opens with a breath-counting technique (tracing the breath from nose tip to navel and back) and a “choiceless awareness” exercise, then reframes taking refuge as trusting one’s own inner clarity rather than seeking an external Buddha. The core teaching distinguishes genuine love from attachment using karma theory, outlines the sevenfold cause-and-effect precept lineage for generating an awakening heart, and draws a pointed parallel between Christ’s command to love enemies and the Buddhist view. Gendun then guides the room through a three-figure visualization — friend, enemy, stranger — to expose the arbitrary, shifting basis of those labels, closing with an expanding loving-kindness meditation that radiates outward from self to all living beings.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1988 07 01 3 P A P.mp3
UUID: 0dfae435-fb2a-4fa9-a3a1-a8fd3ad4429d
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 1987-1988 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1988-07-01
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 94.7 minutes
Words: ~9,576
A few times met society, having to deal with various situations and relationships outside of ourselves, is constantly drawing us outside of ourselves, getting less contact with our inner life, with our feelings, with what is going on inside of ourselves. And so meditation, or simply beginning to become aware of what’s going on within us is a way we can reverse that process and get back in touch with ourselves and develop some kind of equilibrium, some kind of balance between the external world, which we have to deal with by society, but also becoming centered within ourselves. Our states of mind, our well-being isn’t completely dependent upon what our situations and our external conditions, that we have some stability, some inner strength, and there’s certainly a big difference from external conditions initially. And hopefully we can arrive at the state whereby we can completely be creative in our values and our states of mind regardless of the various conditions, what is going on around us. It’s like they say about the Buddha or, you know, beings who have been liberated from the bounds of ego altogether.
That though they dwell in saṃsāra, that is they dwell in the realm of cyclic existence, they are not of cyclic existence. So you can be in a very difficult situation, a very chaotic situation, but you’re in a very peaceful state of mind. And this brings peace to the situation itself. By becoming peaceful ourselves, then our society becomes peaceful, and we make a great contribution to our society. If we talk about peace, peace, peace, and we go on marches, and we have peace marches, then what’s the use?
It’s only by individuals generating peace within them that there’s ever going to be a peaceful world. No amount of negotiation, amount of protesting is going to bring it about unless the individuals who are taking part have peace within themselves. So we’ve been talking about the general technique of mindfulness of breathing, and I’ve gone over this before, but I haven’t in a while, and I’ll just repeat another technique which you can add or, substitute according to your disposition if you like it, if it works for you. And simply, right now, most of you are probably just following a general pattern of the breath. You’re aware of the tactile sensation.
For example, the chest rising, lungs expanding, perhaps the air passing in the nostrils. We can also follow the breath. In the same way, we can also use counting. So we begin counting at the at the nose tip as one, and then halfway between the nose tip and the heart, it’s as if it’s passing down a long tube. We just follow the air, two, counting, and we get to the heart center.
Or not the heart center, it’s the physical heart, but the center of the chest right in the middle. We count that as three and keep going down halfway between the heart and navel is four and navel is five. Actually, the air stops at the bottom of the lungs, doesn’t it? We’re going to imagine it goes a little bit further. So we’re looking within our mind as usual and counting.
One two three four five. And then the reverse. One at the navel, two between the heart, between the navel and the heart, two. Heart is three. Four between the halfway midway point between the heart and the nose tip, and five the nose tip.
So again, just natural breathing. There’s no forced breath whatsoever. This can give you a more prominent stimulus or an object to hold on to to increase your mindfulness. And then I’d like to suggest that we do that for as normally for five minutes and then we practice a technique called choiceless awareness. And we’ve been talking about noting, you know, whatever rises in your mind, whether it’s thoughts, feelings, extraneous attention to noise, you know, like someone clearing their throat, that whatever our mind becomes aware of, we’re noting, aren’t we?
But we’re always coming back to the breath. We’re not choosing to allow ourselves to be aware of any object, but we have a specific object in meditation that is the breath. So we note whatever the mind has naturally tended to and we bring it back to the breath. Breath is like the anchor or is coming back. Just for a minute after we’ve centered ourselves using the breath, the mindfulness of breathing, just as it were, radiate out your awareness without any choice.
It’s called choiceless awareness. And just keep noting what your mind is attending to without making any choice. If it goes to a sound, note the sound. If a thought arises, thinking. If an image arises in your mind, imaging or imagining.
If a feeling arises, pain, pain, pain. Whatever we’re training our awareness, we want to know what the mind is attending to. Whatever it’s aware of, we’re not going to choose any particular object, we just want to know what our mind is attending to and we’re going to note it. And we’ll do that for a minute. We’ll just practice that, practicing noting, paying attention to what our mind is attending to, being aware of.
Okay? So just do the normal practice of mindfulness of breathing. If you want to substitute this following technique, and then for about a minute, just remain in a state of complete awareness as if the awareness was radiating out like radar And it’s just sending back reports of what your mind is attending to, whether it’s sound, there’s a sound out in the hallway, or whether it’s thoughts, feelings, moods, pain, sensations, whatever. Maybe maybe nothing. Check up.
Is it possible to be aware of nothing? Or try that for a while. Now just gently be aware in your mind noting what your mind is attending to. Just know what your mind is knowing. You wanna recite the verse of refuge?
Was everyone aware of that sneeze? Huge awareness. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, I go for refuge until I am enlightened through the merit I accrue by my virtue. May I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, I go for refuge until enlightenment through the merit I accrue.
I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings. Through Buddha Dharma in the Sangha, I go for refuge until I am enlightened Namo. Sometimes Western people have a problem taking refuge in Buddha. Who is Buddha? Where is Buddha?
Do you see Buddha? I’ve never seen any Buddha in Canada. They’ve given a talk in Canada. Okay? Did you see God?
When you take refuge, you don’t see them. Oh, you people. If you can’t see Buddha and God, then why do you take refuge? You must be really super believing people. I don’t know anymore.
First of all, we know it’s possible to have some better understanding of wisdom. We all know this in our own experience. Sometimes we are clean and clear and can handle life well. And sometimes we are depressed and relapse into darkness. We can’t handle life.
We know that. We all know that. Now taking refuge in Buddha doesn’t necessarily mean an outer Buddha. You can take refuge in your own wisdom light. That’s why, as I told you before, don’t think you are completely foolish, imminently, only containing darkness or garbage without any good qualities.
Remember, you have wisdom. For example, Tibetans use the symbol of the dorje and bell. The bell signifies wisdom, the clear mind, and the clarity of the clean, clear mind. When you have a clean, clear mind, you can handle things better, communicate better. Understand?
When you are confused, then you can’t. Okay. What I’m saying is you have a clean, clear mind right now and you can trust that clean, clear wisdom. You can trust it more. You can rely on it instead of on your grasping mind, your ignorant mind.
That simple. So don’t worry and ask, I’m taking Buddha. Who is Buddha? So when we take Buddha, when we go for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, going for refuge to our own wisdom, to our own clarity, In the real place, our real tangible means to solve our problems, there’s no thing outside of ourself which is ever going to solve our problems. If we see the solution to our problems, if we see the source of our problems outside of ourselves, we’re going to keep constantly looking for the solution to our problems outside of ourselves and we’re going to be constantly frustrated and disappointed and we’re going to continue to be dissatisfied.
Once we see that the mind itself is the source of both the problems and the solutions, then we’re going to become sincere and get down to the work of training our minds, which I think is the real way to solving our problems, to find some real happiness and peace which we’re all looking for. So we’re talking about the three principal aspects of the path, developing the determination to be free, opening to others and seeing deeply into the natures of reality. And we’re talking about the second of the three principal aspects of the path, opening to others. And we’re talking about equanimity. So I have, you know, over the last few talks, tried to establish through reasoning, through experience and through intuition the absolute necessity of opening our hearts to others.
If we ever really want to be, if we ever really want to find peace, if we want to find fulfillment, if we want to actualize our complete potential of what it means to be a human being, if we ever really want to go beyond the narrow confines of our petty egos, of our self-cherishing, of our exaggerated self concern, of our selfishness. But we aren’t going to open our hearts to others merely by wishing it. We aren’t going to develop an awakening heart simply by wishing it. Though it’s important, the sincere desire to open up to others, seeing the necessity through reasoning, intuition, and experience is like the precursor, is like the foundation, the motivating force behind it. That in itself is not enough.
We actually have to train our minds. You know, it’s not simply enough to say, Oh, we should love others, or we should work for the benefit of others, or we should open our hearts to others. We have to work with the actual practical methods to integrate these thoughts into our mind, into our thoughts, into our behavior, into our actual being. And that we have to find some way to bridge the gap between our longings to be a loving, caring, and how to make it a reality, how to be loving and caring. Even in tantra, you know it’s said that the prerequisite for practicing tantra is compassion.
Even more than that, even more than the prerequisite of tantra being an awakening mind. Actually, it be more proper to say that the purpose of practicing tantra is to increase the scope of our awakening heart, of our awakening mind. To enhance the scope, the ability to open up to others. You know there are many tantric deities, I don’t know if I’ve given a talk on tantra, for example the the deities which are the images on the altar are various Tantric deities. This is a Tantric deity, Chenrezig.
And there are numerous Tantric deities, you know, for different dispositions, different temperaments, different capacities of individuals according to their affinities, their karma. You know there’s Chenrezig, Mañjuśrī, Tārā, for example. So we can practice various tantras, various deities. But all these deities have only one purpose, and that is to help us in developing compassion and love, and finally an awakening heart. There’s really no other reason for these deities.
There’s no other reason to practice these deities, to practice tantra. So the whole reason that we manifest our consciousness in this divine light being is in order to develop, you know, as a skillful means, as a way of developing this social aspect of ourselves, this part of ourselves which exists in relationship to others. You know, whether we talk about Chernizi or we talk about Jesus Christ, they’re essentially the same. Complete selfless devotion to the service of others. That’s the essence of Christ.
That’s the essence of Chenrezig. Therefore, if we’re going to try to be like them, if we’re going to, for example, practice tantra, if we’re going to involve ourselves in prayers and various practices, various methods, then it’s only to be able to dedicate ourselves to the service of others, to develop a awakening heart, to become a Christ or a Buddha, to become Chenrezig. So there are two systems, two main methods for developing an awakening heart. There’s the sevenfold cause and effect instruction and the exchange of self for others. And I talked about the lineage.
You know, for example, tonight we’re going to begin the sevenfold cause and effect precept, and it came down from a lineage from Śākyamūni Buddha to Asaṇga, from Śākyamūni Buddha to Maitreya, then to Asaṇga, and then to Atisha. Now the only reason that I list this, it’s not of particular historic significance, is the fact that these practices have been going on for two thousand five hundred years. That they have been tried and worked for many, many individuals, thousands and thousands of yogis, thousands and thousands of Dharma practitioners. They aren’t something which was just made up last week or at the economic conference in Canada or something like that. They have a proven ability to produce the desired effect, an awakening heart.
So therefore I sort of emphasize that there is this extremely long tradition that these practices are coming from in order to emphasize the fact that they work if we’re willing to make use of them. That they aren’t merely the product of one individual — they’re proven, in other words. That they aren’t merely a product of some one individual’s flight of fantasy, which may or may not work depending upon your particular abilities, your particular disposition. So of these two, the sevenfold cause and effect precepts and exchange of self or others, it is said that the exchange of self or others perhaps produces a more powerful form of awakening of the heart. And also it’s not necessary to have a particular strong conviction in the existence of new birth and past and future lives.
But still, for many individuals according to their temperament, the sevenfold cause and effect precept, This method, this practice may be of actually more significant benefit, may be of more productive for them to practice. So the sevenfold cause and effect precept. First is recognizing all sentient beings as your mother, then remembering the kindness of our mothers, developing the wish to repay their kindness, developing great love, developing great compassion, generating exceptional resolve. And finally, the fruit of all this, the seventh of the sevenfold cause and effect precepts, the one result is the awakening heart. The awakening heart bodhicitta, It, you know, technically is the altruistic aspiration to achieve highest enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings.
In simpler terms, it’s a reorientation of our being whereby we seek to develop ourselves, our abilities, our potentials in order to benefit others. The motivating force is for the benefit of others, but in such a way that we see that we have only a limited ability presently, that we cannot really help other beings significantly at our limited level of understanding, of skill. Therefore, we have to develop ourselves more and more. Just like when someone sees, know, it’s though you might know first aid, though you might even be a nurse, for example. Someone needs a heart transplant, what are you going to do?
You you might be able to help them in some way, but at that particular point you’re very limited. You can’t help them to the full extent of their needs. Therefore, maybe you go back to school, you know, you go back to the university and you become a doctor. Then your potential, your ability to help others is increased according to their needs. You can fulfill their develop your abilities.
So this is what we make use of in the paradigm of the Buddha, the model of a healthy, happy human being who has the abilities and skill to be able to help others optimally, you know, to the maximum potential of a human being. He can’t go beyond the law of cause and effect. He can’t create miracles, but within his law of cause and effect, he has the optimum ability, the maximum potential to benefit others If they’re willing to work from their side and together, then people can go beyond this suffering. So this is what we want to try to achieve and we want to develop the motivation, the strength of mind to be able to pursue that goal. So the foundation, the basis of the sevenfold cause and effect precepts is equanimity, an unbiased attitude, an even minded attitude toward all beings.
If we have this basis of equanimity, that is even mindedness, we can quickly generate an awakening heart. But because of our habitual discrimination of categorizing individuals into friend, enemy, and stranger, due to the force of this habituation, it’s going to take a lot of work to achieve equanimity, to overcome the instincts we have of habitually labeling those who help us as friends, those who harm us as enemy, and the rest of the people we don’t give a damn about, more or less. This is a habitual natural instinct that we have, and it takes a lot of work to overcome this because every day of our lives we’re usually reinforcing it rather than diminishing its strength. Due to our grasping desire, become attached, we cling to friends. With aversion or hatred, we reject our enemies.
And with indifference we turn away from strangers, from those people we feel no relationship with, from countless people, from the great vast majority of people. It’s as if they don’t exist for us. So as long as our mind is under the control of attachment, aversion, and indifference, we will never be able to cultivate an awakening heart. So equanimity is not just a simple, it’s not an intellectual concept. It’s a specific quality of awareness, a transformation, you know, of our basic attitude towards others.
But I say unto you, love your enemies and pray for them that persecute you, that you may be the sons of your father which is in heaven. For maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth it to rain on the just and the unjust. The Tathāgata, the Buddha, recreates the whole world like a cloud shedding its waters without distinction. He has the same sentiment for the high as for the low, for the wise as for the ignorant, for the noble minded as for the immoral. So Christ says to love your enemies.
He doesn’t say to. He doesn’t say like your enemy. He says to love your enemy. The word love has been so misused it really has come to the point where it has almost no meaning. We always say, I love Colonel Sanders fried chicken, or I love to hit you in the face.
It really doesn’t mean much anymore, with all the rock and roll songs and all the ways we’ve misused the word. But what is Christ saying when he says love your enemy? Can you love it in any way? He’s not saying like your enemy. There’s a difference, I think.
We can’t we can we can not like someone, not want to be around them, not feel comfortable around them, for example. But still, we can wish them happiness. So there’s an individual, we’d rather not be around this individual. We don’t particularly like this individual. It makes us feel he or she.
It makes us feel uncomfortable. But we can still wish them happiness. We can still recognize the fact that they want happiness and don’t want to suffer. Even though you may not be motivated to actively work for their happiness. In other words, we can love somebody we don’t like.
We can simply wish somebody we don’t like happiness, which is essentially what we mean when we say love, a friendliness, a wishing that you be happy, may you be happy. And we aren’t compelled to hate someone we don’t like Simply because we don’t get along with someone doesn’t mean that we wish they’d be harmed, that we wish them to suffer. So Christ, you know, in this quotation doesn’t say that we should love others, love our enemy for any particular moral reason, but that in doing so we’re following nature. You know, he talks about the rain falls on the just and the unjust, where the sun rises on the good and the bad. Equally.
So this this following of nature is more or less the following of the law of cause and effect, the law of karma. We all have various karmic relationships with various individuals. Our actions have various influences on various people depending upon the degree of our connectedness. Now just to give you an idea of what I mean when I say karmic connection, connectedness. One person has created the karma to have some wealth, you know, another and he also has created the karma for his wealth to be stolen.
So he has created two karmas, one to have wealth and for his wealth to be stolen. Now if no one has the karma, has created the karma which is able to steal his wealth, then he’s never going to lose his wealth, is he? Even though he has the karma for it to be lost, it’s never going to be lost. Likewise, if someone has created the karma to be able to steal this other person’s wealth but there’s no one around who has any wealth, then his karma can never ripen. There’s nothing to connect with.
But what happens when these two people come together, come in contact? One person has created the karma to have his wealth stolen, another person has created the karma to have to be able to steal that wealth. So by their karmas coming together, making a connection, there’s a theft. So the theft requires two karmas, doesn’t it? It requires a karmic relationship, two karmas working in coordination with each other.
And then this final product, this result can arise. That is the theft. If one of those two karmas weren’t there, then it would theft couldn’t come about. It could not arise. So this is the idea of a karmic connection.
Two karmas working in relationship with each other. So we, you know, we have various various karmic relationships with various people. For some people, no matter what we say, no matter what we do, how much effort we make, our effort, our actions are going to make have little influence on that person. It’s going to affect them very little. Other people, simply a word, a smile, or a frown has a profound influence on them, has a great effect upon them.
This is due to our karmic relationships that we have established with these people. You know, we can speak to one person for five minutes and feel a closeness, an affinity, which we don’t feel with another person we may have known, worked with, you know, for that for five years. There’s something new. There’s some kind of connection. With one person, you might share many common interests.
You know, you might like the same things, you enjoy their sense of humor, you like to be around them. Another person, you know, you don’t particularly care for. You don’t share any same common interests. You don’t find them interesting, for example. They’re worrying.
You don’t like to be around them, in other words. They don’t make you happy. So this is because of our karma, isn’t it? Because of our karma, our our karmic relationships, our temperament, our tendencies, the way we relate differently with different people. So this is quite natural.
That is to say, it follows along some kind of lines of the law of cause and effect. So in this way, you know, our present karma is not merely projections of our ego. It’s not a matter of afflictive emotions, the way we relate with others. There’s a certain amount of karmic connection which determines the nature of our relationship, whether this person is going to become a source of happiness or a source of suffering for us. So, you know, we have to accept our karma and we have to work with it.
But we have to distinguish between what is karma and what is delusion. You know, which situations, which states of mind are brought about by karma and which are created by afflictive emotions. By afflictive emotions, you know, desire, hatred, attachment, jealousy, spite, pride, afflicting emotions. The fact that, you know, that you can enjoy that you enjoy being with a certain person, the fact that men and women derive pleasure from one another is a consequence of their karmic relatedness, of their karmic backgrounds and the karmic connection that they’re able to make. It’s quite natural.
It’s their two karmas working together, just as in the case of this rich person and the thief. So one acts as a cooperative cause, which brings about the condition of pleasure in the other, the happiness in the other person. They act as a cooperative cause for one another. You know, we talk about substantial cause and cooperative cause. You know, substantial cause is like a seed and cooperative causes like the soil, the water, the sunlight or like the clay of a pot, substantial cause for the pot.
And the potter, the person who makes the pot, is the cooperative cause. It’s necessary to have these two types of causes for the result to occur, but they’re quite different. It’s obvious in the case of a pot where you have the clay and then you have the potter who’s shaping the pot. They’re both causes of the pot. So the substantial cause of our pleasure, for example, is our karma.
The cooperative cause is this other person. That’s the condition necessary for like this seed ripening to bring us pleasure. Therefore, we have some kind of karmic connection with this person, for some some relationship with them. But you know when we experience pleasure, when we experience happiness, it becomes associated with desire and attachment. It usually accompanies pleasure.
Someone give you you know, someone may give you a sweet. You call them sweets? Oh, no. Call them what? Lollies, that’s right.
Someone gives a loli and you pop it in your mouth and it brings you some kind of pleasure. The pleasure is a result of your karma. It wasn’t a result of your desire, it wasn’t a result of your attachment. You know, you had no specific desire to have this lolly, someone just gave it to you and you just unwrapped it in your mouth. So the pleasure that you experience is a result of your karma.
You created some cause in order to experience the pleasure. So in this particular case, there’s no desire, there’s no attachment. In words, the pleasure that we experience do not arise out of desire or attachment or out of having our desires fulfilled. I think that’s difficult to believe, maybe. Our pleasure does not arise out of having our desires fulfilled.
That’s because we could go into a discussion of karma. We associate it with that. But how many you know, we associate, you know, desire in itself as attention. It’s a dissatisfactory state of mind. The elimination of that tension, the new we experience as pleasure.
It’s like the idiot hitting himself over the head with a hammer. And someone walks up and says, hey, stupid. Why are you hitting yourself over the head with a hammer? And he said, because it feels so good when I stop. We we begin to look at the cessation of suffering as pleasure.
So when we have our desires fulfilled, the tension ceases, and we call this pleasure. But the actual pleasure from the object, if indeed we experience pleasure, is coming from the karma. So the point I’m going to make a point here. I’m getting at my point. The enjoyment, the happiness that we derive from our relationships is not dependent upon desire and attachment.
So therefore, developing equanimity and in particular non attachment, non-attachment towards someone you like, will not make you like that person any less, will not make that person any less a source of happiness, will not in some way diminish your relationship, will not make your relationship less enjoyable because the attachment never brought it any happiness anyway. Actually, it’s the other way around, isn’t it? The less attachment there is in a relationship, the greater the possibility of enjoyment, of happiness, the greater the possibility of freedom, less expectations for the other person, less of a burden on the other person, fewer disappointments, fewer disappointments and frustrations. So the point I’m making is the attachment within a relationship is not the source of happiness within the relationship. And if we remove that attachment, then we are not removing any way, diminishing in any way, the potential of happiness within that relationship.
The liking, the caring, the love, the concern, the meaningful way of relating, the closeness, because attachment never brought that about in the first place. It’s not the source of happiness at any time, let alone within a relationship. So developing equanimity, or, for example, non-hatred towards an enemy doesn’t mean you have to invite that enemy over over for tea every day. It simply means that you quit relating to them on the basis of your ego projections, which is as the same we do with attachment. And with respect to strangers, instead of relating to them in a confused manner, that is not knowing whether to have aversion for them or attachment toward them, which what indifference amounts to.
We don’t know quite how to relate with this object. We don’t have enough signs. We don’t have enough background material to know whether we should have aversion or attachment. So we’re confused. We’re vacillating between these two possibilities, attachment and aversion.
And therefore, we simply shut them out. The object becomes meaningless for us. So instead of that, instead of relating with the ego projections, with equanimity, you simply relate to them with an openness of the possible potential of a meaningful way of relating. There’s the potential. You recognize the potential for some meaningful possibility, for some authentic way of relating, you know, without any preconceived ideas about how what the nature of the relationship should be.
So we still like and dislike people, but we longer relate with them based upon our ego projections of enemy, friend, and stranger. In here too, some are going to bring us happiness. Some are going to bring us unhappiness. Some are going to bring us neither. So if we created the space by relating to them with equanimity, to value them for themselves and not to value them to the extent that they bring us happiness, that they somehow enhance our egos, our pleasure.
In other words, we can begin to create the space to love others in this sense of wishing others happiness regardless of whether they bring us happiness, whether they bring us suffering, whether we like them or don’t like them. We can still wish them happiness regardless. We can still love them. As long as we are bound under the influence, under the control of attachment, aversion, and indifferent, there’s no space for love. So with equanimity, being separated from these three, attachment, aversion and indifference, we have found the basis for a real revolution in the way we relate with others, a way of relating beyond ego, a real revolution in the way we live our life.
So we really began to open our hearts to others. So there’s a common misconception about equilibrium, equanimity. This is because for ordinary people liking and disliking is totally mixed up, bound up with attachment and aversion. They’re afraid if they lessen their attachment then they aren’t going to like other people anymore. Their family or their friends by lessening their attachment, their love and their affection is somehow going to disappear.
Actually, as I said, the opposite is true. Our feelings of liking, of loving are so mixed up with attachment that we only get in touch with them, only able to allow them to grow and express them when the other person who we are valuing with this mixed attachment, who we value only to the degree that they can bring us happiness. This is the only time that we can ever express love is when the other person is bringing us happiness. We value them as objects only to the extent that they bring us happiness. Only to the extent that they bring us happiness do we love them.
Are we able to express love? Because it’s completely mixed with attachment. So actually, attachment does not value the person for who they actually are. It just sees how we would like them to be, our own projections. It doesn’t see their actual qualities.
It doesn’t value them for themselves, their own intrinsic worth, who they are. So in this way, your attachment inhibits real love. Here I mean we love by unconditioned love, a type of love which isn’t dependent upon how the other person relates toward you, but simply from your side you see them as intrinsically worthy of happiness, And you wish them that happiness no matter how they might relate to you back. So essentially equanimity is an even mindedness. It’s like a fluid, open attitude towards others that’s separated from attachment, that’s separated from aversion and indifference.
So we can talk about the actual meditation technique. So we sort of build up a background, some understanding of what it’s about. And we talk about the actual meditation technique in which we visualize or imagine three different individuals in front of us. On your right side in front of you, you imagine your closest friend, someone you’re very attached to. On your left side, your worst enemy, someone you feel great to have aversion to.
In the middle, a stranger, someone for whom you feel indifferent. So each of these people are going to arouse a very distinct emotion, feeling, some kind of distinct attitude. Toward this friend, we’re going to develop attachment. They’re going to act as a cause for us to develop attachment toward the enemy. We’re going to develop feelings of aversion and toward the stranger, feelings of indifference, not caring.
So we begin to actually analyze these feelings. So first we focus on the friends. Is our meditation. We imagine as best we can these three individuals and we focus on our dearest friend, our closest friend. And we allow all the feelings associated with them, with this person to arise, and their feelings of warmth, of caring, and their feelings of closeness, all the memories of the good times that you share, the happiness that this person has shown you, the kindness that this person has shown you, the warmth.
So your friend begins to appear very beautiful to you as an even beauty, as if they kind of exude some kind of goodness, almost visually. You can almost see there, some kind of inner beauty coming out of them, kind of appealing quality. They look very appealing, very attractive, very pleasant to you. They have this appearance. So you’re developing these qualities, these feelings to rise, focusing upon these memories.
Something about them that touches your heart. There’s some very close connection with them. And you have the feeling that you want to care for them. You want to make them happy. You don’t want to see them hurt.
You want to protect them. You see this goodness, this beauty, something very permanent, like it’s something intrinsic about them, completely from their own side. It’s as if they exude this qualities, this goodness, this beauty from their own side. It’s a part of them. This is where they appear to.
Now we’re going to analyze these feelings, this appearance. This, we have to be very skillful in meditation. We’re trying to evoke feelings, attitudes, So we have to use our imagination, our creativity. To be a skillful meditator is not easy. It takes a lot of skill, a lot of work, a lot of creativity and imagination.
Now we’re going to analyze these feelings that we’ve developed toward this close friend, my dearest friend. So what is the basis for these feelings? What is the basis for these attitudes that we feel towards this friend? Isn’t it these feelings that you’ve generated, you’ve aroused, are based upon selectively remembering instances of their kindness, of their affection? You selectively remember instances of their kindness, of their affection.
Maybe they praised you, told you what a beautiful person you were, how intelligent you were, or they gave you something as a present. They care about your well-being, about your happiness, and remembering all this. Aren’t all these reasons in fact arbitrary? If you search in your memory honestly, you’re certain to find some instances in your memory. If you really look.
When this person was unkind to you, was cold to you, when this person put you down, didn’t give you what you wanted. And there were times when this person you felt that this person didn’t care about you at all, and they’re almost cruel to you, almost as if they really went out of their way to hurt you. So as we reflect this way, this person no longer fits comfortably into the category of dearest friend, a friend, and they’re my best friend. They no longer quite touch your heart the way they did before, And they no longer appear to exude this kind of beauty, this inner warmth as they did before. So the person hasn’t changed.
You’re still very much the same person, but your attitude has changed. You’ve shifted your attitude. Your feelings have changed toward them. So we’ve shifted, we’ve changed our attitude by focusing on remembrances, on instances which we normally exclude when we we normally do not wish to associate with this person even though they’re there. So this shows us the arbitrary basis for attachment.
So on the basis of arbitrary instances of our memory, we label this person friend, dearest friend, closest friend, and we fixate upon that. We hold this very tightly that this person is my best friend, warm, loving, caring. On this basis we develop attachment as if they were always eternally this way and they’re always warm and loving. So in this way, this not only brings you, you know relating with another person in this way, fixating upon specific instances, selective memories. Not only brings you frustration and disappointment in your relationship with this person, But it creates friction in the relationship and limits the other person through our own expectations.
Labeling and fixing, holding tight to that label limits ourselves in being able to see that person in a balanced way, being able to see that person as they actually are with all their good and bad qualities realistically, the authentic real person. It inhibits our ability to appreciate them for who they really are. We’re appreciating them for who we would like them to be, how we selectively want them to be, remember them to be. Appreciating someone for their real value, for who they really are, is the basis for real love. Not for what we would like them to be, not as we would selectively remember them to be, but who they really are in their completeness, in all their various qualities.
By holding one person as a truly existent friend. By truly existent, I mean seeing this person as only, as if they were only positive, kind, loving, exuding goodness and beauty from their own side, and fixating upon that, and thinking this as a permanent, independently existing without depending upon my projection, my labeling them this way. They truly, they really exist this way. By creating a truly existent friend, we create truly existent enemies. Enemies are dependent upon friends.
If we have a truly existing friend, we are going to have truly existing enemies. Just as outside is dependent upon inside, far is dependent upon near. You’re interdependent. So once we create a truly existing friend, on the other hand, we’re going to start we’re going to have created truly existing enemies. Okay.
Now we so we focused on our friend over here. Now we’re going to focus on our enemy. So we allow all the various feelings, our attitude to arise with respect to that person. You know that we feel coldness, distant, uncomfortable, uneasy. All the memories begin to come, how they hurt us, harmed us, how they made us angry.
You know, they kind of radiate out some kind of badness, disagreeable quality about them, some kind of repulsiveness. And it seems that this repulsiveness, this badness, is a permanent part of them. It’s kind of built into them, into their flesh, right? That’s the way it appears. Kind of exude this kind of repulsive quality.
I want you to really get into it. Now we’re going to analyze these feelings and this appearance that we’ve seen before. What is the basis for these feelings, this attitude? So again, we’re selectively remembering instances of their unkindness, know, of their harm that they did to us. They put you down, they prevented you from getting what you wanted.
That feeling they’re out to hurt you, harm, to bring you unhappiness. But if we search honestly within our memory, You can find instances where perhaps they had a completely different way of relating with the same person. You felt this person was kind, caring. We can simply imagine the situation, just completely create a new situation, you know, where they’re very friendly, when they help you out when you really were down, you really need a friend, that this person who now is appearing to an enemy, they came to your aid. They showed you some real kindness, gesture of caring.
What happens when you feel that way? When you’re just using your imagination, creating the situation, you still have that person in front of you in your imagination. And the person is really it felt like hatred. You know? You feel like you just kept thinking what a rotten person this was.
But then you you simply by using either a memory, remembering past instances where this person showed you kindness and helped you, or through the use of your imagination creating new situations where this person spoke to you and you realize, oh, I misunderstood them. I misunderstood their intent. Or maybe they helped you and and when you really needed help. Completely turns around this feeling from black to white. There’s a complete turning over in your heart.
What happens to the label of enemy? Mean, this is not happening. You’re projecting this label. What happens to that label when this turning of the heart takes place? So we can begin to see you know, our feelings towards individuals who are toward these people, and appearances, how they how they look to us.
And we have our projections, our feelings toward them, and the way they’re appearing to us. How these can be radically changed. And how this can easily change. But we’re trying constantly again and again to relate to these people with fixed categories, with fixed labels. We’re holding on to these labels, to these categories.
This is my friend. This is my enemy. Even in terms of and we can see this changing. The feeling that we’re trying to evoke is to not hold on to these categories as tightly, begin to let loosen, to loosen up your grasping at this person is friend, this person is enemy, and from the basis of this categorization to relate with them in way and fulfill this self fulfilling prophecy, this way of preconceiving way of relating. Even in this life, I mean even in a short period, you can have one person who was a very close friend five years ago and today they’re your worst enemy, or another person who was your enemy five years ago and today they’re your best friend.
This happens to us. It’s happened to me. Friends can change into enemies, enemies can change into friends. It’s a completely fluid situation and we have to allow for this fluidity, this openness to allow for this changing and we can’t hold on to these labels, these categories of individuals. For example, you know, one person gave you a gift yesterday and slapped you in the face today.
Another person slapped you in the face yesterday and gave you a gift today. What’s the difference between the two? They both did exactly the same thing to you. They both gave you a present, They both slapped you in the face. But because of the factor of time, you’re going to hold one as close, my friend.
The other, you’re going to push away my enemy. But they’ve treated you exactly the same, but we have a completely different way of relating to them because we fix these categories of friend and enemy, and we hold on to these categories, this way of labeling. Now we now we focus on the stranger, the one in the middle. We have some we try to get in touch with our feelings. How do I feel about this person?
You don’t feel much at all, actually. If you have neutral feelings, neither pleasure, neither displeasure toward this person, you know, indifference, not caring, unrelatedness, no connection. This person simply doesn’t matter to us. It’s as if they don’t exist up to this moment. They don’t exist.
They neither appear attractive nor repulsive. Why is that? What is the basis for that feeling, the neutral feeling of in this feeling of indifference? It’s because you you cannot remember a time when this person was either kind or unkind to you. Whether you can’t remember a time, an instance, when this person helped you or harmed you.
It seems you can’t remember a time when they affected your life in any particular way. So on the basis of this, you label this person stranger. This is if they don’t exist, you know, they don’t matter to you, it’s as if they don’t exist for you. Now, just using your imagination, your creativity, imagine a situation where they helped you, you know, they helped you out of some difficulty or they gave you something that you really enjoyed. Imagine in this situation, the same person, you’ve got the same appearance in front of you, whether it’s a male or a female.
Now you take that same person who you didn’t care about the least and you simply through your imagination they gave you something, Oh, I really like that. Wow, great person. Or they helped you out, Oh, fantastic person. Can you still apply that label of stranger to that person? He still fall in that does she still fall in that same category?
Does it work? Can you comfortably keep them in that category of stranger now that you’ve worked with this creative imagination process? Just that person, just through some insignificant gestures, some insignificant word, a smile, you know, maybe you’re come you’re you’re forced to come together to work together for some reason or you share a car or something, say a few words to each other and you realize, oh, this person, like this person, nice guy, or she’s quite an interesting person. Just a few words can change your total attitude toward this person. So the potential of a meaningful relationship is there, is always there.
But as long as we review, we hold tightly to this label, this category of stranger, we’re going to always inhibit this potential for a meaningful way of relating with this person. We won’t be able to recognize this potential. Each one of us has the potential for some way of meaningful relationship, but as long as I hold you as a stranger, I’m not going to recognize that potential. I’m not going to be aware of that potential. Allow for the possibility of that potential to manifest itself, to express itself.
So the insight, which is to begin through this meditative process, this technique, is that our labels are arbitrary. Friend, enemy, stranger, on selective memory, for example. You know, it’s not very reasonable, our labeling process, our categorization. That these labels are arbitrarily applied and that they can quickly change. So in this way we can begin to loosen up our hold on these labels, that we don’t hold them so tight.
We don’t hold to the stranger who is always going to be a stranger, this friend is always going to be a friend, or the enemy is always going to be an enemy. In this way we begin to relate with people in a more fluid and open style and manner. We begin to relate with people for themselves and not what they can do for us, not what we can get out of them. You know, the on again, off again love we usually feel for people. The on again, off again love that we usually feel for our friends.
Is really love? Simply attachment. We develop a flexibility of mind for someone who is, even though we don’t like them, even though we feel aversion for them, they can literally become our friend. We can readily change our attitude toward them. It’s kind of a developing of pliancy of mind, a flexibility of mind.
We don’t hold on to grudges, aren’t holding on to fixed positions about how to relate with this person because we realize it’s arbitrary and changeable. And even a stranger is the basis for a meaningful relationship, and kind of open to that possibility. So by training in this way, by training our mind in such a technique, our attachment to our friends, our aversion to our enemies, and indifference to strangers will slowly begin to subside, begin to lessen in strength. This is a sign that you’re beginning to experience a measure of equilibrium, of equanimity. Then we hold on to this feeling and eventually with practice it becomes an integral part of our minds.
Meditating on equilibrium is the best way of producing good mental health. Instead of paying one hundred dollars an hour to a therapist, meditate on equilibrium. You will definitely become more balanced, open, peaceful. After even ten minutes of this type of meditation, you will come out into a different world. The more we train ourselves to see the basic quality of everyone, having overcome our habitual tendency to stick them rigidly into categories of friend, enemy and stranger, the more our heart will open, increasing immeasurably our capacity for love.
By freeing ourselves from prejudicial views, we will be able to appreciate fully that everyone without exception wants and deserves to be happy and wishes to avoid even the slightest suffering. Therefore, from the basis of equilibrium we will be able to cultivate universal love, compassion and eventually the full realization of bodhicitta, an awakening heart, the open heart dedicated totally to the ultimate benefit of all. Would you like to stand up for a minute and then we’ll do the loving kindness meditation? I find it a great comfort to feel that the mind can be changed, that I don’t have to I’m not stuck. So think about your own difficulties, problems, and dissatisfactions, and the fact that you want to be happy.
Whatever you may have done in the past, whatever mistakes you may have created, you can simply regret them and determine not to repeat them again in the future. You can change. Or however you may conceive of yourself, whatever identity you may hold to, you can change, you can become anything that you want to be. And for the moment we have to have compassion for ourselves, be gentle with ourselves, make friends with all the various parts of ourselves, even the parts that we don’t like, and wish ourselves well. So simply direct positive feelings towards yourself, wishing yourself happiness.
May I be happy. May I grow. May I not suffer. May I be well. All the good things that you would want in life with yourself.
Now imagine, think of someone that you like, that you love, imagine that person in front of you. If you can’t see them, it doesn’t matter, just feel that they’re there in front of you, someone of the same sex. Remember all the good times that you shared and all the happiness, all the kindness that this person has shown you, and let the natural good feelings begin to arrive. Direct these good feelings, these feelings wishing of happiness, desiring that this person have all their wishes fulfilled, all these positive feelings, just direct them toward this person. Radiate up good feelings toward this person.
Now think of someone you neither like nor dislike, someone you feel indifferent toward, and imagine that person in front of you. I’m trying to go beneath the superficial appearances that we usually judge people by, whether they’re male or female or beautiful, ugly, rich, poor, educated, uneducated. Try to go beneath all those superficial appearances. See the essence of that person. There’s someone there who wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer just like yourself.
And just as you wish your own self happiness, wish this person happiness. It’s very much a reflection how we feel about ourselves deep down, how we feel about this essential person. So just direct positive feelings towards them, wishing them happiness. Now think of someone who disturbs your mind, someone you have problems with, someone you don’t like. Imagine that person in front of you.
This person wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer just like yourself. And perhaps their method of finding their happiness, eliminating their suffering, has come in conflict with your methods of finding your happiness, eliminating your suffering, but it’s just a conflict of egos, of self interest. You’ve hurt others intentionally or unintentionally in the past to find the happiness that you were looking for, and this person has done the same to you. And just as if you have to forgive yourself for the mistakes that you’ve made in the past, you have to begin to forgive this person. Just for the moment, aside your grudge, your hurt, your anger.
Try to see someone very much like yourself, someone who’s just trying to find some happiness out of life and very confused about how to go about it and makes a lot of mistakes along the way and wish them happiness. Imagine all four people together, yourself and these three others. And try to see them as completely equal from the point of view of wanting happiness and not wanting to suffer. Deep down, they’re all exactly the same. Without any feelings of bias, they radiate out positive feelings wishing happiness to all four equally.
And all the people in this room, people trying to take responsibility for their happiness for their lives, trying to make effort to train their mind, searching, wish them success, wish them happiness, Radiate out good feelings for everyone in the room. And all the people on the block watching television, eating supper, cooking, reading the newspaper, whatever they’re doing, whatever they’re saying, they do it and say it in order to find happiness. They really have positive feelings touching everyone on the block, wishing them happiness. Spreading out further, extending out to all of Adelaide, all the people in their cars and buses walking on the streets and their homes. And further and further, opening your heart, radiating out these positive wishes for happiness to all of South Australia, all the people, animals, and insects.
Further and further, Alice Springs, Perth, Darwin, Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Hobart, the entire country spreading out these wishes of happiness. Further and further, extending out, radiating out to all of New Zealand, the entire southern hemisphere. Further and further, enveloping the entire world in your heart and your caring, this feeling of concern. All the people, black, white, red, yellow, all the animals, insects, everything that lives on the earth is touched by your wish that they’d be happy.