Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 76-minute commentary, Ven Jampa Gendun opens with a meditation instruction on not identifying with thoughts — what he calls “deliteralizing our fantasies” — before turning to the fifth of the sevenfold cause-and-effect instructions: great compassion. He draws a sharp line between pity and genuine compassion, arguing that pity is “one part arrogance and one part sympathy,” a subtle superiority that harms those it claims to help. He then maps three escalating strengths of compassion — “how nice it would be if you were free,” “may you be free,” “I will free you” — insisting each must be directed at specific people, not abstract masses. He closes by distinguishing three philosophical types of compassion, culminating in compassion that views beings as empty of inherent existence, fully dissolving the subject-object divide. Suited to practitioners working through the Lamrim sequence.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1988 08 12 3 P A P.mp3
UUID: 7471592c-a82c-47b3-95fa-372288befb9c
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 1987-1988 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1988-08-12
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 76.0 minutes
Words: ~7,501
By Lama Tenzin Dorje, who is the founder of Buddha House. Silent meditation without thought, totally open, awake and aware. This is absolute presence. The type of meditation that we’ve been doing in beginning of each session, I’ve described it from various points of view. I’ve described meditation from many points of view and some of the possible hindrances that can arise in meditation.
In a way, meditation is helping us to, what I call, deliteralize our fantasies. An easy way to simple way to express that perhaps is to quit taking ourselves so seriously. Quit taking our various thoughts which arise, emotions and feelings as concrete and solid and necessarily to be identified with and thereby be enacted out. The various stories, various dramas which arise in our mind. I’ve talked, I’ve touched upon the fact that we’re constantly recreating our reality, that we’re selecting out various scenarios, various characters.
I was trying to think of the quote from Shakespeare, but I couldn’t find it and I couldn’t quite remember. Something to this sort that all the world’s at the stage and we are but actors upon it strutting and fretting our parts. Something like that. I can’t try to remember. And I think to a large degree, that’s what we’re involved in.
When you’re sitting there, the various thoughts arise, and they’re very concrete. I mean, they feel as if this thought is you, and you identify with this thought. And once you, as I’ve explained it from the rather mundane point of view, of a hot dog, you bite into it, and that begins the part that you’re going to play. It begins some sort of drama. We’re sitting there and we start getting bored, and the thought, I’m bored, arises.
And before we know it, we’re getting up from our meditation, and we’ve been into that. We’ve taken that quality, that state, that thought which arose, very literally, very concretely, as if this were in fact the actual situation. That in fact we are born. Rather than simply seeing it as another thought amongst infinite possibilities of thought which could be arising. And we develop a theme around that, and we enact it out.
We’re writing our own scripts. What meditation can help us to do is begin to relax, that we don’t have to follow any character, we don’t have to follow out any theme, any particular scenario unless we choose to do so. If we feel in some way that it’s in our best interest. We can quit evaluating ourselves, quit judging ourselves. This is a source of a lot of suffering, think.
There’s no way out of this, this dualistic puzzle of the ego, always trying to keep up with some sort of arbitrary standard that we set for ourselves. And when we aren’t able to achieve it, we feel guilty, We feel bad. And when we achieve it momentarily, our ego is satiated and we feel that we’re lovable, we feel satisfied. But this feeling doesn’t last very long. Most of our life is spent through a constant struggle bouncing back and forth between the two extremes of all these relative standards that we set for ourselves.
We don’t have to beat either one of those two possible sets of relative qualities which we assign, which we’re always striving for. We don’t have to take these qualities literally. We can make the choice of being someone, anyone, or nobody, no one. That we can choose to be nobody and we can just be. That’s a very rare opportunity to be nobody for a while.
You have various thoughts and these thoughts are the thoughts of who you think you are. They sort of fit in with your pattern. So we identify, this is my type of thinking, this is my style. And in pursuing this type of style, we pursue a certain type of life. It’s usually very dissatisfactory because it’s completely bound within the prison of the ego.
This puzzle of duality in conflicting emotions which is the essence of ego, which is the essence of saṃsāra, the essence of suffering, being caught between the jaws of conflicting emotions constantly and the ensuing dissatisfaction which results from that. So we don’t have to be anybody. We can sort of have a script without any words and we can choose to be in that situation by choice. That is to say, we can simply choose to be and reroute our sense of identity in being rather than becoming. We can cease judging constantly this, that, good, bad, desirable, undesirable, beautiful, ugly.
As I’ve said, it’s not that we want to give up discrimination altogether. Sometimes it’s quite necessary, but to a large extent it’s simply a burden. It’s completely unnecessary and not only not necessary, but unproductive and self defeating. So this simple process of maintaining awareness, of simply noting without attaching, without identifying with the various thoughts which arise, emotions which arise, states of mind can help us to, can begin to free us from the habitual compulsive identifying with all the garbage which is simply bubbling up in our thoughts, in our mind. And we can begin to choose what types of scenarios, what types of themes we want to act out, what is most beneficial to us.
And otherwise, we can be nobody for a while and just be in our daily life. I don’t mean just in meditation sessions, but just taking a walk, eating your lunch, talking to a person. In all these various occasions, it’s just a matter of being in this situation without unnecessarily evaluating and simply responding in a very open and fluid manner to the nowness of what is happening. I talk about It’s kind of like a catchphrase, the quality of nowness. And I think that if it’s anything, if it has any meaning, this is probably what it means, is simply to be in this situation without any judgment, without any discrimination, unnecessary judgment, discrimination.
So we’ve been doing this mindfulness of breathing and the various types of methods either just counting the general breath and noting the mental factor of if thought arises, thinking, if your attention goes to hearing, hearing, feeling, pain, pain, whatever arises, simply being aware, maintaining constant moment by moment awareness Or being mindful of the breath as it begins at the nostrils and goes down to the navel and counting one, two, three, four, five and back up one, two, three, four, five. And then after we’ve done this, just maintaining awareness, generally, choiceless awareness. Whatever our mind attends to, we’re not trying to direct it to influence, but allowing it to flow whatever is most interesting to it, whatever is most stimulating. But just knowing what it’s involved in. And at first, it would be of use to note, Keep the noting going.
Thinking, thinking, imaging. Pictures come up, example. Sounds, hearing, hearing, pain, pain. But then, ceasing even noting, using this mental effort to note, and simply be aware. Just be aware.
Whatever your mind is attending to, from moment to moment, just in silent awareness. Now, if don’t attach to the thoughts, if you’re simply aware of them, then you begin to understand that we don’t need to identify with them. They’ll just The very quality of, for example, you get bored in your meditation, and you’re sitting at home and the thought arises, I’m bored, I’m bored. Normally, immediately it hooks us, and before we know it, we’re getting up and walking away from our meditation cushion without any awareness. We don’t Like, we went into a dream.
We live in a dream. I think many of you noticed this, our awareness. Before we know what’s happening, we’re already walking out the door. If we can become aware and have constant awareness, we can simply see that the feeling or the thought, I’m bored, is one thought, one feeling amongst an infinite number of thoughts and feelings which are constantly arising. We don’t have to hook onto it.
We don’t have to identify with it. If you don’t, at that moment, it’ll go away. You’ll return to your sitting, your meditation in complete contentment, returning to your mindfulness of breathing, for example, and proceed. Maybe five minutes later, again it’ll arrive. So you have a choice.
It gives you some control, some freedom over the states of mind and the various themes and the scenarios that you want to follow out in your life. Your thoughts will ultimately lead you to non duality itself if you can maintain your awareness to an insight into selflessness. Okay, so let’s try that. Awake when the mind is empty, awake and aware, more in touch with reality than when it’s completely involved with all its intellectual fantasies, no matter how profound they may appear to us to be. To the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, I go for refuge until I am enlightened.
May the merit I create. May I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, I go for refuge until I am enlightened through the merit I create. May I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, I go for refuge until I am enlightened through the merit I create, and I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all beings.
So we’re discussing the three principal aspects of the path, a text by the fourteenth century scholar Yogi Tsongkhapa, whose image is on the top most level between the two pictures. The three principal aspects of the path: developing the determination to be free, opening our hearts to others, and seeing deeply into the nature of reality. And we’ll be going through the second of these developing an open heart, opening our hearts to others. Within this there were two systems, two methods, techniques to bring this about. The first was the sevenfold cause and effect instruction and the second is exchange of self with others.
And we’re going through the first of these two, the sevenfold cause and effect precept. We’ve talked about the foundation of the sevenfold cause and effect precept is equanimity. We’ve discussed the first of the seven instructions is recognizing all sentient beings as our mothers. The second was remembering their kindness. The third was developing the wish to repay their kindness.
The fourth was affectionate love. And now we’re going to talk about the fifth, which is great compassion. The Buddha was asked by a leading disciple, Would it be true to say that a part of our training is for the development of love and compassion? The Buddha replied, No, it would not be true to say this. It would be true to say that the whole of our training is for the development of love and compassion.
Nāgārjuna, who was perhaps the most authoritative source for the explanation of the perfection of wisdom as taught by the Buddha who is included within, for example, the lineage of the Zen patriarchs who is perhaps the is often called the second Buddha, an Indian master. In a text called The Precious Garland. He says, If you and the world wish to gain the highest enlightenment, its roots are the altruistic aspiration to enlightenment that is firm as the king of mountains, compassion reaching to all directions, and a wisdom consciousness not relying on duality. Thus there are three causes to attain enlightenment. By enlightenment, having knowledge unmistaken, without deception, without error, love and compassion overflowing and a burning desire to benefit others, and inexhaustible spiritual mental energy to bring this about in reality.
These are the qualities of an enlightened mind, the feeling tone, content. There are three causes pertaining to such a mind. The first is great compassion. The second is developing this altruistic intention to benefit others, an awakening heart. And the third is nondual wisdom, deeply understanding the nature of reality.
So in this process of developing great compassion, initially we developed the or we looked at the methods of developing the determination to be free. It’s very much necessary to confront our own difficulties, own problems, own dissatisfactory quality of our life. The feeling of unmanageability, the feelings of loneliness and quite often meaninglessness. If we’re honest, if we stop and really take a look, a deep look into our lives, we begin to recognize the deeper sources, not the superficial sources of our difficulties, but the deeper causes of our problems. And we develop determination to be free, that is to emerge out of these causes, that is to renounce the causes of suffering, the causes of our dissatisfaction.
So this is an insight, some new knowledge, something that we haven’t known before. Insights are simply understandings that we didn’t have before or the growth of present insights. So with such an insight, there arises in the mind the thought to be separated from suffering, to be separated from the causes of suffering, dissatisfactions. And when we simply direct this same thought to be separated from suffering towards others, then it becomes compassion, the thought to separate others from their suffering. So I think from my limited knowledge, understanding, that all valid systems of spiritual growth, of spiritual development share the same point that our present conception of who we are, our present identity is a restriction.
This encapsulated I, skin encapsulated ego. So the main energy necessary to help us to break out of this conception, of this restriction, this encapsulated ego, this I, this sympathetic concern, sympathetic concern both for ourselves initially and then for others. The concern to help them grow as well as ourselves. Compassion grows out of of a sense of openness and intimacy and sensitivity. And these qualities are very much concerned with seeing deeply into the situation of other people and feeling their needs and their wants.
So the beginning of compassion is to see directly clearly into our own needs, own wants, our own situation, and then simply redirecting that attention, that same quality of mind to others and seeing deeply into their needs, their wants, their situation. You know, all sentient beings want to be happy and don’t want to suffer exactly the same. There’s no difference between myself and everyone in this room and amongst everyone in this room, no matter who they may be. Compassion has the sense that we somehow are all sharing in this predicament of life, this sharing in the common humanity. So without this basic understanding and this basic insight to the quality of self and others, then our compassion or the way that we emotionally relate to others can simply be a matter of pity.
Our wanting to help others rather than compassion is simply based on pity. And pity is one part arrogance and one part sympathy. There’s a feeling of unequality, a feeling of superiority. You know, on the other hand, sometimes compassion can be mixed with attachment. It’s just going to be directed at the people that we like, that somehow enhance our existence.
So we develop when they’re in difficult situations, when they’re suffering, then we develop compassion. But it’s very narrow minded. It’s only directed towards a few. It’s very much involved with our self interests. Compassion can be either mixed with the various afflictive emotions such as attachment, desire, or it can be unmixed with the afflictive emotions.
When it’s unmixed, the more we examine the object of our compassion, the more we investigate, the clearer and the steadier our compassion becomes. No matter over what period of time it becomes firmer. We become more involved in that compassion feeling toward this individual if it’s not mixed with afflictive emotions, for example, attachment. When it is mixed with afflictive emotions, then it’s going to remain a few days and then it’s going to go away depending upon how our self interests are being met by this individual. A real compassion, this compassion which is unmixed with the afflictive emotions, is rooted in understanding our own situation and the situations of others.
Had a last Sunday, was a Christian Buddhist dialogue here. There was talk about with helping others in the world And if in fact Buddhism may at least superficially talk a great deal about compassion and love and helping others, benefiting others, But in fact, are they doing that in the real world? And as contrasted to Christianity, is very much involved with social engagement, with working in the world. So it’s a very difficult problem. There’s no easy solution to it.
If you want to solve the world’s problems, you have to put your own house, your own individual life in order first. That is somewhat of a paradox. People have a genuine desire to go beyond their individual cramped lives to benefit the world. But if you do not start at home, then you have no hope of helping the world. So the first step in learning how to rule is learning to rule your household, your immediate world.
There is no doubt that if you do so, then the next step will come naturally. If you fail to do so, then your contribution to the world will be further chaos. So we can ask, you know, how do we actually help the world? You know, I have some compassion. I want to help others.
How do I go about helping others without making a nuisance out of myself, without perhaps having the best intentions, but in the end causing more problems than I’m helping to solve? I use as my model, I would say, to a large degree. My various teachers that I’ve had, I’ve been very fortunate in having met some of them, you know, from my limited exposure, some of the most highly realized spiritual masters that have lived in the last thirty or forty years. And I know in their methods of helping, that is to say the way in which they express their compassion. You know sometimes when somebody’s hurting, when somebody is suffering, then they’ll speak some kind words, they’ll give them a cuddle, and this is one way of expressing their compassion.
But sometimes it may be necessary to be wrathful, to shake somebody out of their rut, their indulgence in their own self pity, for example. So this wrathfulness is also an expression of their compassion. And sometimes it’s necessary just to give a very logical, rational explanation of some particular doctrine, some particular meditational technique. And this is also an expression of their compassion. So we cannot predetermine our preconceptions about the outward manifestation of compassion, how it’s to be expressed.
But we can talk about some of the qualities with which it is imbued, the qualities of caring, sensitivity, respect, and knowledge. So the quality of of caring is simply a feeling which is concerned with what is happening to another person, the feeling of involvement in sharing their situation. Maybe we can call it empathy, being able to identify with their circumstances and a feeling of sharing, commonality, a sensitivity, awareness of what the consequences of what you’re saying and what you’re doing, how they’re affecting that person, they’re affecting the situation. Not being completely wrapped up in one’s own preconceived program of dealing with a particular problem as you see it, categorizing the individual and his problem and simply working on the basis of your preconceptions of how best to solve this problem, but actually being with that person with awareness and sensitivity and seeing how what you’re saying, what you’re doing, and how the situation is evolving and how it’s affecting him and adjusting what you’re saying and doing. It involves respect.
It’s said that not only does a student have to respect his teacher, but a teacher has to respect his student just as much. So this respect takes the form of an unconditional regard, a valuing. Seeing this person as a feeling being, as worthy of one’s regard. I’ve seen, for example, their Buddha nature. I’ve seen that they’re exactly equal to us in fact that they want happiness and they don’t want to suffer.
There’s no difference. In this way, respecting that person and their integrity and their worthiness and valuing them. And then also compassion has the quality of knowledge, being able to use your resources, your talents, your abilities, your wisdom. And coming to creating a situation, an environment, conditions where some kind of insight can occur. You know, you’re not laying your trip on that other person but creating — I think they might call it a gestalt or something — but a situation where that other person can resolve their conflict, where they can come to a resolution, they can understand their problem, have insight, create some harmony within them.
So these are some of the qualities of what a compassionate mind might have. In the actual development, the cultivation of compassion, it begins with just a gentle concern. How nice it would be if this person were free from suffering, if you were free from suffering. Just the feeling of how nice it would be if you weren’t dissatisfied. It’s kind of a gentle caring in a way, just a pleasant thought.
And initially, we can direct these pleasant thoughts as how nice it would be that if you were free from your difficulty, we can direct those at people we like, that we love, because these are the easiest people to begin with. But eventually, we have to begin to direct the same thought even though initially it’s artificially towards neutral people, strangers, those people we feel indifference toward, and ultimately to people who give us a hard time, who we have difficulties with, people we might consider our enemies. So he goes through this process of simply, initially, even though it’s perhaps artificially, directing the thought how wonderful it would be and trying to develop some sincerity. If you were free from that difficult situation, if you were free from suffering or your problem. It’s not so difficult with respect to the people we like, but we train ourselves and we consciously and artificially direct the same thought or even these same words.
Perhaps there’s not much sincerity behind it, but the sincerity will follow toward neutral persons. And then finally our enemies, people who give us problems. Then we’re going to repeat this same procedure but with a stronger mind, a stronger thought, a stronger type of compassion, a very strong wish. Not only how nice it would be if you were free from suffering, but may you be free from suffering, may you not have this difficulty and this problem. So it’s a little bit stronger of a mind.
And we begin likewise to direct it toward the people we like, our friends, the people we love. But as we did before, we begin to direct it toward neutral persons and our enemies, people who give us a difficult time. So we should try to cultivate this wish, wishing that people be happy, to as many individuals as possible, particular people. You know, without, you know, all types — many, many, many, many particular people. No matter who they are, you know, really picking out people and and simply wishing in your mind, may you be happy. May you be happy.
If we don’t use particular people, it is almost impossible to develop this same sincere thought towards an undifferentiated mass of people. May all sentient beings be happy, it doesn’t mean very much. But when it’s based on having gone through this process with many, many, many particular people who have real faces, real problems, real difficulties, then there can be some sincerity behind it. We can actually develop the thought, may all sentient beings be free from their difficulties. So it’s quite necessary to actually direct it consciously to many, many particular individuals, this wish.
Then there’s a third and even stronger mind of compassion that we’re going to develop. And this carries over into the sixth of the sevenfold cause and effect instructions that is the exceptional resolve. And this is the thought, the strong feeling of compassion that I will separate you. I will free you from that difficulty, from that suffering. So it’s a taking of a responsibility, isn’t it?
It’s a very strong type of compassion. So we’re developing three types of compassion. There’s three different strengths of compassion. Compassion which expresses itself in the thought, how nice it would be if you were free from that suffering, that difficulty. A little bit stronger the expression and thought, may you be free from that difficulty, from that suffering.
And the strongest type of compassion, I will free you from that difficulty, from your suffering. So these are the three levels of compassion that we have to work with, that we have to develop. It’s also said that there are three types of, not only three levels of compassion, but three types of compassion. This is a little bit perhaps abstract, but it may be worthwhile to consider the three types of compassion. There’s to be the compassion which observes sentient beings, people for example.
There’s the compassion which observes phenomena and the compassion which observes the unapprehendable. So all these three are compassion, different types of compassion. By compassion, simply being the it observes all sentient beings. That’s an object of observation, but its aspect of the mind, the subjective quality of the mind is the wish and the thought that they be free from their suffering. So all these are alike in this quality of observing all sentient beings and the thought that these beings be free from their suffering.
But they have slightly different qualities and it becomes very significant, the qualities, the differentiation between these. Due to our ego grasping, develop based on ignorance, we develop a sense of a solid concrete ego, a sense of I, me. in dependence upon developing the sense of solid concrete I, we develop conception of a real mind. This is mine. in dependence on both of these, we enter into various afflictive emotions, desire, anger.
in dependence upon desire and anger, we engage in various unskillful actions. in dependence upon engaging in unskillful actions, we experience the karmic result, which is suffering dissatisfaction. So this is the situation that we’re in, and it has a very logical sequence that’s understandable. That is to say, the dissatisfactory quality of our life is not inherent to life itself. It’s simply by eliminating the causes of the sequence of chain reaction that is the basic ignorance, ego grasping, we can eliminate suffering dissatisfaction completely from life.
Suffering dissatisfactory quality of our present life is simply a of a type of life bounded by ego. If we can transcend this, if we can eliminate the causes of ego grasping, then we can live a life completely free of suffering. If we recognize this very deeply, then we’re going to develop, have a real wisdom as a basis for our operation of compassion. We’re going to be able to see people, sentient beings and ourselves included, undergoing dissatisfactory states, undergoing problems which are totally unnecessary to be going through. Something that someone, when you see it very deeply, it’s said that the intelligent practitioner first realizes emptiness and goes on to develop an awakening heart.
Why? Because he begins to see the complete, I want to use a stronger word, it’s totally unnecessary to suffer. It’s not a necessary inherent part of our life. And he sees people putting themselves through suffering. He sees people under the control of ego grasping, ignorance, bringing on their own suffering to themselves even though they don’t want it, even though they want to be happy.
They’re completely out of control. You realize this very deeply, that if only they could eliminate this basic cause of their suffering, they could be completely happy. Based upon this understanding, this wisdom seen into the nature of the situation, a tremendous compassion arises for them. It’s not as if suffering were a part of life. It’s not inherent to existence.
We just can’t do anything about it. We have to make the best of a bad situation. That’s not the situation. It’s totally unnecessary. So through this understanding, an overwhelming compassion arises.
It’s like seeing little children who are crying, want to grab hold of the moon even though they can’t. And they suffer, and it’s totally unnecessary. Usually, we have a tendency to devalue people, to objectify people due to the force of our self-cherishing, to create objects out of people for our own pleasure, for our own manipulative ends. In this process, we lose sight of the fact of our basic equality. You have to devalue a person in order to manipulate them, to make use of them.
If for a moment you see them as wanting happiness deeply seeing they want happiness and don’t want to suffer, just like myself, it’s very difficult to simply take advantage of another person. The mind which it’s only a self-cherishing mind, a mind which is totally out of balance, which is able to take advantage, objectify, manipulate others for its own ends. But this is exactly what happens through our self-cherishing. And this is how this sense of pity comes about. We were talking about this quality of mistaking pity for compassion where there’s a feeling of inequality.
Even though we may want to help others, we may have a sincere desire, but we have to check out But what is the source? What is the intention of our wanting to help others? Love means an interior and spiritual identification with one’s brother so that he is not regarded as an object to which one does good. The fact is that good done to another as to an object is of little or no spiritual value. Fact is that good done to another as to an object is of little or no spiritual value.
Love takes one’s neighbor as one’s other self and loves him with all the immense humility, discretion, and reserve and reverence without which no one can presume to enter into the sanctuary of another’s subjectivity. So in this sense, good done to another as if to an object, when there simply is pity as the basis for our relationship, as a basis for our helping. As I mentioned before, it’s one part arrogance and therefore is of no spiritual value. There’s a feeling of superiority and a feeling of self righteousness. You’re more or less saying, I feel better than you.
I feel warm and I feel good about myself. I feel good about myself and what I can do and able to help you. And with such a superior type of attitude, a smugness and arrogance, at best with such an attitude, we can only offer even the superficial help that we may be able to render to another person, to provide another person. Even in that situation, we’re encouraging the recipient of our help to feel worthless, to perhaps feel more worthless than they already feel at that moment, You tend to force him in a position where he sees us as good and themselves as bad. You know, it’s difficult for someone to someone who is in need to struggle against depressing attention of someone who’s trying to undermine them by doing them good.
We don’t need anyone to feel sorry for us. This only undermines our own feelings of self worth. And therefore, from feelings of self pity, the help that we do render can cause more damage than help. So this is by taking the other person as an object to whom you’re going to do good to. So this begins to give us some insight into these three types of compassion.
This compassion for sentient beings, compassion for phenomena, and compassion of the unapprehendable. So somehow, if we’re going to create a pure type of compassion, divorced from afflictive emotions, for example arrogance, where it’s going to be of actual benefit to ourselves and to others, we have to cease objectifying, creating an object to do good to. We have to some way get around this. There’s this danger involved. In some way, dissolve the boundaries which set us apart.
Dissolve the boundaries of subject and object. We can do this both conventionally and ultimately, both conventionally and ultimately. So conventionally, the way we can cease to make people an object to whom we do good, Objectifying is what I mean. Conventionally, we can be empathetic. That’s what we’ve been talking about up to now.
You know, we can’t know exactly what another person is experiencing, but we can get in touch with some of our own analogous experiences and appreciate what they might be going through, what they might be feeling. And we can be mindful of the dissatisfactory quality of our own life, the chaos within our own life, the unmanageability of our own life, the fear in our own life. So, this feeling of always creating inequality, this mindfulness of sharing in a common problem dilemma of this thing called egoistic bounded existence. So for a moment, coming in contact, creating a opening up a possible level of communication, we can begin to perhaps dissolve the thick skin of our encapsulated egos just for a moment. And perhaps some real communication can take place, some real sharing, and therefore some real helping, some real benefit where both you, yourself, and the other person benefited.
Mother Teresa, who is an expert on the poor, has said that the poor more than your money want your respect, to be respected as human beings. So in this sense, and it’s emphasized again and again, it’s not so much, for example, this case, of what we give, but how we give it. How are we viewing that other person? Is it simply a matter of arrogance, or is it simply a sharing of understanding, meeting between two people? Are we in some way taking the other person as our self?
So the qualities of equanimity, equality of self and others, empathy, identification with another is the foundation of real compassion. Sharing and responding to a common humanity. So that’s one way conventionally we can ensure guard against the danger of objectifying, simply doing good to some object. Now ultimately, we cease to objectify through the gradual integration of wisdom and compassion. In a Buddha, one mind is a complete integration of great compassion and the wisdom, understanding the nature of reality.
Completely integrated, completely unified. So we can begin to work towards this because this is the model of our spiritual journey, the goal of our practice. So everything should be directed towards this model, to emulating this model. So where the first type of compassion is the compassion observing sentient beings. Observe nothing but sentient beings and with having an aspect of wishing them to be suffering, to be free from suffering.
The second two of these two types of compassion, in the case of the compassion observing phenomena qualifies the sentient being with impermanence and the compassion observing the unapprehendable qualifies the sentient being with selflessness or a non inherent existence. We can talk about this a little. So when the mind of great compassion is explicitly and directly affected by a previous realization of the impermanence of sentient beings. Now when we realize impermanence, subtle impermanence, we implicitly realize the lack of independent existence, the lack of permanence and the lack of singularity or unity of the individual. That in fact, that the person, the sentient being, is dependently existent.
They’re constantly changing. They’re impermanent. And they’re non unitary. They have many parts, simply put. If we’ve understood this previously with regard to that sentient being, when we develop the mind of compassion, and this mind of the compassion is being affected by our previous understanding of the impermanence of this sentient being, then there’s no ability to fixate, to solidify that person.
The person is seen if qualified with his impermanence, as if it were like ripples on a still pond being gently blown by a light breeze. That it doesn’t give us the that person and his problems aren’t fixed. They’re constantly changing and they’re constantly in a dependent arising. That they’re not inherent in that person, that they’re arising out of the conditions of that person’s entire environment, including yourself. You’re part of that person’s environment.
You’re not apart from that situation. You’re not apart from that person’s problem. So there’s you know, we create some dynamic quality in the way we relate with the person rather than fixing upon them. And then with respect to the third type, the compassion, observing the unapprehendable. So when, again, a mind of great compassion, when it observes a sentient being who has been previously understood, dependent upon who, we have realized the lack of inherent existence.
By inherent existence, hopefully we’ll discuss this when we come to the third aspect of the path, seeing deeply into the nature of reality. But it’s simply the fact that a being or nothing, but particularly in this case, the sentient being does not exist objectively from their own side in and of themselves, though we tend to think that they do. We conceive of them that way. It’s like the sentient being appears to that compassionate mind like a reflection of a moon on a still pond. No one, even though there is the appearance of a moon, no one would mistake, probably not, I don’t know, no one would try to grab and say, Oh, I’ve got the moon.
They realize that even though it appears as a moon, it appears very realistic, still they understand it is merely a reflection. It’s not a real moon. It’s not existing objectively from its own side. And this is the way we begin this type of compassionate mind begins to apprehend sentient beings. Qualified, when it says unapprehendable, here the word apprehendable, apprehended as truly existent.
Or unapprehendable, unapprehended as truly existent. This compassionate mind is completely integrated with the understanding that this individual, that this sentient being, this person does not truly exist. Okay, what does that mean? How’s that going to cease us from objectifying? With such a type of understanding, there’s no way we can begin to objectify that person as merely to view that person as merely an object of our help and that there’s someone to be helped.
Ultimately, we understand at that very moment that there’s no one suffering and there’s no one who is trying to help to eliminate their suffering. Ultimately, There’s no truly existent sufferer and there’s no truly existent helper trying to eliminate suffering and there’s no truly existent suffering. There’s just suffering which is to be eliminated. It’s not qualified. There’s no question about my suffering or your suffering.
It’s just suffering which is to be eliminated. And there’s a very famous quotation from the Buddha, Suffering alone exists, none who suffer. The deed there is but no doer thereof. Nirvāṇa there is but no one seeking it. The path there is but no one who travels it.
So this is difficult to understand perhaps. We’re going to go into it when we discuss this, seeing deeply into the nature of reality. With such a type of compassionate mind which is viewing that sentient being with compassion, with the thought to take that I will free this sentient being from their suffering, but still there’s no possibility to objectify them because they understand that ultimately there’s no one suffering and there’s no one who’s going to be who is trying to free them from suffering. But still there’s suffering and suffering is to be eliminated because no one wants to suffer. That’s our experience.
So there’s no possibility in simply developing arrogance or using pity as a basis for relating to this person. It becomes you know, it’s said that the Buddha is compared to a wish granting tree. Because his wisdom and his compassion are completely unified, there occurs spontaneous actions for the benefit of others. These actions are simply a direct response to the needs of others. It’s like a tree which bears fruit.
There’s no conception of a giver of the fruit or a giver, a giving and a recipient. There’s simply this fruit which arises continually without the conception of a giver, a giving, or a recipient of the fruit. So this is environmental generosity, just responding, skillfully to the needs of others. It’s as if there’s a vacuum and the skillful means moves in to fill up that vacuum with whatever is necessary, whatever to alleviate suffering without thought of an object to which one is doing good, to which one is helping, or even a subject, someone who is helping. So this is this compassion observing the unapprehendable.
Unapprehendable meaning the lack of self existence of the person who’s being helped, the object of our compassion. Compassion has nothing to do with achievement at all. It is spacious and very generous. When a person develops real compassion, he is uncertain whether he is being generous to others or to himself because compassion is environmental generosity without direction, without for me and without for them. It is filled with joy, spontaneously existing joy, constant joy in the sense of trust, in the sense that joy contains tremendous wealth and richness.
So if we talk about compassion in its simply most form, simple most form, it’s simply seeing other people’s problems and wanting them to be released from those problems, those difficulties. Normally our compassion is limited to only those we like, only those who in some way help us, enhance our life in some way. But also there are times when there’s extreme suffering. Someone has an accident, someone died, someone they love, someone died. So that some broken relationship of some sort, even at these times, their compassion can arise.
Someone when someone even when we don’t know them, when they’re undergoing extreme suffering. But when people are laughing and singing and having a good time, we don’t feel any compassion. Maybe we feel even jealous. But this is not the case with true compassion. Real compassion, true compassion does not distinguish between people.
It doesn’t distinguish between rich or poor, beautiful or ugly, or it doesn’t distinguish the situation itself. It extends to all sentient beings at all times. It’s directionless, universal. But when usually look at others superficially, we have a feeling that, for example, rich people, they don’t particularly suffer famous people, movie stars, rock and roll stars, or powerful people. Somehow they don’t suffer and therefore it’s difficult for us to develop compassion for them.
It’s difficult for us to make them the object of our compassion. So this is fantasy. This is simply dreaming. This has nothing to do with reality. As long as a person is bounded by ego, there is suffering.
As long as a person is controlled by attachment, there is suffering. As long as a person is controlled by anger, there is suffering. As long as a person is controlled by confusion, there is suffering. No matter how rich, how famous, how powerful, there is suffering. No matter how beautiful, there is suffering.
No matter whether they might be laughing on the outside, there is still suffering, dissatisfaction. This is a quote by Albert Einstein on compassion. A human being is part of a whole called by us universe, a part limited in time space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings as something separate from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. So opening our hearts to others, developing real compassion, developing great compassion entails not only a development of love and compassion, but thinking that I can do something, a feeling of richness, of worth, and taking the responsibility to help. So this is really opening to others, taking the responsibility to help. Opening to others actually goes beyond love and goes beyond compassion. We dedicate ourselves to lead them out of suffering and to help them be happy.
So all sentient beings. So it’s universal in scope. All suffering, all sentient beings. That’s the way we can begin to open our heart. So we’ll stop there.
Would you like to stand for a moment, a minute?