Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Framing meditation as a revolt against the world’s constant demands on attention, Ven Jampa Gendun opens this 95-minute session with a practical anatomy of mindfulness and awareness — illustrated by an analogy of walking a potholed road while balancing a bowl of water on your head, sword at your back. He explains breath meditation through the image of training a puppy: patient, gentle, no self-judgment. The commentary then works through Tsongkhapa’s Three Principal Aspects of the Path: the determination to be free, unpacked via the four reversals and a snake-and-rope analogy for how ego-grasping distorts reality; a review of the sevenfold bodhicitta tradition; and a preview of upcoming sessions on equalizing and exchanging self for others, drawn from Śāntideva’s lineage. Best suited to practitioners already following the series.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1988 09 30 3 P A P.mp3
UUID: 72f7ca9b-82e9-4401-ab6d-ee7ce57af8a0
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 1987-1988 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1988-09-30
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 95.0 minutes
Words: ~11,663
The world is constantly making demands upon us demanding that we direct our complete attention outside of ourselves. And so the process, the activity of meditation is a way we can revolt against that process and begin to get back in touch with the neglected, neglected part of ourselves, our inner world, by creating some space and some time for us to get back in touch. Almost all the spiritual practices have some sort of meditation. But it’s you know, for honest, it’s we’re very complicated people, and in our complication, in our ambition and drive to accomplish, we make what could be, ultimately is, a very simple activity and is something very difficult, very complicated. We’re habitually trying out, we’re habitually trying to figure out our experiences so that we can manipulate them, repeat them again, you know, to try to fulfill some of our preconceptions or expectations.
There’s a teacher in Sydney. I was just in Sydney two weeks ago, Sogyal Rinpoche. And this was an advertisement for his talks, and I’d to hear him. And I’d like to read you one quote from this advertisement concerning meditation. In the stillness and presence of meditation, we discover a pure awareness beyond the ordinary thinking mind and catch a glimpse of a view of our true nature, something we have long ago lost.
We’ve lost sight of amidst the busyness and turmoil of our lives. The core of the practice of meditation is releasing the heart and mind in deep ease and relaxation where tensions are dissolved and we find ourselves connecting with a tremendous source of healing which we all have within. For health is a state where all aspects of our body and mind are in balance. So the essence of meditation is relaxation. With that, it’s a naturalness.
But it’s something we’ve lost, this quality of being able to get in touch with what naturalness is. We’re trying to in trying to figure out what naturalness is, we lose the very thing which we’re looking for. So whenever there’s any expectations, any sort of compulsions, preconceptions, then there’s going to be invariably conflict. That’s the the nature of the ego. Conflict, the nature of cyclic existence.
The nature of the dualistic nature of the mind, of ordinary mind is conflict. So somehow in our meditation we have to avoid making our practice, the activity of meditation, a battleground, a struggle that is carrying over a habitual tendency of conflict into that which we are using to transcend the ego, that which is a problem to begin with. We’re simply perpetuating and supporting our problem in activity of meditation. Somehow we have to find a way to circumvent this, to transcend the ego and its quality of struggle, of conflict, if meditation is actually going to give any benefit, if we can even find it as a source of relaxation. So Atisha, perhaps one of the two most important Indian masters in Tibetan Buddhism, brought the second wave of Buddhism to Tibet after Padmasambhava originally introduced it.
And he went through a period of degeneration. Atisha traveled from India and did so out of great compassion, since he was told his life would be shortened by something like eleven years if he left India and went to Tibet. But out of compassion for the Tibetan people, he still went and regenerated, reinstituted the Dharma in Tibet. The teacher said that the highest meditation is a mind without pretension, a mind without pretension. So this is what I think he means is a mind an unfabricated mind, an uncontrived state of mind. That is to say a natural state of mind, a mind in its natural state.
So natural here means unfixed. That is to say without preconceptions, without expectations, without any compulsions, without interpretations, without a predetermined plan. It’s simply a natural basic awareness, which is the ultimate which is the conventional nature of the mind, the quality of knowing, awareness. The natural awareness is a natural state of mind. So he also said, Atisha also said that the highest precept is mindfulness.
The Buddha said that without mindfulness it is that we’re dead. So basically when we’re talking about meditation, we’re talking about two mental factors. The mental factors of mindfulness and awareness, mindfulness and awareness. So mindfulness is like a container in which we put objects in, whatever we want to what we might want to do with that object. Perhaps we want to bring information to a situation.
Perhaps we want to simply hold that object in front of us. So mindfulness becomes the container which holds our particular object of mind. And awareness simply knows that object, is aware of it, casts its aspect like a mirror. The mind is very much like a mirror. Simply, in its own nature, has no quality.
In a sense, it’s pure by nature. It’s clear. It’s like a clear glass mirror. It will reflect undisturbedly any object which is presented in front of it. And so in this respect, the mind is said to be very much like the mirror, the quality of awareness.
Objects cast their image into the mirror of the mind and thereby they’re known. So this is the basic quality of our meditation, this factor of mindfulness and awareness. Now I’ve talked about these factors. Maybe we can and I can use this example again that I’ve spoken of before because it doesn’t need to be a confusing matter. It doesn’t need to be a mystical matter.
The more we can understand the basic properties of a proper meditation and of what we’re trying to do and the factors involved, then I think we can approach the situation, the activity of meditation much more intelligently and much more successfully. So the factors of mindfulness and awareness. It is as if, for example, an analogy, you were walking down a road, and it was a dirt road full of holes and stones, large boulders, and on top of your head was a glass of water, a bowl of water, and someone was behind you with a sword, and they said, If you spill one drop of this water, I’m going to cut your head off. So you have a predicament. You’re in a difficult situation.
So in this situation, you have to go to the other end of the road. You have to walk down the road. So we’d have to make use of two mental factors in this process of walking from one end of the road to the other: mindfulness and awareness. Awareness is going to know the situation. You know, what is the lie of the road?
If we didn’t know the lie of the road, we’re going to fall into a hole. We’re going to trip over a rock, and then all is going to be lost. So we have to know the actual situation, and this is the factor of awareness. But simply awareness itself will not get us successfully to the end of the road. We could see a hole in the road, jump down, jump back up, jump over a rock, jump on top of it.
That is to say, we would be reacting properly, but only from a certain point of view to the situation. We wouldn’t be mindful. We wouldn’t remember that we wouldn’t bringing certain information to the situation which is necessary to complete the task which is set before us efficiently. That is, we have to remember that this bowl of water is on our head even when we’re aware of the hole in front of us or the boulder in front of us. So we have to bring some kind of information to the situation.
The container of mindfulness is going to hold a particular type of information in front of us constantly while we’re maneuvering, while we’re walking down this road, working our way around these various obstacles. So these are the two qualities of mindfulness and awareness. Awareness simply knows the situation. Mindfulness brings certain information to that situation, you know, whatever is conducive, whatever our value system, whatever our priorities might be. So in the basic meditation that we practice, mindfulness of breathing, the object of mindfulness of breathing is the breathing.
Yeah? That’s what we’re going to hold. That’s what we’re going to put in our container. It’s like holding a glass. You know, the mindfulness is that which like the hand holding the glass.
It determines if it lets go of the glass, the glass is going to drop and break. That’s awareness which tells us whether we’re holding the glass or not and how tightly we’re holding the glass. Perhaps we’re holding it too tightly, unnecessarily tightly, and expending energy unnecessarily. So there’s these two factors which we have to make use of in our meditation, which basically is meditation. So using the object of breathing, we stabilize our mind.
We anchor our mind. We hold the mind to the breath. By by breath, simply the sensations, the tactile sensations, the bodily sensations, which are associated with the breathing process and the rising, falling of the chest, the abdomen moving in and out, perhaps the air rushing on the upper lip inside the nostril. All these tactile bodily sensations are what become the object of our meditation, the object which mindfulness is going to hold to, it’s going to anchor to. So again and again, we’re bringing our mind back to the breath again and again.
You know, So the mind is is like a, you know, like a little bird flicking in a tree or like a a butterfly flying from one flower to another flower to another flower or like a monkey. It’s quite it’s usually usually use the example of a monkey jumping around in a fruit tree or something like that. In that way, it never comes to rest. It never comes to a peaceful state or a calm state. It never is able to relax.
It’s constantly flicking from one object to another, never quite being satiated by any particular effort, never finding satisfaction, never finding any rest in one particular object. The way we can begin to calm the mind, to relax the mind, is simply bringing it again and again back to rest on a single object. Again and again, we simply rest the mind, put the mind, place the mind on a single object. In this case, the breathing, the breath. In this way, you know, I’m bringing it again and again and again on one single object.
The mind is naturally will naturally become calm. It is not as if we’re trying to strap the mind down in a straight jacket. I I quite often, in talking about this process, use the analogy of training a puppy dog. In training a puppy dog, the puppy is intelligent, comparatively intelligent. It simply does not know what you want it to do.
You have to approach the situation from that standpoint. He would probably or she would probably like to please you. You you would like to develop a good relationship with this puppy, but the puppy simply doesn’t know what you want to do, so you have to show it. And in training a puppy, if you get uptight, if you get upset, if you you know, your training will not go well. You will develop a poor relationship, a poor rapport with your puppy.
You won’t be happy. Your puppy won’t be happy. Sooner or later, you’re going to give up. You’re like paper training a puppy. You take the puppy, and with patience and gentleness, you simply place you know, the puppy has to pee.
Okay? So you place the puppy you know that. You’re intelligent. You place the puppy on the paper, and of course, the puppy has no idea what doesn’t have the conception of what paper is or what to say and what it’s for. You know, he’s not going to read it, for example.
So he just starts walking off. And so he just pick up the puppy again, and he place it back on the paper again. And, of course, he’s walking, walks it off, and he just with gentleness and patience, keep bringing the puppy back to the paper, bringing it to rest back to the paper. And he will eventually get the idea that the puppy isn’t unintelligent. He can understand, but he has a mind which is able to understand.
She has a mind which is able to understand. Likewise, initially our mind simply has not used, has not been trained in the process of coming to rest on a single object repeatedly. It’s very seldom that demand is made on it in the course of normal activities. So we’re training the mind. In training the mind, we want to develop a harmonious relationship with our mind.
We don’t want to you know, if we get uptight with ourselves, if we, say, make demands of an impossible demands on ourselves, unreasonable demands on ourselves, then, of course, things aren’t going to go well. We make judgments about ourselves, oh, I can’t meditate. There’s something wrong with Everybody else can meditate, me everybody else is sitting there in bliss, and I’m the only ones having a hard time. All these negativities which may arise, considering ourselves, you know, are just another expression of our ego. They have nothing to do with the reality of the situation.
You know, the mind is clear and knowing. That’s its nature. If we can become Buddhas, then obviously we can meditate on the breath for a few minutes. There’s no question. It’s just a simple matter of patience and gentleness with ourselves.
That is to say, being skillful in how we go about it. So, you know, we’re working with this situation without any sorts of judgments, without judging ourselves, you know, without, you know, whether we’re not trying to decide whether our meditation is good, whether meditation is bad, whether we’re good or whether we’re bad, you know, whether I can gain enlightenment, whether women can gain enlightenment, maybe they can’t gain enlightenment, maybe men can gain enlightenment, maybe there’s no such thing as enlightenment, maybe I should join another tradition, maybe Zen Buddhism, maybe I should become a born again Christian, this is too difficult, You know, whatever. We’re just simply repeatedly bringing our puppy back to the paper in a very gentle and patient manner. We want we try to are trying to avoid the struggle that and the conflict that we normally bring to our various activities. We’re not even trying to relax.
The very the very trying to relax will agitate your mind, you know, try to when you try to relax, I should try to relax. I try the harder you try, the less relaxed you are going the more agitated you’re going to become. All we can do, you know, in developing the relaxed quality, which is just said as the, the essence of meditation, is present the conditions necessary whereby the natural response of the mind is relaxation. It gives a sigh of relief and says, Wow, I can rest. You know, something like that.
Again and again bringing the mind back to rest on a single object in a gentle, patient manner is the way we can develop the conditions, the internal conditions, whereby the natural response of the mind is relaxation and letting go. So, you know, in this practice, the basic practice is just simply being here now, being present in this situation, being aware. This is the way we can begin to transcend the ego, the way we can begin to heal the conflicts, our inner struggles. Meditation is very much, you know, working with our speed, you know, our restlessness, our constant busyness, and our ambition. You know, ego is ego’s constant desire to find something outside of the present moment.
You know, if we you know, we talked we’ve talked about the five hindrances to meditation. The five hindrances to meditation. What is that saying? If we say that the essence of meditation is relaxation, the natural state of returning to the natural state of the mind, then mind is naturally at peace. We don’t have to contrive.
We don’t have to construct a peaceful state. It is already present within the mind naturally. So there are hindrances arriving at this natural peace within the mind. And we’ve talked about some of these hindrances from one point of view. That is the five hindrances to meditation, the desire, hatred, sloth and torpor, anxiety, worry, doubt and indecisiveness.
Now what are those? Those are actually simply expressive these are these are states, certain patterns which are reoccurring within the mind, are expressions of ego. The ego trying to extend itself, secure itself in space and time. And this is the very nature of our problem, which is causing the conflict, which is prohibiting us from returning to our natural state of peace. So in this sense, can begin to begin to cut through some of our ego games, begin to transcend the ego in a very simple way.
It’s a very simple minded approach to sanity. It’s actually a very it’s actually very profound, but it we’re looking for perhaps for something more exotic, something we can our ego can get its teeth into, perhaps. So the meditation in Tibetan is the word gom. This is called a gongpa, this room, which means a place in meditation. Gom means to get used to, getting used to, familiarizing yourself, habituating yourself.
This idea of getting used to basically, we’re getting used to dwelling in the reality of the situation, in the present situation rather than in the fantasy world of ego. We’re trying to step outside the fantasy world of ego and dwell within the actual situation in the present moment as it actually is. So this quality of of relaxation, this natural response of the mind to the conditions, just sitting quietly, you know, and repeatedly developing the qualities of mindfulness and awareness. Simply acknowledging, for example, our thoughts, our emotions, our feelings, images, without either indulging them, indulging in them, or repressing them. So, you know, we’re beginning to learn a very valuable lesson in this simple practice, seemingly simple practice, that we don’t have to react to everything which our mind is churning out.
Basically, we think we’re very important. Therefore, what we think must be quite important, but it’s not. I’m sorry. But in all of these feelings, all of these dramas, know, which our mind is inventing, churning up of this primordial ocean of dialogue that’s constantly occurring in our mind. You know, we don’t have to react to it.
We don’t have to hook onto it. We don’t have to bite into this hot dog as I call it. You know, we we are constantly taking a position. Whenever you take a position, there necessarily is conflict. That’s why the dualistic mind, the mind which thinks this is good, this is bad, this is tall, this is short, this is friend, this is enemy.
This discriminating mind which operates in a dual nature, that’s by its very nature involved in conflict. If this is bad, if I think this is good, then I’ve already I’ve created bad. And then if I meet that badness, I’m going to be unhappy by its very nature. Once I create goodness, once I create white, create black on the other side. You know, this quality of relative quality of all values.
So in taking a position, there’s there’s always ensuing this conflict. So we can begin we can begin to let go of the constant reference point that mind is continually creating. And the mind is constantly, you know, even the the basic reference point of subject object. You know? If there’s a subject, there must be an object.
If there’s object, there’s a subject. Standing apart from the actual experience itself is a dualistic concept. There’s a dualistic quality of the ego. And by stepping outside of this this this constant reference, creating reference points of ego that mind is constantly manufacturing, we can begin to step beyond our thoughts. Step beyond our thoughts.
You know, normally, we grasp at thoughts. Normally, we grasp at thoughts. That is to say, we identify them. We identify with them. And simply rather than simply recognizing them.
That is to say, a thought arises, you become that thought. Anger arises, you become angry. Pleasure arises, you become pleasurable. We don’t have to identify with all the thoughts which arise in our mind. We can simply recognize them, acknowledge them.
But the mind is obsessed with this inner dialogue. I imagine most people in this room cannot stop thinking. And it’s strange, isn’t it? You know, we try to stop the wars in the world, stop the bombings, stop the pollution, destruction of the ozone. But nobody can stop this this chatter that’s always going on inside their mind.
Therefore, you know, we can never relax. We can never be at peace. So when we talk about controlling the mind, you know, we often hear about controlling the mind, subduing the mind. It sounds like putting ourselves in a straight jacket, doesn’t it? To control the mind simply means that we cease reacting.
That we we cease reacting to the we cease the obsessed mind. Obsessed mind is a mind which which impulsively, uncontrollably reacts, either repressing certain thoughts or indulging certain thoughts. It has no choice. It’s programmed to either indulge or repress and react one way or the other. This is an uncontrolled mind.
So when we talk about a controlled mind, a subdued mind, we’re talking a mind about a mind which is able to not react and has a choice whether it wants to react or not, whether it wants to bite into this hotdog or not. So, you know, meditation begins to teach us the skill of non not reacting. Sometimes it’s called passive resistance. Not reacting to the obsessed mind. Not reacting to the obsessed mind.
You know, all these hooks that the mind is churning out, trying to catch us. By catching, I mean to identify with. The hook of desire, the hook of hatred, the hook of worry, the hook of indecisiveness, doubt, the hook of sloth, torpor, all these types of patterns which are reoccurring compulsively again and again and again, which we have no control over, but which hook the awareness factor of the mind. We identify with them, and we become angry. We become desire, compulsive neurotic patterns of our mind.
So it becomes in in the process of developing our meditation, it becomes necessary to expand our awareness beyond the realm of this inner dialogue. To begin seeing the dialogue, for example, in a context, you know, to loosen up and to open up, it’s like, you know, as if you were looking at an aquarium with the various fish just swimming back and forth, and they’re swimming back and forth in a medium of water this clear water. And rather than if one can simply stand back, create the space, perspective, simply to to appreciate, if you like, but just to watch, observe the various fish as they swim back, we don’t have to identify them. We can see the context in which all the various you know, the fish, which all these activities are occurring without having to become involved in them. In this way, we can the mind becomes very silent, and we naturally begin to develop a state of relaxation.
This un this natural quality of the mind to return to its peaceful state. So when the mind is still, all the images, all the thoughts are said to be like drawing upon water. You know, if you draw a picture on water with your finger, it doesn’t last very long. So we don’t have to react to all the complicated complicated fabrications of our mind. We can just be.
So as I’ve said before, meditation is a rerooting of our sense of identity in being rather than becoming. We’ve lost the ability to be. Ego by its very nature cannot be. It always has to become becoming something else. It can never exist within the present moment in the reality of the situation.
It’s base it is a it’s basic ground is an illusion. It’s not in based in the actual situation of fact. Meditation is simply a question of being, of melting like a piece of butter left in the sun. It has nothing to do with whether you know anything about it. So we don’t have to figure out how to meditate.
You know, that is we don’t have to try to we don’t stand outside of our meditation reporting back information to central command. You know, how you doing, fella? Normally, we want to identify with. Normally, we want we want to manipulate. We want to capture our experiences so that we can prolong them, we can repeat them, manipulate them.
We want to be able to report back to ourselves that it’s an enjoyable experience. So when we if we can begin to drop the concepts of, you know, of my meditation, my experience, my awareness, then we can begin to experience. You know, we we become one with the actual experience itself. The actual idea of my meditation, my experience, the very idea, and it is just an idea of subject and object, is a hindrance to becoming one with this situation, one with the meditation, is another concept, the very idea of subject and object, which we filter all our experiences through. In the sense that we can arrive at a place where nobody is meditating.
And this involves a very deep healing process, you know, transcending the ego and conflict, getting used to a natural state of being. So this first step in destroying ego’s games is a strict discipline of meditation. So try it now. K. So if you take a a comfortable, firm posture.
I I think yeah, I think, you know, we’re just noting, taking the object of our meditation as the breathing, the breath. We can use the technique of counting. One through five, one through six, one through seven. Noting, knowing that you’re breathing in when you’re breathing in. Noting in, out, in, out.
Using this noting process is is help us to recognize rather than identify with our thoughts, for example. We don’t get lost in our objects that arise. By noting, we’re able to stand, create some space, have some perspective. By noting, we recognize thoughts and don’t identify with them. So we’re talking about the Three Principal Aspects of the Path, which is a short text written by the the fourteenth century yogi scholar, Tsongkhapa.
In the in the first 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. So these are the three areas that we can concern ourselves with, that we can direct ourselves in our practice. Just as when we take refuge, for example, going for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha. And in the course of our days, especially more so yourselves and myself perhaps, you have to deal with the practicalities of life, studying, earning a living, families. But in the midst of this, all these various activities, we can still be mindful, you know, this quality of mindfulness bringing some information to the various situations of what, in fact, is going to be the most effective way of solving our problems, no matter what the problem might be, a very practical problem.
If Dharma isn’t very practical if it isn’t practical and applicable to our everyday situation, then it’s quite useless. It’s just a museum piece, which is of no real benefit to anyone. You’re going for refuge to the Buddha, the quality of enlightenment. Perhaps we don’t know what enlightenment is. Perhaps it just sounds like an abstract concept, an idea that someone invented.
But we all have some understanding of what perhaps it might be to be a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being. You know, the qualities of enlightenment are simply knowing the situation as it actually is rather than how we might like it to be, how we might fantasize it to be, how we wish it to be. Getting in touch with the real situation and accepting it and working on it from that point of view. To the degree that we’re willing to, that we get in touch with the actual situation, accept the situation, and work with the actual situation, to that degree we’re going to be able to solve our problems more effectively. So the enlightened mind, this quality of sanity, is simply knowing the situation, knowing the reality of the situation.
And we all have that ability to some degree because we all touch reality to some degree each day of our lives. And the quality of love and compassion. You know, perhaps not like a mother and a child, the burning overflowing compassion, willing to devote one’s life, dedicate one’s life, lives to developing oneself in order to alleviate the suffering of all sentient beings. But still, even we all have some experience of compassion and love, though it might be limited, it might be mixed with attachment, still it’s present in all of us, the spark of these qualities. And the enlightened quality of inexhaustible energy, spontaneity.
When we go beyond our own self conscious, contrived, self centered ideas and begin to act spontaneously, respond spontaneously, environmental generosity towards others. We all have that to some degree. And if we can understand and see those sparks of enlightenment within our own experience, our everyday experience, and see that these are the ways that we’re really going to solve our problems, that these are real sources of happiness, real sources of refuge, then our going for refuge to the Buddha becomes a very practical it’s not simply a fiction. It’s not a museum piece. It’s simply an abstract conception.
Going for refuge to the Buddha within yourself because that’s the only Buddha that’s ever really going to ever solve your problems once and for all. Going for refuge to the Dharma, you know. You know, generally we can talk about the techniques, the teachings, the methods, but anything which is able to raise the level of your consciousness, anything which is able to take you from desire to openness, from attachment to generosity, hatred to love, anger to compassion, confusion to wisdom, you know, no matter what it might be. Dharma is a method to raise the level of your consciousness. No matter whether it’s a text, meditation, or simply walking, going for a walk in the woods, talking with a friend, and going for refuge to the Sangha, the spiritual community, those like minded individuals who have made a choice, who have made a choice to grow and see this as the most important quality of their life and have a commitment to grow.
So these three types of refuges are workable refuges, they’re very practical types, methods, ways we can actually solve our problems, deal with the real life situations, and the various activities of our day, bringing being mindful of that refuge and bringing it to the various situations which arise. Mhmm. You know, our lives are are based upon various sets of ideas, various core assumptions, belief systems. To the degree that our model, our paradigm, and reality is erroneous, to the same degree we’re going to experience dissatisfaction, frustration, disappointment, suffering, pain. So, you know, when we talk about this first principal aspect, the path, the the the determination to be free, we’re talking about the determination to transform our paradigm, our model into a perhaps a more accurate one, a model which reflects reality to a greater and greater precision.
A model which conforms to reality. Very much it’s stubborn refusal to cultivate an unawareness, to accept the actuality of situation, the reality of situations which causes us most of our problems. Ultimately, have to see the absolute necessity to develop the skill and energy to uproot and transform two of our most fundamental fundamental beliefs, two of our our core assumptions upon which we base almost all of our actions, all of our activities, all of our thinking, all of our feelings. You know, if these two aren’t true, The belief in an unchanging, independently existing self, ego grasping and self-cherishing. The efficacy, the effectiveness of self-cherishing as a means to find the happiness that you’re looking for, as a means to alleviate the suffering that you don’t want.
These two core assumptions, these two beliefs are the foundation, the models upon which we relate with ourselves in the world, and these are erroneous. Are epistemological errors. They are mistakes. So essentially, when we’re talking about the developing determination to be free, what we’re saying is that, you know, that we’re very much we’re stuck in a particular pattern, a dissatisfactory pattern. And that this pattern is based upon certain misconceptions.
This pattern is based upon the struggle, for example, for security, the maintenance of a real identity, the fear of an open state, the fear of separation, the hope of union. Now these are the ongoing struggle to secure the self in space and time. You know, it’s like a it’s like a whirling firebrand. You know, if you use, like, for for example, a stick with it. It has a flame on the end of it.
If you whirl it fast enough in the same pattern, it appears to be a solid circle of flame. It’s an illusion, and it gives the illusion of solidity. So ego grasping, this is you know, these all these various actions, all these various events, these mental events which are reoccurring, there’s no one performing them. But it’s one of our most basic assumptions that there is. So, you know, when we talk about the determination to be free, we have to get a feeling for the quality of any state bounded by this Mhmm.
By ego, by this struggle, by conflict, you know, what I’ve been talking about. That it is dissatisfactory by nature. That there’s no state within the balance of ego which is satisfactory. There’s no state which is bounded by dualistic conception which is satisfactory. No state which is not in accord with reality which is satisfactory.
An illusion can never be made secure. You’re always going to have to be ruling that firebrand to keep up the illusion of solidity. Once you stop, it’s finished. It’s gone. We never relax for one moment in order to keep up this illusory quality, this appearance.
And that’s all the ego is, is a mere appearance. It must be continually recreating itself, and this is the ongoing struggle of ego. The ongoing reconfirming itself, re reestablishing its credentials, reasserting its image. That’s why, you know, we talked about meditation, the ongoing activity of becoming the ego can never be. In being, there’s a stillness, there’s a quieting, there’s a letting go, a relaxing, and then the illusion of disappearance or solidifying is no longer present.
So there’s a resistance. So, you know, the the ego by its very nature cannot deal with real situations with real people. Required you know, real people dealing with real people in real situations demands an attitude of openness and fluidity. And this is exactly what, you know, ego cannot afford. Openness and fluidity.
Openness and fluidity. Openness and fluidity demanded that we deal with situations as they present them as they present themselves, as they actually are, and not how we remember that they were, not how we fantasize them to be or that we wish them to be. We can only have predictability, you know, based upon regularity, reoccurring events. We can predict an outcome, but we can’t control them. And fluidity, you know, demands a a creative response.
And, again, this is what ego cannot afford because ego is based upon program responses, reactive responses rather than creative responses. You know, ego is confined to reoccurring compulsive patterns. So it cannot act spontaneously. It’s embedded in memory and only deals, you know, with situations from the point of view of past experiences, not to to the present situation. This is the quality of meditation, dealing with the present situation, being open and fluid.
Creator, this is the way this is why meditation, the simple process of meditation is a way we can cut through ego’s games and begin to transcend the ego. So, you know, if you so we have to begin to recognize the patterns that we’re involved in, you know, in a very basic conventional level. And not only the patterns, but the dissatisfactory quality of patterns in general and the very dissatisfactory quality of our particular patterns and develop the determination to be free out of them, to emerge out of these patterns. So, you know, dharma, as I said, is the way we can use a means to raise the level of our consciousness. That is the means to become unstuck out of our particular pattern, our particular way that we relate with various situations with people, with ourselves.
First, in coming unstuck and developing you know, first recognizing the dissatisfactory quality of our patterns, then skillfully developing more productive patterns, more satisfactory types of patterns, that is to say, becoming happier. You know, those types of patterns which are going to produce a predominance of happiness rather than suffering. That’s all. So this is like a this is the beginning. And at first recognizing the fact that our pattern compulsive patterns are neuroses and beginning to work with our speed, fantasies, developing more skillful types of patterns, those which are able to produce a more predominant happy experiences, more fulfilling experiences, less suffering.
But finally and ultimately, you know, trying to go beyond all types of patterned existence altogether. So it’s, you know, you know, going beyond our particular style of suffering, you know, all our particular same sort of occupation. Occupation. You know, go beyond our our ego and our self cherish. Because we believe in this controller, because we see you know, we’re very poverty stricken.
We because we believe, we see pleasure outside of ourselves, because we project, you know, alienated qualities onto others, because we feel a sense of poverty. For example, things aren’t naturally going to flow to us, that we have to magnetize things, that we have to go out and drag happiness back into our own territory. Because of the anesthetic effect of mechanical programs, which most of our life is bound up in, most of our activities, Everything becomes very much objects to keep the firebrand moving, to keep the illusion going. Everything becomes a way to make it glow brighter, to make it appear even more solid and real, and to to make the ego more alive. So this is self-cherishing.
So these are the two basic premises of our existence upon which we base ordinary existence. The efficacy of self-cherishing and ego grasping. This is what we base our lives on. So they are the as I said, they’re epistemological error, mistakes in the way we know reality, the situation. Based upon these, all our dissatisfaction, all our suffering, all our conflicts arise.
And these two basic errors, mistaken ways of thinking, misconceptions. So, you know, we can make an analogy. You know, it’s it’s the sun’s just going down. It’s evening, and you’re walking along the road perhaps. And on the side of the road, there’s a a coiled rope.
It’s striped in color. And you glance out at the corner of your eye. And because of the conditions present in the situation, because it’s getting dark, you see a snake and you react with fear. So we’re making some kind of error in the way we know. We we we there appears to be a to us a snake when actually there isn’t one.
And because of our mistaken conception, we react with fear. We act with it creates suffering, creates pain. So now it’s the aim of the basic aim of psychology is to become more skillful in dealing with the snake, and it helps us to live better with the snake. Get along with your neighbor. How to live in harmony with the snake.
Make the best of this situation. Make sure it doesn’t bite you. Maybe you could train it. Take it on the road and put it in your shoes or whatever. So the Buddhism is saying that, you know, this is this approach is the best remedial.
It doesn’t really it’s it only goes so far. It was like this when I I was talking about before, developing more skillful patterns which have a predominance of happiness, but still, it’s a pattern, and all patterned existence is by nature dissatisfactory. So Buddhism is saying that this it may be necessary to make use of this remedial approach, but it’s not the ultimate method. It’s not the ultimate solution to our problem. It is simply it doesn’t go far enough.
You know, why spend your life trying to to adjust to something which, in fact, doesn’t exist at all? So this you know, we’re getting at the two levels of truth. And to understand Buddhism is to understand the two levels of truth. Not necessarily Buddhism, to understand reality, is to understand two levels of truth. The ultimate truth and relative truth, conventional truth.
So, you know, the snake’s the snake exists within a certain context of mistaken conceptions. In the context of mistaken beliefs, mistaken conceptions, within that situation, the snake exists, and we have to make the best of that situation. We have to learn how to live skillfully in harmony with the snake. You know, how to develop more skillful patterns in our life to bring a predominance of happiness. In other words, we have to develop a healthy ego to be happy in a pattern type of existence in a conventional reality.
So this is the realm of psychology. And it is we have to become somebody before we can be nobody. But the same time, Buddhism is saying, okay, that’s a remedial approach that’s quite necessary. At the same time, we have to be careful that we’re cultivating a healthy ego. We have to be that we’re learning to live in harmony with the snake.
We must try to make to correct our mistaken belief system. And ultimately, this ego doesn’t exist. Ultimately, the snake doesn’t exist, but we believe it does. So this requires coming to this ultimate understanding that the real nature of our situation requires a great deal of work and effort because it’s getting at the most basic of our core assumptions, the nature of our self. In order to uproot that, in order to transform that misconception, it requires a great deal of investigation and great deal of effort.
And we’re never really going to be sincere and undertake this task unless we see that even a healthy ego is dissatisfactory. Then living with a snake, even if you get get along well, is not much fun. So we have to develop a determination to be free, to emerge, you know, out of our mistaken belief system, our our mistaken sets of ideas to transform our core assumptions. So, okay, so that’s that’s like our the cocoon from which we’re trying to emerge. But even within this cocoon, you know, even in on the road to developing a healthy ego, even in in the context of learning to live harmoniously and skillfully with the snake, the realm of the ego, we still have many mistakes.
So even to develop a healthy ego, even to learn how to live in harmony with a snake, we have to begin to correct some lesser levels, lesser degrees of mistaken core assumptions, misbeliefs that we have, misconceptions. These form the fabric of our everyday life. So, you know, we believe ourselves to be, for example, limited, insufficient, incomplete, for example. We act as if we’re going to live forever, and even if we do, able to get some feeling for the fact that, okay, I’m going to die, but not right away. Sometime in the vague and distant future, either we can put some kind of screen between us and the possibility of our final end.
It’s not going to happen right away. You know, we feel that we are the victims of society, that we the victims of my family, and my mommy didn’t love me enough, that’s why I sound screwed up. That somehow, you know, we have no choice, That our happiness and unhappiness are ultimately not within our hands, are not our responsibility. So we also hold that which is dissatisfactory as satisfactory as happiness. That which is impermanent is permanent and tries to secure itself which can never be secured.
So these are some of the beliefs upon which we base our lives. And because they do not accord with reality, we inevitably meet with disappointment, frustration, and dissatisfaction. So if, you know, it’s as if we believed that a photograph of a piece of chocolate cake were an actual piece of chocolate cake, And no matter how much you may eat a piece of chocolate photograph of a piece of chocolate cake, you never you never achieve the satisfaction of eating of chocolate cake, what you’re actually looking for. And never never your desire is never fulfilled. It’s like drinking salt water.
So in this process of developing the determination to be free involves removing, transforming these lesser levels of misconceptions involves the training in what is called the four reversals. This is sort of a review, isn’t it? The four reversals. You’re becoming aware firstly, becoming aware of our potential and appreciating the the chance to actualize in it. Kind of appreciating who we are, not who we think we are.
We are not our conception of ourselves. You know, I’ve often wondered, you know, fact that most people have a very negative, limited model of themselves, self conception, image of themselves. How this comes about? Why is it almost universal that we feel ourselves to be so limited, so insufficient, incomplete? You know, it’s as if the very fact that we suffer, we’re ashamed of, That there’s something wrong with us.
That it shows some fault in ourselves. There’s a, you know, the factory didn’t quite put us together right because I suffer. Rather than serving as an impetus, as a motivation to go beyond our suffering, the awareness of suffering, it becomes this awareness is turned back on itself. It becomes a cause of further suffering, further limiting ourselves. You know, if you believe you can or if you believe you can’t, you’re right.
Our only limitations are those we acknowledge. So initially we have to begin to believe in our potential, in our ability, in our possibility of becoming a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being. So this was the first reversal that we’ve talked about. This is a review. The second is that death is certain, and that the time of death is uncertain, and at the moment of our death, you know, the only thing which is of any benefit to us is the degree that we’ve developed our mind.
And we all go through small deaths throughout our lives, these gaps before reality is recreated. We call these changes, The small deaths which are constantly reoccurring. And so we meet the big death at the end of our life very much as we do. Small deaths. You know, how we react?
You know, all the various pains and sufferings which occur to us, do we see them as obstacles to our happiness or as sources of learning, sources of growth? You know, our suffering can be a reminder of an imperfection, of something that needs to be worked on rather than being negatively fixated upon as being a deficiency. And in a sense, you know, if we never question when we’re happy, we never question what are the causes of my happiness. It’s the awareness of dissatisfaction which is always calling us back to ourselves and making us reevaluate our lives. The moment it seems as though the moment our minds become dwelling in pleasure, they become very superficial.
And they said that all the finest art is born out of suffering, born out of pain. That is to say, least an awareness of pain. So then the third reversal is the law of the cause and effect, karma, that we aren’t victims, that we have a choice. The significance of karma is simply that we no longer have to be the victims of our past. That we have a choice, that the past leads only up to the present moment.
The present moment is determined by the past, but the future is not predetermined yet. It lies exists as a potential within the present moment. And we can work with the present moment, and we can create any type of future that we want, any type of future that we desire. And the fourth reversal is the dissatisfactory quality of all states bounded by these compulsive patterns arising out of our mistaken beliefs with respect to the nature of reality, the nature of ourselves, the nature of ego. If we look deeply into these and we train in these four reversals, then we’re going to develop the determination to be free, to go beyond our self cherish, to go beyond our ego grasping.
But then this acts as the basis for the second principal aspect of the path, opening our hearts to others. You know, existentially, there’s two aspects to ourselves, the social, public aspect which exists within relationship to others, and the experiential, the private aspect to ourselves which is not open to others, which is very much our own personal world in which we all exist. So in developing ourselves and growing, we must be concerned with methods to develop both aspects of ourselves, both the private and experiential, the quiet and peace within ourselves, but also the way, the modes that we relate with others, developing more skillful processes, ways of relating with others. So, you know, the necessity of opening the hearts to others rather than basing it on a romantic notion that it it seems like a nice thing to do, that it’s actually a necessity. You know, we can base this on on reasoning, on our experience, and on our intuition.
So the word bodhicitta, opening your hearts to others and awakening mind. When some people first hear about bodhicitta, they confuse it with sentimental, highly emotional state of mind. Oh, how I want people to be happy. I cannot stand to think of their suffering. They feel so overwhelmed by the need the needs of others that their mind becomes depressed.
But true bodhicitta is not like this at all. It has nothing to do with such an upset and paralyzed state of mind. Instead, it is clear, easygoing, possessing a calm wisdom as well as a deeply felt compassion. It is an attitude of opening your heart to completely alleviate open as much as we can. So, you know, conventionally, we understand our situation.
You know, we’re honest with ourselves. We confront our problems. We acknowledge them, but we don’t indulge in them. But we’re not alone in these situations. You know, we’re social beings.
An aspect, a part of ourselves exist in relationship to others. We cannot avoid that. Even if you run away to the Himalayas, that is your way of relating to your society. It’s probably not a very skillful way at best. Part of our ourselves, part of our fortune, part of our happiness is inextricably bound up with the fortune, with the happiness of others.
Feeling that we have, this appearance of isolation that we have, feelings of isolation is merely an illusion produced out of egohood. You know, the reason reason that we don’t help each other is because, you know, we don’t understand each other. And The reason we don’t understand each other is because we don’t understand ourselves. We really don’t know our own situation. You know, our very self-cherishing and ego grasping is an obstacle to actually understanding the reality of our situation.
Just convention. So, you know, in the case of couples, for example, most most couples, you know, when they when they fight, because they don’t understand each other. They don’t have any dedication to each other. They don’t understand each other’s needs, for example. Lama Yeshe, you know, used to say that, you know, when two people come together, they need some some dedication to one another, some some aim for their life together, some going beyond their own selfish wants.
You know, their own selfish self concern, their own exaggerated self-cherishing. So in this sense, you know, we begin to open up our hearts to others, opening to others. It’s based upon understanding our own situation, you know, our own suffering, our own problems, and ex just simply extending that to others. Suppose we have a son who becomes unbearable who becomes an unbearable young man. It may be hard for us to love him.
That is natural. In order to be loved, a person should be lovable. If our son has become difficult to love, we will be very unhappy. We wish we could love him, but the only way we can is to understand him, to understand his situation. We have to take us our son as the subject of our meditation.
Instead of taking the con concept of emptiness or some other subject, we can take our son as the concrete subject of our meditation. We don’t blame our son. We just want to understand why he’s become like that. Through this method of meditation, we find out all the causes near and far that have led to our son’s present state of being. The more we see, the more we understand.
The more we understand, the easier it is for us to have compassion and love. Understanding is the source of love. Understanding is love itself. Understanding is another name for love. Love is another name for understanding.
So, you know, understanding our own situation and simply extending that to the situations of others, that we’re all very much involved, though superficially may appear differently, as I’ve been emphasizing, any state that’s bounded by ego is dissatisfactory no matter whether it’s being experienced by rock and roll star, rich the rich rich person, whether that person is laughing on the outside, still there’s the dissatisfactory quality about one’s existence as long as it’s bounded by ego, as long as it’s bounded by self cherish and selfishness, exaggerated self concern, and understanding that we are part of a of a greater whole, you know, like the hand and the foot. We’re going to talk about this as we talk about the second system of actually meditating, the opening our hearts to others, the exchange of equalizing the exchange of self for others. You know, Śāntideva, one of the most important teachers in the great vehicle in India, uses this example in his book, engaging in the bodhisattva deeds of the hand and the foot. Just as the the hand reaches down to remove the thorn from the foot, even though it itself is not suffering, because they’re both part of the same whole.
It’s not a matter of which is suffering. Because the whole is suffering, that suffering has to be alleviated, no matter whether it’s the hands or the foot. Likewise, though illusorily we appear to be separate, then in fact we’re all part of the greater whole, this whole called humanity or our living or life. And that as long as their suffering exists, it needs to be removed, whether we call it my suffering or your suffering. And then beginning to understand that ultimately, you know, the boundary between self and others that we can conceive of as so real and solid is an illusion.
And, you know, self and others are, in a sense, are just a manner, a way of speaking. You know, they’re quite helpful. They’re con conventional references. You over there and you over here. Like like far and near.
The near, the far. You know, when you go over there, far becomes near, the near becomes far. You know, they aren’t objectively existing. They’re just handy references. Likewise, self and others.
So also, you know, this is some of the reasoning that we can make use of in coming to the determination to open our hearts to others and developing the aspiration, the intention to at least try in some small way. But we can also make use of our own experience. So often we make such a fuss of insignificant events in our life that we turn minor difficulties into major problems. As we develop the universal view of bodhicitta, however, these small concerns become unimportant and no longer bother us. As this as this burden of self concern drops from our shoulders, we experience a small taste of the complete freedom that comes with the full spiritual fulfillment.
Experiences like this are encouraging because they demonstrate so convincingly the practical day to day value of training and transforming our mind. In opening our hearts to others, developing an awakening heart creates to begin to embrace all that lives, all created creatures, all living beings, beginning to take responsibility for them. You begin to say to yourself, I can do something. You know, I’m not this limited, insufficient person who I always conceived of myself to be. You know, I can develop myself.
I have to develop myself. You know, developing this dedicated attitude, You know, you begin to open up your mind to to all living beings, you know, and this unsympathetic mind, this un unconcerned mind is completely destroyed. Most of you know, you know, many parents that they know, how they’ve been able to necessity of bringing up their children, the baby for example, of necessity they’ve had to go beyond what the limits that they might have normally set upon themselves. You know, by taking responsibility to, for whatever reason, we dedicate ourselves to another person or even a situation, an organization, that when the demands are made upon us, we can able to call upon resources that we didn’t imagine existed, that we’re able to go beyond our present concepts of who we are. To the degree that we’re able to accept the responsibility for more and more people, to the same degree we’re going to be able to tap in to inner sources of wisdom.
Skillful means energy. This is what makes a Buddha. This is what it takes to become a Buddha, to be able to tap into that universal reservoir. And the only way to do this is to take universal responsibility for all sentient beings. But we can begin somewhere in a small way.
So, you know, the ego is quite you know, it’s very narrow minded. It’s very narrow, whereas the awakening mind is is very vast. bodhicitta It is a universal thought, the universal thought of taking responsibility, alleviating the suffering of all that lives. So when we when we are concerned only with the the needs of oneself, when that is the only demand that’s being made upon ourselves, upon our wisdom, upon our resources, our skillful means, then, of course, that’s only the, in response to that, that is the only quality that we’re going to, to that level, is that we’re going to be able to develop. This much of our wisdom we’re going to make use of, that much of our inner resources, our skillful means, our energy.
But as this demand becomes increases and increases, then we’re going to be forced by the very situation to develop ourselves more and more. You know, people talk about peace. People talk about social justice. People talk, know, for example, about the need for revolutions, etcetera. But the real revolution spiritually, and perhaps ultimately, is to cherish others more than ourselves.
The real internal revolution, however overthrowing the tyrant of self-cherishing, which we’ve, you know, we’ve been oppressed with all our lives, which hasn’t done us the least bit of good. It hasn’t brought us any happiness, which has only brought us suffering. So this is, you know, this is a great challenge. You know, you’re doing something, you know, even if you just, you know, aim yourself in that direction, then your life becomes worthwhile. You know, life has great meaning.
You can great respect for yourself. You know, even in a very mundane sense, we have to respect ourselves if we’re going to be happy. You know, if it if it is our most innermost desire to go beyond our self centered, our self-cherishing thoughts, then we have to we have to make some effort in that direction. And then there’s, you know, opening our hearts to others. This this aspiration also arises based on intuition.
You know, the the inarticulate whisperings of one’s heart, of our hearts. There’s a verse by Shelly. For when the power of imparting joy is equal to the will, the human soul requires no other heaven. So beyond, you know, beyond our intellect, beyond our experience, beyond the pragmatism of developing love and compassion and awakening the heart simply because it becomes our inmost desire. That the idea, the awakening, the thought resonates something very deep within us.
That part of our self which is lying dormant for most of our lives, That part of ourselves, unless we begin to activate, begin to vitalize, to bring to life, without which, you know, life becomes just a series of events moving from one hollow experience to the next without much meaning, without much purpose. So, yeah, we’re talking about the in the actual development of bodhicitta, opening our hearts to others, there are two main traditions that we’ve been working with. The sevenfold cause and effect precept and the tradition of equalizing and exchanging self for others. And we’ve we’ve gone through the first of these to sevenfold cause and effect precept. First, we we developed a foundation of equanimity.
That is beginning to understand that these labels that we apply to that we unconsciously apply project onto others as friend and enemy and strangers and thereby react to are both arbitrary and constantly changing, so we don’t grasp onto them, hold onto them so tightly. We develop the ground for the for an unconditioned positive regard for all sentient beings equally. And based upon that granting the foundation of equanimity, we recognize all sentient beings as our mother, remember their kindness, developed a wish to repay their kindness, developed a thought of affectionate love for them, great compassion, exceptional resolve, wishing to achieve, develop ourselves in order to alleviate their suffering, which culminated in the seventh effect, which is bodhicitta, bodhicitta. So that was the first of these two traditions. In the next few weeks, we’re going to be discussing the second of these two traditions, that is equalizing and exchanging ourselves for others.
So the second of these two traditions, these teachings have come down in an unbroken lineage from a Śākyamūni Buddha to Mañjuśrī to Śāntideva to Atisha and down to the present day. You know, there’s been a transmission, a passing of not only the concepts, but the very vitality, the very essence, the aspiration, the energy of these teachings. Unbroken circuit coming down from Śākyamūni Buddha to the present time. So the most important of the teachings on this are the commentaries and the root texts which developed this tradition, this particular system of awakening our heart, one of which is written by Śāntideva in the Bodhicaryāvatāra, who is in the lineage of this tradition, this and then the this is the root source for these teachings. And then there are various commentaries.
One com commentaries by Tibetan masters such as Gyalse Togme Zangpo, and various commentaries written upon their works by Kadampa Geshes, various a particular lineage of masters which existed just before Tsongkhapa. In some ways, Tsongkhapa’s tradition is an extension of the tradition of the Kadampa masters. So the basis of exchange of self for others is equality of self and others. Now again, we’re going to develop an even foundation upon which to build this edifices, edifice of an awakening heart. In developing this, I’m just going to, you know, just give you an sort of aerial view.
Okay. Very roughly, very quickly. So you’ll know what’s coming. Coming events, coming attractions. And developing this quality of self and others as a foundation, an even foundation upon which to build bodhicitta upon.
We use you know, developing this understanding, we we meditate on both the conventional and ultimate nature of ourselves and others in regards to the way we relate to happiness and suffering. For example, you know, realizing that conventionally that all sentient beings want happiness, that no sentient being wants to suffer. That’s the central base, you know, the bottom line of our feeling in life is that we want to be happy. We don’t want to start with everyone in this room is exactly that way, that same, no matter what superficial appearances may present themselves. And that ultimately, for example, other other what we call other.
You’re other than me. Right? But other arises in dependence upon self. Other arises depends upon self. If we do not conceive of self, then other does not arise.
Other rises in dependence upon a conception of self. Self and other do not ultimately exist. They do not object self and other are not objectively existing. So these are some of the ideas we’re going to work with in developing, ultimately and conventionally, the mind which feels equality of self and others, and amongst others, an equanimity, an unbiased attitude. Our meditating on the equality of self and others is to develop the mind that that seeks the happiness of others and to and to separate them from suffering to the same degree that we now that we now work to find our own happiness and to separate ourselves from suffering.
To that same degree, we’re willing to work for the benefit of others to help them find happiness, to separate them from suffering. So this is the culmination, the measure of developing this equality of self and others. So based upon this, you know, this this development, this realization, you know, we begin to practice the exchange of self for others. And this begins with the reflection or reflecting upon the disadvantages of self-cherishing, you know, this exaggerated self concern, you know, essentially selfishness, as opposed to the advantages of cherishing others, being concerned about others. You know, this involves, you know, actually examining our own experience, our life experience, and seeing that this me first attitude, which which we use as the basis for all our actions.
You know? There’s at times, it may appear superficially to bring us to help us. In fact, it’s directly and indirectly setting up an environment, a situation of conflict, of paranoia, of dissatisfaction. In fact, it’s working against us. And while, on the other hand, concerning ourselves with others is setting up an environment, a situation, our fulfillment of caring and harmony.
So, essentially, we’re trying to see deeply that this exaggerated self concern does not work even though we persist. This is what I was talking about before, all we have cultivated is unawareness, a closed mindedness, and we persistently repeat the same mistakes again and again and again irrationally. Here we’re saying that exaggerated self concern simply does not work, but we use this method as the basis, as a foundation for all our relationships. And it’s actually bringing us the opposite of what we’re looking for.
But we have to actually unless you take the time, maybe have it pointed out to you clearly, which perhaps I can’t do, And yet perhaps you’re never going to see it. And then take the time, create the space. The Buddha’s always pointing. He says, take a look at this. Take a look at this.
You check up. And that, in fact, you know, being more concerned about others, cherishing as it may be a means, the real method, a real productive, efficient method for finding the happiness, you know, that we’re really looking for. It will actually work. So then we go on. Having done that, we looked at the disadvantages of self-cherishing and the advantages of cherishing others.
We go then go on to practice the actual exchange of self for others. Now what this what this is is is an exchange of mental attitudes. At present, you know, we consider ourselves very precious, and we usually are unconcerned with other people. So we begin to purposely, to constantly cultivate, to habituate a mind to a different object of our cherishing. And rather than constantly I being the the object of our cherishing, we begin to