Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Jampa Gendun opens this two-hour session with a Native American song about wandering — empty, hungry, sorrowful — turning it into an entry point for the Buddhist path. He develops a metaphor from the Greek ideos: ideas are eyes, and changing our framework changes what we see, illustrated by a medical student learning to read a chest X-ray. A guided three-part forgiveness meditation follows — forgiving oneself, asking forgiveness of others, forgiving those who caused harm. The commentary then enters Tsongkhapa’s Three Principal Aspects of the Path, focusing on renunciation — here called “the will to awaken”: how the eight worldly concerns trap us in cyclic existence, the six realms understood as recognisable daily emotional attitudes, and why renunciation means releasing the dissatisfied mentality rather than giving up one’s wife, husband, or chocolate cake.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 10 3PA 2006 10 23.mp3
UUID: b0b4c0e2-a394-4199-a488-40f6284af937
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 2006-2007 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2006-10-23
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 130.9 minutes
Words: ~13,583
This is I’d like to share a song with you, but it’s by a native American Indian. With a place of hunger in me, I wander. Food will not fill it. Ayah, beautiful. With an empty place in me, I wander.
Nothing will fill it. Ayah, beautiful. With a place of sorrow in me, I wander. Time will not end it. Ayah.
Beautiful. With a place of loneliness in me, I wander. No one will fill it. Ayah. Beautiful.
Forever alone, forever in sorrow, I wander. Forever empty, forever hungry, I wander. With the sorrow of great beauty, I wander. With the emptiness of great beauty, I wander. Never alone, never weeping, never empty.
Now on the old age trail, now on the path of beauty, I wander. Alani, beautiful. So, you know, from the point of view of Buddhism, the the spiritual journey involves traveling a path. And the path is is what takes us from where we are right now to where we want to get to. And this it endows with in the the path endows us with a sense of competency.
It it and and it competency. It it and and it empowers us to attain what it is that we want. So we’re trying to integrate this path within ourselves. You know, the Pali word for path is Pate means putting one foot in front of the next. So in this way, when we think of a path, you know, spiritual journey, there’s no substitute for actually doing something.
We actually have to take a first step. We have to try. We have to maybe try harder or we have to try differently, but and hopefully a difference that will make a difference. But in one way or another, we have to make some effort. We have to try.
It involves a journey, and a journey requires some kind of effort. So the the traveling of the Buddhist path most essentially involves awakening our heart to others and our minds to the nature of reality. It has a there’s a we try we’re trying to change the ways that we feel and the ways that we think. And so this can be done or this can be worked with both by indirect, indirect means. The, you know, the indirect means are probably things that we do or that we should do one way or another almost every day in some fashion or another.
I I was interested to hear how everybody’s working so hard, you know, and all the various jobs at uni and and their work and probably at home also. It sounds like everybody’s pretty stressed out. I I admire you coming here on and trying to set aside the time and put in energy to working with your mind. I think it shows a lot of wisdom, a lot of you know? I I I have to give you a lot of credit for what you’re doing.
I think you’re really trying. And the ways ways that we can try are in terms of these indirect, indirect means. Indirect means, you know, the going out into the countryside, going for walks in nature, and a change in you know, beginning simply to change the quality of our mind in some way, the type of some type of beneficial change in the quality of our mind. You know, the type of work that we do influences our thinking, you know, types of work which are most skillfully those which are a benefit to others, the caring professions, nursing, teaching. You know, there’s a lot but there’s lots of different ways.
Even even a secretary in a in a company can be a way of benefiting others. So transforming what we do every day, as some means, by the way that we approach in terms of our motivation, such that it becomes a benefit even if only indirectly, but making a good product with a sense of healthy sense of pride is something useful, the day our daily lifestyle, the the the quality of the work that we do, the how we spend it spending times with others in a kind of a quality time with others, some kind of creative interest, sometimes exercise, yoga, quiet times by yourself, yourself, periods of silence, for example. So the way what the way what you eat, the types of nutritious food. So all of these are are in a way they’re indirect means to help us on our journey along the spiritual path. As we’ve talked about, there is a direct means.
And the direct means is that of involving ourselves in the three stages of listening, reflecting, and meditating. So, you know, this was the direct means by which we can bring about a transformation, the way that we actually put one foot in front of another, the way that we actually change our hearts and change our thinking. So, you know, the listening stage, we gather all the facts together, we see how the information fits, the categories and so forth, we understand the meanings of the various words, the terms. We we try to on a reflecting stage, we try to we reflect upon what we hear, we think about it, we see how it accords with our experience, we try to reason it out, we try to analyze it using logic, see whether it’s internally consistent, see whether it accords with our own experience, creating doubts. We clarify those doubts for ourselves.
We gain some kind of real knowledge for ourselves. We come to some understanding for ourselves. Then we then we put it into practice. We actually try to be whatever it is that we’re that we’re analyzing, whatever it is that we’re looking at, whether it’s an intellectual or whether it’s heartfelt. We try to integrate it through meditation, and then we simply accustom ourselves again and again conclusions that we come to.
And we bring about some kind of change in our mind, and therefore, in our lives. So the point is that in this describing this this spiritual journey as it’s as it’s outlined or as it’s taught within Buddhism. That the the process of implementing these indirect indirect means, this putting one, you know, one foot in front of the next. Buddhism is not telling us how to live our lives. It’s it it it doesn’t have a it’s trying to help us to gain some kind of insight into how our lives are being lived.
You know, the the how to understand where we are, how we got here, where we want to go to, and how best to get there. The, you know, the the the how to live is taken care of within that understanding. It, you know, it organically arises out of all of this understanding. How are we going to live our you know, through our new ideas, our new understandings, the experience of integration, we will change and and we’ll grow. And natural we will natural our lives will naturally affect what it is with these new understandings, these new experiences that we’re coming to.
You know, we don’t have to I think we should should be able to look over a period of time and see some kinds of changes. But I think some types of changes or sometimes we’re we have overly expected to have unrealistic expectations or hopes about much of what we do. And moreover, perhaps we’re a bit too self conscious about what we do. You know, if we concern ourselves simply with creating conditions and the causes for these changes, then they we can have some kind of confidence in the method that they’re going to they’re going to come about. You know, progress on the path shows.
Calmness and skill and action is a sign is indicative of wisdom. And caring and concern for others is indications of compassion. But these ways of but there are as many ways that these indicators growth, of traveling of actually traveling in a spiritual path, that they can find expression in a person’s life as there are individuals. And if we can’t really compare ourselves to the person next to us and how they might be living their life. Our way of of living out the path and how it’s going to find expression, the new understandings, new ideas we’re coming to are going to be expressed in very unique ways within ourselves.
Now they find, you know, within our particular circumstance, within our particular temperament and our capacities. You know, our continuous search for some kind of magic formula, some some prescription which is going to tell us how to act in every kind of situation and at every moment of our lives. It’s just in some kind of unburying formula that we can unmindlessly plug into our lives where we it’s just another strategy whereby we try to avoid thinking for ourselves, making conscious choices for ourselves and accepting responsibility for those choices. At some level, we think and behave there is just to the otherwise, to the contrary, there is just no getting around the absolute necessity of using our own minds and trying to find how these teachings ings adapt to yourself and how they’re going to find expression, how you’re going to be able to work with them and implement them in your everyday life, whether it’s going to uni, in your home, in nursing, whatever. Then we have to actually see how they can be applied in in helping us to change for the better and working in our particular situation.
You know, to to to change our minds is to change our ideals within our minds. And that that is to experience new and different ideals for ourselves and how they’re going to affect us. The the word for idea in Greek is ideos. And ideos, it’s is interesting, I think. It means both, you know, when we think about ideas, the images or the appearances for that arise in our mind, but also the means by which these appearances arise.
So the means by which these ideas, these images, these appearances are seen. So the our ideas ideas are like eyes. The eyes out of which we look upon the world. Our ideas are our eyes through which we view ourselves and we view our world. They’re like the lens out of which we come to understand, in which we create our reality for ourselves by means of our ideas about the world.
We see with our ideas. Change your ideas and you will change the way that you view yourself and your world, and therefore how you relate with it, and therefore how you experience it. So read a quote. Moreover, without them, ideas, we cannot see even what we sense with eyes and our heads, for our perceptions are shaped according to particular ideas. Once we consider the world flat, and now we consider it round, once we observe the sun rotate around the earth, and now we observe the earth turn around the sun, our ideas and their perceptions do not change with the Renaissance, but our ideas have changed, and with that, what we see.
Ideas are not just ideas or just in the head, and they may they may not be poo pooed away since they are very modes through which we are envisioning and enacting our lives. We embody them as we speak and move. We are always in the embrace of an idea. So the the ideas of of new the eyes of new and different ideas are the ways that we gain insight into how our lives are being lived. The more ideas that you have, the more that you see.
The more that you see, the deeper your ideas, the deeper that you will see. So ideas, they they engender other ideas, more ideas, and and with them, a a new perspective for viewing our reality. So we’re we’re we’re what we’re gaining, we’re playing with, we’re we’re coming to understand generating new ideas. And out of those ideas, you know, we can’t it’s like a a sometimes it’s like a a fish in a in a an aquarium, a tank. It’s very difficult for to imagine or to see to come to know what the water is.
That’s it’s it’s so immediate. It’s all that it knows. It’s so close to it, you can’t even see it. So how how we are changing is often not apparent to ourselves because we’re so close to it. You know, ideals are changing, and the ideals of the eyes be by which we see it.
We look upon ourselves, and we see how we’re experiencing. And sometimes we our eyes are so close to us that we don’t aren’t able to to see the change in which are actually going on in ourselves. It requires some kind of perspective, some distance, and then we can begin to judge and kind of see where where it is that we were and now to where we have progressed. So we can’t be I think we have to try, maybe harder or differently, but we also have to have a sense of not to push. Some kind of consistent healthy effort is necessary.
That’s for sure. But but not but but sometimes I think people are too self conscious or they’re or they, you know, they they or they they create a situation which is so which they set themselves up for failure. It simply replicates a lot of unhealthy ways of being with ourselves. We we have to try, but we also have to find a way to be gentle with ourselves. We simply have to do the work and trust that the result will come.
You know, the eyes of new ideas, how to gain insight. So that’s what we’re doing in here a way, I think. I think we’re trying to learn about new ideas, different ideas, and beginning to if we can take possession of them, if we can make them our own, then they become the eyes out of which we begin to look at the world differently and experience it differently. Think of a medical student or a nursing student. Okay?
Think of a medical student attending a course in X-ray diagnosis of pulmonary diseases. So you have this situation, you know, some medical students, you have some teaching doctors who are teaching the course up in front of the class, And he had, so the student, he watches in a darkened room shadowy traces on a fluorescent screen placed against the patient’s chest. And here is the radiologist commenting to his assistant in technical language on the significant features of these shadows. At first, the student is completely puzzled, for he can see in the X-ray picture of the chest only shadows of the heart and ribs with a few spidery blotches here and there. The experts seem to be romancing about figments of their imagination.
He can see nothing that they are talking about. Then as he goes on listening for a few weeks, looking carefully at every at ever new pictures of different cases, a tentative understanding will dawn on him. He will gradually forget about the ribs and begin to see the lungs. And eventually, if he perseveres intelligently, a rich panorama of significant details will be revealed to him, of physiological variations and pathological changes of scars, of chronic infections, and signs of acute disease. He has entered a new world.
He still sees only a fraction of what the experts can see, but the pictures are definitely making sense now, and do and so do most of the comments made on them. He is about to grasp what is being taught. It is clicked. So, you know, we don’t see something until we have the right idea, the appropriate metaphor, which allows us to see it. They were they were in this in this earlier quote, he was talking about, you know, we see the sun rising in east, don’t we?
You know, if you wake up early in the morning and you mentioned the sun’s coming in through your window. But, actually, the sun doesn’t rise in the east, does it? But that’s what we see. And, actually, the the earth is spinning toward the sun. The sun is standing still.
But but that’s the but that’s the way that we see it. That’s the metaphor that we’re using viewing it. That’s the idea that we have. We don’t see something until we have the right idea that allows us to see it. So the, you know, the idea of Buddhism are the therapeutic eyes which allows us to see a world which is no longer problematic.
The eyes that we presently look at upon the world, the ideas that we that through which the lenses to which we look at upon the world create We we see the world as problematic, as dissatisfactory, as in some way causing us a source of suffering for ourselves. But by by integrating the ideas and therefore the eyes out of which we Buddhism, out of which we can begin to look out upon the world, we begin to see a Buddhist world, a world which is which is no longer problematic, which is experienced as fulfilling, which is when is in terms of the effective quality seen in terms of deserving of compassion and understood as empty of any kind of true existence. So we just have to grasp and integrate that view by developing and grasping those ideas in order to enter into a Buddha’s world. We listen to the teachings of experts, somebody that knows what they are talking about, not myself, for example. We we critically examine what they say, describing, persevering.
We begin to eventually begin to understand and see for ourselves, you know, just like the student with this looking at these x rays of of of the the chest. And we begin to see for ourselves new new and different ideas begin to emerge. A new world is revealed just like to these students. Before, it didn’t make any sense. And these people I you know, the the radiologist was just talking nonsense.
Right? They couldn’t couldn’t fathom what he was talking about. But, eventually, it made perfect sense. You know, he had integrated. Some something had clicked for for this person if you persevere.
So we having grasped the significance of the teachings, we we then meditate, you know, allow these newly developing ideas to ideas to to practice on by ourselves, to change ourselves. You know, we we we begin to see things differently. So our refuges become are redefined. What was what we saw sought at saw as happiness previously is no longer seen as happiness. In fact, we begin to redefine what what in fact is our source of happiness, and we begin to there begins to some kind of in our ways of thinking and our approach to the world, you know, how we how we’re going to live our life.
So the ideal ideals of Buddhism, how simply how a Buddha views the world are not prescriptions for or formulas for a way of living, but for but fundamentally, what we’re learning about are tools for growth, you know, how to be a happier person. You know, it’s places like an education for ourselves, something that that most people neglect. Yeah. I don’t know. It’s interesting, isn’t it?
That most people assume I mean, you wouldn’t most people assume that we can we we know how to be happy. I mean, there’s no on the whole, there aren’t any there aren’t any there’s not a course that you study in the school, whether in high school or even in tertiary education, you know, how to how to be a better person living a better life, how to find fulfillment and meaning in your life. They don’t they don’t think they have a course at the uni for this yet. So, you know, this is like a an extended extended an extension of our of our education, something that we missed along the way, and how to how to be happy is essentially what we’re trying to do. You know, the Buddhism asks us to take two central ideas, to take the idea of awakening, the idea of of of a life centered around wisdom and love and compassion as the inner focus of our life to try to see the world in terms of those, you know, to make them a priority for ourselves as a as a central focus of our life.
They ask us to make an experiment and to try, to see if by this trying, whether harder or differently, we might find in the actual ity of our lived experience what it is that we are looking for most in our lives, whatever it might be. And we are able to, in some way, get rid of what it is that we don’t want for ourselves. So more than not, you know, we talked about we’re always talking about going for refuge. It’s just trying that more than not is our refuge. You know?
Trying to make wisdom, love, and compassion, the development of personal power, you know, trying to be able to develop the the ability to make a difference, both in terms of your own lives and the betterment of other people’s lives, and how these find, you know, a practical expression in your everyday life in terms of skillfully benefiting others and fierce fearlessly helping others in whatever way you can. And that trying, you know, that that’s we don’t have to you know, we don’t need words in the formulas. I think we don’t need lots of prayer. It’s more of in terms of our prayers or our going for refuge or what we do in our everyday life. Our life can be like a prayer.
So the inner inner focus of my life is Buddha, embodiment of wisdom, love, compassion, and purse and personal power and the skillful and fearless expression in our everyday life. And we have to try either harder or differently, and trying involves implementing the dharma. These methods, these techniques are more than not just simply trying to find the truth of things in our everyday life. And this we we we need the help of others in implementing the dharma in your life and also helping others to do the same in the Sangha, the spiritual community, those who who have who are like minded, who are who are on the journey with ourselves. You know, we we we’re all on this journey.
We’re all it’s like climbing a mountain. When you’re climbing a mountain, sometimes you have to reach back and give somebody else a hand over a particular boulder or a diff particular difficult spot. And likewise, you can reach forward, and somebody will take your hand, and they’ll help you over difficult spot. That’s the sangha. And we try to raise the level of motivation.
Why we’re doing what we do such that if we could just do it, you know, in a very practical sense, just somebody that you care care about in your everyday life and thinking about them. What am I what I’m about to do? In some way, if if only indirectly, if only becoming a a slightly kinder, more more patient person, a more understanding person, a little more skills in order to be a benefit to that only other person, then we can be assured that what we do is going to be a benefit not only to ourselves but also to others. Otherwise, we can’t be sure. We don’t we we it’s not definite because the the motivation is indefinite, and the quality of the result is dependent upon the quality of the cause, the motivation, the intention behind what we do.
So, ultimately, in this process, we go for refuge to in order to perfectly and completely awaken ourselves for the sake of all living beings. I go for refuge until I’m awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Through my practice of generosity and the other perfections, may I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha through my practice of generosity and the other perfections. May I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings.
I go for refuge until I am awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha through my practice of generosity and the other perfections. May I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. May all sentient beings have happiness in the causes of happiness. May all sentient beings be free from suffering in the causes of suffering. May all sentient beings be inseparable from the joy that is without sorrow.
May all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free from attachment to some and aversion toward others. Would you wanna stand up for minute while you stretch your legs and we’ll meditate? So I thought we’d meditate on forgiveness again as we did last week. And, you know, it’s the it’s something that, you know, it’s however justified you feel holding your grudge. You know, it’s like, you know, if you went to the world court, it’s you’re right.
This guy’s a bastard, deserves deserve every every bit of anger, every bit of hostility. You only hurt yourself. It doesn’t hurt the other person. If you’re gonna hurt the other person, you should be a little more skillful around it, know, a little more skillful about it. Don’t hurt yourself when it that doesn’t help.
Anyway, so in holding a grudge, holding anger, hostility, this how you were treated unfairly. It really hurts us. I think it hurts us in many more ways than we can imagine. Our inability to do trust, to to to feel at home with our lives, to let down our defenses, to feel apart, to overcome our sense of isolation, and sense of boundary. It all comes from this, I think, a sense of unwillingness to let go of a great deal of the hurts that we either we that have we’ve experienced in the course of our life from others or or even ourselves, either intentionally or unintentionally.
But it doesn’t do any good in the long run. It only compounds the problem. We were hurt, and now we’re hurting ourselves. You know, as I think I I mentioned last week, forgiveness is a price that we pay for freedom. You know, that we we can’t we have to give up our hope that the past was otherwise.
And we have to move on. And one way of moving on is by letting go in terms of forgiveness. And as I’ve as I’ve tried to emphasize, this forgiveness is not forgetting. It’s the giving up. It’s the letting go of the grudge, the sense of wishing to retaliate, wanting to hurt back or see the other person hurt in some way.
So we just we might have to make adjustments in practical ways. Maybe some some some wrongs have to be righted in practical ways, but this doesn’t have anything to do with hurting or getting back or retaliating. So we’re going to look at forgiveness in terms of the three possibilities, forgiving ourselves. You know, we we’ve hurt others intentionally or unintentionally. We’ve we’ve made mistakes.
We’ve hurt others out of anger, attachment, and so forth. We’ve hurt ourselves, made some wrong choices. We’ve let ourselves down. We’ve disappointed ourselves. Lots and lots of different ways.
So we have to also forgive ourselves. So one way we’re going to begin to look at forgiveness is in forgiving ourselves. You know, there are many ways that I’ve hurt and harm myself, knowingly or unknowingly, and for all those ways. And thinking of a specific instance, I forgive myself. I forgive myself.
And maybe in some way we can we can let go and move on in some kind of release. I extend full and heartfelt forgiveness toward myself. Now be gentle with yourself. You deserve your own compassion. We also each of us ourselves individually suffer, and we are deserving of our own compassion.
And we often make mistakes that we would rather have not made. So we have to be forgiving toward ourselves. And we’ve been we also have to forgive others for the mistakes that we’ve that we’ve hurt the ways that we’ve hurt others asking for their forgiveness. So, again, remember the specific instance, how we’ve hurt others knowingly or unknowingly out of out of your pain, out of your fear, out of anger, out of confusion, whatever, and asking their forgiveness. And then if you can, having a sense that if they were here, if they were to hear you, that they would grant you that forgiveness to you, that it would be okay.
And then the third way we can ask for forgiveness is forgiving those who have harmed ourselves and extending the same understanding that we have about ourselves, you know, in terms of all of our our confusion, our own fears, our our own anger, and so forth, the mistakes that we’ve made. Likewise, but people also do the same. And, anyway, we have to learn to forgive. It’s like our calling, isn’t it? We can’t we don’t have the luxury to indulge in holding grudges.
And we have to our calling is a higher calling than that, you know, to practice love and compassion, and part of that is forgiveness. It’s a it’s a difficult path in that way. But it’s there’s no there’s really no choice. I think it was Krishnamurti said for the for the intelligent person, there are very few choices in life. If we’re ever going to find any peace for ourselves, then we have to you know, there’s only there’s only certain ways that we have to there are certain paths that we have to follow.
And it seems forgiveness is one of those. So we’re you could even think that we’re doing it for ourselves. So forgiving, you know, for all the the hurt and the harm that others have caused us knowingly or unknowingly out of their confusion, their anger, their fear, their their their pain. I forgive you. I forgive you.
And see if you can let go. Okay. So let’s try that. So take a firm, comfortable posture, keeping your back straight. And let’s begin with relaxing.
Starting at the crown of the head, the scalp, the forehead, feeling the wrinkles in the brow begin to smooth out. The pressure in or in and around the eyes beginning to dissipate. Facial muscles beginning to soften. The jaws relax. Neck muscles softening, relaxing.
Perhaps turn your Moving down to your shoulders, perhaps rotating your shoulders a few times. Keeping your back straight, but letting your shoulders relax. Just hang off your off the spinal cord. Feeling the burden, the tension, to move down and out of the body into the ground. Shoulders relaxing.
Your hands, a limp at ease. In her arms. Drop your arms. Your chest is at ease. Release the tension that you hold in your stomach muscles, letting the belly go soft.
Relaxing Upper legs. Lower legs. And your feet. Relax the muscles in the feet. And then bring your awareness to the body, noticing any tightness, any tensions in your body.
Consciously softening, relaxing, feeling the tightness, the solidity, the hardness begin to dissipate. All the tensions are held in the body moving down into the ground. Feeling your body become comfortable at ease. Bring your awareness to the breath. Just easy, gentle, in and out flow of the natural breath.
If it’s helpful using techniques of counting and noting the breath. If you’re counting, stop counting. If you’re noting, continue to note the breath. If you’re not noting, try noting the breath. Just note the in and out of the breath.
We’re going to change the primary object to the objects of the mental consciousness, various pictures, the thoughts. So continue to note what the primary object, are the appearances, thoughts, whatever arises for your mental consciousness, seeing, thinking, hearing. Continue to note your attention is on the objects of the mental consciousness. That’s your primary object. Now we’re going to meditate on forgiveness, beginning with forgiving ourselves, remembering a specific event, something that happened where you might have hurt others or hurt yourself knowingly or unknowingly, intentionally or unintentionally, perhaps out of anger or pain or confusion or fear, whatever the reason.
I extend full and heartfelt forgiveness towards myself. I forgive myself. I forgive myself. I forgive myself. Now I’m going to meditate on second type of forgiveness, asking the forgiveness of others.
So remembering a specific event where you might have hurt or harmed another out of anger or pain or confusion, knowingly or unknowingly, intentionally or unintentionally. I ask for your forgiveness. I ask for your forgiveness. I ask for your forgiveness. Feel as if you imagine them granting your forgiveness, if they understood.
I could hear you now that they would forgive you. And then finally, the third type of forgiveness, forgiving others for the harm or the hurt that they’ve caused ourselves, extending that same understanding that we have for ourselves toward them, that they also do things that they feel might be mistaken or out of their pain or their confusion, their anger, they too make mistakes. They too have hurt us unintentionally or intentionally knowing or unknowingly and try to let go of any grudge, any wish that to see them hurt in return. I forgive you. I forgive you.
I forgive you. Just let it go. And then bring your mind back to the breath. And getting in touch with your body, noticing any sensations, feelings in the body. And slowly, becoming aware of what’s going on about you.
Take your time. There’s no hurry. So the the the overall text of Tsongkhapa’s three principal aspects of the path had three major divisions, the prologue, which is a preliminary leading into the composition of the text, the body of the text itself, and then an epilogue or conclusion. So we finished the prologue. We the the preliminary leading into the composition of the text, and now we’re beginning the actual body of the text.
We’re going to begin next explanation of the three principal aspects of the path, the will to awaken. And that’s my term. I hope you don’t mind if I impose my my translation terms on you. Other terms which have been used in the the traditional term is renunciation. Okay.
Determination to be free. Definite arising. Very literal. Anyway, we can talk more about that. Any so the will to be free, the awakened heart, and the awakened mind, the three principal aspects of the path.
The explanation of the first of these three principal aspects of the path, the will to awaken, has has three divisions, three sections to it. The reason why we should develop, or it would be quite helpful to develop the awakened heart, the will to awaken, the way to actually develop the will to awaken, and then thirdly, the point at which it has been developed. How do we know when we’ve actually gained the measure of development of the the will to awaken, this determination to be free. So beginning with this first section, the reason why we should develop the will to awaken, and this is brought out in the third verse of Tsongkhapa’s text. It says, without real renunciation, there is no way to end your struggle for pleasure sought in the seas of conditioned existence, and to clinging to such existence will utterly enslave you.
Therefore, at the outset, seek the will to awaken. So, you know, going through this and explaining some of the perhaps what some of the terms mean, some of the ideas. Gaining some of these ideas so we begin to make use of them as eyes so we can begin to see the world differently in ourselves. So what are some of the you know, we’re learning about new ideas, aren’t we, in a way, I think? They’re unusual ideas to say the least without real renunciation.
So without without real determination to be free, we’re going to perpetually remain stuck in our compulsive and repetitive patterns of thinking and behaving. I mean, we’re stuck, aren’t we? To some degree, to more or less. And we have to get we have to energize ourselves. We have to motivate ourselves to get unstuck.
Otherwise, not much is going to change in our life in terms of its, you know, we all the blood, sweat, and tears that we’ve expended over the course of our life, you know, all our failures and successes, all our all our efforts and where have they got us, pretty Pretty much. You know, we’re we’re dealing with most of the same problems that that we did when we were fourteen years in a way. Looked at in slightly different fashion, perhaps. But, basically, the the same patterns of dissatisfaction or frustration or disappointment seem to keep returning in some way back to our lives again and again and again. So, normally, we try we try to the way of the world is to manipulate the out what is external to ourselves.
You know, that’s the materialistic approach to bigger, better, more as a means of solving our problems. But that really doesn’t work very well. We have to types of we that of changing that we’re trying to bring about are internal to ourselves. You know, we’re trying to go beyond these these cycles of existence. And unless we change, nothing basic is going to change in terms of the quality of our life.
I think we have to to cease we have to integrate that idea or see that very deeply, don’t we, in order to because it’s not easy to change. There’s a resistance to change, and I think we have to acknowledge that. So the cyclic existence, that’s where we’re bound up in more or less. These perpetual cycles are repetitive behaviors of thinking. It’s like it’s like the existence is is the opposite opposite of a path.
This is a path is when we embark on a path, we discover some way to begin to open up our lives to other possibilities that we begin to explore other avenues, you know, like walking down this another street. When we have we have this when we we we we step out of this repetitive compulsive way of thinking, when we begin to have the capacity to step out of these are recurring patterns of thinking and behaving. We can we can avail ourselves of our innate sanity in this process if process if if if we’re able to see the reality of what is actually going on for ourselves. Buddhism says the giving up is in the scene. If you do not naturally drop your stupid assumptions, this is because you have not really understood their stupidity or perhaps because you saw it once, but the insight has been has lost its force and old habits have resurrected themselves.
How could you cling to what you know to be false or worthless if you have it is if it is as if you treasured a ring that you have found in in the belief discover that it’s actually valueless imitation. Could you continue to feel the same about it? Of course not. In the moment of knowledge comes a change of attitude, and with it, a change in how you behave. So, you know, I think this word renunciation has has gotten a lot of bad press.
It’s it’s it’s it has notion of hair shirts or, you know, flagellation or something like that or having things or foregoing and repressing, having things ripped away from you, all the all the so these these dirty old men are trying to take away all my my my little happinesses that I’ve been able to to scratch out in the course of my life. So I think renunciation is clearly seeing just how self defeating many of our present ways of thinking and behaving really are. And I I think that’s it it’s if we if we present the reality of what is going on for us to ourselves, we don’t there’s no great sacrifice. You know, if you conceive of putting your hand in a flame as happiness, then you shouldn’t be that you’re continually being burnt. But once you understand that it’s that it’s painful, no one has to say to you, oh, don’t put your hand in the flame.
Don’t put your hand in your flame because you’ve come to understand yourself that you’re only going to be burnt. It’s only gonna cause you suffering. You know, we don’t have this whole back of hand. Don’t, you know, don’t go into the flame. Don’t go into the flame.
You know, our natural intelligence will begin to operate more and more once we once we begin to see the reality of our situation. So we haven’t seen the self defeating nature of more most of what we do in terms of our thinking, the ways that we think, and the ways that we behave. It it in general, what we are renouncing are the causes of suffering. And that’s in in particular, in terms of the Mahāyāna, universal vehicle, we’re renouncing whatever stands between ourselves, whatever interferes with in helping another. So that’s what we’re renouncing more than not.
So if without this real renunciation, there is no way to end your struggle for the pleasures sought in the seas of conditioned existence. So here, conditioned existence means a type, a way of life which is under the control of, under the influence of karma and afflictive emotions. So by karma, I simply simply mean karma simply means or one way of looking at it, one perspective. It means the way our minds are conditioned. So our the way that we speak and act are conditioned by our past ways of thinking, by by our past ways of speaking and acting.
So when we talk about freedom from karma and and afflictive emotions, we’re talking about freedom from past conditioning, freedom from past conditioning and our present dysfunctional patterns of thought. By dysfunctional, I mean types of ways of thinking, attitudes, belief systems, ideas, which don’t work in our best interest. They don’t bring about our true welfare. So freedom is simply a freedom from a way a way of life which is free of being controlled by what we’ve done in the past and dysfunctional ways of of patterns of thought in the present. You know, the the the the the Tibetan word for for renunciation is.
Means literally. Means definite or determined. Means to arise. So we there’s a sort of a we we we determine to arise out of the ordinary way of existing. The the the normal the normality, that what we call normality at present, that this way isn’t working.
To be free of all our past conditioning and to be free of our dysfunctional patterns of thought, our afflictive emotions, for example. You know, such this is all held in place. Why why isn’t it? Why can’t we change? To some degree, and we talked about this.
To some degree, in one way, we’re we’re it’s we’re stuck. We’re held in place by our hopes and our fears. You know, the hope, our wishful thinking that I can keep, you know, we all have these tools that we’ve developed over the course of our life that we’ve learned as a way of finding happiness, solving our problems. But no matter how but many many of our tools, it’s like you know, if if if you were if you were a builder and your and your level was out of what would you call it? Out of whack.
It wasn’t what what kind of house could you build? You know, you could with all the skills that you might have in building, if the measures that you’re making use of in the construction of this building are somehow faulty, then no matter how hard we struggle and try, the end result is never going to be quite what we want. It’s never going to be quite what we need. The very tools that we’re making use of are aren’t aren’t serving their purpose. They aren’t bringing about what it is that we really want in our life.
So we now we have a but we we we seldom question. We do we seldom look at our own tools that we’re making uses. We hope they’re going to work, They haven’t worked in the past, but I hope they will in the future. And that hope or maybe our problems will go all go away by themselves or I mean, happiness. I hope I’ll have I hope I’ll be happy.
You know, it’s like somebody who has an exam, and instead of studying, they sit there and hope. Know? Hope becomes a substitute for doing the work which is necessary to get what they want. So they they there’s we’re we’re all stuck in one way or another in that way. But in addition in addition to hope is our our fears.
You know, fear whenever we meet the unusual or whenever we meet the unfamiliar, we become afraid. And and the way that we act is by withdrawing, circumscribing our life so that we don’t run across the unusual or the unfamiliar too often. So so we get we we stick with the familiar in order to avoid the uncomfortable feelings that aroused in us by the unusual, by the unknown. So fear keeps us on our habitual tracks. The the unknown, the the unfamiliar isn’t really explored.
We we don’t want to deal with the tension involved, the uncomfortable feelings that fear naturally arises arouses it within us. So the unfamiliar is never explored. You know, we don’t take the journey. We never we remain forever stuck in much the same patterns of our thinking and behaving. So so wishful thinking is the of our unfounded hopes prevents us from ever seeing the need for change of of the need to do the work in order to bring about what it what it is that we want.
And our unfounded fears reinforce our resistance to change itself. So our habitual attitudes, our our our our styles of the way that we are, our our styles of being. You know, we each have our particular style. This this the word you use here is there’s no way to end your struggle. Endless struggle, our particular we each have our particular style of struggling for the for to for the pleasures within the the sea of conditioned existence.
And if we’re for to more than not, we simply want to re experience or perpetuate the pleasures that we have. We we but, you know, in fact, you know, we want to hold on to whatever pleasure that we’re experiencing now or to reexperience whatever pleasures that we have had in the past. But in in that way, these are beyond our control. You know, pleasure and pain arise, are the ripening or the maturing result of past karma. They’re the experiential feelings which arise from the result of our past actions.
Our actions are ways of thinking, speaking, and behaving. They don’t arise according to our wishes. If if if if reality if, you know, what we experience according to our wishes, we’d we’d all be happy people. We wouldn’t suffer. We all wish to be happy.
We wish not to suffer. But but simply wishing is not doesn’t bring about those results. It is all of these experiential results or feeling results are a product of our past actions. So we struggle for something which is, in fact, beyond our control. It is only within our control in terms of how we act and behave, not in terms of our wishing.
Basically, quite often, we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment, for dissatisfaction, for failure, for for we can’t do the impossible. You know, pleasure and pain come and go according to karma, you know, the the laws of the world, not simply by wishing that we were happy, not trying to avoid pain, but according to the infallible law of cause and effect. So we cling clinging clinging to such existence enslaves you. So someone who has developed the will to awaken is no longer enslaved to the pleasure pain principle. And we’re going to talk about what are called the eight worldly concerns.
You know, the eight worldly concerns of of pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and ridicule, fame, and disrepute. These are the rules of how to be a model prisoner in cyclic existence. These are the standards by which these are the priorities, the way the measures of how we’re going to lead our life for most of us. These are our priorities, pleasure and pain. We we by all by we pursue pain.
We we you don’t scratch that. We pursue pleasure. We we avoid pain. And in that and, therefore, we we we are unwilling to to forego a pleasant what we perceive of as present pleasure and abide with the legitimate sufferings that quite often traveling the path exploring other possibilities inevitably entails. Where where we are this is what enslaves us.
You know, these these eight worldly concerns. These because they are the priorities of how we act in act out our life. You know, these are these are kind of our our primary values, our principles, which we we determine and how we’re going to relate, how we’re going to act. Somebody who has developed the will to awaken have developed other measures for determining how they’re going to conduct themselves in their life. You know, these aren’t these aren’t the rules which govern their life.
They found they they they they have found other measures of what a successful life can be. Such people might welcome uncertainty in in their life, and increase intention. Even even pain, if they see it as a way of of as a as a means of growth, as a way of fulfillment in their human potential. They’re willing to abide in that. Their value, you know, they have a they they they march to a different drummer.
They they have other values than simply pleasure and pain, which which guide their life, which govern their life. But we are more or less enslaved to the pleasure pain principle, and therefore, all we do is keep going around in circles. And clinging to such existence utterly enslaves you. For good or for ill, life and nature this is by a quote by it’s interesting. It’s by a Greek philosopher, Epictetus.
I mean, this is, like, twenty five hundred years ago. For good good or for ill, life and nature are governed by laws that we can’t change. The quicker we accept this, the more tranquil we can be. You would be foolish to wish that your children or your spouse would live forever. They are mortal, just as you are, and the law of mortality is completely out of your control.
Similarly, it is foolish to wish that an employee, relative, or friend be without fault. This is wishing to control things you can’t control. It is within our control not to be disappointed by our desires if we deal with them according to the facts rather than being swept away by them. Understand what freedom really is and how it is achieved. Freedom isn’t the isn’t the right or the ability to do whatever you please.
Freedom comes from understanding the limits of your own power and the natural limits set in place. By accepting life’s limits and inevitabilities and working with them rather than fighting them, we become free. If, on the other hand, we succumb to our passing desires for things that aren’t in our our control, freedom is lost. So freedom, as far as Buddhism is concerned, is freedom from living out our lives, a way of life which is no longer under the control of past conditioning, let us say karma, and our present dysfunctional patterns of mind, our ways of thinking, that is, say, our afflictive emotions. So that’s that’s freedom.
Clinging to such existence utterly enslaves you. So a way this it’s locks us into particular ways of thinking and behaving into certain types of embodiments to certain types of environments. Our world is much is very much a world of our own making. And each of us exist within our own particular world version that we have that we have formed. We it’s like we we each we have all formed our realm for ourselves.
You know, the Buddha and the Dhammapada says, we are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world. So, you know, even though, you know, we we there isn’t a quite often, there’s a there’s thangka or a picture, paintings of a wheel of life. There’s one there.
That’s on the back wall next the to the door. And, eventually, we’re going to we’re going to talk about that and go through it. Some of it’s what it actually is what it is as he is trying to explain, some of the symbolism involved. But, you know, it’s it’s talking about eight types of realms, for example. Buddhist cosmology, the the study of the nature of the universe talks about six realms.
And these can be these are are realities from the hell realm up to the god realms, but they can also be viewed, and we can talk about it in that way because I think it’s useful to to have this point of view as emotional attitudes towards ourselves and towards our environment, our surroundings. You know, we are this out of this struggle to maintain a sense of solidity and continuity as to ourselves, you know, trying to reconfirm some type of fixed identity on who we are. Though, you know, we we we we might pass through all six of these realms in the course of it, all of of them in the course of a single day. But, usually, we’re rooted in one of these types of realms, one of these emotional attitudes towards ourselves and our surroundings. You know, for example, this is just, you know, like a way of against gaining a sense or a feeling for the sense for the sense of how we are creating our realm for ourselves, reality for ourselves.
You know, the the highest realm is the realm of the gods, and it’s characterized by a search for for extreme pleasures and physical mental and physical pleasure. It’s it’s always comfort orientated. It it attempts to dwell on all kinds of seductive goals, health or wealth or beauty or fame. The this approach is approach of the of the god orientation is always pleasure orientated. That’s that’s how that’s the kind of quality of mind or attitude which they out of which they create their reality is in is in terms of pleasure.
The the the dominant characteristic of the next level, like the like the what we call the demigods, is one of jealousy. You know? It’s it’s it’s a it’s a there’s always a sense of conflict. You know? We are we are preoccupied with comparison, and we’re we’re caught up in a constant struggle to to gain security and to achieve orientation, to achieve something for ourselves.
And it’s again, the demigods have a it’s not very fair, actually, when you think about it. You know, they have this this this wonderful tree which bears this delicious fruit, and it’s rooted in their in their level. The roots are in their level, but the tree grows up into the god realm, and the fruits are up in the god realm. And they’re always that’s just not fair, is it? Something to somebody ought to do something about it.
That’s what they keep struggling to do. You know, straight something’s gone wrong and we’ve got to right it. What is that doing then? That’s why there’s a. That’s right.
It’s not fair. So then the the the the next level, the major preoccupation, that’s us, human realm, is desire. There’s a there’s a sense of separateness that pleasure of objects are out there. And out of that sense of separateness, of seeing everything of value of worth has been out there. There’s a sense of inner poverty about ourselves, a sense of insufficiency about ourselves that that we really we don’t have enough within ourselves to be happy, to find fulfillment, that everything that worthwhile has to is out there, which is struggling to make it mine in order to fill to find some kind of success in life.
Success in life is seen somehow related to something outside of ourselves in some way or another. So we we are continually struggling to make all of these things our own and hang on to them. So the the mentality of the next level, that is animal level. This I think animal level is one more interesting. It’s one of of ignoring.
You know? We stubbornly pushing forward toward predetermined goals? You know? We we look directly ahead, straight ahead, you know, very sincere with great earnestness, you know, a very sincere pig, you know. He’s got his head down.
In a way, it’s it’s it’s like a bureaucrat follows the rules. You know, not they can’t not the spirit of the law. But what what what the rules? You know, the the you know, everything has to conform to our our expectations of how it should be. And we trample over everything that gets in our way, kind of the animal mentality.
And next level is that of the hungry ghosts. Pretas. So they’re part they’re preoccupied with consuming. A lot of us can identify with consuming. Fundamentally, feel poor.
We feel there’s a sense of inadequacy. We we continually use the people and things about us to help prop up our image about ourselves, you know, that that but there’s never quite enough. And these these these pretas or these hungry ghosts have these huge stomachs and little little mouths. They have insatiable appetites, and they’re never satisfied. Finally, the hell beings.
Now the the hell beings are pervaded by aggression. It’s based on the perpetual condition of hatred. We built up they built up a complete environment around themselves, environment of hate. And we you know, it’s said to the extent that they’re not even quite sure what it is they hate anymore. It’s just paranoid and aggression.
It’s like, you know, they it begins to feed in on itself when we, you know, like like, when we when we think about how we’ve been mistreated and how we’re going to get back, and it keeps feeding. Like like, it’s like, you know, a crocodile that that feeds on its own tail. It’s eating its own tail. The more it eats, the bigger it grows. And the more it grows, the more it has to eat.
It kinda recycles its hatred until its whole environment is built up with hatred, burning up with hatred. So that so the will to awaken is is a determinate determination to free ourselves from all of these these emotional attitudes and and these types of these types of realms which are an expression of these attitudes. Renunciation is does not consist of giving up your your wife. And a lot of people when they I mean, this happens quite often in in in Nepal or India, you know. You know, they get people become I think it’s great.
They become they hear about the dharma, and they found something at last, which brings meaning to their life, something they’ve been looking for. And they and they they develop this, and they they have a sense of now I’ve gotta give up my home. I’ve gotta give up my my wife or my husband or my partner or whatever. They gotta give up their piece of chocolate cake or whatever it is. It’s in some way or another.
So but, you know, renunciation is not a matter of giving up your wife or your husband or or your piece of chocolate cake. It is it is it is more being worried or frustrated because you don’t have a wife or a husband or a piece of chocolate cake or or being or being discontent or worried. Being discontent, being worried that you’re going to lose your wife or husband or your piece of chocolate cake when you do have one, or or being discontent with the wife and husband or piece of chocolate cake that you presently have in the hopes of getting a better wife, husband, piece of chocolate cake, or more or bigger. Anyway, you get the idea. Then you have now.
It’s giving up all of that mentality, that attitude. So so, you know, this is it’s this is where Samsāra ends and nirvana ends. nirvana begins with within our own minds. It’s not it’s it’s not a matter of, you know, the wife or the husband or a piece of chocolate cake is not the problem. That’s it’s there’s no it’s not a matter.
Since renunciation is not a matter in in terms of externals. It is it is within our own mind. Freedom and slavery exist within our own mind. Freedom is freedom from that exists within our own mind that that is free of all of these dissatisfactions. A mind which is no longer dissatisfied is free.
It’s it’s it’s free of the truth of suffering and the origins of suffering. So so we’re not that’s where renunciation exists, within our own minds. So determining to grow, determining determining to to be free is a determination to go beyond all our unfounded hopes, our fears, to go beyond these eight worldly concerns of pleasure and pain and so forth. You know, this is where we can actually you know, whatever determine to get unstuck, to go beyond these reoccurring dysfunctional patterns within our present minds and go beyond, like, all the conditioning of our past actions, our common afflictive emotions. So I think real needs and irrational needs can be satisfied.
But the the the the the wants or desires or the world as seen by these emotional attitudes of, you know, all of the all of these desire and hatred, jealousy, pride, and so forth. You know, all of the afflictive emotions, the object does not exist the way it appears to them. The object is seen by attachment does not exist. The object is seen by hatred does not exist. The object is of of our pride, of our jealousy.
There’s always an element of distortion, of some kind of exaggeration, either depreciation or inflation of the quality of the object in some way or another. So all the objects as conceived of by the afflictive emotions do not exist. So we they so no matter how many times we try to achieve the ends of our afflictive emotions. We never quit we never get quite what what we expect, what it is that we want. You know, it’s it’s like if we it’s as if we believed a photograph of a piece of chocolate.
If we it’s as if we believe a photograph of a chocolate cake, okay, to be the real thing. No matter how many photographs you might be able to collect, and even no matter how many of those photographs you might be able to consume. Even if it you you know, you wouldn’t you try. Okay. You how no matter you never you never get what it is that you really want, what we expected at some kind of deeper level, what we look to that piece of chocolate cake to give us.
There you know, that I said that that there are two great disappointments in life, not getting what you want and getting what you want. You know? You know? We never quite get from the photograph, you know, from that illusion, from that fantasy, the the the the satisfaction, the fulfillment, the appeasement of some kind of inner hunger, which at a deeper level, we were looking to that object to give us. The the hunger, the desire just begins again.
The craving comes comes back again. It hasn’t been it hasn’t ended. It hasn’t ceased. It never really went away. It it you know, the desiring just starts all up over again.
You know, we are forced to move on. We we to search out again, to acquire again, to go on endlessly consuming. That, you know, we that’s we are enslaved. And clinging to such an existence utterly enslaves you. So to to determine to awaken is to determine to free ourselves from all of these fantasies.
Our particular world version, which we takes which we take as some as real, as true, you know, that we we that we cling to and that and to deal with the real nature of things. You know, we talked about the, you know, going for refuge to the Dharma. One one interpretation of Dharma interpretation of Dharma is simply the truth. The way things are in their in their true in their in their actual nature, divorced or free of all the the fictions, the fantasies, the illusion that we keep super imposing upon our our our particular realm, our particular world version. So, you know, in this way, there’s some kind of real possibility to once and for all find an end to our problems.
And because we if if we if we know the way things are and we can achieve it, if we if we can we can our expectations can actually be met. You know, it’s not it’s it’s not like, you know, trying to meet the demands of our afflictive emotions. The the nature of truth is that the the closer you come to it, the more obvious and apparent it becomes. The nature of falsehood is that closer you come to it, more ambiguous, the the the more insubstantial, and finally, it actually vanishes. You can’t even find it.
It becomes. So when when we when we when we have some ability to discern what is real happiness and what are the source of real happiness, we those are achievable. The types of happiness which are which are established through our afflicted emotions, which using the standards of the eight worldly concerns, you know, like the pleasure the pleasure and pain rules, but the ways that we determine how we’re going to find happiness in life. Those happinesses are never achievable. They’re like a photograph of a piece of chocolate cake.
They’re falsities. And we approach them and they disappear, and we have to begin our journey all over again. Keep on struggling. Struggle for clinging to such existence an enslave you. Thus so when we did when we did the determination to awaken is the determination to free ourselves from all of these fantasies, our particular world version, and how we cling to and begin to to to deal with the real nature of things as they are.
So in this way, there’s a real possibility. You know, I you know, it’s like it’s not an either or situation. You know, it’s a I think our life becomes less problematic with less fewer disappointments, more more fulfillment. Moments of depression are more short lived and not as deep. The whole you know, we keep we we get out of the holes quicker, and we fall into them less often until finally that there are no more holes left in our life, and we find some kind of peace.
So this this is what we’re trying to to find. So thus at the outset, seek the will to awaken. So the will to awaken is going we’re going to look at it in terms of how to actually awaken, and this is going to be looked at in terms of emphasizing the development of the will to awaken in this present life and toward future lives and so forth. Okay. Maybe that’s a good place to stop.
We got about two minutes. Anybody have a question? Yeah. Please. Unsatisfaction of way things are Yeah.
The more, like, you generate this will to to change. Yeah. And, you know, the more you realize how you’re doing things unsatisfactionately. Or, you know, I shouldn’t be happy, you know, that being happy or I should just be happy just to, you know or so to speak. Well, that’s just an example.
Or maybe I’m I’m doing really well. I’m really proud of myself about learning this text or something. You am I just playing out of Hundred years old. So from the finding of what you said, man. Yeah.
Know what you say. It’s it’s not easy, is it? It requires some kind of wisdom, I’m afraid. Because you do have to, you know, like I I I mother Teresa once said she said, you should give to it. It hurts a little.
You know? You have to push the envelope a little bit, but you have to know when to let up when it’s you know, when when it wouldn’t be productive for yourself, help when it it would be unhealthy for yourself. I think a lot I mean, this is my experience. I’ve seen a lot of people who really, you know, they get very excited about it. And it’s really wonderful to see people get excited about the dharma, and they really and they push and they push and then they get to kind of loom or they get or they give it up after some time because it’s all they’re setting themselves up for a lot of disappointment.
But I think some kind of relax, slow, steady. I think you should enjoy yourself. I think happiness is a reward that you is it I mean, you should be happy. You know? But just to, you know, I don’t know.
You look you look like maybe I’m confusing you more. What do you think? Think probably a steady approach. I think you have to have a long perspective. Yeah.
It I think and then you yeah. It’s not easy, is it? Because you look at the Dalai Lama. You know, he’s a happy person, and he’s got he’s got can hear you. He’s got huge responsibility, you know, terms of, you know, in terms of caring for Tibetan people and but also in terms of, you know, teaching the Dharma and so forth.
So but I have a sense that he’s but he doesn’t of course, I you know? I mean, I I keep thinking about and how, you know, that he’s he always used the words, you should be happy and easygoing, relaxed. And then, you know, if there’s some kind of maybe it’s not necessary to push And and and I think you should rejoice in what you’re doing and what you do. But I think some kind of steady I think you have to practice. You know?
And you do have to push the envelope, and there’s a little sometimes there’s legitimate suffering that goes along with it. What do other people think? Anybody have some some ideas to share? I think if you if you enjoy what you’re doing, I mean, if you enjoy, you know, then you’ll keep it up. But I think when T.
S. Eliot said when I should I should find this this this poem, but anyway, said something like, when I when I was child, I played with the toys of a child. And then when I grew, I set those toys aside. So it wasn’t as if, you know, you you probably played with little tanks or little soldiers or whatever, maybe you indulge. I don’t know.
But at a certain point, you you naturally set them aside. They just weren’t of in they weren’t they were no longer interest of interest to you. You know, you found other interests. Right? So no one had to say, you know, you’re too old to play with these dolls or or you you shouldn’t play with tank toy tanks, you know.
So it’s so I think I have the sense that if you do meditate, if you do, you know, study and reflect and go through this process, then there’s some kind of we don’t have to rip things away from ourselves. They they will naturally begin to fall away, and then what you what you conceive of happiness will begin as a shift. And what was what was what would occupy your time and your energies will no longer well, I’m just not interested in those. You don’t even notice sometimes, you know, that I’m just I haven’t really spent much time doing that. I’ve I’ve sort of unknowingly or without con unconsciously shifted all my time and energy into this other area in which I and I think I think that’s I think then that’s a real organically developed kind of response to some kind of understanding that’s going on.
You know? I think yeah. That’s good. That’s good advice. Yeah.
I think not take ourselves so seriously maybe sometimes. Don’t but it’s not so good to shit on yourself. No. I think maybe check up your motivation. Why why you and then see how you feel about it.
I I I don’t think I I mean, that’s that’s one approach. That’s the you know, sometimes they talk about Hīnayāna approach where you want to go beyond desires, and one way to work with that is to remove the objects of desires. So you you you you get yourself away from the objects of desire so you don’t generate desire. There’s not really a very but the my own approach is to is is more in terms of well, that the thing itself isn’t the problem. Yeah.
So that’s the orientation because we have to live because we’re the mind is concerned with living in the world. If we are for you know, it’s one thing to live in a monastery where you are, we move for most of these objects, but we aren’t, are we? So we have to learn how to deal with it. We don’t have any unless you wanna move in unless you wanna go into a mysterious, that’s another that’s that’s a possibility. But the Bodhisattva lives in the world.
You know, that’s that’s kind of the Bodhisattva idea is someone who who who who who is relates with the world in order to benefit, you know, stays in the world, doesn’t try to find some kind of passive niche, some kind of peak niche for them place, for themselves where they can find some you know, I lived I lived in Thailand for a year, and then you can become and I I I lived on this item, Kossamoy, and it became very comfortable. You know? I’d go up my arms around with my begging bowl, you know, once a day. And there were no demands. I had my food supplied.
I had I slept in this on this in this temple, and I was doing meditation most of the day. And it it and I got there was only I had a hint of what Hīnayāna, you know, I mean, by that is, you know, you can you you develop your own little peaceful isolation isolated situation for yourself. You know? And, you know, you can and that kind of you don’t want the world you don’t want the to to to invade that kind of situation that you worked out for yourself. You become very defensive about your own little piece of your own little plot, your own little piece, you know, your own little pleasure that you that you sort of that you’ve cons pleasurable realm that you constructed for yourself.
But that’s not, you know, okay. That’s that’s not the Buddhist idea, is it? I mean, we live in this world with other people, and people are a nuisance. I know. And you have to be able to deal with them.
You have to be able to deal with money and working and all, you know, studying and how to deal with that successfully. So I guess it’s a matter of which finding some way to deal, you know. I mean, by all means, if if I’d have great admiration for peer. You know, I was alone for quite a long time, then in the end, it wasn’t it there it it was a matter of not only my attachment, but also there was something that wasn’t working for me. So it you know, whether that was a division or wisdom, I don’t know.
Maybe someday I’ll know. But I know I have to I’m living in this world, and somehow I have to how to figure out how to relate with it. And I can’t if I if I if I see people as a problem, if I see the things about me as a problem, then problem’s always there. So the orientation I the only orientation I have to work with is not to remove myself from the problem, but to deal with my mind as a as a source of the problem, not the things of other people. But it I I I sympathize with you.
I don’t think there’s an easy answer. I’m trying to develop some kind of wisdom around, you know, when to push and when to let up. And then we really have to learn about ourselves and what works for ourselves over a long period of time. I don’t know. Got to jump up after being the Yana a heart?
An actual heart? Yes. Say you were. Say you got that to that point. Oh.
What role would you go to? You achieve what’s but technically, I mean, you achieve what’s called a mental abiding. And then eventually, after eons and eons are kind of spaced out, the the Buddhas are able to penetrate your realm with a with a ray of light. And they say, you have not realized all that there is to be realized. You have not done all that is to be done.
You have not finished the path. Arise from your from your passive peace, and they have to begin the Mahāyāna path. That’s according to the Mahāyāna. Mahāyāna. Yeah.
Yeah. You still have some work to be done. That wouldn’t that’s not the god realm, is it? No. No.
No. No. No. The god realm, that’s on the cyclic existence. So an arhat is to achieve liberation from cyclic existence.
Yeah. Okay. So that’s I think yeah. It’s hard, isn’t it? Anyway, that’s that’s our situation.
May all beings everywhere plagued by suffering of body and mind obtain an ocean of happiness and joy by virtue of my merits. May no living creatures suffer, commit evil, or fall ill. May no one be afraid or belittled with depression. May the blind see forms and deaf hear sounds. May those whose bodies are worn with toil be restored on finding repose.
May the naked find clothing, the ugly find food. May the thirsty find water and delicious drink. Drink. May the poor find wealth, those weak with sorrow find joy. May the forlorn find hope, constant happiness, and prosperity.
May may the rains fall in season for harvest. May all medicines be effective and wholesome prayers bear fruit. May all who are sick and ill quickly be freed from their ailments. Whatever diseases there are in the world, may they never occur again. May the fright ened cease to be afraid and those bound be freed.
May the powerless bind power, and may people think of benefiting each other. Through these skillful actions, may I quickly become an awakened spiritual master and lead each and every living being to the awakened realm. May the supreme jewel, the three principal aspects of the path that have not arisen arise and grow, and may those that have arisen, may they never diminish but increase more and more. In the land encircled by snow mountains, you are the source of happiness and well-being. Powerful Chenrezig, Tenzin Gyatso, please remain to the end of cyclic existence.
Thank you. Have a have a good week.