Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. “What would you do if you were a beggar on the streets of Calcutta?” — this guided meditation question anchors Ven Jampa Gendun’s nearly two-hour commentary on the first of Tsongkhapa’s three principal aspects of the path, the will to awaken. He opens by reframing “going for refuge” as a practical, non-religious question: where do you actually look for happiness? After leading a breath meditation with three explicit qualities — nonjudgmental, non-evaluative, and moment-by-moment — he moves into the precious human life, using vivid contrasts (bombardment in Baghdad, starvation in Ethiopia, addiction) to make freedoms and richnesses felt rather than merely understood. The classical blind-turtle-and-golden-yoke analogy drives home life’s rarity, and a Tibetan teacher’s sardonic remark about French war cemeteries sharpens the urgency. The session ends with an introduction to the nine-point death meditation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 13 3PA 2006 11 13.mp3
UUID: d547f875-73cf-43a5-b1dd-07e191c7699a
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 2006-2007 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2006-11-13
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 112.9 minutes
Words: ~10,767
Can you hear can you hear me okay? Yeah. So we begin by adjusting our motivation And we, we, in our talks and our discussions around the three principal aspects of the path, and we are looking at the very first of these three principal aspects of the path: developing the will to awaken, the determination to be free, and beginning to look at how to begin to shift the priorities in our life? And what is it that what are the criteria that you use in making the choices in your everyday life? And beginning perhaps to develop other priorities, other types of criteria, perhaps making more skillful choices, we’ll call them, choices which are more appropriate to probably what we want.
Beginning to look at this is a way of talking about what it is we go for refuge too. I don’t think the idea of refuge has to be particularly religious or spiritual or Eastern or Buddhist. Just where is it that we hope to find happiness? Where is it that we hope can bring about some kind of solution to most of our problems or at least some of our problems? And we all have our our ideals around that.
And I guess, you know, I’ve talked about the fact that The Dharma is like maybe truth therapy. It’s the truth which will make you free. Some kind of so we have to check up some kind reality check to see whether our criteria, the refuges that we’re making use of in our everyday life, are actually working and bringing about what it is that we want. If we don’t check up, we’ll probably keep, just through the force of habit, making the same mistakes again and again over the course of our life. And the the circumstances might change the the various people and situations might appear very different.
They we always arrive at the same place, the same same outcomes in our life, and nothing very much changes in terms of the quality of our life. We have to we have to think intelligently. We have to look at our life with some kind of analytic tools to obviously see the reality of what’s going on for ourselves, become aware of it. And then there’s you know, we can bring to we can bring to bear on our problems some kind of innate intelligence, some kind of, you know, our own own wisdom. And that we don’t want to suffer.
We don’t have to learn that. That’s that’s innate. We don’t we want happiness, and we have every right to to achieve that happiness. We just have to ensure that we’re the methods that we’re using, the tools that we’re working with are capable or up to the task of getting helping us to get what we want. So, you know, Buddhism is offering some tools, some methods to work with, help us perhaps to look at how our our life is actually operating, how it’s actually working, and offer some alternatives, methods, and possibly some types of options, some solutions.
We call these Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Yeah. Some some basic tools to work with. What is it that you conceive of the what it is? The successful life.
So Buddha, the outcome the outcome or the outcome of a successful life in terms of who we could be, what we could do with our life, call Buddha. I have no I don’t know what a Buddha is. Whether I met the Buddha or not, I’m not sure. I can’t be certain. I have but I I take what this criteria or this this quality qualities which which which a Buddha is described as being worthwhile.
I think, well, that’s something I’d like to be. That’s worth my life. That’s worth some kind of energy and time, effort in my life. And that’s over and above all the the passing pleasures, which are okay, you know, but not to get hung up in them. That’s all.
That this is really some kind of vision of what our life might be like. I know it’s some kind of shift in our criteria, our priorities in our life. So that’s very much I think what Buddhism means by going for refuge. You know, this readjusting our motivation and why we’re doing what we’re doing to ensure that the outcome is going to be a benefit. It’s going to be more of what we want and less of what we don’t want in our life.
So in this process, this this shift in our priorities, the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha, you know, this this embodiment of some real worthwhile qualities to aim for in our life, you know, wisdom, trying to see things clearly without any misconceptions, without any beyond all kinds of conditioning, wrong thinking, quality of love and compassion. You know, like like, really wanting to help others and also about wanting to help yourself, loving yourself. But some kind of altruism where there’s no and then going beyond our our preoccupation with our own self interests, constant demands of our own ego for its own glorification and its own well-being, and beginning to shift the center of gravity of of our life more in terms of others, thinking about others. And that’s worthwhile, I think. I think there’s some fulfillment.
There’s some kind of meaning and purpose. And still, there’s some kind of some inner strength about ourselves. We can do something. We’re effective. You know?
We’re not wimps. In fact, we’re in the world. Now we see ourselves, but not actually how we work in the world. And we try to we go for refuge to you know, we we actually you know, it’s what what I’ve just described might sound pretty good. Probably does.
But then lies the hard part. You actually have to do something to achieve that. Wishful thinking is not enough. Wanting it to be so how no matter how sincerely will not get us there. We actually have to do something.
We have to practice the Dharma. We have to learn about these teachings. We have to check the validity of them, the internal consistency, the logic, reasoning, using our creativity or intelligence or imagination, you know, our the totality of who we are, and try to begin to bring about this transformation using the trainings, the teachings, the truth of things, basically, trying to arrive at that. And we we need some help to implement the Dharma. We we rely upon, you know, we can’t we can’t go it alone.
We’re not self sufficient in in that way. We we are very much dependent, but perhaps much more dependent than we we like to imagine or, you know, with that that we think we are. But we depend upon others, our Sangha, the spiritual community, who assist us or give us advice help us materially, whatever whatever whatever we can and whatever way we can, helping another person, another individual to to help them to solve their problems at a more basic level. You know? But doesn’t always have to be all that basic.
Maybe just a shoulder to cry on sometimes or somebody to have a glass of beer with once in a while. You know? Maybe that can go a long way. Whatever you can do. That’s really a workable situation.
And we in this, in terms of the, you know, with the the overall intention behind what it is that we do in this going for refuge, we try again and again to raise the level of our motivation. Some way to so we don’t so that our continual continual preoccupation with ourselves is and we we we somehow don’t allow our normal egotistical ends to to appropriate or practice, make it some kind of spiritual materialism, you know, where it becomes something just through in self aggrandizement and make us feel better about myself or make ego feel better about itself in some way or form. The way that we can feel somewhat assured that we’re that we’re short circuiting, that we’re stepping out of this recursive pattern that keeps feeding it upon itself, that tries to incorporate everything into itself. It’s by concern by motivation, the intention. And one way we can do that is by just simply doing it in order to help one other person outside of ourselves.
Member of your family or just somebody else to become a little kinder, a little more patient, a little more understanding, a little more helpful in whatever way. Maybe in the course of this talk, I can pick up some information, and I’ll consider it. I’ll I’ll evaluate it. I’ll analyze it, and I’ll try to make use of it if I I see if it’s a value to myself and that value, I hope, could be of not only benefit to myself, but even if one other person. And we begin there, you know, this journey of a thousand miles begins with this first footstep.
And then maybe we can begin to expand who it is that we hope to benefit by what we do. Maybe two people, maybe three. Eventually, ideally, theoretically, but that’s our goal. We can set that up for some ultimate end that we hope to achieve somewhere along the line. I go for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma, the Sangha with in order to perfectly, completely awaken for the sake of all sentient beings.
It’s a very high minded idea, but that’s okay. It’s worthwhile to even consider that. I go for refuge until I’m awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and 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’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. May all sentient beings have happiness in the causes of happiness. May all sentient beings be free from suffering and 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 for some and aversion toward others. Do you want to you want to stretch your legs and meditate? You can remain sitting, whichever. So we’re going to, you know, meditate as we usually do on mindfulness of the breath.
And maybe just to remind you, you know, it’s not I I don’t I don’t see this as a simply as a an exercise in concentration. The quality is of mindfulness. Quality is of mindfulness. And the quality of this mindfulness has three characteristics. One, it is nonjudgmental.
Okay. So this is the qualities that I think is useful to bring to this this this activity. Nonjudgmental. You know, we’re we’re the primary object is your breath. And I say primary because, you know, we can we will be distracted.
Our mind will wander to other, we call secondary objects. Okay? Now the we want to be become aware of what it is that we’re experiencing from moment to moment, in the present moment. When we when we realize, when we become aware that our mind has been distracted, then we simply bring our mind back to the breath, you know, just like this bringing this puppy back to the paper. Yeah.
So and but the quality of that activity, bringing back, replacing our attention upon the breath is nonjudgmental in the sense that we don’t we don’t beat up on ourselves. We don’t give ourselves a hard time. Our mind is just like this pup you know, paper training the puppy. It was pitched simply without any judgment about ourselves and in dispassionate, without any giving ourselves a hard time, simply bring the mind back to the breath. That’s all.
Okay. And also has a quality of non evaluation. For example, you know, you get you find yourself thinking about what happened today or what you’re going to do tomorrow or something, anyway, your mind’s distracted. So simply noting, thinking. And but it’s the the the quality of that activity is non evaluative.
That is to say, we don’t get we don’t evaluate whatever the thought was. Good thought, bad thought, profound thought, disgraceful thought. We don’t we don’t care. We don’t evaluate whether we’re hearing something. You know, somebody’s making noise.
You know, we get caught up in the noise. We don’t evaluate that what the noise is. I wish the kid know, I’m meditating. Those people should be quiet. Why why don’t they, you know, be more considerate?
And we go off into this long story. So we don’t evaluate the whatever the distraction is. If it’s a sound, simply note hearing, bring the mind back to the breath. If it’s a thought, simply note thinking, bring the mind back to the breath. And the other quality of the activity is moment by moment.
We do that continuous experience of the present moment. The future is yet to happen. The past is simply a memory. The only time that we have to live is in the present moment. So we’re training ourselves to be present in that present moment, in the now.
So we want to develop some kind of continuity, a moment by moment paying of attention to our present experience. Here, we’re directing our our attention to the breath. It’s simply a matter of training in this process. Our present experience ideally is in terms of the physical associations, the physical feelings associated with the natural breathing. That’s what we’re experiencing in the present moment, noting that.
I’m experiencing the in breath, I note in. I’m experiencing the out breath, I note out. So what we’re doing is experiencing our present moment. We’re picking a particular object because it’s always there. We don’t have to create it.
We can always come back to it. We don’t have to think about now, you know, what am I going to focus on? So it’s it’s a it’s a training process, and we’re choosing we’re taking as the basis of our training the physical sensations associated with the natural breath. But the mindfulness is something bigger than that. You know?
It’s just not a concentration on the breath. We’re training ourselves into being nonjudgmental, non non-evaluative, and continually experience in the present moment. And this carries over into our everyday life. We can practice this in various ways. You know, if we could do that, It’ll be quite useful to ourselves.
And then we’re going to meditate on, you know, in our in our discussion on three principal aspects of the path and shifting our priorities in terms of this life. We’re looking at the this present human life that we all have, and we’re looking at in terms of freedoms and richnesses. So if, you know, if if you if you become aware of the fact, then you may value that fact. And valuing that fact, you may it will it will bring about some action. It will motivate you to do something.
So we want to become aware of the fact of our great, what we call freedoms and richnesses, which are human life, which we take much so much for granted, really presents us, affords us this possibility for real transformation. You know, we don’t we don’t value it because we we don’t aware of it. So it has to be pointed out to ourselves. You know? This is we have to point it out to ourselves personally within our unique experience.
We have to validate that that that fact for ourselves, and then we have to begin to appreciate it and value it. And then it will it will naturally valuing something, it entails some kind of act. So the freedom the freedoms and richnesses, you know, traditionally, they’re with eight freedoms and ten richnesses. But we we can but freedoms are essentially freedoms from certain constraints, certain ways of being, certain circumstances which prevent us from doing getting getting what it is that we want. And for experiences, those things which don’t we don’t want.
So we we have certain freedoms. We have we are we are apart from certain risk constraints, and we have to appreciate that fact. So that’s looking at our situation from a negative point of view. Richnesses look at the same situation in terms of our human life from a positive point of view, what we, in fact, do have. So we’re gonna go go through these these freedoms and richnesses.
And but we’re going to go through them in a perhaps in a way which is more accessible to ourselves at present, perhaps more relevant to ourselves at present. You know, our freedoms in terms of what you could what you could do to learn and develop your mind, to practice, to extract the essence of this life. You know, what could you do for exam I’ll just give you an example on this. But you have to do the work. You have you have to validate this for yourself with your own experience and see it as a fact.
You know? It’s not it’s not an abstraction. It’s not it’s not meant to be something a dogma, some kind of new information, but it’s describing you have to see it. It’s actually describing your own personal life within your own experience. Otherwise, it it won’t be of any value to you.
It’ll just be something foreign to you, something alien. So what would you do if you were, for example, a beggar on the streets of Calcutta? And I mean, by what by what would you do? I mean, in terms of learning, in terms of self development, working at your problems at a more fundamental level. If you were a beggar on the street of Calcutta where you had to from from from the time that you got up in the morning off the street, you know, piece of cardboard to the time you went back to bed and the bed, piece of cardboard on the side of the You know?
What could you do, you know, if you had a family, for example, to support? You had to beg. Could you, you know, could you meet like we had like we do here? Could you study? Could you read?
Could you meditate? Could you you know? What possibilities? What kind of freedom? What kind of constraints aren’t placed upon such a kind of life?
So what would you what could you do to learn and develop your mind to practice and and take the essence of our life? The essence of our life is happiness. If you were a beggar on the streets of Calcutta. So that’s our freedom. So if you don’t preach, if you don’t see it, wow.
I’m I’m I’m not a beggar on the streets of Calcutta. You know, if you’re trying to kick get arouse some kind of feeling, I’m free of that. That’s pretty fantastic now that I think about it. What would I do if I was in Iraq right now, living in Baghdad right now? What would I be doing?
I’d probably be crying that my brother and my wife were was just killed or something like that, caught up in the sectarian violence. I said, That’s what I’d probably be doing. I’d be so overcome with sorrow. You know? Don’t talk to me about religion.
Don’t talk to me about mental development. I don’t have time for that. You know? Our mind would be completely absorbed. It’d be in that sorrow, that that pain, the chaos, the insecurity, the danger.
But but that’s looking at freedoms. So we’ll go some of this I’ll mention some types of freedoms. So you have to work with these ideas for yourself and validate them with your own experience within your own life. And then the riches richnesses, looking at things in a positive sense. You know, it’s like counting your blessings.
Stop taking what we have for granted. You know, you are an intelligent and confident person. That’s in the image. So what? A lot of people aren’t.
They have problems intellectually handicapped, disobey disabilities, and so forth. They don’t have the possibility that you have intellectually, mentally. They don’t have that. You you’re an intelligent person. You you live in a you have a relatively healthy body.
You live in a affluent country. Yeah. So we’re gonna you know, it’s like appreciating these these facts, pointing out these facts for yourself, and beginning to appreciate these facts. And then that will begin to change things for you, your priorities, because you’ll want to make use of what it is that you begin to value so it doesn’t go to waste. Okay.
So take a firm, comfortable posture. I’ll begin by relaxing the body, starting at the crown of the head, the scalp, the forehead, feeling the wrinkles in the brow smooth, Pressure in and around the eyes beginning to dissipate. Facial muscles beginning to relax. Jaws relax. Bring your awareness to your muscles in your neck, perhaps turning your head gently to the side a few times, softening, relaxing the muscles in the neck area in the throat.
Moving your awareness down to the shoulders and the upper back, perhaps rotating your shoulders a few times and keeping your back straight, letting letting your shoulders drop to the sides, keeping your back straight. Just relaxing the shoulder muscles, feeling the tension and the burden that you carry there, beginning to move down through your body out to the ground. The shoulder muscles, neck muscles, relaxing, softening, releasing their tension. Your hands are relaxed. Lower arms.
Upper arms. Chest is at ease. Releasing the tension that you hold in your stomach muscles, letting your belly go soft. Relaxing throughout the pelvic area. Your buttocks.
And throughout your upper legs. Lower legs. Your feet. Bring your awareness to your body in general. Just notice any areas where there’s some kind of tightness, tension.
Bring your awareness, focus on those areas, consciously relax, soften. Feeling the tension dissipate, tightness loosen, Body becoming relaxed, at ease, comfortable. And then bring your mind to the breath. Just the easy, gentle, and outflow of the natural breath. Now we are going to meditate on our freedoms and richnesses.
So in terms of wanting to make use of your life to achieve some kind of vision that you had for yourself, what kind of constraints would be placed upon you if you were a beggar on the streets of Calcutta? How would this stop you from doing what it is that you want most in your life in terms of your learning and practice, in terms of helping yourself, developing yourself? What kind of constraints does being a beggar on the streets of Calcutta? And that if you were a beggar on the streets of Calcutta, what could you do to practice the Dharma? What could you do if you were starving in Ethiopia?
Constantly looking for a bit of food, a piece of grass for yourself and your children, could you study? Could you learn? Could you meditate? What kind of constraints are placed on you if you were starving in Ethiopia? Imagine yourself in such a situation.
Imagine that you’re living in Baghdad, in Iraq. Bombings, people being killed all about you. Your life isn’t safe. What can you do in such a situation? What could you do if you were seriously ill, perhaps with cancer, undergoing chemotherapy, radiotherapy, in pain, weak?
Lying there. What can you do? What can you do? What could you do if you were intellectually impaired? You can’t think clearly.
You can’t think thoroughly or deeply. It’s difficult to learn. That kind of situation, what can you do? Imagine you’re an addict or an alcoholic. Mind completely absorbed into finding the next fix, next drink.
That’s all that you want. Imagine you were completely caught up in materialism, completely swept away by your struggle for more power, for status, for bigger and better, for more. That was reality. That’s all that you wanted. Or if you lived in a country where there was no religious freedom, where you weren’t allowed to meet together, you weren’t allowed to read books, study.
Such a situation, what can you do? What what are the constraints? The fact is that you’re free of all that. None of that’s true for you. Now let’s look at what is true for ourselves, our richnesses.
We you have a you have a good mind and a good heart. You’re intelligent and caring person. That’s true. That’s a reality. That’s a fact about yourself.
You have a relatively healthy body. All your material needs are easily met. You may not have all that you want, but you have all that you need materially, quite easily. You live in a safe environment, in a free country. You can pursue all your interests, whatever it is that you want to do.
And then finally, you met with some profound teachings. There are teachers available who are accessible. Most people on the earth can only dream of such a life, but you have it. Do you know how fortunate you really are? And then bring your mind back to your breath.
And get in touch with your body, the feelings and sensations within your body. And slowly, in a gentle and relaxed, easy manner, become aware of what’s going on about you. So we’re looking at the way to begin to shift our priorities. This mainly concerns the shifting of, you know, our preoccupation with the eight worldly concerns. The pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, the pursuit of gain, the avoidance of loss, the pursuit of fame, and the avoidance of disrepute, and the pursuit of praise, and the avoidance of ridicule or criticism.
You know, there’s these are the are the constraints which which we place upon our life in terms of what we will achieve or what we can do. And then we’re trying to create a a vision beyond that, ego’s vision. This action of ego is we have we can begin to create other priorities for ourselves, you know, beyond the the pleasure pain principle, for example. You know, we want happiness, but we want true happiness. That’s the the purpose of life is to find happiness.
But using these these rules that we govern our lives, you know, the the our compulsive pursuit of pleasure and compulsive avoidance with pain doesn’t really bring happiness. That’s the problem. And the way that we’re trying to find some way to extract the essence of our life to find that true happiness. And so we’re beginning to appreciate that we have all the conditions necessary to do that. And that we we we overcoming our sense of insufficiency or sense that there’s this self defeatism, procrastination, that we have the all that necessary in order to to live a successful life.
And we have met we have outer basis as a spiritual teacher. The inner basis are on Buddha nature, and we have all the circumstances. We have this precious human life. And that that it beginning to appreciate how how useful it is, how special it is, how useful it is, and how rare and difficult it is to find. We talked about the fact that, you know, the use in terms of how we can use our lives ultimately to find true happiness.
We call this a Buddha, you know, someone who’s found unremitting inner peace and is able to work skillfully with others would help them to find the same. Yes. It’s kinda taking the essence of our life. But, you know, at least to make our life, at least not to use our life to create more problems for ourselves, both presently and in the future. We should minimally try to avoid that and to create the kind of circumstances where in the future we can carry on our practice.
You know? We can take our under our present understandings, our presence, what we’ve how we how the degree that we’ve developed mind used to take that as a base and then work further. And taking that as a base, we can work further. Life after life. This kind of evolution.
And that we you know, this is the way that we can make use of our life, ultimately define happiness for ourselves and others. This life is extremely valuable, you know, that, you know, we we our life, you know, we’ve talked about these these freedoms and richnesses that beginning to appreciate when, in fact, we do have that we you know, without the the the the more basic necessities of life, can’t deal with or we can’t be concerned with, or we can’t proceed to look at other possibilities. You know? We have to have food. We have to have clothing.
We have to have shelter. Once those needs are satisfied, then we can be concerned concerned with higher needs, you know, for safety and security. Once once safety and security those needs are satisfied, we can begin to concern ourselves with belonging, love, and self esteem, other possibilities. So, you know, beginning to appreciate the fact, how fortunate in fact we are. Mhmm.
And then we’re moreover, you know, we appreciate the fact of how how rare such a a human life is. You know, our we are we are a privileged class amongst all the all the beings the universe, but even amongst human beings. Not only are we human beings, but we we have eight these eighteen qualities of freedoms and richnesses. And then in some of the just some of the ways that we’ve described in our meditation, beginning to appreciate that fact and value it so we take advantage of it. We don’t let allow it to go to waste.
But there’s another way we can we can look at our life in terms of its how rare it is. And if you if you think how something rare something is, you have more value at you don’t simply take it for granted. You make use of it in some way. So we talked about this a little bit last week. In fact, the the general you know, everything in Buddhism one of the slogans of Buddhism, I think, is dependent arising.
It’s a very empowering concept that everything arises everything rises in dependence upon causes and conditions, that things don’t happen by chance. They don’t happen by the grace of god, that they are dependent upon specific variables, causes, conditions which bring about predictable results. So this this our life becomes we you know, it’s like taking power, taking our life in our own hand. We if you want something, you have to create the causes to bring it about. If you don’t want something, you have to stop creating the causes that bring it about.
We don’t have to. It’s it’s it’s in our control. It doesn’t it doesn’t just happen by chance nor do we have to pray for it to happen to be anyway, to be at the mercy of some forces over which we have little to do with there. So the the general cause of a human life is pure ethical conduct. To act you know, this is this is this is what it means to be act like a human being.
human being. We we look at each and this, I said, was in terms of practicing the ten virtuous actions, abandoning the ten non virtuous actions. When you look at people, you look in their face that they’re saying something. Said, please don’t kill me. Please don’t steal my things from me.
You know, please don’t such sexually violate me. Don’t lie to me. You know, that this is basic to humanity. So it’s not it’s not some kind of abstract rules or ways to ways to control that we’re being imposed upon ourselves. But I think their their expression of something very basic to what it is that we all want for ourselves, and therefore others are very much the same as ourselves.
But but so beginning to practice a pure ethical conduct is a way that we we achieve a human life in general. But moreover, this privileged situation that we find ourselves in, a life of these eighteen richness freedoms and richnesses, it requires that we we not only act ethically, but but but as well, we have to have enough, you know, have the material circumstances. So we have to create the causes for that. What is the cause? To act generously, to give.
The results of generosity is that you you yourself will receive. You know, it’s just like as you sow, so shall you reap, something like that. It’s not it’s not overly complex, but it perhaps it’s profound in order to have it’s a healthy body, you know, with with little sickness, practicing patience, and so forth. You know? To ensure complete, but that we’re able to with few obstacles, what we take up, practicing joyous effort, that we can we have the ability to stay focused on what it is we want, practicing concentrated concentrated meditations, for example, that we’re able to think deeply, analyze clearly, making use of our intelligence, our wisdom.
So practicing these six perfections that we’re going to examine in the future. So this is these are the causes that in addition, some kind of aspiration for such such a type of life, which bring about this particular life. So these causes are extreme are said to be extremely rare, but but we are experiencing the result. Therefore, we can infer that we must have created their causes and not to to appreciate that fact and not let it to go to waste. Then there’s the the this the the rarity and difficulty of finding such a time in human life from the point of view of classical analogy.
So this is a classical analogy or metaphor that’s quite it’s it’s classical. Okay. It’s traditionally mentioned. You have to imagine this great this great vast ocean. Okay.
And on the on the in the bottom of this ocean, there’s a blind turtle. Okay? And on the on the surface of this ocean, there is a golden yoke, some kind of golden ring being floating on the surface of the ocean, being tossed here and there by the waves. Okay. This is the kind of situation.
Finally, a life like ours is hard to find from a viewpoint of classical example. Suppose Suppose there was a single yoke like ring, a pure gold, that could float upon the surface of a great ocean. The swells of the sea push it back and forth in every direction you can imagine. Far down in the very depths of the ocean lives a giant great sea turtle. He is blind.
Once and only once in the span of an entire century, he swims to the surface to poke his head up momentarily. And suppose suppose the golden ring happened to catch him around the neck, the odds against it are nearly infinite. Okay. So that that that’s that’s the picture. That’s the metaphor.
That’s the that’s the example analogy. So explaining what are all those various components of that analogy. Our case is the same. The teachings of the Buddha passed now and again amongst the the our particular tradition of teachings comes has its source in Śākyamūni Buddha who lived who was born approximately twenty five hundred years ago. It is said that they will last five thousand years, then they will vanish.
So they’re half half life half their their half life is finished, almost finished. Half of their life for these teachings are almost finished. They’re in the last twenty five hundred years. So the point here is that, you know, it’s not as if there are perhaps there are infinite numbers of there are infinite numbers of Buddhists, but there are only there is a a finite number who who institute a tradition of complete teachings. That is they present the complete method whereby an individual can can travel from being, you know, an afflicted ordinary human being to that of being a Buddha and all of the all the stages in between.
That is the that institutes a complete system of mental development. These are extremely rare. And so and they’re they don’t you know, even having been taught, they don’t last forever. Nothing lasts forever. So but there there are other universes, other world systems other than our own where where this is going on.
But in our particular world system, the the teachings last for five thousand years, and then they pass on. They they’ll vanish from the earth. The teachings of the Buddha passed now and again amongst the various planets of the universe. Here we are blinded by our ignorance. So we are we’re like we’re this turtle at the bottom of the ocean, blind by ignorance.
Permanent inhabitants of the deepest reaches within the cycles ocean of cyclic life. A human body complete with leisure and fortune will be fantastically hard to find. The odds against it are almost infinite, but this time we have found one. I don’t you know, if it’s hard it’s hard to I mean, if if we have a real strong conviction in past and future lives, then it becomes easier to some of these ideas and some of these notions. You know, it’s what it said at the Buddha that once he he picked up he bent down.
It was on the Ganges River, he picked up a few grains of sand beneath his fingernail, and he said, you know, the those who have a a human life such as yours are like the grains of sand beneath my fingernail. But those who are in a lower situation and more greater with greater suffering, all the various levels of of existence, the various realms are like all the sands along the Ganges river. So comparatively, our human life is extremely rare. So the point is the point in all of this is, that we have to constantly count our blessings. That’s like an old Christian notion of counting your blessings.
Yeah. And appreciate just how very fortunate we really are. And we have to kind of somehow break out of this out of our our self defeating pattern. I can’t or I only wish I could. I have to wait for some other circumstances to come along.
And the feeling of insufficiency or inadequacy is this vague this vague notion that something is missing, that all of the value is outside of myself, that I don’t have quite what it takes. And we get we, you know, this mentality, we remain stuck. We become the victims of forces outside of our control, where over which we have little or no control. So this is this is like this it’s impoverishing stories that we keep telling ourselves about ourselves, which in fact limit ourselves in some way or another. So, you know, we have to ask ourselves, okay, you know, get on your case.
What is stopping you? To do you do you lack the freedoms to practice, to transform your mind? What is the reality of our situation? You know, not what you you know, we’d haven’t analyzed it. We haven’t really taken a look at it.
Are you a beggar? You know, all these ideas that we went through in in meditation, are you a beggar on the streets of Calcutta? No. Are you caught up in are you are are you caught up in the fighting in Iraq? People dying all about you, bombs going off in mourning?
No. Are are you starving in Ethiopia, in Africa? No. Do do you have to work from sunrise to sunset just to feed your family for that day? No.
K. You know, are are you living in a in a country where there is no religious freedom, where you can’t meet together, study, where you can’t you can’t express your ideas and exchange ideas openly? No. Are you are you are you intellectually intellectually handicapped, disabled? Are you undergoing chemotherapy?
Are you in chronic pain? Are you are you active actively addicted to substances, an alcoholic? Do you have no teachers to access to teachers from time to time and teachings and books and and a Sangha, a spiritual community that you can you can seek out for advice and help. No. His holiness, the Dalai Lama once said, if we realize so this is a pep talk.
Right? We have to look at our life. We don’t look at it. Know, what our our reality is very much dependent upon attention. What we pay attention to is our reality.
You know, if you if you pay attention to the empty side of that glass, the empty part of that glass, that’s that’s your reality. If you you if you pay attention to the full side of that glass of water, that’s your reality. Our reality is what we pay attention to. So we’re trying to purposely, constantly begin to pay attention to what’s right about our life, our freedoms and our richnesses. If we realize I am a human being, a human being can do anything, this determination, courage, and self confidence are important sources of victory and success.
Without willpower and determination, even something that you might have achieved easily cannot be achieved. If you have willpower and reasonable courage, not blind courage, but courage without pride, even things which seemed impossible at a certain stage turn into being possible because of continuing effort inspired by that courage. Thus, determination is very important. So we this is what we’re trying this is what we’re trying to develop, some kind of determination to take advantage of our situation. You know, look at all the people on the streets, you know, completely caught up in in materialism, in in the in the pursuit of sensual pleasures in one form or another, constantly running after money or power or status in one form or another.
You know, like reciting the the the worldly mantra of bigger, better, more, bigger, better, more, bigger, more. And they got this running through their mind. There’s no thought for what’s going on inside of their mind, their inner world, their inner life. That this is in fact the source of their happiness and also the source of their problem. Now are these people are they fulfilled?
If they’re happy, okay. I’d go along with that. I tried. But that’s not my experience nor do I see that about me. There’s a there’s a story about a Tibetan teacher who was traveling through through the countryside in France.
And in France, they have these huge, huge cemeteries, war cemeteries where, you know, the war is from many from the first World War and the second war. And the the they’re immaculately kept beautiful lawns. These rows upon rows upon rows upon rows of beautiful crosses. And so this this this Tibetan teacher and his attendant were driving through the French countryside, and they drove by one of these war cemeteries. And the the the attendant said mentioned to his teacher, he said, isn’t it isn’t it nice that in the west, they have such beautiful places to put to put the people’s corpses after their death?
And the teacher said to his attendant, yes. But in the west, they have even more beautiful places to put the people’s living corpses before they die. It’s for a hidden people really weren’t living their life or at best they live they live. Not so much difference from an animal mentality. Anyway, I don’t want to judge anybody.
So we have all the freedoms to practice now. There’s nothing, you know, there’s nothing missing. You don’t have to wait. So consider our richnesses. This is the positive situation that we find ourselves.
We are human beings with intelligent mind. We have we have kind of kind heart. And we have health relatively healthy bodies. We have we have we live in a free country. We can practice.
People can practice whatever religious they want. They can pursue their intellectual or creative interests in whatever way they want. It’s all open. There’s no there’s no political repression. We have opportunity to do most anything that we want, to go almost anywhere we want.
We have a high standard of living. We can have all our material needs easily now. We don’t have to work very hard. Really, we don’t. It’s it’s almost unbelievable, and it’s a you have to begin to question why.
I mean, I lived in India for, I don’t know, fifteen years. And and and it’s almost I don’t understand. You know? Just because I was born in the west, I come here. I can live a life of luxury.
And these people work so hard physically, mentally, and they live in poverty. Why is that? I mean, it’s it makes you feel uneasy. But we have it. You know?
We created the causes for it. It’s not yeah. So we we’ve we have these teachings, which are very profound which offer some really profound methods, which have been have a living tradition. People are actually making use of them and realizing the the the possibilities of what they can these what they offer for ourselves. Do we, you know, we have access to to teachers from time to time?
So, you know, this so what we’re saying is let’s look at what’s right about our life. Let’s pay attention to that. That’s our reality. Now we have all the complete freedoms and richnesses to bring about meaning to our life, to to learn, to practice, to to to change transform our minds, to extract the essence of our life, to find, you know, what some kind of true happiness. So everything that we have right now that we need to solve our problems, to feel fulfilled and to be happy and to to effectively work with others.
So we need to be aware of that fact and to value that fact so that leads us to act upon it. There’s a my old friend, Zen monk in the eighteenth century. He said, since I came to this hermitage, how many years have passed? If I am tired, I stretch out my feet. If I feel fine, I go for a stroll in the mountains.
The ridicule of praise the ridicule or praise of worldly people means nothing. Following my destiny for this body I have received from my parents, I have only thanks. And we have to appreciate how how special our human life is, how useful it is, and how rare and difficult it is to find and make use of it because our it’s not going to last forever. If we’re going to last forever, there wouldn’t be any pressure on us to do something now. But the fact is we’re all going to die.
So this opportunity is not going to last forever. You know, you begin to appreciate, wow, I really got and now they wanna take it away from me. You know, I just got it. We’re definitely going to die, but we don’t know when. So this brings up the, you know, in Tsongkhapa’s text where he says, freedom and richnesses are hard to find, and life does not last long.
So this not only do we should we begin to make use of this, to appreciate it, but we have to begin now because we simply don’t know how long we’re going to die. You know, I I once you know, this is a this is a notion. You know, all of all of these notions are just practically useful for helping us live a better life in our everyday life. Know? We can set Buddha Buddha aside for the moment.
You know, I once there was a there was an interview, of a woman who was dying of cancer, and she was the interviewer asked her, what what do you what is it that you most regret about your life? And she said that I never thought about death till now. Yeah. For for for for most of us, death is something dark, something unknown. And for many people, it’s something which they fear.
So fear is fundamentally a state of unawareness supported by grandiose beliefs and misperceptions misconceptions, misconceptions, grandiose beliefs about ourselves. Our grandiose beliefs about death include, I shouldn’t have to die. I must have one hundred percent guarantee that I won’t die tomorrow. I should be able to control things so I don’t have to die. Death should not be this way for me or my loved ones, and I will not let it happen because it is so unfair and terribly sad, and it makes me feel lonely and fearful.
So on our way to developing an awareness of death, we we we we have to begin to challenge our grandiose beliefs about ourselves, you know, surrounding our death. We have to ask ourselves, what’s special about me that somehow the universe is going to single me out for a special treatment. You know, death may be unfortunate. It may be terribly sad, but it’s also terribly normal. It’s not a nice thing to talk about, but it’s a very useful thing talk about.
You know, if our priority is never to never to to think about, you know, these, you know, in terms of the eight worldly concerns, I don’t want to hear about that. Let’s not talk about that. But we you know, it’s not a comfortable thing to talk about. But we our our our priorities aren’t aren’t lie somewhere else. Having to be constantly comfortable.
We’re willing to deal with uncomfortability, the tensions, the difficult feelings which are aroused in thinking about death because it’s useful in terms of some other a greater vision about what we want for our life. You know, the the you know, none of us consciously think I will never die. It’s a the the thought I will never die doesn’t ordinarily arise in our minds. If someone asks us, you know, will you die? He would answer, yeah.
Yeah. I mean, yeah, I’m gonna die. Everybody dies sooner or later. Nevertheless, we still have an innate sense that we’re always going to be here. You’re always going to be here.
I’ve always been here. I might have been a baby. I might have been a teenager. I might have been a young man young man. I’ve been an old man.
I’ve always been there. I have a sense. There’s an innate sense of I’m always gonna be here. I might say I’m always gonna I’m going I’m sure everybody dies, but I have a sense, an innate sense, I’m always going to be here. And even though we never explicitly think we will not die, there is always underlying feeling it will probably be a long time in the future, you know, when I when I really get old.
I don’t know. Yeah. It’s gonna be a long time before I die. Yeah. I’m gonna die.
Okay. But, you know, we feel that death will not happen this year or this month or this week. It’s not gonna happen today. No prob you know, if if if you have two possibilities, you know, it could happen soon, it could happen, you know, this year, or it could happen in after this year, you would always tend to say, oh, wait. What happened after this year?
No question. It it you couldn’t enter be mind when you entertain the idea that there’s a more a greater probability of dying this year than than a year after this, sometime in the future after this year. I mean, it’s it’s natural. It’s innate. We think in that way.
We don’t we wouldn’t can seriously con contemplate the fact that that I might die this year. There’s a certain resistance to it. Of course, you know, we we we we we can’t we have to admit, okay, people die. We know that we too are gonna die. And that but but not just yet.
Not too soon. Death this is still far away. You know, it’s enough at any rate to permit us to put kind of some kind of veils between ourselves. And and this last inescapable, inevitable inevitability, which nobody can take from us, which more than anything else reveals to us just how in escapable our life is our own. No one can live your life for you, and no and no one can die your death.
You know, each of us alone is alone in the face of death. This is our life. No no matter how much obligations you may feel to others, you know, how much control you may place outside agents upon your life, it is yours, and it’s your death. No. We we we want to more than not to forget death.
You know, this it’s not, you know, this fear of losing everything, our loved ones, our possessions, our achievements, you know, our entire our entire life lost. Everything upon which we we base our conceptions of what we are and who we are, even that we are, it’s all gone. Our very identity lost, and and we we don’t know where. We go, we not know where. Ah, but to die and go we not know where, to lie in cold obstruction into rot, this sensible warm motion to become a kneaded clod and the delighted spirits to bathe in fiery floods or to reside in thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice, to be imprisoned in the winds and blown with restless violence around the pendant world.
So the, you know, the the essence of cowardice is not to admit our fears, to, you know, to systematically cultivate an unawareness of our fears and the object of those fears. Most all of us at some level dread death. We would like we would like to pretend it just not doesn’t exist. We would like to, you know, like, turn the turn the dial to another channel. You know, I don’t like this program.
It’s it’s pushing my button. Let’s not talk about it. Does every this is a this is a a little dialogue between this is written by Catherine Mansfield. It’s a little dialogue between a little girl and her grandmother. Yeah.
The little girl’s name is Kasia. It’s a little girl talking to her grandmother. Does everybody have to die? Everybody. Me, Kezia, sounded fearfully incredulous.
Someday, my darling. But grandma, Kezia waved her left leg and waggled her the toes. They felt sandy. What if I won’t? We’re not asked Kezia, she said sadly.
It happens to all of us sooner or later. Kesya lay still thinking this over. She didn’t want to die. It meant she would have to leave here, leave everywhere. Forever.
Leave. Leave her grandma. She rolled over quickly. Grandma, she said in a startled voice. What my pet.
You’re not to die, Kezia said very decidedly. Ah, Kessia. Her grandmother looked up and smiled and shook her head. Don’t let’s talk about it. But you’re not to.
You couldn’t leave me. You couldn’t not be there. This was awful. Promise me you won’t go you won’t ever go. You won’t ever do it, grandma pleaded.
The old woman went on knitting. Promise me. Say never. But still her grandmother was silent. Rolled over off the bed.
She couldn’t bear it any longer. And lightly, she leapt on her grandma’s knees, clasped her hands around the old woman’s throat, began kissing her under the chin, behind the ear, and blowing down her neck. Say never. Say never. Say never.
She grasped between kisses. And then she began very softly and lightly to tickle her grandma. Kezia, the old woman, dropped her knitting. She swung back in the rocker and began to tickle Kezia. Say never.
Say never. Say never, gulped Kezia, while they were laughing in each other’s arms. Come. That’s enough, my squirrel. That’s enough, my wild pony, said old missus Fairfield, setting her cap straight, picking up her knitting.
Both of them had forgotten what the laughter was all about. But, you know, the the the the significance of becoming mindful of death is is is not isn’t just to become conscious of our fears around it nor to overcome our fears around death is to begin to appreciate our life, you know, to to ensure that that that we don’t waste our lives, to ensure that that we we are not one of those cowards who dies many times before their death. You know, the type of life of of of of emptiness, hypocrisy, inauthenticity, pettiness. This kind this kind of living death that passes for life for most people, a kind of imitation life. It’s kind of a just a kind of a a meaningless, purposeless, hollow series of events, which people call life.
So, you know, this the purpose of mindfulness of death is so that we not allow this opportunity that our precious human life presents us with to slip through our fingers, through through through laziness, through procrastination. So, you know, so that we that we keep our priorities straight. And what is the most important to me uniquely? Not my not what I’ve been told I should think is important, but what what the kind of values that I’ve derived for myself, keeping those before our mind’s eye through, you know, throughout all of the difficulties, you know, all the swaying circumstances of our life, keeping some kind of magnetic north that we keep coming back to. You know, death tells us what’s important in life.
It keeps reminding us coming back to that again and again and again. You know? So that so that, you know, it won’t allow the eight worldly dharmas, eight worldly concerns to to run our life. No one’s going to run our life. I’m going to determine my life.
It’s my life. It’s the only one I’m ever going to have, and I’m going to make use of it as I can. You know? That I so that when I die, I’m not going to be filled with regret. You know, how I wasted my life.
I didn’t live my life the way I wanted it. I didn’t even know what I wanted. At least begin to derive some kind of some kind of values for yourself and begin to live those out, keeping those central to your life, focusing on your life. Okay. Maybe maybe we must just have a few more minutes.
So this is what we’re going to be going through. We’re going to try to there’s a we’re going to be looking at what is called the nine-point death meditation. You know, has three roots. Death you know, beginning to this is this is you know, I said Buddhist Buddhism is like truth therapy, trying to get in touch with what is actually the fact. The fact is we’re definitely going to die.
That’s a root. There’ll be support we’ll support that with three reasons. The fact is we don’t know when we’re going to die. We’ll support that with three reasons. And then trying to understand what is it that is going to be of value at the time of our death.
So the purpose of meditating on death is begin to live our life to why we still have it, to not let it be wasted, to value it while while we still have some breath. So we’ll stop there. We have about we have a few minutes. If you would like to have any points you bring up this discussion or questions you’d like to ask. So joyous joyous effort?
Yeah. Okay. So joy is so, you know, it’s it’s one of the six perfections, the joyous effort, and it’s the quality of of bringing things to completion, you know, but not just any goal, but some type of positive goals. So one one develops the, the inner strength of of of will to be able to to bring to completion your goals. So it’s like developing that ability, that habit, that a lot of people, they pick up one pick up something and then they quickly lose interest and they set aside, they pick up something else, and nothing is ever achieved.
So it’s so the idea of joy is effort is first that it’s it’s not a matter of simply keeping your nose to the grindstone, you know, persevering at all costs. It it may it may come down to that, but the idea is to to it should be it should is to to reframe the situation so that you find joy in what you’re doing even though when it’s difficult. There’s some kind of inner satisfaction and more toward positive goals and to get in the habit of completing what you take up, the tasks that you take up. So so you develop a sense of develop the an inner strength, the will and purpose, and what and rather than this, you know, the usual way of simply, you know, being caught up in passing interest. And when when when you’re meeting some challenge, when difficulties arise, immediately setting them aside, moving on to something else.
Something like that. Yeah. So, yeah, some freedom from what? What do you think? So these are the causes for this particular type of life.
Yeah? So the that we that we’ve practiced joyous effort in the past, that we’ve that we’ve that we’ve carried through to some degree with our tasks. I don’t know what we did. So, I mean, if somebody what would we wouldn’t. But now yeah.
Some direct we have some overall direction. You know, it might get we might lose sight of it from time to time, but it seems like there is some kind of directionality to our life. Anything else? Guys are very quiet. Yeah.
Okay. So we can dedicate the positive energy that we’ve created together. Everywhere plagued by sufferings of body and mind attain 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 the mind weighed down by depression.
May the blind see forms, the deaf hear sounds, may those whose bodies are worn with toil be restored and finely repose. May the naked find clothing, the hungry find food. May the thirsty find water and delicious drink. May the poor find wealth, those weak with sorrow find joy. May the forlorn find hope, constant past happiness and prosperity.
May the timely rains and bountiful harvests, and 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 frightened cease to be afraid and those bound be freed. May the powers find 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 that awakened realm. May the supreme jewel of the three principal aspects of the path that have not arisen, rise and grow, and those that have arisen, may they never diminish but increase more and more. In the land circled by snow mountains, you are the source of happiness and well-being. Powerful, remain at the end of cyclic existence. Thank you.
Have a good week.