Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. An Oliver Sacks case study — a man who regained sight after forty years of blindness and had to learn to read a “smear of colour” — opens this nearly two-hour session and sets up Ven Jampa Gendun’s central claim: that the mind actively co-creates reality, making Buddhist practice fundamentally epistemological. He traces how false premises produce a dissatisfactory world, introducing dukkha through its original meaning of a wheel grinding on its axle, and uses a photograph of chocolate cake to illustrate craving that is structurally incapable of being satisfied. The session then moves into guided analytic meditation on the first two roots of a nine-round death contemplation — death is inevitable; the time of death is unpredictable — working through each supporting reason carefully before arriving at the practical determination to begin practice now rather than continue to procrastinate. Suited to students already following a Lamrim curriculum.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 16 3PA 2006 12 04.mp3
UUID: 54a147e5-99f3-4e4f-a9e7-5a450e33c760
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 2006-2007 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2006-12-04
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 116.3 minutes
Words: ~11,289
How is everybody? Good? Can you hear me okay? Yeah? You know, we’re quite often talking about a path, how we get from where we are now to where we want to get to.
The Tibetan word for path is lam, l a m. And the definition is a clear realization conjoined with the will to awaken or or the determination to be free. A clear realization which is conjoined with or under the influence of this determination to free ourselves from cyclic existence is reoccurring dissatisfactory patterns of our life. And the idea of clear realization, it the removing of the the illusory superimposition that we project on everything. You know, it’s like seeing a white snow mountain as green because we’re wearing sunglasses, green sunglasses, and then taking off those sunglasses.
I would say removing that that overlay of green, the illusion that we’re projecting onto the object and seeing it in the way it actually is in its true nature. So that’s what the idea of clear realization is. We’re we’re removing our habitual projections of some kind of fantasized way of existing or mistaken notions about the world, about ourselves, and seeing things in their in their true nature, the way they actually exist, clearing clearing away these superimpositions. There’s a this is very much what the word in the word which is a Greek word, Greek word for truth. It has no it has the idea of clearing it’s like a clearing away.
When when you’re walking through a woods and you come to an opening, a clearing, that’s an. That’s like what has the meaning of truth. So it’s when when when the when the the veils or the the overgrowth of ignorance, the afflicted emotions, of our illusory ways of thinking about things having cleared away. We arrive at some kind of truth. Yes.
That’s that’s that’s what is a realization. The fundamental assertion of fundamental assertion of Buddha’s of Buddhism, I think, is that knowing is an organizing into the known. That the process of knowing, that very process itself, is a process of organizing organizing or recreating some kind of reality for ourselves. Now last a few nights ago, was reading a book. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it.
There’s an American psychiatrist by the name of Oliver Sacks, and he’s written yeah. He’s written a number of books like Awakening and and he deal he’s an he’s a neuropsychologist or and he was he investigates quite interesting areas. One of the one of the one of the one of his books is called An Anthropologist on Mars. An Anthropologist on Mars, I think. He had one book called the the man who mistook his wife for a hat.
A really strange bizarre thing in people’s minds. Anyway, he investigates these kind of things. And he he investigates this one case. There aren’t very many cases, but they’re they’re quite rare, but they there are some recorded cases of where people have been blind their whole life or a large part of their life. And then for some reason, perhaps by an accident or in this case, was an operation, replacing the corneas of the eye.
This person, after forty years of blindness, regained their sight. And, you know, it was a it’s not as if, you know, having having gained regained sight, having been blind and now you can see, that you see all the shapes and colors and you see people and you see tables and whatnot. It’s not the case at all. You have to learn to see. This this and he he was interviewing this this man who who went through this process, and it was just there was he said, initially, it was like just a smear of color, and then something out of that spoke.
And he realized he was facing his wife’s he was looking at his wife. But it was just it wasn’t his wife’s face. It was how it he couldn’t he didn’t even know it was color. He wasn’t even sure what it was, this new experience, this new sensation, a visual sensation. But he had to learn to what to begin to differentiate and into colors and shapes and what these colors and shapes and and so forth stood for and begin to organize this chaos of just this smear of color.
And there wasn’t individual shapes and so forth as we would norm as we’ve learned to see what we’ve what we see. It’s not as if reality is out there and it kind of we are passive observers. Like like, sometimes the, you know, the mind is is likened to a mirror. And it’s one way to think about it where these these objects, they they project their their image onto the mirror, and the mirror is a passive recipient and simply reflects that image. In a certain respect, that’s true in in a certain way of talking about the mind.
But to a large extent, we are it’s a participatory universe where we are involved in the creation of our particular reality and what we see and what we don’t see. It’s very much a matter of what we’ve learned to see and not see. You know, we have we have to have the ideas, the proper metaphors in order to be able to distinguish these, the things that we’ve come to know. Without the proper metaphor, without the proper idea, we can’t see them. So where am I going with that?
Oh, yeah. I I find this it’s it’s kinda the book is quite fascinating. Anyway, one of the fundamental notions I yeah. That’s where I was about Buddhism is that the the knowing isn’t organizing into the known. It’s just not the mind is simply not a passive observer, and these things are, as it were, over they overwhelm them with what they are ourselves with what they are, and we simply identify which already exists.
That’s not the case. We we are cocreators of our reality in a way. That what we come to know is inseparable from how we know it. It’s inseparable from our own minds and thinking that we make use of. And what is the the the thinking, you know, if we if we dig down a little bit deeper, the thinking that we’re that we’re making use of, it follows certain rules, certain we have certain premises that we operate on the basis of that we’ve learned on unsystematically and unconsciously, but nonetheless, we learn to identify certain rules, certain views, certain beliefs, the which we have used to come to know the world.
If our if our world is confused, if our world is if if this process of organizing our world and coming to know our our particular individual reality. If if the premises, the beliefs, the views that we have are confused or mistaken or are are false, then we come to know a world of disease. If this is this is what this is an area which is very important to Buddhism. It’s called epistemology. The rules that we make use of in understanding our reality, our world.
We have these these rules aren’t conscious. We aren’t aware of them, but nonetheless, they still exist. If if if our rules, if our epistemology, the way that we come to know, the world about us, are pathological. And by pathological, I mean unhealthy. If the ways, the rules that we make use of in making sense of our world, organizing our reality, are unhealthy, then we will so will our world itself.
We can we will only be able to know an unhealthy pathological reality. In other words, the fundamental assertion of Buddhism is that the psychology psychology of our suffering is the dysfunctional way that we that we come to know our world. I mean, by dysfunctional, I mean, we have unskillful ways, appropriate ways to in in in the terms of what it is that we actually want. That the the ways that we know in the world are inappropriate to the goals that we have set ourselves. That is the achievement of the happiness, the elimination of our suffering.
Our rules by which we are conducting our lives, that we think about the world and we know the world are such that they preclude the possibility of true happiness. That they they are their very nature. We’re in such situation that we can only know dissatisfaction, disappointment, and suffering of one sort or another. You know, it’s it’s like the nature of our present situation. One can never become a master of saṃsāra, this process.
One can only go go beyond it. Our our beliefs, they inform our perception. They shape our perception. The the our beliefs, they permeate our knowledge, our our our our experiences of the world, our relationships. And the world that we find ourselves in is what we’ve come to to know.
The world that we come to know corresponds to our beliefs about it. You know, it’s like the Alice in Wonderland where they say, you know, the the we see our our world through it through glasses darkly. You know, we we are as if we’re all wearing these green sunglasses, and we see things in distorted ways. We see White Snow Mountains as green. That might be alright in the case of White Snow Mountains, but it’s necessary that if we want to deal with reality the way it actually is in its true nature, we have to remove the distorting lenses of our mistaken ideas, the, you know, the beliefs that we’re harboring and becoming aware of them and beginning to work with through them, removing their glasses in some way.
So this, you know, this is the reason this is the this is the the value of traveling a spiritual path. Making effort, you know, in all the various effort that we make in the activities of of of reading and studying and learning and reflecting upon what we’ve learned and finally meditating on it, put it into practice. It’s it’s important because it’s important that we that we we learn about our present situation. You know? How how our situation the nature of our situation and the world about us, how they evolve, that we become aware of possible alternatives.
And, you know, we can we can we can act upon these alternatives. We can we can we can begin to modify our beliefs, our mistaken beliefs, and we can begin to correct. You know, we are we have we have some kind of maps Yes. Inner maps, mental maps by which we navigate our way through our lives. And many of our maps are incorrect.
You know, they aren’t getting us where we want to go to. We keep we keep keep we have great belief in them. We keep trying. It’s not really our fault in a way, but we have to learn that we have in a sense that it’s not and we’re not operating to to a large degree in our own self best interests. So traveling a spiritual path is a way of gaining realization.
That is to say, coming to know the world of truth as opposed to what we call epistemological fantasies. The fantasies that are the way our present system of beliefs and rules by which we which govern our lives, the the the illusions that it creates for us. You know, there there’s many levels to all of this. You know, we we’re going to investigate a lot of it. There are things you know, the two primary misconceptions that we have that will govern our lives, which we operate on under the basis of the core assumptions are ignorance and self centeredness.
This is almost it’s it’s so so very fundamental. We don’t even see it as as an an alternative possibility. And we can we don’t even call into question the nature of the eye. What you know, modern psychology, it would you know, it tries to prune the branches of this tree of misconceptions. And it tries to make us into a better person.
And to a large degree, Buddhism is always doing that. But without the the notion of ignorance and therefore its counterpart, the wisdom understanding, the actual nature of itself, Buddhism could not go beyond, you know, the psychology. It could it brings into question the very nature of the person himself, whereas Western psychology is simply that is to say, it tries to cut the root of this of the dysfunctions of the person himself and not merely prune the branches of the tree. And it’s likewise with regard to self centeredness. But it’s as if we have layers upon layers.
You know, it’s like, you know, when they’re digging in an an excavation of a very ancient ruins. Sometimes they come upon layers and layers of one civilization built upon the next. You One one resting upon the found one entire society having been built up upon the ruins of a previous society, inhabitants of that particular area. And likewise, regard to all of these mistaken beliefs, these systems of which govern our lives, they’re like layers and layers and layers of you know, at the foundation, fundamental most is ignorance and self centeredness. But the but there are other layers which are rest upon that very foundation itself.
You know, most all of us, just by ways of example, and this is what the the graduated path is trying to work through to a large extent. The three principal aspects of the path that we’re working through, that we’re going through. You know, for example, most of most all of us harbor some idea about ourselves that we are limited, insufficient, that we are incomplete, that every you know, that that everything that is valuable and necessary for happiness lies outside of ourselves. And at some on some level, I think we have that belief for most of us, at least to some degree or other. You know, we take for granted, this is what we’re going we just went through, we take we take for granted our human life, this precious, what we call it, precious human life, as if it had no greater value than pursuit of pleasure in the avoidance of pain, or what happened to the body, or what we control our own.
That would that that’s what constitutes that’s the measure of a successful life for the most part. We think we think this is what we’re looking at now. We think we’re going to live forever. And even if we were to acknowledge that, okay, maybe I will die, but not anytime too soon. Anyway, we have the notion that it really my impending death, even if it’s uncertain, doesn’t have to really affect the way I live my life at present.
Death is far away to put some kind of veils between myself and it or this inevitable end to all that that is born. So we don’t have it doesn’t have any real impact on what we do in the present moment. We look to other people or to material things, you know, the as if as if all that can bring us happiness. You know, we’re outside of ourselves. We we we we we see ourselves to some degree as victims of forces beyond or to a large extent out of our control as if what is happening to us isn’t a result of our own decision making, our past decisions that we make, the choices that we make, and the and the actions which flowed out of these choices.
You know, as if life happens to us like, you know, like an accident. It’s not really my fault. This is life is happening to me. There’s a sense of powerlessness about ourselves to some degree, you know, that we we can’t control these forces. And we conceive of of true happiness, what is, in fact, simply a momentary diminishment of previous pain, what is, in fact, continuous level of some degree of suffering.
When that suffering lessens to some degree, we can see that that is happiness. In fact, we can see that that is the only possibility, only type of possible happiness. We, you know, on and on and on. We and moreover, we believe this entire set of fictions to be truth, objective truth. This is the way things are unquestionably so.
We for most part, people would not question a great deal of these beliefs which I just mentioned. These are the beliefs that they’re operating. And within that belief system, they’re they’re trying to find the best they can. Best they’re trying to do their best way they can to find happiness and remove their suffering. But within the context of those misconceptions, there’s no there’s no real possibility for finding true happiness.
It’s not within that, you know, this idea of set theory. You know? There’s this there’s a within these set of variables, how true happiness is not possible within that context. You have to step outside of that that enclosed system. What we call saṃsāra is dissatisfactory reoccurring patterns of dissatisfaction.
Within that context, the beliefs upon which this is based, true happiness is not possible. You have to step outside of the context, out of those rules, those that system of the in order to find true happiness. So, you know, with within such a type of we we fabricate this reality, which is of its very nature, dissatisfactory. Invariably, there’s some kind of disappointment, frustration, disappointment. Fundamentally, it’s flawed.
You know, the it’s it’s like it’s like someone who who refuses to who who who refuses to believe that summer changes into winter, and they dress inappropriately, and they fall sick. You know, we we have no choice but to live in accordance with the way things are. There’s a certain dishonesty in making in demanding that reality be other than the way it is. And the the price for that is some kind of dissatisfaction at some level. So this is the psychological fiction that we that that our minds construct, and this is the primary reality that we live within.
You know, to a large extent, all we ever see are the the the reflections of these illusions that we are continually projecting upon the world around us, in our relationships, in all the things, in all the good all the material things about us, and even with regard to ourselves. You know, the it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like if you think a picture or a photograph of a chocolate cake is a real thing. You know, you you you there’s there’s a there’s a disparity between your beliefs on the one hand and the reality on the other. What you know, the the the that is to say, the nature of the object devoid of our misconceptions about it. No matter how many photographs you’re able to gather together, we’re talking about these photographs of a piece of chocolate cake.
No matter how many you can collect, no matter how many you could actually consume, you never get from the photograph, that is, say, from that projected illusion what it is that you expected, what it is that in your heart of hearts you really were looking for, what you really wanted from that object. You know, there you’re you’re you’re you know, I think I’ve maybe I’ve mentioned this before. There are two great tragedies in life. No. Not getting what you want and getting what you want.
You know, in in getting what you want, it it you may get what we apparently wanted. But in terms of this, you know, in in in the in the in the case of the the photograph of the piece of chocolate cake, you know, no matter how many we we collect, no matter how many photographs we consume, we never find just what it is that we’re looking for. The craving never really goes away. The the, you know, the there’s never really any end. The the desiring just starts all over again.
And that yeah. We’re we’re forced to move on. We’re forced to search it out again, to acquire again, to keep on consuming endlessly. There’s only this momentary pause and then again. You know?
What the craving has never come to an end. There’s no really we’ve never reached a point of satiation, satisfaction, of contentment. The craving just starts all over again. The desire starts over again. However much we consume, there still remains a place inside of us where that is not fulfilled, that is still still empty.
A sense of something there’s some kind of a sense of inadequacy. Either we are in it. There’s either either the world is inadequate to us or we are inadequate to it. There’s there’s not a there’s not a there’s a kind of we continue to experience a kind of misfit between ourselves and the world that they don’t fit together properly. You know, this is what this experience of this this misfit between our world and ourselves is what is referred to as dukkha in Sanskrit.
Dukkha generally is translated as suffering or dissatisfaction, but it’s originally it originally meant and the Buddha, he used this word in a very special way. It originally meant a wheel that grinds on its axle. Our wheel grinds on its axle. It grates upon us. It jars us.
It rubs a wound upon us. That’s the that’s what dukkha. The path leading beyond dukkha, beyond this experience of dissatisfaction, of continually, you know, having to search, having to move on, continually being wounded by life in some way or another isn’t necessarily a path of change. Our mistaken beliefs, our mistaken ideas, our our assumptions about the world necessarily must change. Somehow, we’ve got to change that.
We’ve got to we’ve got to bring them in to rely in line with the type of reality which is a where we can find true happiness. We we have to develop new and different kinds of ideas. So in this in this in this, you know, ideas which are more appropriate, more skillful. I mean, put this Buddhism talks in terms of what is appropriate to what it is that we want, what is skillful in terms of effective, functional in terms of what it is that we want. And we want to be happy and we don’t want to suffer.
So, you know, in this process, we we remove this misfit. You know, our world begins to flow a little more freely. The the the the interface between ourselves and world is is smoother. You know, the the the there’s a greater sense of well-being, of ease about ourselves. You know, there’s a change.
You know, as long as we pursue what amounts to the unattainable, that is the what amounts to a fantasy. What is in fact possible will never be realized. So the the the orientation of Buddhism is the orientation of the Buddhist path stresses that it is our present intentions and our goals which which are important, not so much our childhood experiences, you know, what happened to us a long time ago or what didn’t happen to us a long time ago. But it’s these you know, it’s it is is a the way we begin to orientate ourselves in terms of where our goals what are our intentions, where we want to go from here for now, where we want to go from here. You know, past experiences definitely influence the present, but they don’t entirely determine it.
And the two people can have the quite identical experiences, but the way that they synthesize, the way that they interpret their experience can can make the consequence of that past experience quite different. You know, most people are attuned to their past person, who I have been. They’re almost they’re like, in some ways, we’re enslaved to our past. You were bound by the our past roles in to a large degree. You know, the this is our inheritance, you know, the the force of our own inertia of our habits which carries on into the future unless we begin to consciously interrupt the process.
We each of us, we have each of us a life story, an inner narrative whose continuity, whose sense is is our lives. It might be said that each of us constructs constructs and lives a narrative, and that this narrative is us, our identities. If we wish to know about a man, we ask, what is his story, his real inmost story? For each of us is a biography, a story. Each of us is a singular narrative, which is constructed continually, unconsciously, by and through and in us, through our perceptions, our feelings, our thoughts, our actions, and not the least, our discourse, our spoken narration.
Biologically, physiologically, we are not so different from each other. Historically, as narratives, we are each of us unique. But, you know, when we begin to to to recognize our story, this this loop of self talk that’s keep we keep repeating inside of our heads about who I am and what what I can expect out of my life legitimately. When we begin we don’t we can begin to interrupt that process. We can begin you know, Buddhism is saying that we have to rewrite the stories of our life.
Now what has been does inertia have to continue to be so about ourselves if we determine to make it not so. It’s up to it’s up to our intelligence and our and our understanding, but it’s a large extent our determination determination to make it different, a different future for ourselves. You know, we have to it’s like Buddhism is very much forward looking. So we have to assume responsibility, and we have to we have to make some kind of shift, you know, from from re we a reattuning of our identity from who I have been to what I can be, what I can become, and what I can do now to become that, what I what I wish to become in the future. You know, we we are what we do, and we’re free to choose what we do if we choose.
There’s a little catch. If we don’t choose, then the default pattern keeps playing out. We simply the the past will infinitely continue into the future, keep repeating itself in one way or another. This is the idea of the idea of neurosis is is I read this. I am proposing a description of human beings as given motivation by new possibilities, the goals and the ideas which attract them and pull them toward the future.
This does not omit the fact that we are all partially pushed from behind determined by the past, but it unites the fourth with its other half. It gives us causality in which reason why and purpose are united. In the former the former is part so and the reason why. The fourth which is pushing us from behind. The former is part of all human experience since we all participate in the finite natural world.
In this respect, each of us, in making any important decision, needs to find out as much as we can about the objective facts of the situation. This realm is particularly relevant in problems of neurosis, in which past events do exercise a compulsive, repetitive, chain like, predictable effect upon the person’s actions. Freud was right in that respect, in that rigid deterministic causality does work in neurosis and sickness. But he was wrong in trying to carry this over to apply to all human experience. The aspect of purpose which comes into process, when the individual can become conscious of what he is doing, opens him to new and different possibilities in the future and introduces the element of personal responsibility and freedom.
So, you know, if we choose to take to take responsibility and we begin to exercise our freedom to choose, and I I think I probably mentioned it here. Choose freedom is not an objective reality. We’re only free to the degree that we exercise our freedom, and we begin to make a choice in the light of what it is that we want for ourselves. Otherwise, we we are living in with slave to what we’ve had been in the past. We’re only free to that extent to which we begin to make choices for ourselves and commit ourselves to other possibilities.
And, you know, we we talk about going for refuge quite a lot. Yeah. There is no this isn’t rocket science in a way. We begin to choose to formulate some idea of the kind of person I want I want to be. We we begin to create goals for ourselves, and not in terms of what we might be own or control or have, but the type of person that we can be.
And we begin to commit ourselves to actualizing that type of person, that goal for ourselves. And we commit ourselves, and we begin to look within our everyday life All the various significant actions of the many choices that we’re making every day of our life. Does do these choices does our overall way of practice. Although, our our overall ways of acting, all the various things that we do. Are they supportive of where it is I want to go?
Are they supportive? Are they assisting in that the person I want to become? You know, this is this is what commitment might mean, that I am willing to evaluate all of what I do terms of what it is that I want to achieve and beginning to adjust those, you know, all these little choices that I make, all of my little actions to ensure that they’re not taking me in the other direction. That when I want to go north and I point point my cart south, you know, how am I ever going to arrive? And this is what, you know, we mean by going for refuge, isn’t it?
You know, the the goal of our life, the inner goal of our life is Buddha. And, you know, this is simply, you know, a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being as as we’re trying to develop some sense of what that might be like. And that becomes inner focus of our life. And that becomes you know, we begin to commit ourselves. That’s the person I want to be somewhere down the line.
Twenty years from the line, ten years down the line, next lifetime, you know, whenever. But, anyway, I want to begin to head toward that, and you begin to commit yourself toward that. And that’s what we call going for refuge and begin to create the conditions around yourself and within yourself in terms of your practice to assist that process, to to actualize that that your refuge. You know, we begin to implement the Dharma, trying to find the way that things actually are in their true nature, trying to take off these sunglasses so we begin to see the things in their in their actual nature, and we begin to relate with them in a in a more in a more effective appropriate manner to in order that we can begin to actualize this Buddha, this person that we want to be. And we create the conditions about ourselves that support that process.
You know, those people who supportive of our commitment of mental health, of being a better person, a more loving person, a kinder person, more patient person, and all of these various qualities. Somehow, they they recreate recreate this this therapeutic culture, which which nourishes us and supports the our commitment. So over time in this way, you know, things change. The person we were five years ago, ten years ago, that person is, to some degree, left behind, and we we become someone more like the person that we want to be. And this is, you know, our refuge becomes kind of a living reality for ourselves to some degree.
I go for refuge 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’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’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 of happiness and 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 other.
So we’re going to meditate. You wanna stand up for a second second and stretch your legs? So we’ve been in terms of the three principal aspects of the path, we’ve been looking at the first principal aspect, and that is the will to awaken. Within that context, overcoming some of our misconceptions around taking we take our human life for granted, and that as if we’re going to live forever. We’re looking at death in order to begin to appreciate our life.
So we looked at the we’ve looked at the first of the three roots. The first root is that death is inevitable. So we’re going to meditate on the the first root, which is death is inevitable, and that has three supporting reasons. That everyone must die, your lifespan is continually decreasing without any further extension, and then thirdly, the third reason, body is a composite of constantly changing causes and conditions. And we we will supplement that with Tsongkhapa’s reason of the amount of time that we spend in the course of our lifetime developing our minds is insignificant.
So we’ll we’ll do analytic meditation on that subject. So taking a comfortable firm posture, keeping the back straight in a but in in a in a comfortable manner. Beginning with the process of relaxing, starting at the crown of your head, the scalp, and the forehead, Feeling the wrinkles in the brow beginning to smooth out. The tension in and around the eye areas. Beginning to diminish.
The muscles in your face relaxing, softening. The jaw is relaxed. Moving down to the muscles in your neck. Gently turning your head to the side a few times. Just loosening, softening, relaxing the muscles of the neck.
The muscles of the neck, the throat muscles, Moving down to your upper back and your shoulders. Perhaps rotating your shoulders a few times and keeping keeping your back erect. Just let your shoulders drop to the sides. Relax and soften, feeling the burden that we carry on our shoulders beginning to move down and out of your body to the ground. Your hands are relaxed.
Lower arms. Upper arms. Chest is at ease. Release the the tensions that you hold in your stomach muscles. Just allow your belly to be soft.
While holding your your trunk erect, relax the muscles at the lower back. Relaxing throughout the pelvic area. Your buttocks. Your upper legs and thighs. Lower legs.
Your feet. Bring your awareness to your body in general. Notice any tightnesses, any tensions. Focus upon those areas and consciously relax. Feeling the tensions dissipate, tightnesses loosen.
Body becoming comfortable at ease. And then bring your mind to the breath. It’s the easy, gentle, and outflow of the natural breath. We’re going to meditate on the inevitability of death. Look at the first reason.
Everyone must die. So begin to consider all the various types of people, kings, and presidents, criminals, workmen, secretaries, teachers. They all ruled. They left. They made money.
They slept. They did all the various activities that all these various types of people do. And eventually, they all died. Can you think of one type of person who will escape death that has not died in the past? And consider in the dawn of creation, the first life forms on the earth, the single celled organism evolved into multi celled organisms, to fish, and amphibians, mammals, and to humans, all the trillions of beings which have inhabited the earth up to now.
All those trillions and trillions of living beings, they all died. Consider all the billions of people who live on the earth are present, including yourself. All the billions of people a hundred years from now will all be dead, including yourself. What’s so special about you that you won’t? And the second reason, your lifespan is continually decreasing without any extension forthcoming.
Even as we sit here, seconds become minutes, minutes become hours, hours, eventually become days, days, weeks, months, years. Our life is continually passing by. And then we come to the end. It’s like we’re on a journey in a train, always traveling toward the destination. And when we arrive, we have to get off.
Even as we sit here, we’re approaching our death. And the third reason is that our body is a composite of constantly changing causes and conditions. It’s all of the causes and conditions that came together to form our body. All the millions of cells, connections, the metabolic systems within the body, the balance of the elements. All these cause and conditions will eventually disperse.
They will disintegrate, and our body will disintegrate. Whatever comes together necessarily must fall apart eventually. It’s definite that we’re going to die. And then finally, the additional reason. The amount of time that we spend during our lifetime to develop our minds is very insignificant.
How much time would you spend practice in trying to understand the nature of your mind, trying to work with your afflictions? In contrast, how much do you time do you spend in working, sleeping, preparing and eating food, socializing, watching television, feeling bored, traveling. You’ll just get a sense a feeling for this the difference between the amounts of time that you spend in developing your mind and those times that you aren’t when your life just going by in one way or another. See if you can come to the first of these determinations, some feeling. While I still have my life, I have to use it wisely and mindfully.
Use it for some to find meaning, to find purpose. While I still have my life, I have to use it wisely and mindfully for some purpose to create some meaning. And then bring your mind back to the breath. Get in touch with your body, noticing the feelings, sensations in the body. And slowly, easy and relaxed gentle manner, become aware of what’s going on about you.
So, we’re going through the nine-round death meditation. Three roots, each supported by three reasons and coming to three conclusions and three determinations. And while I still have this life, I know I’m going to die, while I still have it, I have to try to use it as best I can, you know, determine what it is I really want and begin to commit myself with some kind of purpose towards that end. It’s not going to last forever. It’s definite they’re going to die.
The second route is that the time of death is unpredictable. It’s definite where we that we’re going to die, but we simply don’t know when. And there’s going to be there’s three reasons which support this route, this premise. The first of these is that human life expectancy is uncertain. You know, we we simply we don’t know how long we’re going to live.
And I did okay. All of this is is to make us appreciate our to help us to appreciate our life so we don’t take it for granted. So we we make better use of it than like, we we we commit ourselves to some quality of life. However, we might determine that, what that quality is going to be, but at least we don’t take it for granted. So life expectancy is uncertain.
We don’t know when we’re going to die. You know, if we look, you know, fetuses die in the womb. Babies die at birth. They die even be before they learn how to walk. Children, they die at the age of five, nine, eleven years old.
Teenagers die at the age of thirteen, fifteen, seventeen years old. Young people die at the age of twenty, three, three, twenty seven, thirty one, thirty four, thirty eight. And middle aged people, they die at the age of forty one, forty three, and forty seven, fifty nine. Older people, they die when they’re sixty one, sixty six. Elderly die at seventy, eighty nine.
The point is that there is no age at which people don’t die. There’s no not one particular age with and somehow that has never been the case that somebody hasn’t died, that people die of all ages. So the fact that you are presently young and healthy or relatively young and relatively healthy there’s no there’s no guarantee that you won’t die this year. You won’t die this month. You won’t die this week.
There’s no guarantee because there’s no certainty. You know, statistics assure us that there’s a good chance that we’re going to live to an average age, but probability is not certainty. An average is just that. In order to arrive at an average, there are those who are going to live longer than that average, but there’s also those who are going to live less than that average. And we don’t know which side of that average we are going to that we that we are.
You know, I think the mass the vast majority of people who who who will die this week, if a month ago they thought they were going to live a long time onward from that time. The vast majority of people who are going to die this week or even today thought they were going to a month ago thought they were going to live a long time, not just a month. You know, the the fact that we irrationally reject the idea or that does not mean it’s not going to happen. The fact is that we can die at any time. Then, you we’re talking before, we were talking about trying to take off these sunglasses and see the actual way things are and their true nature.
It would seem that the true nature in terms of death is that we can die anytime. It’s definitely we’re going to die. In the actuality, the reality is we could die anytime even Even though we have some we assume irrationally, we have a belief that we’re going to live a long, long time into the future. And therefore, based upon that, we live inappropriately. We we live as if we’re going to live a long, long time and never make any and on that basis, we procrastinate.
We allow ourselves laziness. We allow ourselves to to indulge in lots of petty thinking. In terms of relationships, we allow ourselves to perpetuate difficulties when they in thinking this that there’s always time to to tell this person how much I love them and what they mean to me. In times of our practice, it’s always tomorrow, never understanding that the today of our death could come before the tomorrow when we decide to really begin our practice. The possibilities are on and on, go on and on.
In terms of the ramifications, this assumption that we’re going to live for a long, long time have. Because it’s and out of that, we lose the opportunity. Something is lost in terms of the quality of our life. So the the human life expectancy is uncertainty. The second reason supporting the that our our life or that is to say, the time of our death is unpredictable is there are many causes of death.
Many causes of death. There the you know, anything can happen. You know, you walk down the steps, you walk out you walk out the door, you walk outside, you walk out on the street. You You walk across the street or you get in your car or you drive your car. We can’t foresee all the possibilities of, you know, like, walking across the street and getting hit by a car.
Some some drivers falls asleep or is drunk at their wheel while we’re driving our car. And an overpass falls down while we’re driving a car. A virus, you know, even even something we can hardly see, you know, a a virus or and life is accident prone. You know, every every day we hear about is disastrous. If you if you listen to the news, like like today, there are eight one thousand people killed in mudslides in Philippines.
Those people didn’t think they were going to you know, those people who died in those mudslides, they thought they were going to live a long time into the future. For sure. That’s and we have this natural they tend assumption with regard to that. You know, the the there are earthquakes, forest fires, storms. There were two forest two firefighters who were killed in a forest fire, I think, in in the United States yesterday.
There’s storms, and there are floods, there are famines. You know, we may feel safe from all of those kinds of catastrophes. We feel it somehow secure out of out of those kind of dangers. But there but for us, they’re, you know, there are more normal types of ways of dying. You know, there’s the heart attacks and cancer, accidents.
Then, of course, you know, if those don’t get us, there’s always old age. Inevitably, that’s going to get us. You know, people but people can die at any time. People die in their sleep. They die they die coming home from work.
They die listening to talks on Buddhism. I you know? They die eating their dinners. They die in hospital, you know, watching television, reading books on Buddhism. You know, death can occur at any time in any manner at any place.
Death will find a way to find you. Or, you know, we we will we will we will some people go out looking for death. A rich this is a story in that way of thinking. A rich and mighty Persian once walked in in his garden with one of his servants. The servant cried that he had just encountered a rich and mighty Persian once walked in his garden with one of his servants.
The servants cried that he had just encountered death who had threatened him. He begged his master to give him his fastest horse so that he could make haste and flee to Turan, which he could reach that same evening. The master consented, and the servant galloped off on his horse. On returning to his house, the master himself met death and questioned him. Why did you terrify and threaten my servant?
I did not threaten him. I only showed surprise in still finding him here when I planned to meet him tonight in Turan, said Death. So so the point is that there is no place, there is no time, there is no circumstances where where that is absolutely safe. This is this isn’t to make us paranoid. Paranoid, that’s just another that’s irrational fear.
It’s projecting like what we were talking about, superimposing some kind of a something something which is not there upon what is there. But the the fact is that there is nothing which is absolutely safe. So that’s the second reason that there are many many causes of death. And then finally, the third of these three supporting reasons supporting the fact that the human life expectancy is uncertain is that the human body is very fragile. It’s very delicate.
And it’s nice, soft. You know, when you if you if you ever when you pass ever pass an accident, a car accident, and you see the you know, you see all these broken glass and these pieces of sharp metal twisted. And you think, wow. You touch nice, soft, vulnerable skin that we have is covering this this all these all our organs and all our knowers and our blood vessels. And our our blood could just spill out.
Our life could spill out just a little piece of glass or sharp piece of metal. It it seems as almost we shouldn’t be riding around in those kind of sharp, you know, we should ride around in in insulated balls of cotton, you know, protect it in that way. The the body is just flesh, and flesh is vulnerable. It’s not it’s not steel. It’s not metal.
And within minutes, we can change from being strong and healthy, active, to being helpless helplessly weak, incapacitated, full of pain. Just from one minute to the next. We can that can happen to our bodies. You know? Just like we’re, you know, a sliver of glass or a small piece of metal.
Even something like a little bubble in your bloodstream or a virus you can’t even see. Can they can all take our life. You know, it doesn’t take much. All of these can serve to end our life. Accidents happened, and human bodies were thick were thin skinned parcels out of which the force of life leaked at a prick.
Now this this is a this story, this comes from a work of fiction, which I think probably took back place in the the late nineteenth century When human body was just as fragile back then, but it was even more vulnerable perhaps than it is now in certain sense. Broken legs and arms were common enough, but if any bone poked through the skin, another singular spirit departed this earth in a month or two just from that bad bit of bone catching the death in the air, which was not used to, and carrying it back deep into the body. All deaths were accidental or none was, for disease was just as random as accidents, as injury and all as injury and all die. None died prematurely, for death battened on only the living and all those at any age. Wherever the body was, there were eagles there gathered together.
Women took fever and died from having babies, and babies died from puniness or harshness of the air. Men died from traffic and superior forces like rivers and horses and bulls and steam saws, mills, mill gears, quarried rocks or falling trees or rolling logs. This story took place in the in the the northeastern of the United States where they had lots of lumber mills, logging camps. Women died in rivers to and under trees and rockslides, and men took fevers too, and and fevers took men. Children lost their lives as other people did.
As a consequence of this their body’s material fragility, hard things smash them like trees in the ground when their horses threw them, or they fell, they drowned in water. They sickened, and earaches wormed into their brains or fever from from measles burned them up, or pneumonia erased them out overnight. It was all the same and predictable except in detail. Whether a heart collapsed and seized an old woman or a runaway buggy crushed a growing boy, the people took the boy’s death harder for they longed to have him with them longer and to see him grow and fruitful. They were not ready for him to die, but they knew for a fact that death was ready.
Death was ready to take people of any size always, and so was the broad earth ready to receive them. A child’s death was a heartbreak, but it was no outrage, no freak, nothing not in the contract, and not really early, just soon. You know, I I like you know, I I think it’d probably be interesting to examine, to talk to, you know, a a doctor about this, to begin to appreciate just how delicate and fragile our our body, in fact, is that we take it for so much for granted as if we were invulnerable. But, you know, life depends upon sustained a delicate balance amongst inconceivable number of interdependent parts. You know, just even within the cells themselves, there’s all these cell parts which much which have to function, you know, in in in conjunction with the cells, and those function conjunctions must operate or function within groupings of organs and organs within systems of the body, and then there’s all the components of the blood.
You know, it’s it’s a very it’s like a choreography dance of intricate balance of cells and systems, you know, that can fall out of balance quite readily, quite easily. That we are that we are we are creatures vulnerable from both within our own bodies, but also without in terms of accidents and all the what we described before, all these possible ways that we that we could meet our death. The body the body is very fragile. It is is immersed in in inimical conditions. This is the nature of our physical life.
We don’t like to dwell on it, but that seems to be the case. You know, the the the time of our death is unpredictable. Unpredictable. We simply don’t know when it’s going to occur. You know, it is you know, it’s like the the image that I have.
An image that I think is useful. It’s like you’re riding down this you’re on a a boat trip, you know, and you’re looking to the stern over the over the back of the boat. And there’s a sense that you’re on a journey, that you’re that you’re that you’re proceeding to some kind of destination. But more than that, you’re you’re looking at the at the at the scenery as it opens up to you up in the back of the boat, looking on each side and where you’ve been. That that’s that’s that’s kind of our orientation, where we’ve been and what’s what’s occurring to us at present, the scenery that that we can look at on each side of the boat.
So we we we are we’re so absorbed in the boat that we we we forget about where it is that we’re headed. We’re we we we you know, that that that there is a a waterfall somewhere ahead on that river that we’re traveling down and toward and we’re moving down toward our destination. And that we’re but we we we become we we are completely unaware of it. You know, even if we were to try to turn our heads around, you know, we can’t we can’t see into the future, can we? We don’t know how close the waterfall is, is the point.
Well, there’s a waterfall there. And but all we all we we forget that we were on a journey. And moreover, when we would when we went we want to know where it is that we’re actually getting to, how far we’ve actually gone down the river, we can’t see into the future. That waterfall be just a hundred meters ahead. We don’t know.
We can’t turn around to see to the future. It could be there, but and and we were just unaware, the boat would reach the waterfall and tip over, and our life would end. We don’t know how far the waterfall is from where we are at now, a long, long journey. And if we can’t see we can see the death of others, but we can’t see our own. We simply don’t you know, the time will come when we too will die, but we don’t know when.
If so looking at these three reasons. So the root was that the human that the time of our death is unpredictable. And we’re you we’re making so we’re trying to you know, this is looking at this excavation. These layers upon layers of mis of assumptions and misbeliefs that we have. One of them is that we’re going that we are going to live a long time into the future.
And so we’re beginning to, you know, take the sunglasses off of projecting this on on what is in fact not the case. And the way that we take off the sunglasses is through the realization, the clearing away and seeing the truth, the reality of what is there. And the under the understanding that we’re trying to come to in order to clear away these these misconception that we’re clinging on to our life is that first our body is very fragile and all the implications of that. And then the the The there That the human life is human life expectancy is uncertain. There are many causes of death, and the human life is human body is very fragile.
So, you know, if we can with we you know, working with each of these three reasons, you know, using our experience, using our imagination, using all the information that we have, and seeing if we can come to a proper understanding. You when the penny drops, you know, we say, ah, yeah, my body really is very fragile or life expectancy is really uncertain. You know, we don’t know how long how long how long we’re going to live. And the this is like, you know, trying to touch that point where which acts as an antidote to these these mistaken conceptions that we have. The in in some way or another, the evolution of our problems is from our misconceptions.
The price of these misconceptions or misbeliefs is suffering. Misbeliefs is suffering. There is a truth which is going to the way things are, which is going to free us from these misconceptions and thereby our sufferings, our problems. So these are all aiming at trying to overcome these misconceptions, these wrong beliefs that we harbor at some level. And coming to an appreciation that the that our life life expectancy is unpredictable.
We simply it’s not certain when we’re going to die. This will bring us to to the third of the second determination, conclusion, to begin begin the practice of developing our minds right now as the future is uncertain. You know, there’s certain I just say there’s certain urgency involved in what we do in in finding, you know, we want to determine what it is that we want in our life. What is meaningful? And begin to work toward it.
It’s definitely we’re going to die, but we don’t know when. So there’s a certain degree of urgency. If we’re ever going to realize our goals and make find that meaning and our purpose in our life, we’re going to have to begin now. We may not have we won’t always have the chance, and moreover, we don’t know when we’re going to lose that opportunity, that chance. So to begin the practice of developing our minds now because the future is uncertain.
Are there any points you’d like to discuss? Any questions around this? Stage. So the stage of the path. So this is this is Pardon?
Is it teaching? Yeah. The stage of the path. That’s right. So the I mean, there’s the teachings on the stage of the path, and then there are the stage of the path.
This is what we’re going through very much right in three principal aspects of the path. These these this is I mean, all of these teachings are are have as their their ultimate source, the teachings of Śākyamūni Buddha, but they’ve been formulated. And one of the the great masters, Atisha, is is held to be the the full if he organized these all of these vast teachings of the Buddha into a systematic fashion of mental development in certain stages. You know, beginning to develop a sense of the the preciousness of our human well, beginning even with, okay, with our Buddha nature that we can that our mind can change, we can we can achieve, we can solve our problems, that we have a we have all the necessary conditions terms of external and internal to bring about this change. We have a precious human life, that this precious human life isn’t going to last forever.
It’s definite that we’re going to die, we don’t know when. And then this so there’s this this unfolding, this process of mental development, which is brought out in stages. And this is what is meant by the stages of the path. Yeah. So that’s what we’re going through.
That’s right. The stages of the path, the graduated path, three principal aspects of the path. I would tell me what I have a tell me what you think, and I’ll put this question to you and you can give me some feedback next week. I’ll give you the opportunity to think about it. Yes.
I thought I think it’s quite useful. It’s very I I find if we have more discussion. And I was thinking if we if we would you know, is is the format as we’re following now, is it satisfactory? Or could we rearrange it in such a way? You know, we I think the, you know, having a talk and information, you know, that I do is useful may be useful sometimes.
Having more of an opportunity to to exchange, maybe actually sitting around in a circle for half an hour at the end, you know, and actually exchanging ideas around what’s being said. I’m getting a lot of ups and downs. So maybe we could think of would you like to think about that for next year? Yeah. There’s nothing said.
Okay. That sounds good. I I would like that, and I think it’d be much it’s very useful, I think, because this is kind of having me regurgitate on you all the time. Maybe isn’t always that useful. So, okay, we can think about that next year.
We’ll we’ll we’ll set aside a large part of the time, and we sit around and circle. We we can discuss some of these ideas. Yeah? Exchange idea. And another idea one thing I’d like to do is is next year is have a I don’t know.
I I mean, I haven’t thought thought it through, and you can give me feedback on this also, is to, you to as a matter of helping ourselves, like a self help situation is to have a mindfulness day, maybe maybe one day a month or maybe once every two months where it would be, you know, just I had I had thought that maybe somebody’s home in the in the hills where you have a nice beautiful scenery and everything, that maybe be isn’t workable. We we have a nice situation now. We’ll be moving over Christmas to the new the new Buddha house premises, you know, near near the Burnside Library. And because I thought we do I would like to do I think it’s quite useful to do mindfulness meditation. And I wanted to so I thought we could, you know, just come together one maybe a Saturday a month or or whenever.
And that we I think it’s it’s useful if you alternate sitting and walking meditation. And we can’t walk here. That’s why it’s never been a real possibility. That’s why I thought about up in the up in the hills. But at at our new premises in in Burnside, we there’s plenty of walking space.
We’ve got a big parking lot. So I thought and then I thought we could, you know, come together and have a shared lunch and that keep keep down the expenses to a minimum. And that it’d be mostly mindfulness and then some analytic meditation. But I think it’s really useful to to dedicate, you know, one one day a month, you know, to to doing something like that. I think it’s really a powerful experience.
It can be very useful. So, you know, if we get if you give me some feedback and think that would just be useful for you, I’d like to do that next year. Keep the expense down by sharing lunch and so forth. So it wouldn’t be any it wouldn’t be difficult. Just a matter of time.
We do that now with some day meditation, daylong. That’s quite cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So this would go, think, you know, just roughly, but you give me a feedback from, say, from nine to three thirty in the afternoon, something like that. Something like that. That’s just a rough idea. Yeah. I think it’d be good.
I I think it’s good if we work together. You know, we also spend some time like this in a in a group. Think the Sangha, I think, or the spiritual community is one of our our refuges, and I think it’s it’s useful to build up this type of relation. And we’re and and supporting each other’s practice in this way. So, anyway, I’d like to experiment with that next year.
Yeah? Okay. But we still have one more energy that we’ve created. May all beings everywhere, plagued by suffering 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 of littered with a mind weighed down by depression. May the blind see forms and deaf hear sounds. May those whose bodies are worn with toil be restored upon finding 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 happiness, and prosperity. May there be timely rains and bountiful harvests. May all medicines be effective and wholesome prayers bear fruit. May all those who are sick and ill quickly be freed from their ailments.
Wherever the 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 powerless find power, and may people think of benefiting each other. Through these skillful actions, may quickly become an awakened spiritual master and lead each and every living being to that awakened realm. May the supreme jewel, the bodhicitta that has not arisen, arise and grow.
And may those that have arisen, may they never diminish but increase more and more. And the land encircled by the snow mountains, you are the source of all happiness and well-being. Powerful Chenrezig, Tenzin Gyatso,. So please remain until the end of cyclic existence. Have a good week.
Thank you.