Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Why does shade feel pleasant when you step out of the sun — yet uncomfortable minutes later, even though nothing has changed? Ven Jampa Gendun uses that question to anchor an extended analysis of the suffering of change, the main focus of this session in the Three Principal Aspects of the Path series. He first establishes two complementary metaphors for awakening — cultivating seeds of wisdom versus revealing a perfection already present — drawing on Oliver Sacks’ Awakenings and a D. H. Lawrence verse to evoke what glimpses of that awakened state feel like. The analytical core then unpacks why all ordinary pleasure is structurally a relief from pain: the sitting/walking cycle, a hammer-and-idiot analogy, and a long comic story about a Tibetan woman, her lama, and a succession of animals crowded into a small house. The session closes with a brief introduction to the third level, pervasive conditionality, followed by a guided body-scan and mindfulness meditation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 16 3PA 2007 07 31.mp3
UUID: b668aeef-5382-4c51-9631-1a7c4d94d34d
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 2006-2007 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2007-07-31
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 1434.5 minutes
Words: ~11,442
You are doing well. Is that is that better? Yes. Okay. And in conclusion, I just I just like to add, you’ve been a great audience.
They’re very attentive. Do I have to start all over? Begin again. Oh, you heard that. Okay.
Begin again. Okay. Your wisdom, love, compassion and personal power and how these find outlet through skillful means in our daily life and working with others. And we talked about how, you know, this is, you know, this what we’re talking about isn’t, you know, how are we going to make this relevant to ourselves? How are we going to make sure it simply doesn’t float on our minds like oil and water.
Somehow it becomes integrated. It’s an expression of something about ourselves, something beyond the abstract. And we talked about the fact in various ways that we all have some wisdom and no matter how faint and obscure that wisdom might be we all have some love and compassion no matter how limited and exclusively directed our love and compassion might be at present. We all have some personal power however weak and unrefined that strength might be at present. And then we all have some skill means, however, unspontaneous, you know, however contrived, imprecisely directed, and we all have some fearlessness about ourselves, you know, even no matter how fleeting those moments of fearlessness might be how easily intimidated our fearlessness might be.
So what we’re trying to see within the reality of our actual lived experience is that there is something about ourselves which we can see for ourselves which suggests that what we’re talking about isn’t simply religious fiction or something to help us make ourselves feel better about our difficult lot in life. Maybe there is a radical alternative way of being in this world which is open to ourselves, which is accessible and relevant to ourselves, is simply an extension of something that we are at present, only more developed. There’s a working basis. There’s something that we have to go on already. Already.
But, you know, there’s another metaphor we can begin to use in answering this concern about, you know, whether what time, whether what we’re talking about is how it relates to ourselves. What the reality and the and the relevance of what we call awakening. So in in this metaphor Buddhism Buddhahood or this this model of sanity that we’re working toward, this happy, healthy, loving, sane human being which we’re trying to orientate ourselves toward isn’t a matter of cultivating seeds and having them in their development. But it’s it’s more a sense of revealing a perfection that has always been there. You know, this this metaphor is is like a lotus rising from the mud and unfolding.
And within that lotus, deep within inside of it is the unchanging, ever present, awakened state of being, you know, which needs no development, which needs no cultivating. It only needs to be revealed to make to become manifest. It is not because awakening is far away or extremely near or because it moves here and there, but because it lies shrouded in veils of afflictive emotions that remains unrealized. So according to this metaphor, and this is the way, you know, metaphor is is like the way that we can story our experience. We can represent some way of talking about something which we we can get a handle on.
We can begin to conceptualize around it. It stands for possible experience. So in this metaphor, rather than, you know, working cultivating these seeds of wisdom, love, and compassion, and so forth, what we’re doing is actually making what something which is already present within us more obvious. Bring it to, you know, a making manifest an unconditioned dimension of our own minds. Something which with already within us, which is naturally complete, whole, and pure.
But but at present, lies obscured even from ourselves. This is this you know, in the the past Indian masters, they they tried to get across this idea to us in various ways. And one of the great masters, the Mahasiddha talked about how we, in a in a way, in a very real way, is already a Buddhist inside of ourselves, unknown to ourselves. Maybe not looked for, but heard in the whispering you know, the inarticulate whisperings of our own hearts. A Buddha within a decaying lotus, honey covered by bees, grain in its husk, gold within filth, treasure beneath the earth, the shoots of a great tree and a small fruit, a statue of a Buddha wrapped in rags, a future ruler in the womb of an ugly woman, a precious a precious image within a clay mold.
In just the same way, obscured by the stains of the adventitious afflictions, The element of Buddha exists in all beings. So, you know, we you know, these two there’s a a notion that used to be quite popular. It used to call peak experiences. You know, those moments in our life are the finest moments in our life, you know, when when I think and, you know, this is my speculation, so I share my my delusion with you. In a in a limited but very real way, we we experience a glimpse, you know, not the not the real thing, not the actual full blown awakening, but a glimpse of what awakening must be really like.
You know, moments of freedom and of openness, of a of a a sense of basic sanity about ourselves. You know, moments when we completely forget about ourselves and we and we speak and act with great wisdom, with tremendous courage unknown before. You know, there are moments of when, just briefly, the the obscuring clouds of our our limited self conceptions of things. The simplest of things. You know, there a peace.
You know, this is a sense that in those moments, nothing more is needed. Nothing more be could be added that we have everything that we need. We have enough just for that moment. In a in in this in this restless search, we come to rest. We find that place that has always been there at the end of all of our wanderings.
Just for for a moment, we find our home. There’s a there used to be there’s a book called, interestingly enough, it’s called Awakening. It was written by Oliver Sacks, and it it was made into a movie eventually. And it recounts the some individuals who had been in a coma for thirty or forty years for there was a particular epidemic which occurred in the United States. And he he was a psychiatrist, experimented using L-dopa.
And for a short period of time, they awoke. And this is a passage from his describing their awakening. It and this is what one of the individuals was expressing when he awoke from his long sleep. It’s a very sweet feeling, he said. Very sweet and easy and peaceful.
I am grateful to each moment for being itself. I feel feel so contented like I’m at home at last after a long, hard journey, just as warm and peaceful as a cat by a fire. And then Oliver Sack Sacks mentions, and that was exactly how he looked at that moment. And he goes on to quote a verse by D. H.
Lawrence. Like a cat asleep on a chair peace, in peace, and at one with the master of the house, with the mistress at home, at home in the house of the living. Sleeping on the hearth and yawning before the fire, sleeping on the hearth of the living world, yawning at home before the fire of life, feeling the presence of the living God like a great reassurance, a deep calm in the heart, a presence as the master sitting at the board in his own greater being in the house of life. And if we have all had moments, though they’re rare, sure, and though they’re fleeting, we’ve had these moments which speak of a mystery of life and a depth of being just very close to the surface of our own minds. And moments would give us some kind of intimation about that phrase, the Buddha is your mind, what that might really mean for us.
You know, we we aside from the self validating nature of these peak experiences. The message that they hold for us is that awakening rather than being company becoming something other than we are is in reality the revealing something that we already are at present. Something there’s a the revealing of innate luminous essence of our own being. It’s like it’s like a treasure of jewels being thrown open. The treasure is revealed.
So, you know, acknowledging you know you know, we we’re talking about suffering. Right? We’re talking about suffering a great deal, but that’s only half the side of the coin, isn’t it? I think suffering pushes us, but this light draws us forward to other possibilities and other order orders of being. You know, these these these moments in our life, you know, these moments filled with a full of meaning and deep purpose.
You know? The touching of something sacred. And they give us some you know? And they come and go, maybe never to come again, but they don’t quite let us go back to the person we once were. We can’t quite go home again.
They touch us at some place deep in ourselves, and we have to, you know, we have to act in some authentic way to to the message that they’re trying to reveal to us. So, you know, acknowledging in some authentic way to the message at such moments constitutes a journey of growth, and it requires some training, some discipline. So using the the metaphor of cultivation of a flower, we have to nurture these seeds of wisdom and love and compassion and personal power and how they’re skillfully and fearlessly expressed in our everyday life. And using the metaphor of unfolding of a lotus as petals, you know, revealing that perfection that’s already there within it, this Buddha within the lotus. We have to methodically begin to remove the afflictions which obscure the continuous awakened state of being.
So we have to do something, and that that’s something that we do is practice. You know, we practice the Dharma, these various methods, these trainings, this education process. And this all occurs within all of you people, you know, this at sangha, which is terribly important that we create, like, nurturing environment which allows us access to other possibilities with inside of our minds and encourages us and assist us in in both in terms of feeling and openness and safety, but it’s also in terms of the intellect and methods and means by which we can we can begin to enhance what is already there. We can begin to open the lotus of our hearts and minds. And this is like the laboratory where we experiment with other possibilities, another order of being.
And again and again, you know, trying to raise the love of our motivation, I keep reading. Whenever I come in this room, there’s a there’s a a plaque, a frame quotation by this Holiness, the Dalai Lama. And I always find it quite meaningful whenever I go by it. He says the purpose of life is to be happy, and the deepest inner happiness comes about through the compassion and love for others. So, you know, what we’re doing this evening, you know, in some limited way, you know, in whatever way that we can authentically feel it and be it, we can try to encourage ourselves to listen and meditate and take in whatever might be offered, however limited and obscure and confused it might be, that in such a way that it might be a benefit even if only one other person.
I don’t know all living beings. That’s beyond the scope of my present ability even to imagine. But I can think of one and two, maybe three. I maybe I can even stretch that. You know, when I when I was in my retreat, this is in two thousand five, I had a actually drew up a list that had about thirty five people.
And this list was composed from those who I felt closest to and then next close and next close and next close. Closest to, and then next close and next close and next close, strangers, those who I had some problems with, those who I didn’t like, and those who, you know, all the way down. I just kept going through, you know, I’m doing this for you, you know, and trying my best. Sometimes it didn’t work, but sometimes maybe I got a little bit closer to where it did to all these various individuals who worked simply working through rotating again and again through this list of all these various individual became difficult to find strangers after a while. I began to like all these strangers, and I became close to them.
I got to know them. Anyway, so, you know, trying to so that’s why I I think I emphasized. I I felt it was useful for myself. It there was maybe some movement, you know, maybe a little bit. I’m not sure.
So when when when we talk about all sentient beings, all sentient beings, all sentient beings, it becomes we have to be ensured that it’s not simply hollow words, simply words written that really don’t have much meaning for ourselves. But if we can do it for one other person from our hearts, then it has the powerful effect I feel. So I just emphasize that fact. I go for refuge until I’m awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha through my practice of generosity and 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 other perfections. May I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha through my practice of generosity and the other perfections, may I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. May all sentient beings 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 others. Reverently, I prostrate with my body, speech, mind. I present clouds of every type of offering that is actually arranged and imagined. I disclose all my negative actions accumulated during beginning of this time and rejoice in all the virtues of superiors and ordinary beings.
Please remain until the end of cyclic existence and turn the wheel of Dharma from migrating beings. I dedicate all virtue, my own and that of others, to the great awakening. Okay. We’re gonna meditate. So we were talking about suffering.
Exciting, isn’t it? And we talked last week, talked about the the first of the three types of suffering that we’re going to that we’re looking at. The suffering of suffering, the suffering of physical pain and discomfort, and and that of mental pain and discomfort. So we’re just going to if it doesn’t cause us too much suffering, we’re going to just take a look at those in terms of just to review. You know, we don’t have to make it too particularly heavy handed.
We just going to look at review our day, having woken up in the morning. First looking at the little the little minor, but also major physical sufferings that occurred to you over the course of the day till you walked in and sat down on the cushion and, you know, getting up on a cold morning, maybe, you know, physical feeling of displeasure of cold feeling, and all the various physical feelings that, you know, minor aches and pains and maybe a headache or I don’t know if you had a toothache, but maybe some soreness here and there. And then we’ll just do the same with mental sufferings, you know, not wanting to get out of bed. That’s always one of my big ones. Having to go to work in the car, people driving the way they do, the fog, a lot of fog this morning.
That was a nuisance, wasn’t it? Lots of happenings anyway. Lots of minor mental, you know, being separated that from what that which we desire, being coming in contact with that which we don’t desire, not finding happiness, not having things work out as we might would like them to. All these various minor little irriteachings and frustrations that we experience over the course of our day. And just getting a sense of how much of our day is actually pervaded by these these feelings of dissatisfaction, both physical and mental in one way or another.
And then we can just review very briefly some of the major physical and mental sufferings that we’ve experienced, you know, major illnesses, both in in in the consequences of those, both physically and mentally, but also in terms of relationship difficulties and, you know, they just to help to give it a sense so that, you know, you know, our our our as we talk together, it actually has it resonates with what you’re actually experiencing. You can actually identify, well, they are talking about my life, aren’t they? It’s not abstract. Okay. So taking a comfortable firm posture, we’ll begin with relaxation of the body, then we’ll do the six part breathing exercise, just breathing in quite naturally, comfortably, but on the exhalation, prolonging the exhalation, extending it as if emptying all the used air out of your lung, then breathing in again naturally, comfortably, but again exhaling, prolonging, extending gently, exhaling all the air out of your lung, and doing that six times.
And then we’ll begin with the mindfulness of breath, and then we’ll just look briefly at some of our mental and physical sufferings. So taking a comfortable firm posture. Beginning at the crown, scalp, the forehead, feeling the the wrinkles in your brow beginning to smooth out. The pressure in and around your eyes diminishing. Muscles of the face softening, relaxing.
Jaws relaxed. And the muscles at the back of the neck, perhaps very tense. Turn your head to each side a few times. Just very gently stretching, loosening. Relaxing the muscles of the throat, Moving down to the upper back and shoulders, perhaps rotating your shoulders a few times and letting them drop comfortably to the sides, feeling this burden, this weight that we carry around on our backs beginning to move down and through your body into the ground.
Your hands are loose and soft. Relaxing your lower arms, Your upper arms. Your chest is at ease. Relaxing in the heart area in the lungs the middle portion of the back and your stomach area. And releasing the tension that we hold in our stomach muscles, allowing your belly to go soft and throughout the abdominal cavity and holding your trunk erect, relax your lower back muscles, your buttocks, and throughout the upper legs, And the lower legs.
And your feet. Bring your awareness to your body in general, noticing any tightnesses, any tensions within the body, and focusing upon those areas. Consciously relax, soften. Feeling the tension diminish, the tightness loosen. Your body becoming comfortable at ease.
The feeling of physical well-being pervading your body. It feels good to be in your body. It’s a nice place to be. And then bring your mind to the breath. Easy, gentle, in and out flow the natural breath.
If it’s helpful, use the techniques of counting and noting the breaths. Now we’re going to review our day in terms of its quality, in particular, that of suffering. So just as best you can, from the moment that you woke up, just run through your day in terms of the variety of physical discomforts, irritations, difficulties, sufferings that you went through, experienced up to this present moment. Just the minor little physical difficulties that you might have experienced over the course of this day. And that would do the same, but focus upon the mental sufferings, dissatisfaction, frustrations, disappointments, the difficulties that you experience over the course of the day.
When you first heard the alarm go off in the morning, some of the mental dissatisfactions up to now. Now we’re simply going to look over the course of our life at some of the major physical sufferings that we’ve experienced. So just reviewing in a rough sort of way from your childhood onward up to now would have been some of the major physical sufferings that you’ve experienced. And we do just the same, but focusing upon the mental sufferings, the major problems that we felt over the course of our life. And then bring your mind back to the breath.
Get in touch with your body. Notice the sensations and feelings within the body. And in easy and relaxed manner, just slowly and gently become aware of your surroundings. Just take your time. So we’re looking at the three types of suffering as a means of changing our priorities.
Perhaps taking the matter of freeing ourselves from suffering a little more seriously. Last week, we looked at the the first of these three levels. This was the level of the suffering of suffering. You know, I think maybe even animals are pretty good at this one. And now we’re going to begin to look at the the second of these three, the suffering of change.
The suffering of change, it describes the the psychological character of our feelings of happiness within conditioned existence. Sorry about that. You know, the look at your ring finger. You know, if you is your ring finger long or short? Well, compared to the little finger, your ring finger is long.
Compared to your middle finger, your ring finger is short. In and of itself, absolutely. It’s neither long nor short. It is relatively short or relatively long depending upon what you’re comparing it with. According to Geshe-la, we are never aware of an any object or event or figure, save in relation to a contrasting background.
For example, something we call light is really a light figure standing out against a dark background. When I look in up into the heavens on a dark night and perceive the brilliance of a bright star, star, what I’m really seeing, what my act what my eye actually takes in is not the separate star, but the entire field or gestalt of a bright star plus dark background. However drastic the contrast between the bright star and its background of darkness, the point is that without one, I can never perceive the other. Light and dark are thus two correlative aspects of one single sensory gestalt. Likewise, I cannot perceive motion except in relation to rest, nor effort without ease, nor complexity without simplicity, nor attraction without repulsion.
In the same way, I am never aware of pleasure except in relation to pain. I might indeed be feeling very comfortable and pleasurable at this moment, but I would never be able to realize that were it not for the background existence of discomfort and pain. That is why pleasure and pain always seem to alternate, for it is only in their mutual contrast and alternation that the existence of each can be recognized. And thus, as much I was I like one and loathe the other, the attempt to isolate them is futile. So, you know, this is looking at at one level.
We’re beginning to approach this idea of the suffering of change. We can never know happiness without knowing suffering. You know, this is the dualistic mind. We know things only relatively in relation. And this has been an old point of philosophic debate in the west for from year one, I guess, or before, you know, whether we can know happiness without suffering, you know, whether we we cannot know harmony without knowing conflict.
We cannot know a friend without knowing an enemy. We cannot know the joy of union without knowing the pain of separation. You know, they necessarily arise alternating in contrast with the other. So this is one way of beginning to get a handle on what we mean by the suffering of change. Beginning beginning to this explanation helps us to to appreciate the relative nature of our ordinary feelings and discriminations.
But it it this this analysis doesn’t quite go far enough. It does not explain why Buddhism is trying to get across the notion that the very process the very nature of our usual pleasurable feelings are asserted to be in the nature of suffering. Is this not the idea of alternation or contrast that we have to know suffering in order to know pleasure, that they’re only meaningful in relationship to one another. But the very nature of our pleasure is, in fact, suffering. So, you know, if you’ve so we have to use a number of examples to try to get a sense of what’s being gotten out here.
You know, if you’ve ever walked high in the mountains, you know, in and the atmosphere is very thin in the mountains and the sun is extremely harsh. You know? So you you’re walking high in the mountains, and you the sun becomes oppressively hot. So you you you move into the shade. You say, ah, that feels good.
Comfortable. You mean, you you experience some kind of pleasure. And but, you know, when you walk in the mountains and you’re high up at a high altitude, it’s usually quite cold when you move into the to the shade. So, you know, at first, you know, you feel, oh, that feels good. But after a while, it’s getting a bit chilly.
Maybe I’ll go back out in the sun. And you go back out in the sun. Oh, that feels good. You know, feels comfortable and warm. Comfortable and warm.
But after a while, you know, being in the hot, depressive sun again for some time, he becomes uncomfortable again. It’s the same process. So we’re beginning we’re gonna analyze, beginning to question. Why are the first few moments of shade experienced as pleasant? And after some time, when, in fact, the this the the circumstances have remained very much unchanged, the same lighting, the same temperature, and so forth, that same situation becomes uncomfortable.
And then same applies to going out into the sun. Why is it that the first few moments of going out into the sun from the shade is experienced as pleasurable? And then after some time, gradually, that pleasure deteriorates. Why is it even though the the the all the variables in your environment have remained more or less constant, the temperature, the light, and so forth. Still, it becomes unpleasurable.
It becomes suffering. You know, why is that? What is the we’re trying to appreciate the underlying psychological process which is occurring. The uncomfortable feeling of being hot or being cold are instances of the suffering of suffering. We’re not talking about those.
Just the fact of being physically uncomfortable because it’s cold and because it’s hot. That’s the suffering of suffering. The fact that pleasurable feelings come to an end, that’s a matter of impermanence. You know? Sometimes we feel good.
Sometimes we feel bad. They arise and they cease. That’s a matter of impermanence. That’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re trying to understand what is the the process that’s operating in terms of our psychology, which call which brings about this variation variation of how we experience the same situation.
So, you know, it’s like like a if there was an an idiot, I probably used this example many times, an idiot sitting in the corner, you know, hitting himself over the head with a hammer. And you go over and say, you know, why are you hitting yourself over the head with a hammer? And he says, because it feels so good when I stop. You know, it does feel good. He actually experiences a pleasurable feeling.
So similarly, similarly, all our usual feelings of pleasure can be seen in the exact same way. They all have the nature of the cessation or the diminishment of suffering. We some kind of release or reduction of tension in some way. Some you know, for example, the relief when when a headache goes away or or the pleasure that you you get, you know, you you’re hot and dry and sweaty, and you drink a nice cool, cool glass of water. And I feel that really tastes great.
Or or the I I think a lot of couples are into this one. You know? The making up after a fight. You know? How close and how good it feels, how warm feeling after after you’ve been had such difficulty in your relationship, and that’s all past.
You know, finding the the the the the great relief when you when you get your test results back and you you did okay, you know, or just or just the the the the quiescence of desire, having met having gratified some some intense desire, and that desire has been quiescent, has been calmed. There’s a sense of relief around that. So all of these experiences of pleasure, they are pleasure. They are what we call pleasure. They are what we call happiness, but they all but none of them is in the nature of pleasure.
And why, you know, why are we saying they’re not in the nature of pleasure? Because all such pleasures do not exist independent of the occasions of a relief from suffering. Pleasure is the feeling that we get when the perceiving feeling of pain or dissatisfaction stops. When the pain stops, we experience pleasure. Pleasurable feeling is just comparison with the pervasive unpleasant dissatisfaction or discomfort that we normally feel.
We we label that relief, pleasure. You know, this idea that things are merely imputed or labeled. You know? How we think of them, how how we come to know them. You know, for example, you you know, we have we’ve got a great bush walking group here.
And, you know, we we get together once a month, and we go for walks. And you’re walking. You’re walking. You’re walking. You’re walking.
Finally, you get a bit tired of walking. Yeah? And you and you say, well, you get sore, your legs or something, and you sit down. Ah, it feels good. Experience of happiness.
It’s pleasure. So because of that pain in our leg, the pain in the leg is this is is the suffering of suffering. Because of that, we sit down and rest. Ah, it feels good. But sitting there, we feel the pleasure of just sitting.
That is the that is a pleasant feeling. That’s what we call happiness. Pleasure. But sitting in in itself is not a natural cause of happiness. It it is that sitting in the nature of happiness.
Isn’t the pleasure of sitting merely the gradual reduction of the pain from walking? It appears deceptively to be pleasure, but pleasure is not intrinsic quality of sitting. If pleasure were intrinsic quality of sitting, sitting, then as long as we sat there, we should continue to experience pleasure. But we don’t, do we? If you sit and you sit and you sit and you sit, pretty soon you get tired of sitting.
You get sore, and you decide, I’m gonna go for a walk. So you stand up. Oh, that feels better. And you start walking. And you walk and you walk.
And after something, pleasure deteriorates. If walking were in the nature of pleasure, we as long as we walked, we should experience pleasure. But that’s not the case. That’s not our experience. At some point, we have to stop walking.
We sit. There is a diminishment of the pain of walking. That relief from the pain of walking, we call the happiness of sitting. But that that happiness is in nature of pain, suffering. It’s not in the nature pleasure.
If it were, the more you sat, that pain that pleasure content should continue, but it doesn’t. So, you know, we might argue, okay. I don’t know if I like this or not. Anyway, what what you what you what you mean really the point you’re getting at is we have we should do things in moderation, not too much of any one thing. Not to do too much of any one thing is there’s some there’s some some truth in that.
And, you know, that very argument for moderation is an acknowledgment that no activity is intrinsically pleasurable. It’s just simply a strategy for limiting our pain. And what if if sitting were intrinsically pleasurable, then as long as you sat, the pleasure would continue or even increase. But that is not the case. Therefore, the pleasant feeling does not reside in the activity itself, but rather in the relief from the suffering of walking, and that relief is invariably short lived.
So in order to bring about the end of one discomfort, of one activity, we we in order to bring about that discomfort that we’re currently involved in, we try to do something else. The brief respite gives you a perception of pleasure, but that pleasure is in the nature of suffering. We decrease one type of suffering by only by increasing another. This is the nature of cyclic existence. This is the situation that we’re in.
Whatever whenever one activity stops, one pain temporarily subsides, and the beginning of another is initiated. Relief itself is just another form of suffering. So, you know, while one type of suffering ceases, another type of suffering is increasing. You know, if we if we are doing something pleasurable and we do more and more and more and more and more of it, it inevitably turns to pain. You can’t think of any activity, you know, eating delicious food, having wonderful sex, going for a one a great walk, whatever.
It simply is not in the nature of the activity that it can be maintained, that it could be pursued indefinitely, and and one will continue to experience pleasure. On the other hand, when you do something painful and do more and more of it, does it turn to pleasure? Be nice if it did, but it doesn’t. Pleasure will persist, will continue indefinitely, or even increase. So it doesn’t work the other way around.
I’m sorry to say. You know, when when we walked in the mountains, you know, and and maybe upon moving into the shade, we experienced a certain a feeling of pleasure, a relief from the oppressive discomfort of the sun. A comfortable feeling arises in dependence upon the cessation of that immediate preceding pain. What is in fact the first moment of the cause of coldness, which we’re going to experience, is temporarily perceived as pleasant. The coldness is there from the very beginning.
The cause suffering of coldness is there immediately when you go into the shade, but it is temporarily not perceived as such, but it will be inevitably. The point is that that the nature of ordinary pleasure is that it will eventually turn into suffering. I know. And does this sound heavy handed or does it sound like some dirty old men are trying to take away a little bit of happiness that you do have? I know.
No. You’re talking about pleasure which is, like, clearly not the same as happiness. Holding out for something. That sounds great. I think it’s, you know, useful to consider this and reflect upon it because maybe, you know, we can begin to think about is there an alternative situation?
Because we’re not talking about and I guess it’s necessary to emphasize again and again. We’re talking about a particular approach to life, a way of life which which is lived under the the the control of karma and afflictive emotions. The the types of pleasures which are experienced in that context within that system are in the nature of suffering. There is no real happiness there. It’s not to say there is no happiness in fact.
You know, there is an alternative stepping outside of that approach, you know, going beyond, freeing ourselves from the control of karma and afflictive emotions. Then one experiences true happiness, a stable, reliable happiness, which is in no way exist in relationship to suffering. You know, one interesting notion, I think it’s useful and it’s important to keep in mind once in a while, is that the happiness that we’re, you know, that we are seeking at some level is intrinsic to our being. It’s not a constructed happiness. It’s not a created happiness.
It doesn’t require that we keep providing the causes, that we keep keep shoring it up. It is the very nature of our minds. You know, when we talk about afflictive emotions, that very word says something. The afflictive emotions afflict. They disturb the natural alternative if we’re willing to free ourselves from the from the the from out of the the control of afflictive emotions and karma.
There’s a you know, this is the reason that all of our what we normally call pleasure, pleasure. Our term contaminated feelings of pleasure. This word contaminated, it means that they are they are all instances of the suffering of change. They are not, in fact, true happiness. Now, what is it?
You know, if you somebody shook you in the middle of the night, said, what do what do what do you really want before you had a chance to censor what you said or, you know, give too much intellectualization. You say, I want eternal bliss, unchanging bliss or something to that effect. You know? That’s what we want, and that’s what we’re talking about. That’s something stable, that’s true happiness, that isn’t somehow bound up in suffering, that we don’t have to, you know, keep keep up a constant struggle to make to to find it and then hold on to it, defend it, secure it, and then the suffering of losing it.
And then having to go, you know, once again, struggling to find it again. This unending struggle that constitutes most of our life in one way or another in all its various forms. And, you know, some who’s one of the the the middle picture, these three pictures on your right, he used to say, well, you know, we we we are we settle for chapattis. Chapattis are Indian bread. Right?
But it’s like we settle for crumbs when we should he used to use the expression, we should be eating chocolate cake. You know? We we just like beggars, like like dogs, you know, booting around in the in the garbage for some leftovers when we should be, you know, kings and queens at a banquet of happiness and bliss. But we don’t have that vision. We, you know, we we take normality as the only possibility of what we can experience.
That’s all we’ve ever known. And it’s like that what we said last week in terms of that story about the the student who went to his teacher and said I had problems with my my meditation. I was having these strange thoughts. And the teacher said, you know, what what kind of strange thoughts? Oh, I I’ve been thinking of my dog.
You know? How long have you been thinking of your dog? Oh, ever since I was a puppy. You know, that’s, you know, the story that we have. It seems so natural.
It seems like the only possibility. You know? That’s the that’s the way I am, and that’s all I can hope for. So, you know, maybe this is trying to show us some some kind of alternative and give us the motivation to to to seek that alternative. There’s a story about this idea of in a way, it’s like what we call refraining, but it’s and it it takes into into positive advantage this quality of the suffering of change.
It helps to illustrate the comparative nature of our ordinary happiness. So imagine that this is a typical Tibetan story. Okay? So it takes place in some small village in in Tibet. And there’s this there’s this young Tibetan woman running down the street.
And she’s, you know, she’s got tears coming down her eyes. She’s pretty upset, obviously. And her her lama, her teacher sees her running down the street. And he he said, come on. Come on.
Come on. Come on. Come on. And she said he says, what’s what’s What’s wrong? And she says, oh, lama, lama, I can’t stand my house any longer.
This is it’s so crowded. I mean, there’s my mother and my my husband’s mother and my and his uncle and their three kids and my three cousins and our our children. The place is so crowded, so noisy. I I can’t stay. I I have to leave.
I I’m and then mom was, oh, it’s it’s it’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay. I have an idea. Yes. Yes.
I have an idea. Do you have do you have a goat? Yes. I have a goat. Take the goat and put it in the house.
But but no. No. No. Take the goat and put it in the house. She was a good student.
So she she went home and she did as her as her teacher instructed. Instructed. She put the goat in the house. Next day, same place, same time. Here she is again running down the street.
You know, her the tears flowing down her eyes. Her hair is disheveled. Her dress is dirty. You know? And she’s crying, and and the lama sees her.
Come. Come over. Come. Come over. Says she said, oh, lama.
It’s even worse than it was yesterday. You know? The the the goat’s eating the mattress, and the the floor is a mess. I I’m I’m leaving. I gotta go.
I gotta go. I gotta go. No. No. It’s gonna be okay.
It’s gonna be I have an idea. Oh, please. No more. No. No.
Do you have any chickens? Yes. Take the chickens. Put them in the house. No.
Take the chickens. Put them in the house. Okay. So you’re getting the idea. Next day, there she is again, running down the same street, same time.
Her hair is a mess. Her her dress is a mess. She’s crying, frantic. And he mama sees her, calls her over. Come.
Come. Come. No. No. No.
Come. No. No. Come up. Come up.
Oh, Lama. It’s I can’t stand it. I mean, now that this place smells, there’s feathers flying all over, and the goats eating the mattress, and there’s all those kids, and the I’m I’m no more. No more. I have an idea.
No. I have no more idea. No. No. No.
Please. Is gonna work. Do you have a cow? No more ideas, please. Do no.
No. Do you have a cow? Yes. I put the cow in the house. Okay.
Next day, same time. Same time. There she is running frantically down the street, worse shape than she’s ever been. She sees the Lama. She starts running the other direction.
He runs after her. Now wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.
Wait. No more ideas. I’m this is it. I’m leaving. I’m leaving.
No. I have an idea. No more ideas. No more idea. No more take the cow out of the house.
Take the cow out of the house. Yes. Take the cow out of the house. Next day. She looks a bit better now.
And then she’s her hair is combed, and her dress is clean. And she saw the Lama at the same time, same place. Well, how is it now? Oh, it’s a little bit better. At least I got a good night’s sleep.
You know, I didn’t the cow didn’t wake me up mooing in the middle of the night. Okay. Good. Good. Take the chickens out of the house.
Okay. Next day, her hair is combed. She looks she looks a lot better than she did before, and the Lama calls over and said, how is it now? Oh, it’s not too bad. You know, the smell’s gone, and there aren’t so many feathers around.
So it’s it’s not bad. Okay. Good. Take the goat out of the house. Okay.
Next day, she’s she’s cheerfully, you know, smilingly walking down the street with a clean dress, and she’s looks very nice and pleasant. And she walks over to lama and she’s, oh, lama. I don’t know why I ever wanted to leave my home. It’s it’s, you know, it’s really not crowded and noisy after all, and it’s so easy to clean. I have such a wonderful home.
I’m so glad to be there. So, okay, long story. So the moral of that story, you know, externally, nothing’s really changed, has it? And the objective conditions are exactly what we’re intolerable, what, one week ago. Yeah.
The only change has been an internal shift in our perception of that objective condition. You know, what was intolerable, what was seen as miserable is now seen as inviting, as happy, as a nice situation to be in. Now, what will happen is if subsequently there’s no change in either her, in the situation or no change in her basic internal attitude toward that situation, then as her memory begins to recede, her perception of that same condition will begin to alter, will begin to change itself. What would it will what is now being experienced as pleasant will return to her what it was previously experienced as being unpleasant, as being miserable, and all the associated feelings of unhappiness that went with it. So so simply stated, the suffering of change is saying that all feelings of pleasure pleasure within conditioned existence, and we’re talking about a way of life which is governed by karma and afflictive emotions, that particular approach to the way we live our life, are comparable to, you know, like scratching and itch.
You know, it really feels good. It feels good. You know, when somebody scratches your back, when you scratch your back. You know? And we have so that that’s what we experience as real pleasure.
So we have to ask ourselves, which is better? Not to have an itch at all or to have our itch scratched. And if you, you know, if you begin to question, maybe it’s not so common in in Australia, but in India, it’s very common to see a mangy dog that’s just scratching itself to death. You know? That’s itching itself to death.
So that’s our situation. And which is it better to scratch an itch or not to have an itch at all? You know? In such a situation, no stable, reliable happiness is possible. It’s not within it doesn’t exist within that context.
So that’s the suffering of change. The nature of our pleasurable feelings is is suffering. What I’d so maybe we can begin to take a look at the of the the third type of suffering, the suffering of pervasive conditionality. So the suffering of conditionality. So the suffering of I wanna make sure I leave time for our discussion tonight.
Okay. I’m debating. So the discussion of pervasive conditionality describes the metaphysical character of our neutral feelings. So we’ve covered the feeling our suffering feelings or the suffering of suffering. Our pleasurable feelings are the suffering of change.
But even our neutral feelings aren’t satisfactory. They are what we call the suffering of universal conditionality. You know, we we we we use that that the examples of an open wound before, didn’t we? We said that an open wound when it’s being irritated, when it’s being rubbed up against or in some way inflamed, and that is comparable to the suffering of suffering. And when we apply a salve, some soothing liquid to that that exposed wound, that relief that we feel, that pleasurable feeling is the suffering of change.
Here when we’re talking about the the suffering pervasive conditionality, we’re talking about the very fact of the wound itself. I’ve heard all that you’ve had to say to me on your problems. You asked me what to do about them. It is my view that your real problem is that you’re a member of the human race. Face that one first.
So even at those times when we’re experiencing neither pleasure nor displeasure, pleasure nor displeasure, what we call a neutral feeling, this is as ordinary members of the human race, we have not passed passed beyond the suffering of pervasive conditionality. We have not solved the problem of being conditioned under the control of karma and afflictive emotions. We are at the mercy of of the karmic seeds and the afflictive emotions within our mind. Even though we’re not at at this moment, we’re not experiencing their their con the consequences of that, but nonetheless, are present. You know, within our minds, in all our surrounding circumstances that we’ve been born in.
In in a in sense, we’re talking about the fact that we have how limited our control is over our destiny, over our life. There’s don’t we don’t know what’s going to happen in the next moment, do we? We don’t know where we’re going to be, what’s going to occur to us even even in the next ten minutes, hours. Let’s just what to say in years. We are all we are kind we are all vulnerable creatures, you know, subject to subject internal and external forces over which we have almost no control.
You know, we we are we are in a sit in such a situation, if you think about it, how we’re tossed about, there’s no stable, reliable happiness that we’ve ever found up to now. And it just is not not possible in such a situation. You know, previously, when we talked about death, there was a dialogue between a young little girl and her grandmother. The little girl’s name was Kesia, and they were talking about dying. And the little girl said to her grandmother, does everybody have to die?
And grandmother answers, everybody. Me, Kezia, said fearfully, incredibly? Someday, my darling. But grandma, Kezia waved her left leg and wiggled her toes. They felt sandy.
What if I won’t? We’re not asked, Kezia, She said sadly. You know, this is a hard one, really, in the sense that it’s it hits home, I think, in in a real way. You know, no one asks us if we want to die or not or if we want our parents, our partners, or our children to die or not. No one asks us if we want to be in an accident or we want to to contract AIDS or cancer or have our possessions burned in a fire.
No one asks us if we want our our partner to stop loving us or if we if if we if we want it to rain continually over our long-planned holiday. Imagine holiday. You know, no one asks us if if we want to be angry or attached or jealous or or or if we want to feel simply fed up with it all. No one no one asks us. You know, is this what you want?
You know, karma and afflictive emotions simply don’t ask us what it is that we want. You know, it’s like a leaf which is which is blown by the wind. And then the wind of karma and afflictive emotions pick up, and we’re carried where they take us, where they will. They never ask us what what what is it you want, Champa? What would you really like?
You know? And even when we find a corner out of the wind, it’s just a momentary lull until the winds of karma and the afflictive emotions pick up again and carry us again where they will. We’re not in control. You know? None of us chooses to to be born.
None of us chooses to to to grow old, to get sick. None of us chooses to die, but nonetheless, we will. You know, we we come into even more. You know, we we come into this world. You know, our minds aren’t blank slates.
We have predisposing tendencies within our mind. We have, you know, these these predispositions will will will act to perpetuate more of the same. You know, even even when we try to change, to become a better person, to become healthy, you know, we naturally are met with hindrances, with resistance, simply because of the habit patterns, the predisposing patterns of our mind. You know, we are constantly it’s like we’re constantly swimming upstream, struggling. You know, we we we we’re we’re struggling against the currents of our own compulsive, repetitive thinking and and the circumstances about us, which seem to reinforce a particular way of being, a particular way of life.
It seems it all fits together. There’s not much room to maneuver. You know, it seems that our minds and our circumstances all seem to be conspiring to take us back to the same places again and again and again, even against our efforts, even against our will. We keep experiencing more and more of the same, and we keep creating the causes for more and more of the same, even against our better judgment, ment, even against our will. You know, we have created we have created our experience by our own previous karma.
And and now that that world of experience is channeling us our behavior and our and limits it sets limits on what we can and cannot do. We simply cannot do anything that we might like. We’ve created limits for ourselves due to our past karma. And due to our present afflictive emotions, we’re creating more of the same. There’s always this resistance, this struggle involved in any change.
So, you know, the all of this serves to to sustain, to to and to increase our afflictions. You know you know, we’re stuck in a life where we go on, we kill, and we don’t even want to kill. You know? We have these bodies we have to take care of. We have to feed.
We have to clothe. We have to travel around. And then we perpetuate a great deal of negativity even against our better intentions, even though we’d rather not. That’s our karmic lot. There’s no choice in the matter.
So this this notion that, you know, that simply we are, as it were, an exposed wound, that in itself is is the suffering of pervasive conditionality. It it pervades all living living beings, all ordinary living beings who are conditioned by karma and afflictive emotions. That’s the circumstance that we find ourselves in. You know, we we you know, I think we’ve mentioned before. We we are we are aware of reality to the extent that survival makes necessary in in that much and no more.
Normally. Normally. In that much and no more. It is said that for ourselves, and this is the traditional analogy which is given. For us, the thought of the nature of our what it means to be a human being, the human condition, the human dilemma, it’s like taking a hair and put it in the palm of our hand.
It doesn’t make any difference. It doesn’t it, you know, it goes unnoticed. But for someone who has penetrated to the truth of the human condition, it is as if they take that same hair and put it in their eye. It’s unbearable. You know?
They can’t stand it in one moment longer. They’ll do anything to be free of that. So the mark of suffering is constituted of the suffering of suffering, suffering, the suffering of change, and the suffering of universal conditionality. The it’s not as if we can master them, bring them under some kind of control. It’s not as if they’re extraneous to ourselves where we can conquer them.
We can’t we we have to they are the very fabric of our being, inextricably inextricably part of the this approach to life. We we it’s like we have this mark on our forehead, you know, like the mark of Cain and the mark of suffering. And if you if you look in the mirror, you see that in the mirror of life. So the suffering of suffering, the suffering of change, and the suffering of pervasive conditionality, they have to be recognized and confronted and, you know, within our own within our own lived experience. And this is the necessary first step in transcending them, you know, amongst the the four noble truths.
The very first teaching that the Buddha taught in which he outlined his entire doctrine. He taught the truth of suffering first. Why? Because without that, the rest is meaningless. The rest is idle speculation, intellectual curiosity, abstract philosophy.
It only becomes a living tool if we begin to see that it as a as a means to solve our problems, the basic problem of what it means to be an ordinary human being, the truth of suffering. Okay. I’d like to stop there. We’re gonna continue with talking about impermanence next week. Good stuff.
But what I’d like to do is we talked about if you’d like to all grab a cup of tea, and then we’re going to make a big circle, and we’ll talk about some of these ideas and issues. That’d be great. Do you have it? Just just milk. Thank you.
Could you turn it on? It’s outside. Outside is a switch. Link. Left.
Thank you. Close the door. You close the door? Can you close the door? Thank you.
I’m not sure. Is this loud enough? Loud enough? Yeah. Welcome, everybody.
Most people I have seen before. Is there somebody new here today? Nobody. Great. So you all know what what we are doing.
We do half an hour meditation, then very short break to stretch if you need, and then we do another half an hour meditation. You hear me in the back? Is that yeah. I’m not gonna tell anything beforehand. So we go straight into it, into the posture that helps us prepare the mind for an hour good meditation.
If you sit on the chair, make sure that you sit comfortable, that you don’t lean backwards, and that your feet are supported either by the floor or if the floor is too far away put a cushion under your feet. And if you sit on the floor make sure that your back is straight. Maybe you another cushion. This is too much effort. Yes.
It’s easier. Easier? Good. Make sure that your back is straight. That’s the main thing in meditation.
Straight and at the same time relaxed. We don’t want to put any effort in our posture. We want to use our energy to focus the mind. So put your hands on your lap, or you can put your right hand on top of the left, the thumbs slightly touching each other. Your elbows are away from your body.
Your shoulders are relaxed. And if you’re not sure if they are relaxed, you can breathe in very deeply and then breathe out and let go of your shoulders. You can do that a few times. Your hand is a little bit bent forward. Your tongue is touching the palate.
Your eyes are closed. You leave a little bit of light coming into your eyes. By just sitting in this posture, your mind will naturally relax. Disturbing emotions will subside. Even if you wouldn’t focus on anything consciously.
If you’re aware of your body, if you’re aware of your posture, your mind will come to the body. Your mind will come to the present moment. Our mind has the habit to dwell either in the past or in the future. Thoughts can go anywhere. Our thoughts can travel in time. Our thoughts can go to all places in the universe. And where our thoughts are, our mind is. So if you’re caught up in our thoughts, thinking about the past, the future, thinking about others far away. Our mind is not present body, where we are with our actions. And that makes it very difficult to be in control of our actions and to be in control of our mind.
Reflect on that. We meditate because we have such a busy mind. And we know that we are not in control of our mind. So the main thing in meditation is that we bring our mind to where we are, where our body is, where our actions are. Be aware of your body.
Be aware of sitting. Be aware of sound. Don’t follow the sound. Just be aware. Be aware of the feelings that arise from your body.
Maybe you can feel your heartbeat. Maybe you can feel the air touching the skin. And let your minds relax into that awareness. So in one sense, try to relax your mind. You don’t follow your thoughts, your feelings, your perception.
You don’t do anything. You don’t take action. You’re allowed to do completely nothing. And at the other hand, you’re very sharp. You try to observe every moment.
Either sounds or feelings or thoughts. Every moment you’re aware what comes into your mind. Our mind is by nature restless, dissatisfied. Doesn’t like to feel bored. So if you notice that that starts to happen in your mind now, Just see it for what it is.
It is the mind that is used to distraction and wants to pick up its old habit. You don’t have to follow a restless feeling. You can observe it. You can see how it comes up out of the mind. And at a certain point subsides and dissolves back into the mind.
You might feel an urge to do something. But that need has no ground, has no foundation. That’s just a habit, a thought. With meditation, we don’t want to follow that old habit. If we practice contentment.
If you can feel that everything you need is here right now, You offer the mind a different kind of habit. You offer the mind a habit that’s gonna lead to a peaceful mind. And the choice is up to us. So if you feel that restlessness comes up in your mind, practice contentment. If we practice contentment, we open up for what there is right now.
If we somehow can accept that everything is here right now, there is no need for our thoughts to run off to something else. Our thoughts will stay with the body and our minds will stay peaceful. And then if you feel the need to have a short break where you can open your eyes, where you can stretch your body, You can do that now. You can also stay in your meditation. Meditation.
Our minds love to be entertained. Reflect on the stories that we create. Think about your favorite story of today that went over in your mind again and again and again. And with that, there might be a feeling of pleasure. What it might be a negative feeling?
Observe that feeling very closely. And then check if that is a peaceful feeling or that the feeling has the attribute of being restless. And when you think about that story that went on and on today, while you think about it, you can check-in your body what happens. You can check deep in your stomach how it feels in there when you think about the story. You can check higher up in your stomach.
In your heart area. In your throat, in your head. So knowing that our mind goes over that story again and again, check if that is a feeling that you would like to create over and over again. If you’re thinking about something pleasant, then wonder if that is real pleasure that you experience or it’s just a surface pleasure and underneath something else. The reason why we go over the story again and again is our attachment.
Our attachment to something pleasurable or aversion from something that we don’t like. And our aversion comes because we are attached to what we like. So both feelings, pleasant and unpleasant, come from the same source. That drive for pleasure is something that we share with all living beings. The drive for pleasure naturally comes with an aversion for suffering.
There is nothing wrong with that wish for pleasure, that wish for happiness. But the way how our mind looks for that goes after that, that is the cause for our dissatisfied mind, for our restless mind. If we wanna have a peaceful happiness, we have to cut through that crazy, restless mind. We have to stop following it and bring our mind to where our body is. Focus your mind in a relaxed way on your stomach where you can observe the movements of your abdomen.
Every time that your mind wanders off and you notice it, bring it gently back. Bring your mind gently back with the knowledge that following your thoughts and your feelings is not gonna bring what you’re actually looking for. Bring your mind back to your abdomen and to the rhythm of your breath. Every time when we indulge in our own stories, pleasant or unpleasant, we are creating the causes for suffering, for dissatisfaction. If you agree with that, if you recognize that, that gives you strength to every time when you see it happening.
You bring your mind back to your body, back to your breath. The biggest part of the problems that we experience in life, The biggest part only happens in our mind. If we really look in our life, in our daily life, life, there is not much that happens. Every little unpleasant experience gets magnified in our mind. And every time when we think again of an unpleasant experience, we experience the unpleasantness in our mind, but that doesn’t really happen.
We create that with our own mind. We can stop that habit by focusing on our breath, on our body. If we can focus our mind in the hearer and now, on our breath, on our body, and we can feel content with that. A different kind of feeling, a different kind of happy feeling can arise in the mind. Maybe it’s more a feeling of well-being.
The feeling of contentment, of well-being can lift your whole mind. You can reflect how it can influence everything you see, you hear, everything that happens in your life. If you have contentment. If you allow the mind to become peaceful, very quiet, That can different give different kind of reactions in your mind. Sometimes it creates fear.
Sometimes you feel like coming home. Sometimes you feel like you go in a deep sleep. However it feels for you, try to stay alert in that state. Try to stay present, aware. Being in a deep state can transform your life, can transform how you experience life.
That is a natural process. You don’t have to do anything for that. Just allow it to happen. That deep relaxation is the natural state of the mind. And then when you feel ready, you allow yourself to slowly come out of that state and take your time for that.
Just focus on your body. Move a little bit. When you feel ready, slowly open your eyes. Thank you for coming. I’ll be around for a little while if you have questions.