Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Jampa Gendun opens this 141-minute session by reframing the perfection of generosity: the practice lies not in outer giving but in releasing the grip of mine — possessions, time, territory, even privacy. He then turns to ethics, tracing the Sanskrit root Śīla to its literal meaning, cooling: the practice pacifies afflictive emotions rather than enforcing rules, illustrated by how habitual lying breeds mistrust and blocks intimacy. A guided meditation on impermanence bridges to the session’s deepest theme: selflessness. What Buddhism negates is not the person but the permanent, partless, independent self that ignorance projects — illustrated by the image of a rope mistaken for a snake in dim light. Part of a long-running series on the Three Principal Aspects of the Path.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 18 3PA 2007 08 13.mp3
UUID: 8939c971-4908-4264-a12b-ed6bdf80b8f0
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 2006-2007 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2007-08-13
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 141.5 minutes
Words: ~9,713
So we’re gonna we’re gonna use some high-tech Tibetan visual aids tonight. So we begin by adjusting our motivation. Are you hot, warm? No. Love it hot.
Hot. Shall we open the door, Kate? What do you think? To me. It’s It’s like a bath.
So we have to check up. And we have to keep again and again, beginning again, in making a habit of the person that we want to become, the qualities that we want to can you hear me okay in the back? Yeah? The qualities that we want to imbue, that we and then we set some kind of values. We all have our values, what we think is important to ourselves.
Sometimes they’re not very clear to ourselves. And then maybe at times it’s necessary to clarify them for ourselves, you know, perhaps your health is an important value. What does that entail? If that’s an important value for yourself. Perhaps your relationships are important to you.
What does that entail in practical matters? Strategies do you have to implement to bring that value into some reality for yourself? I think in Buddhism, we’re much concerned with the mind and how that relates with the world, including people and so forth, and the development of our mind. That becomes a priority, a really high value. And therefore, we have to work out some strategies how we’re to, if that in fact is a priority, if that in fact an important value, the development of our minds growing and all that that might entail for each of us.
What kind of strategies are we going to work out for ourselves? What are we actually going to do to implement? It’s one thing simply to have high ideas. It’s another thing to sort of translate those ideas into some kind of practical reality. What are some short term measures we can undertake?
What are some of the long term goals that we can actually work around? In adjusting our motivation as we do. It’s traditional, and we have been following that tradition, to recite a particular verse. You know, I go for refuge to the Buddha Dharma and Sangha and so forth. And we continually talk about the fact by the practice of generosity and the other perfections may I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings.
So, you know, we’ve talked a great deal about what it means to be a Buddha in terms of these inner qualities of wisdom, love and compassion, and personal power, and how they find expression in our everyday life and benefiting others. We’ve talked a little bit about the Dharma in terms of the means of actually bringing about what it is that we want to become a Buddha, to become a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being in terms of the trainings, the meditations, the teachings and so forth. Perhaps, you know, in a real way, simply the truth of things come, you know, in contact with the way things actually are and begin embodying that truth in our everyday lives. And we’ve talked about the Sangha, you know, those who the social context in which this process is taking place. You know, we’re we’re not simply isolated egos divorced from the world about us.
We live in interdependence with our environment, and this environment includes other people and so forth. And so we we exist in relation with others. And so this relation, can either be neutral, it can simply be there, it can be a hindrance to ourselves, or it can serve as a as a conducive condition to help us, to assist us in going where it is that we want to go, to become a Buddha by implementing the Dharma. And so this is our Sangha. Therapeutic culture that we’re trying to live within, which supports what it is that we’re trying to do.
And then we actually say, Okay, this is what I want. This is what I want to do. What it means to go for refuge is simply, this is a priority in my life. It’s some kind of commitment. You know, I’m willing to invest some time and some energy, some thought and so forth, into these values, in translating them to some kind of reality.
And one way that the strategies which are offered to us to implement, that, to translate those values, is by means of the practice of generosity and so forth. So, know, let us say, these are called the six perfections. You know, once we have awakened our heart, you know, the the development of love and compassion, having developed the aspiration to become a Buddha or, you know, how can we say this? You know, to become really something a healthy person so that I can help other people in very substantial way, in practical ways. So it’s not something more than just the blind leading the blind, something more than wishful thinking.
I can actually make a difference. And the more I am, the more I have to offer, the more I can give. So we actually have to implement some kind of strategies in bringing that about. And these strategies are what are called the six perfections. So Bodhisattva Bodhisattva is Bodhi means awaken.
Sattva means it means in its original, it means hero. One who is heroic with regard to enlightenment. It requires some courage. We would like things to be easy all the time. We would like things to feel good, just have everything flow in the direction that we would want, and we’re willing to go along with that.
But I’m afraid it may not be always that easy for ourselves. It requires some determination, but also some kind of courage to overcome our indolence, our self centeredness, to set aside our own agendas at times and be there for others. The strategy of the six perfections. We talk about Buddha, but there’s a technical way to talk about it, but it doesn’t have to be particularly technical. Buddhahood, or what it is we’re trying to achieve, is constituted of two embodiments, technical terms, a truth body and a form body of a Buddha.
The truth body, you know, there are two dimensions to our being. There’s the inner dimension, the private aspect of ourselves, which is inaccessible to others, our own lived inner experience. You know, if I eat a piece of chocolate cake, I have a certain taste experience and a certain pleasurable experience. I can’t I can talk about it, but that’s quite different than the actual experience itself. I can’t really you can’t enter into that experience.
That’s something personal and private to myself. So there’s the inner domain. When this is fully developed, we call that a truth body of a Buddha. It’s like well, actually, it’s kind of unimaginable, I think. But anyway, if we were to apply some words to it, it’s like space without beginning, without any logical determinations.
It’s free of all limitations and all elaborations. In essence, it’s the uninterrupted direct realization of ultimate truth. And this is experienced as all knowing and unremitting peace. That’s the that’s our inner lived experience as a Buddha, that we never again experience any other feeling but peace. No no matter what situation, no matter matter what the circumstance might be, we experience peace within.
All the disturbing factors which previously disturbed the the very nature of our mind, which is peace, had been completely removed. But that’s only one side of the story of being a Buddha. There is another aspect to our being, you know, that part of our being which exists in relationship to others, the public aspect aspect to ourselves. You know, this is the way we lead our life. We have we have a sense of individuality individuality about ourselves, but we also have a social aspect about ourselves.
We try to gain experiences of pleasure for ourselves, but we also exist as social beings, and necessary that we relate with others in a skillful and meaningful manner. This fulfillment of this social aspect of ourselves is termed the form body of a being. There’s a lot of technicalities around this, but I’m not sure if it’s necessary to go into the details. But just understanding that that when we talk about becoming a Buddha or becoming a you know, the goal of Buddhism, we are in fact you know, we are forgoing our own welfare. The heroic aspect is attaining that, the goal of Buddha, the goal of a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being for the sake of others.
But nonetheless, we do bring about our own welfare. But in the process of bringing about the welfare of ourselves, we simultaneously bring about the welfare of others. The the the scene the two aren’t seen as somehow, mutually exclusive. You know, when when when my interest is other interests, then there’s no conflict between myself and others. So the way that we go about doing this in practice, in fact, is by you know, I’ve talked about the journey of a path, you know, taking one step at a time, putting one foot in front of the next.
These are the steps of what is called wisdom and wisdom and method, wisdom and method. Wisdom is means by which we accumulate the collection of wisdom, coming to know the ultimate truth, the way things are in their deepest nature. This brings about the fulfillment of our own welfare. All of the disturbing factors of the of the mind are removed, and the mind experiences unremitting peace. But there’s another aspect to our journey, and that is the method aspect.
The method aspect is the various activities that we undertake empowered or motivated by compassion, love. This is what fuels the this is what empowers the wisdom consciousness to such an extent that it’s able to remove ignorance and all the obstructions necessary to attain their goal completely. So these are the two steps. Essentially, we’re we’re talking about the development of wisdom and and love, wisdom and love, wisdom and love, to bring about not only our own welfare, but the welfare of others. So the way the Bodhisattva takes these steps in practice, you know, we actually have to do something, is the six perfections.
The perfection of generosity, ethics, patience, joyful effort, concentration, and wisdom. And I thought, you know, just to mention these, and I’ll just mention just two of them tonight, and over the following weeks we can look at the remainder of the perfections. The Sanskrit term perfection is paramita. And we use the term perfection. The word perfection can sound a little bit heavy handed in the sense that we have to be perfect.
And we always struggle to be perfect, but we always seem to be screwing up in some way, making mistakes. And the idea of being perfect kind of has a sense of forcing ourselves into some preconceived straight jacket so that we can conform to some preconceived model of what we should be. But idea of paramita means over there or gone beyond. In other words, it has the idea of transcendence. So we could easily call these six activities of a Buddha of a Bodhisattva.
This is what a Bodhisattva does for a living, is these six transcendences. So they are transcendent from the point of view that they are conjoined with, let us say, are under the influence of wisdom and wisdom understanding the deep deeper nature of phenomena. And we’ll discuss this a great deal when we come to the third principal aspect of the path, the awakened mind. But it’s also conjoined or under the influence of the awakened heart. And we’ll discuss this a great deal when we come to the second principal aspect of the path.
Okay? So these are coming attractions. So this is like a stay tuned. These various activities are transcended. Let us say, they transcend our ordinary ways of relating and acting in the world, you know, in terms of pride, aggression, attachment, and so forth.
These are all of these actions are primarily acts of compassion under the influence of wisdom. That’s why we say they transcend ordinary acts, you know, the mundane ways of acting. When these acts of generosity generosity and ethics and so forth, are combined with the force of wisdom, realizing the deeper nature of things, then that bodhisattva is able to act in limitless ways for the benefit of limitless beings for a limitless amount of time, knowing the deeper way in which they themselves, the sentient beings who they’re benefiting and the very act itself exist in their deeper nature, you know, what we call the three spheres. For example, the first of the six perfections is generosity. The Bodhisattva understands that the giver and recipient of the gift and the actual giving do not truly exist.
And therefore, there’s no limit to his ability to give, in fact. We obviously have some limits, even if we try at the best we try. So this wisdom and this compassion are operative throughout his activities or her activities. And therefore, they become transcendent activities. So just talk about maybe two of these perfections tonight.
The first is the perfection of generosity. And what we mean by generosity? I hope to be able to in the future, we’re going touch on it tonight, talk about the fact that somehow we have to begin to translate some of these, what do you say, concepts and notions and doctrines of Buddhism into ways which are very relevant to ourselves, which are attuned to our actual values in the way our particular culture, the way we actually see things. When we talk about generosity, it’s not so much a matter becoming more and more charitable, you know, literally giving away whatever it is you have. You know, there are various types of generosity.
There’s, for example, the giving of money and materials and time, energy. You can give protection from fear. If somebody’s having some problems and some difficulties, you give them some safe haven. You can give them the Dharma, the teaching and so forth. So these are some of the the the specific types of generosity.
But the emphasis in the perfection of giving is more in our willingness to give. That is, developing the intention to give up the thought of mine, like my possessions, my knowledge, my territory, my privacy, my security, even my time, all the ways that we think of possessions that we own that are mine. Being willing to give up what is mine, that idea of mine. That is to say, the practice of generosity doesn’t lie so much in the outer act of giving but in the letting go of non attachment, the letting go of our need to hold on to ourselves and what we identify with, what we take security You know, we give up a centralized approach to our relation. What’s in it for me?
We give up the centralized you know, communicating and participating in the lives of others in that way. It’s like environmental generosity. It’s just there for the taking. There’s no real concept of, I’m giving to somebody else. The sent an idea was of a of a distinction between yourself and others as being absolute.
The the first of the six perfections, the perfection of generosity. The second is the perfection of ethics. You know, sometimes this is translated as as morality, whatever. But, again, it’s not, you know, how can we make it a little more relevant to ourselves? It’s not simply a matter of restraining ourselves with some kind of moral principles or some kind of rules of conduct.
Conduct. It’s the emphasis in the perfection of giving is on aligning our ourselves with our basic sanity. You know, we have a sense of decency and sanity about ourselves, and we try to to to to connect with that and begin to become authentic. There’s no there’s no you know, for most of us, there’s a deep schism between our our our deeper most inner values and how we really relate in life. There’s a sense of inauthenticity, a sense of alienation from who we actually are at some level.
If you’re lucky, you feel that. If you’re not, you’re just numb. And it doesn’t matter. You don’t even know it’s there. When we talk about ethics, we’re beginning to align ourselves with our basic sanity and decency about ourselves.
I read something tonight, you know, that you know, we we we’ve talked about the ten non-virtues, you know, as a means of which are the the giving up of the ten not the ten perfections, ten non virtues, ten virtues and the giving up of the ten non virtues. Okay? And how we can begin to how this plays out in our life, in the idea of ethics and morality and so forth. You know, it’s not you know, in in to some extent, the notion of karma, many of these notions are presented in terms of of within in Buddhist terms and how they are affecting our future experiences, you know, by by following these these negative states of mind and expressing them verbally or acting them out in some way, we are implanting karmic seeds, which will bring about negative experiences in the future. But we can I I read something interesting today in terms of and it was an example of how we can begin to think of these even in terms of our present psychology, not in terms not alone in terms of future experiences, but how would it affects us immediately at present?
And the example that was given in what I read was lying. And he said, you know, people who lie, if you get in the habit of lying, you soon you soon begin to think, well, I lie. And maybe I bet you other people are lying to me too. If I lie, then other people probably lie also. You know?
And you can’t quite trust people because, you know, you can’t be quite sure whether they’re being honest with you anymore. So a person and, know, a person who who lies has difficulty in their relations. They feel estranged. They feel an inability to trust others. They cannot form intimacy.
They cannot bond with other people. They require some real sense of trust and honesty in relations. So, you know, we talk about you know, so when I talk about ethics, aligning ourselves with our basic sanity and decency, it’s beginning to feel how how the repercussions of these negative ways of acting out are actually affecting yourself in in the present moment. You know, the fostering mistrust, inability to to form relations and so forth. You know, they’re all coming back, reflecting back at us in some form or another.
So it’s not only in terms of the long, know, the future repercussions, the consequences, the karmic results of our negative actions that we have to consider, but how it’s affecting our daily lives in a very real and substantial way. So when we talk about ethics, we’re not talking about just rules and principles of how we’re to lead a lives and being good boys and girls. That’s not the point. So we’re talking about the fact of aligning ourselves with our basic sanity and decency, which is in cultivating positive states of mind. Positive state it seems to be the case in and I think Western psychotherapy is beginning to see this as the case as well, that positive states of mind are are experienced as positive as a healthy way of life in the sense that, you know, the qualities like love and compassion and caring sensitivity to others, of generosity and tolerance, these all are conducive to to a more Ways of ways of ways of being and ways of ways of life, which are which are which we all, at some level, want, you know, which we which we which we all, at some level, value, which which we in ways we can find fulfillment, ways that we find meaningful.
So it’s not you know, I what I’m saying is I’m trying to get across the notion is that we’re talking about just how to live a happier, more meaningful way of life when we talk about development of love and compassion and generosity and ethics and and tolerance and all these various it’s not a moral prescription. Psychology. So we’re talking about ethics, aren’t we? So the aligning of our of our of our ways of being in this world with our own basic sanity. You know, there’s a there’s a there’s a a correspondence between our deeply held values and how we act in the world.
And as well, it’s a way of speaking and acting in ways that are conducive to pacifying our mind. And this is the word that ‘s being translated from the Sanskrit into English. The word is Śīla. And generally, we translate the word Śīla or in Pali, it’s Śīla, as ethics or morality. But actually, it means cooling.
It means to cool, to cool the fires of afflictive emotions. And hate is experienced as suffering. Attachment is experienced as suffering. Pride is experienced as suffering. At some level, at at in some way, it is a dissatisfactory state in terms of our actual lived experience, all of the negative emotions.
That’s why they’re termed afflictive emotions. They afflict the mind. So when we talk about ethics, we’re talking about ways of pacifying the afflictions of the mind. We’re cooling the mind. We’re pacifying the mind.
There’s greater sense of peace. And as well, you know, the you know, when I guess what we’re saying is we’re not when we talk about ethics in terms of in cooling, we don’t indulge in dysfunctional states of mind, you know, as if it’s okay, as if there were some profit or some advantage in being angry. Many people think that. If I’m not angry, if I then people are going to take advantage of me. Or if I if I get angry, I’m gonna get what I want.
You know? There seems to be some kind of profit involved. But I think that but it’s not based in any deeper reasoning. You know, it’s some kind of bias. You know, whereas positive states of mind, you know, love and compassion, generosity and ethics and so forth, have a very deep basis in terms of reason, in terms of use, in terms of the benefit that arises from them.
So it’s a pragmatic or I guess a utilitarian way of looking states of mind. Which of our states of mind actually bring about our welfare and those about us, and which act against us, which are actually harming ourselves, perhaps unknown to ourselves? And then finally, in terms of ethics, working for the welfare of others. I guess these are difficult lessons, aren’t they? I think, know.
And I guess, you know, we just have to keep reminding ourselves, you know, how far we’ve gotten in our life, you know, having expended all the blood and sweat and tears that we have in in our struggle, in the the struggle which we engage in from the moment we wake up till we go to sleep at night and even sometimes during our sleep in terms of I, me, mine. You know? And all that and all that that has cost us in terms of what we could have done with our lives and how we could have related with with others. You know? What Where has it gotten us?
Maybe there are alternatives. So I guess it’s a matter of education, isn’t it? Maybe we can begin to make some kind of shift, begin to see the disadvantages of a lot of these negative ways of being that we’ve been habituated to, and begin to see that there are alternatives and begin to, as we do in terms of adjusting our motivation, make a habit of the person I want to be, and then consciously evoking these more more positive states more frequently and deeper. And then things will change. So in this process, I’m going to talk about the remaining six perfections in the weeks to follow.
We’ve talked about generosity. We’ve talked about ethics. These are the things that we can do to actually, in a practical way, the strategies that we can implement to actualize some of these aspirations. So the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha, which we implement, which we become by means of the Dharma within the social context of a spiritual community. And we, you know, again and again, You know, I guess it’s making a habit of the person that you want to be, isn’t it, in a way?
You know, we we are who we are is a learned experience. Whatever has been learned can be unlearned, and new learning can take its place. We can we can become a habit to the person that we want to be. That’s what meditation is in a way. In a in the in the Tibetan term is gom.
And gom simply means to familiarize or to custom. In some ways, it just means habituate. And we try to raise the level of motivation. You know, if you can think of one of you know, we have to begin somewhere if we’re honest with ourselves. You know, it actually actually connect with our hearts.
You know, it has to be some feeling, you know, if even one other person. You if I can leave here at whatever time, maybe nine thirty or or if I quit talking, it probably might be earlier. But, anyway, maybe I can be there a little more understanding, a little more patient, a little more caring. Being there for somebody in a in a little more significant way, this person at home or wherever, maybe mom, maybe your parent, maybe your partner, maybe your child, and thinking about them, and how we would want to develop in some way to be there for them in a little more significant way. And that maybe, maybe this is why we’re here together.
This is why we spend our time together and share these ideas so that I can be that. 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 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 others. Reverently, I prostrate with my body, speech, and mind. I present clouds of every type of offering, those actually arranged and imagined. I disclose all my negative actions accumulated during beginningless time. Rejoice in all the virtues of superiors and ordinary beings.
Please remain to the end of cyclic existence and turn the wheel of Dharma for migrating beings. I dedicate all virtue, my own and that of others, to the great awakening. So we’re going to meditate. We’re going to meditate on, as we we usually do, mindfulness of the breath. So we begin with the relaxation of the body, then we’ll do the six breath exercise, breathing in normally, but breathing out, extending or extending the out breath as if emptying the used air out of your lungs.
Again, breathing in normally, exhaling, extending the exhalation, breathing out all the stale air in your lungs, doing that six times. Then we’ll meditate on mindfulness of the breath. And then we’ll meditate last week we talked about the second of the three marks of conditioned existence. The first being suffering, the second being impermanence. And we talked about the various types of impermanence.
It would be useful to to review those in our meditation. So I’ll just give you some pointers, and we can think about those, reflect upon those different types of impermanence in the course of our meditation. It’s useful because, you know, it then when things do change, it doesn’t take us by surprise. It doesn’t throw us off balance as it might. We we can you know, we have a particular you particular worldview, and many of our our worldview is made up of a constellation of beliefs and ideals and principles and feelings and emotions and so forth.
And amongst these beliefs, there’s a belief probably in that things are permanent. They’re always going to be there in one way or another. They they are unchanging. And this is problematic. This causes us suffering.
So if we can can begin it doesn’t reflect the reality of the situation. So if we can begin to counter that even to some degree and make the make the understanding that in fact things are constantly changing, that things are, in fact, impermanent a more significant component of our world view, then then we won’t we won’t be thrown by reality as, you know, when it’s comes crashing into meet us in those moments when things do change that we always depended upon as if they were never as if they were always going to be there in one way or another for us. In a way, we have no choice. We have to if we’re going to stop our suffering, we have to accommodate the way things actually are into our worldview. Otherwise, we we we lead an imprecise life.
We lead a life of a certain degree of dishonesty, demanding that the world be other than the way it is. And that hasn’t gotten us anywhere up to now. So taking a comfortable, firm posture, So we can begin by relaxing the body, starting at the crown of the head, the scalp, the forehead, feeling the wrinkles in your brow, beginning to smooth out the pressure in and around your eyes diminishing The muscles of your face softening, relaxing. The jaws relax. Relaxed.
Moving to the muscles in the back of the neck perhaps gently turning your head to each side a few times just very gently and softly stretching, loosening, relaxing the muscles of the throat. We’re relaxing the muscles of the throat. And moving down to the upper back and shoulders, perhaps rotating your shoulders a few times, letting them drop comfortably to the sides, and feeling this burden and this weight that we carry around on our backs beginning to move down and through your body into the ground. Moving down to your hands, your hands are soft, relaxed. Your lower arms.
Your upper arms. Your chest is at ease. Relaxing through out the heart area and the lungs. The middle portion of the back. The stomach Releasing the tension that we hold in our stomach muscles.
Just allow your belly to go soft. Relaxing throughout the abdominal cavity. Relaxing your lower back muscles. Your buttocks. And throughout the upper legs and thighs.
The lower legs. And your feet. And bringing your awareness to your body in general and noticing any tightness, any tensions within the body and focusing upon those areas. Consciously relaxing, softening. Feeling the tension diminish the tightness loosen Your body becoming comfortable, at ease.
A feeling of physical well-being pervading your body. It feels good to be in your body. Just be with your body. And bring your mind to the breath. Practice the six breath exercise.
Breathing in gently normally comfortably but on the exhalation prolonging the exhalation feeling as if you’re emptying your lungs of the used air repeating that six times on your own. When you’ve completed the six breaths bring your mind to the breath. Easy gentle in and out natural breath and if it’s helpful use the techniques of counting and noting the breaths. So now we’re going to meditate on impermanence, beginning with the impermanence of changeability. And within changeability, we’re going to look continuum of the constantly changing lives.
So just imagining for yourself, you know, perhaps you can’t remember, but you can imagine when you were just almost just born, just a little infant that you could hold in your hand. You were like that at one time. Just this newborn baby, the tiny little fingers and toes. Then you grew and became a baby, a toddler, just ready to take your first halting first steps. And you became a child running around, now perhaps you can actually remember some pictures of yourself when you were a youngster, a little boy, a little girl, how you were.
And you grew up into be a a young fourteen, thirteen, fourteen. Remember advanced in your teens, eighteen, finishing high school, getting ready to go out into the world. Then you’re in your early twenties, a young adult. It’s changing all the time. And you’re growing into your 30s.
Remember yourself when you were thirty. Then middle age changing, growing, becoming older. 40s, For some of you, there were the fifties. How were you back then? And then maybe maybe just for me but maybe one or other of you who’s sixty.
So the changing continuum of your life, a little little baby after this big person that you are now, always changing. And there’s the changeability of all the various elements which make up our life. There’s the our physical and mental well-being. Physically sometimes we’re healthy. Can you remember times when you’re strong and active?
You like your body? Feels great. Sometimes your body is sick and weak. You don’t like your body. It feels terrible.
Sometimes we feel good about life. We feel good about ourselves. We’re happy. Everything seems to be going well. Can you remember those kinds of times?
And sometimes we don’t like ourselves. Sometimes things seem to be going wrong all the time. We don’t feel so good about life. Can you remember those kinds of times? Then there’s a changeability of the things about us.
Just imagine a little that small tree growing over the years. Finally, it’s the leaves form in the spring. They’re green and grows. Leaves begin to turn in the fall and the autumn, turning red, yellow, and then they fall from the tree, and the tree is bare. Think about some of the music you used to like.
Maybe Elvis Presley, or rock and roll or maybe punk. And now it’s it’s outdated. It’s all passe. You wouldn’t even listen to it anymore. One time you really enjoyed it.
Or your clothes, Miniskirts and bell bottom pants. Now they’re gone. Now we have new styles. Clothing changes over the years. People become famous actors and musicians become popular.
And now we don’t hear about them anymore. Do you remember when you you bought your first car, maybe your first television set or computer? After a while, remember how you felt? How special it was? And then it got banged up and wore out.
Something better came along. And where is it now? It’s gone. It’s just a piece of junk if it exists at all. Then there’s the impermanence of separation.
And we’re continually moving on in some way or another. Think about the fact that you’re moving one from one city to another, all the houses, all the flats, units that you’ve lived in over the last many years moving one to another to another, leaving that place, moving to a new place. The same is true of our relations. Think about all the relations that you’ve passed through in the last many years. Each one was important.
Each one was the focus of your life. And now they’re just memories. All the people who have passed through your life. Impermanence of disintegration, maybe you can take the example of a flame, of a candle flame. It looks steady and solid, but in fact it’s changing from moment to moment to moment.
A new flame arises exhausted. Another flame takes its place like the frames of a movie. So quickly it looks like it’s single entity, but it’s changing from moment to moment like a candle flame. And then finally impermanence by nature. The simple fact, if it hasn’t changed up to now, it will.
That’s its nature. We really can’t expect things not to change. That’s in their nature. And then bring your mind back to the breath. And get in touch with your body, the feelings and sensations within your body.
Body. And in a slow and relaxed manner become aware of your surrounding. Just take your time. So we’re looking at the three marks of conditioned existence. The first two were suffering, the unsatisfactoriness of conditioned existence, say, a way of life which is under the influence or under the control of karma and afflictive emotions.
The second was that of impermanence. And we’re going to look at the third of these, the mark of selflessness. You know, last, you know, we ended up looking at impermanence. Have to you know, there’s not so much you know, things remain impermanent even for a Buddha, they’re not a problem for a Buddha about impermanence. It’s it’s impermanence only becomes problematic when because of our expecting the what what in fact constantly changes to remain unchanged.
It impermanence only becomes problematic when we when we hold that which is doomed to decay as if it’s going to be there for us forever. And impermanence only becomes a problem when we demand of what is in fact impermanent to bring us permanent happiness. We expect permanent pleasure. Then it becomes a problem. But, you know, but then we have to ask, well, who is it that’s doing all this demanding, this expecting, this holding on?
Who is it? Who who is have who has this problem? So, you know, we are continually struggling to synthesize a flow of physical and mental experiences, which constitute, you know, our reality into a partless, unchanging, permanent self. And no such self exists. It it has never existed.
It will never exist. The struggle to synthesize, to try to to solidify, to concretize these mental and physical events into a permanent unchanging part of the self is that struggle is futile. And this is the third mark of conditioned existence, the mark of selflessness. You know? And we’re going to go into this a great deal when we come to the third aspect, the third principal aspect of the path, and the awakened mind.
Minds are model builders. We build models. We construct models of things people and situations, ideas in our mind as a way of we can build a model of something apart from the thing itself. We rely on these inner models that we build to as a as a means to make sense of our experience. You know, the the world, we can think about things.
We can organize our thoughts. The world seems to follow some kind of order. There’s some kind of pattern. It’s not chaotic. It’s not random.
One such model that we build is a model of an I, a self, a person. Our experiences are conditioned by our beliefs in a self. They’re they’re formed on the basis of a constructed model of a self. We have a model of who we are as I, the self. Sometimes the model becomes much more comprehensible, much more stable than the actual fact.
And we begin to unthinkingly identify with what is, in fact, a model as the actual thing itself. Relate. This isn’t confined to the I or the self. This operates in our way of relating with all phenomena. When we think idea about them, a model.
And we oftentimes forget that we’re relating with our idea about the thing and not the actual thing itself. We identify with a mental representation of ourself. And moreover, this mental representation is to a large extent mistaken. So, you know, we all have I guess maybe we need to, we should preface this with the understanding that the I exists, the self exists, the person exists. It exists just as validly, just as substantially or insubstantially as this table exists.
So in our entire discussion, and when we come to the third principal aspects of the path, the awakened mind, we’re going to go into the nature of the I, the self. It’s because we have some misconceptions around it that of these various that our life becomes problematic, that we have such great that we’re involved in this struggle at all. But we have to understand that the I, the self you know, the Buddha has an I. The Buddha has a self. The Buddha is a person.
But that I, that self is not a problem. I’m sitting here. You’re sitting there. As such, that’s not a problem. It only becomes problematic is when we we begin to relate with our model, our idea of the I.
This representation that we make use of in thinking about, in in referring to ourselves as as if it were the actual I itself. When you get, you know, what is the basis for all the afflictive emotions? What is the basis for anger and attachment? And it is is grasping at a model of an I as the actual I itself. And this model of the I is held to be permanent, partless, and independent.
And when you have a sense of, I hate you, I hate you, at that moment, when that hatred arises, it’s based upon a misconception as to the nature of the I. We’re grasping at a particular model of an I. I’m sitting on this chair. That I exists. The I which is being grasped at by ignorance does not exist at all.
It’s it only exists as a model, as a representation, and moreover, one which is mistaken. We have an innate sense that there is a thinker thinking our thoughts, that there is a feeler feeling our feelings. There is a doer doing our acts. There’s there’s somebody back there running the show in a way. That’s that’s we have a we have that sense about ourselves.
You know, we we we we believe in and we perceive at the core of our being an autonomous entity existing at the at at the center of who we are, and we identify that being ourselves and who, in fact, we are. And a greater part of our lives are dedicated to the welfare of that I that we believe ourselves to be, but which, in fact, has never existed at all. You know, we regard this behavior as automatic, as instinctive, and we regard it as normal. But that doesn’t mean to say it’s true simply because we regard it as normal. We are unlikely to be aware that we harbor such a notion of an I, a self.
But all our afflictive emotions arise on the basis of just such a conception, upon the basis of ignorance, attachment, hatred, pride, and so forth. When we reflect on our own desire and hatred, we see that they are generated within a conception of oneself as being very solid, due to which there comes a strong distinction between oneself and others, and consequently, attachment for one’s own and hatred for others. Attitudes of desire and hatred have an exaggerated thought of I as their basis. So when we look at the way that we the way that we normally think, and we act emotionally, and we’re talking about very much an emotional reaction, it is as if that we believe that we we are we are a self or that we possess the self which is partless, whole, and enduring, you know, unchanging, that exists independent of all the various causes and conditions, all that make us who and what we are. But if we look closely, if we examine, if we investigate, what we find is the very absence of that conceived I, that self which appears so vividly to ourselves.
When we examine it, we find the selflessness, the absence, you know, the word selflessness, we find the selflessness. That lessness means absence, an absence of a particular type of self, not the self in general. The self in general exists. The self which does it, which is which is impermanent, self which is dependent, the self which is has many parts, which arises in dependence upon causes and conditions and so forth, which walks and talks and all the things that we normally do. What we find, we find the absence of a partless, permanent, independent self.
We find that absence. That is the self that is absent. That is what we mean by selflessness when we talk about the doctrine of Buddhism, which describes the deeper nature of the I, of the self. Believing in the independent self. By independent self, you know what I mean?
I mean, we’re going to go into this. There are many different levels of dependence. But are we are all things this table, this building, the I, the self are dependent arisings. They arise in dependence. What they arise in dependence upon has various level of understanding, but most basically we can say that they all arise in dependence upon causes and conditions.
They all arise in dependence upon their parts. They all arise dependent upon language. So they all they all are dependent arisings but ignorance believes the opposite. It sees them as autonomous, independent. You know it’s like, you know, there is there’s a joke.
I’ve had these two boys. I I might have mentioned this before. It’s these two boys are walking home from school. Yeah. And one one boy’s got his, his exam results.
He says, the first boy says to the second boy, boy, that new, that new teacher really did a number on me. I thought I’d, I thought I’d get a B on that exam. And he gave me a C. How did he know I was a C student? You know, it’s like, you know, he thought, well, this is a new teacher.
I can pull the wool over his eyes. I can pretend to be a B student. But the teacher saw through this pretense. Obviously, there’s something about him, which is kind of a C ness. He’s got a C ness oozing out of his skin.
And we had to take a look at him. At the core of his being. He’s a kind of a C grade person, you know, he’s gonna then he’s gonna, you know, he’s going to marry a C grade wife and get a C grade job and raise C grade children. You know? That’s the nature of him.
So so there’s a sense about identity about ourselves, which seems to not depend upon our circumstances, not dependent upon our culture, and not it doesn’t exist in relation to anything else. It’s our very nature, intrinsic to ourselves and who we are. That’s the kind of a notion about how we see ourselves. Believing in existence of independent self is like believing a striped rope seen in a dim light to be a snake. You know, it’s dark.
It’s getting it’s growing dim. You know, there’s a you’re walking along a path, and there’s a coiled striped rope. And you see it to be a snake, and you react with aversion and fear. Yeah. You get upset.
But if you were to, you know, examine that object, you know, you take a torch and you come in and and you shine a light on it and you investigate it, you would come to understand through your direct observation that there was never anything there to be afraid of. And all of that fear and all the aversion and all of the suffering which that fear and aversion induced would evaporate of its very by way of its very nature. You The it you would understand that all that fear and all that aversion were were baseless. There was never anything there to be afraid of in the first place. It was all based upon a misconception.
You know, that and thereby, all the suffering that those misconceptions induced would cease of themselves. This is the great optimism of Buddhism. We have to work on two different levels in a way. We have to begin to to prune the branches of this tree, you know, the the leaves and the fruit and so forth. Of the of this the the notion is that’s a we have to work with in a remedial fashion.
Apply all the various we try to develop our mind and apply all the various antidotes cultivating our understandings, cultivating various positive characteristics and beginning to, in that way, do see more and more positive states, creating more and more positive karma, and thereby experiencing more and more positive types of results. But all of, you know, we could all of these skillful actions that we’ve all been are involved ourselves in, they are what Buddhism terms golden chains. You know, maybe they aren’t the types of sufferings that we that we really have a version for, but they in themselves are not real happiness. Only relatively so. What we have to do is begin to cut the roots of the tree.
That is our un our mistaken assumption about what it means to be a person at all. You know, we can begin to reshape the notion of our psychological being. But what does it mean to be a person at all and our misconceptions around that? You you might argue, well, you know, I don’t think of myself, my I, myself, in that way. Don’t think of myself as being my I or myself.
Maybe don’t think about your I yourself at all. I don’t know. Well, you probably do actually. But you probably don’t think of I don’t think of myself as being unchanging, independent, partless, and so forth. I don’t know.
I’ve never thought about myself. I’m sorry. You’re not talking about me. This is to miss the point. The self, the I, the person, as such is not the problem.
It can be analyzed quite rationally into its various constituent parts. You know, we can analyze it in terms of the five aggregates. We can analyze it in terms of what are called the twelve spheres of the eighteen constituents. These are just ways of breaking down the self into its component parts. Why do you respond?
We’re talking about an emotional response, not a, you know, not a rational, reasoned analysis. Why do we behave emotionally as if we were a lasting single independent self? You know, we have to you know, we it’s important to remember that that we’re talking about an emotional response in in what we’re examining. Someone when when respond to events as if we had a self for example, you know, why do you feel so hurt or so offended when somebody calls you a bad name? Why is death such a a a why does it sound so terrible to ourselves?
What what who is when somebody offends you, who is it that’s hurt? In order to end our suffering, there’s nothing more important than to realize that when under the influence of ignorance, we think and act as if the body and mind constituted or possessed an unchanging, permanent, partless self. We are unthinkingly attributing qualities to it, which they do not possess. There is nothing but a stream of continually changing diverse physical and mental events, in dependence upon which we we label I, we label Jampa, we label self. You know, it is our persistent effort to to treat our bodies and mind as if they were a self or possess such a permanent, partless, independent self that makes of our bodies and mind a constant stream of suffering.
So, you know, the self is not the problem. A Buddha has a self, an I. But that that I, that self is not a problem to either to himself or herself or to anybody. You know, the empirical self, the conventionally existent self is not a problem. You know, It is the problem in terms of the mark of selflessness is, and we’re going to discuss this, is that our ignorance driven grasping at the existence of a self which is partless, unchanging, independently existent, which in fact does not exist at all.
Is that’s the problem. This is what makes conditioned existence pathological, unhealthy, dissatisfactory. And this is what gives rise to all the various afflictive emotions and motivated by afflictive emotions we involve ourselves in karma. This is what initiates and perpetuates the entire process of our particular path pathological approach to life. Well, I didn’t this is this is the outcome.
This is the dilemma that we find ourselves in. You know, we we we we’ve we’ve talked about karma. We’ve talked about suffering. And now what is the what is the what is the nature? What is the actual outcome?
What is the embodiment of the process? What is the results of all of this? And this is what we, you know, this ignorance driven world of cyclic existence that we find ourselves in, that we normally identify with. This is traditionally represented as the wheel of life, or we could call it the wheel of conditioned existence. You know, it’s life which is led under the control of karma and afflictive emotions.
And most basically, ignorance. Ignorance is at the bottom of it all. And that’s our real problem. This is the root. And this is what we have to develop the motivation, the determination to cut.
This is what we have to be free from. And we talk about liberation. What we want to be liberated from is most basically ignorance and all that all that rises out of that ignorance. And this is what this is all this is what all of this has arisen out of ignorance. But there’s another approach.
You know, we said all things are dependent arisings. They all originate. Our our way of being, our way of approaching life has originated out of ignorance. There is an alternative. There is a way of life and a way of being which arises out of wisdom, understanding the way things are in their reality.
That in such a way of life, there’s a totally radically different way of experiencing and being in such a way of life. So that’s what we’re going to look at in interpreting how this comes about. We could call this the ego empire, if you like. This is what we’ve come to know. And sometimes when I look, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen these world these old World War two movies, you know, when the when the when the World War two, the bomber squadron is is about to fly out on a mission, you know, and and they’re in the what do they call, the briefing room.
And, you know, these there’s all the pilots are sitting there and and and I guess it’s a what what is it? The flight. Flight commander. Good one. Good enough for him.
Flight commander. This is a target. He’s got his pointer, you know. He’s got it. Alright, men, you know, or women.
This is a so this is what this is where the problem is. You know, if you have to get angry at something, get angry at that. Anyway, we’re gonna we’re gonna go through this. What it’s quite interesting and it helps us to come to some, I think, some sense of how our experiences are evolving. They aren’t just kind of laid on us.
We are co participants in our world and what we experience. It all fits together. It all makes sense. This is the struggle that we’re all involved in. You know, I was talking about that earlier, that we from the moment we wake up in the morning till we go to bed at night, there’s always some struggle in some way.
Our life is experienced as some struggle to some degree. This is this is the struggle. And the alternative is to give up the struggle. And then when you shine the light and you see that there’s no that your fear and your aversion, the struggle has been baseless all along. It’s kind of a tragedy in a way, but our experience nonetheless.
Anyway, I’ve taken up I’m not very good at time management here. We were supposed to be we were supposed to be well on our way through these various realms by this time. So yeah. Yeah. That too.
That’s a struggle. Okay. Shall we would you like to get a cup of tea and come back? And then we’ll I had these cool handouts too. Everybody gets their own autographed picture of the struggle.
Okay. Oh, it’s a movie. It’s called Samsāra. Do we Yeah.
So I’ll ask the question. Because it’s almost like we so for everybody, we’re sort of assuming, we’re pretty confident that when we’re challenged, all this thing is gonna be on the other side, but have we really actually