Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Jampa Gendun opens this 136-minute session with Viktor Frankl’s observation that meaning, not comfort, carries people through hardship — a frame for the third and fourth of the six perfections. Patience is presented not as teeth-gritting endurance but as reframing situations so the mind stays undistressed and anger loses its necessary condition; joyous effort is finding genuine delight in practice rather than forcing it. A guided selflessness inquiry — asking whether you are your body or merely have one — leads into an introduction of the Wheel of Life via the story of King Bimbisara’s painted gift. The session’s most extended passage draws a careful line between afflicted clinging, reasonable desire, and defensive detachment, arguing that true non-attachment is a spacious freedom to make real choices, not an apathetic withdrawal from life. Suited to practitioners following the series.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 19 3PA 2007 08 20.mp3
UUID: 0cca3bbb-e1df-4de3-96a2-637c02688aa7
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 2006-2007 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2007-08-20
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 136.3 minutes
Words: ~10,901
How is everybody? Yeah. I feel like I’m a long way. It’s okay. So we have to begin by as we usually do in terms of adjusting our motivation.
We always have to be beginning again in some way or another, keep getting back in touch with what is important to each of ourselves, you know, the the values and the way of life, priorities which are meaningful to ourselves, we feel good about ourselves and what we’re doing with our life. Are you warm? Should we turn off the heat? It’s to the left hand side of the door as you go out, and you just have to push the off button, the top. Good.
Thanks. Great. So one of our priorities is to be comfortable. Normally, I think we we get out of touch, out of necessity or just losing our perspective on things, what really makes us feel good about ourselves and our life. Things take on a a meaning of their own, and they take on a momentum of themselves, and they kind of carry us forward without our thinking about where it is they’re taking us.
Many ways, our things and activities are in the saddle and they’re riding us. So maybe we have to begin to reverse that process and begin to question. And just from time to time, you know, is the overall direction of my life, is it taking me where I want to go? You know, if you keep heading in the direction that you’re you’re if you keep going in the direction that you’re headed, you’re likely to end up in that in the way you’re headed. If you keep going in the direction in the same direction, you’re likely to end up where you’re headed and is where you’re headed where you want really want to go.
In terms of of our deeper values. You know, I think that we we we all want some of the comforts and pleasures of life, and I think that’s quite justifiable. Maybe we have to create some kind of balance in where we’re making use of our energies and our time. Now what is the majority of our commitment? Where is it going?
I think we can begin to learn that many of the pleasures, material things, the various activities that we involve ourselves in, the entertainments and so forth, they can only serve a limited part of our needs. They can’t completely bring satisfaction. I think that would be a great mistake. I think what people want most, and I hope I’m not philosophizing up here, is people want more than anything else some kind of meaning and purpose to their life. I think it was Viktor Frankl.
Viktor Frankl was a, he was a Jew who was in spent the war in a concentration camp. And he, upon his release, he developed what became known as existential psychology. And he he wondered how some of the people were able to, those who had some degree of choice in the matter, of course many, most of them didn’t, how some of them lived through the war without dying, with without going insane in turn in while they they lived in these concentration camps. And they found that those who who could formulate some kind of meaning and some could give their life even though it was hard, probably unimaginable to us, what they endured, that they could give it to find some kind of purpose that would carry them through. It’s not so much what happens to us, but if we can give it a why, a why to keep on going, why it is that we’re going where we’re going and the purpose behind it all, then we can we can surmount difficulties.
We can we can make up our life. Of it is more of it of our life, what we want it to be. So, you know, this is, I think, what we do every Monday evening, but I think it’s it’s very much a part of of our daily practice to keep really orientating ourselves so we we don’t allow ourselves to get out of touch for very long with what it is that we want for ourselves. And we were talking about the six perfections. Perfections.
And we try to understand these not as prescriptions or straightjackets, spiritual straightjackets which were to force ourselves in, manipulate or contort our minds into some preconceived way of thinking. These are, rather than perfections, more like the ways that we can be gone be go beyond our ordinary priorities, and we can transcend the ordinary activities of what controls most of our lives in terms of our worldly concerns. Know, this is the eight worldly concerns. Our preoccupation with the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, our preoccupation with the pursuit of gain and the avoidance of loss and, criticize, praise and criticism and, fame and notoriety. This is like the prior.
These are the criteria which we normally use in determining how we’re going to spend our time, how we’re going to make use of our resources and our life very much reflects that. But these aren’t the criteria of a bodhisattva. These aren’t the priorities in a bodhisattva’s life. His way of acting and thinking is said to transcend those standards, those usual measures of the world as we normally deal with it. His world is much a matter of an activities born out of compassion and wisdom.
And so his life evolves in it or her life evolves in a very much different process. What what the Bodhisattva comes to experience and how they you know, it’s almost unimaginable in a way. But that’s alright. I think it all begins in imagination, you know, almost like a fantasy about ourselves. But trying to translate what is almost a fantasy into some some measure, to some degree, some kind of reality, even if only slightly in our daily life, and beginning to build upon that.
I think it was Albert Einstein who imagination is more important than knowledge. And I think we’ve lost our way in that respect. It’s hard for us even to be imagined, to imagine ourselves being other, any other way radically different than when we are. You know, if we can ever imagine it, we can never be it. So I think, you know, the Mahāyāna, the great vehicle of Buddhism is inviting us to aspire to something which maybe is almost, but not quite beyond our present imaginations of what we could do with our life and who we could be.
The most successful story we could ever hope to tell ourselves about ourselves and what we could do with our life. And what is you know, we actually have to do something. We have to actually begin to translate that into some some practical measures whereby to begin to live that kind of life, to to take these noble aspirations and these lofty ways of being from out of the storage places in our hearts so they’re not lost there. They’re not they don’t rot there and remain unavailable to ourselves. But in some way, take our noblest aspirations, what I think we might all want for ourselves if we could only imagine it for ourselves.
And these practices, these transcendent activities of a bodhisattva, we we began to talk about them last week. And the practice of generosity, simply the willingness to give, to open up, to go beyond this continual self referencing process whereby we interpret evaluate and react. What’s in it for me? And we begin to develop a sense of environmental generosity toward the world. We begin to respond to the needs of the ordinary world.
In terms of but out of a of a sense of compassion for the world. And understanding that and conjoining that with our understanding of emptiness, ultimate nature of reality. That though, you know, there’s a though I I seem to be giving and there’s this action and there’s all these people who are recipients of my activities, in fact, they’re all empty. They none of them truly exist. And so he out of this comes the ability to give in limitless ways over limitless time to limitless sentient beings, which is almost unimaginable.
But nonetheless, I think it’s true. And then we talked about second of the six perfections, that of ethics. And you know, it’s simply, in a way I think Buddhism is talking about how we can begin to align ourselves through with our own basic sanity. You know, think Buddhism, I think the best of Christianity and probably the best of all the religions of the world have an abiding faith in in the our own basic goodness and our possibilities whether they call that our Buddha nature or our godlike nature or Christ like nature, whatever, is secondary. But there is something about us if we can only begin to align ourselves with that quality to give it opportunity, you know, to begin to, like I don’t know.
Sometimes I I imagine it to be, you know, in my simple mind, trying to create some kind of images, visual images for myself, like parting the weeds. So these, these, these delicate flowers of our mind can find the sun and begin to grow. They can take root and spread themselves out. And so ethics is more than that, I think. It’s a way so it’s not meant to restrain ourselves.
It’s not meant to be a way that we can please some authority figure, whether it’s in terms of our projections around us or some someone in the sky. But it’s we become the authority of our lives within ourselves. We begin to act out our basic sanity. And the practice of ethics aids that process, assists in that process. I think people, I think modern day contemporary psychology is beginning just now to discover that maybe in fact be the case.
That acting ethically might assist in people developing mental health, being healthier in the ways that they relate with themselves in the world. So we’ve covered the first of the the first two of the six perfections, just talking about them very briefly because we talk about them or we recite this verse before most of our practices, before most of our talks together, when we talk about by means of the generosity of other perfections, well, what are the other perfections? What do we mean by generosity and so forth? So the third of the six perfections is that of patience. Or we can call it tolerance.
I guess there’s lots of different possible translations. So we can talk about, and I think it’s quite sometimes useful and I hope to talk about it more in terms of the ego empire when we get to that. What things aren’t? Because sometimes, I think as Western Buddhists, we we take on misinterpret teachings and we begin to squeeze ourselves a little bit unnecessarily. We become a little more, a little harder on ourselves than we, we can, we can, we can use the teachings of Buddhism to validate a lot of lot of unskillful ways of being with ourselves.
And so we don’t want that to happen. We don’t you know, that’s what Buddhism calls bringing a god down to the level of a demon. You know, what it was meant as help to assist us in promoting our mental health has become simply another way of oppressing ourselves, making life even the more difficult for ourselves. So when we talk about even the practice of patience, it’s something more than gritting our teeth, struggling on, trying to overlook what we’re actually feeling about this situation, you know, what is actually happening to ourselves as a means of not giving up on what we’re doing or not giving in to what we’re feeling we’re or, you know, as a means of holding our temper in one way or another. It may come down to that, just that.
I’m not denying that’s not a possible possible use of the measure of patience. But I think it’s much more than that. I think when we talk about patience, try to develop the coping mechanisms whereby our mind is able to remain undistressed in problematic situations, in difficult situations. Patience is one of the main antidotes to anger. Anger arises in a context, and we’re going to talk more about how the various emotions arise, all the conditions necessary.
One of the conditions necessary for anger to rise is an unhappy mind. The mind is distressed. If you if you can develop the skill whereby you can reframe the situation in such a way that though the external event, the situation might remain exactly the same, but your attitude toward it changes in such a way that the mind no longer is distressed, one no longer sees it as a problem, then there’s no possibility for anger to arise. The necessary condition for its arising, a distressed mind or an unhappy mind is no longer present. So all, and that includes all the various negative emotions associated with anger, hostility, aggression, and so forth.
The main cause is gone, a distressed mind. So the practice of patience, of tolerance, know, each of these, the perfections has a particular divisions. We talked about the divisions with regard to generosity and ethics and so forth. The same is true of patience or tolerance. You know, the ability, for example, to be able to accept the harm of others, to to endure the hardships of life in general, to be able to carry on or, or, you know, or the difficulty of serving others, of benefiting others.
And then there’s the tolerance of the patience of, you know, for bearing in what we could call the legitimate suffering of the practice of Dharma. You know, was Carl Jung said, there’s two ways that we can take our suffering, voluntarily or involuntarily. If you take it involuntarily it will continue on and on endlessly. If you’re willing to voluntarily take on, I mean I’m not talking about suffering in general, but a particular skillful type of, a necessary type of suffering, then you can bring it to an end. For example, you know, just sometimes going into retreat is not always the most pleasurable thing, or sometimes doing your meditation practice, or sometimes the various necessary components of what it means to practice the Dharma.
Sometimes it isn’t easy, it’s not always comfortable. You know, we would like things to be always enjoyable, but it’s simply not the case. There might be a degree of boredom, a degree of uncomfortableness or displeasure. And that that’s what we call legitimate suffering. You know, if you’re for those whose lives are completely bound by the eight worldly concerns, you know, this preoccupation with the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, there’s no real freedom for choice.
You know, one one comes up against the the uncomfortable feelings and one simply avoids them, turns away, distracts, and changes one’s direction and so forth. So, you know, there’s no there’s no going through. There’s no working through. Then the legitimate sufferings which is inevitable in traveling a spiritual path. You know, sometimes, you know, we look at maybe the Dalai Lama’s of the world or, you know, whoever.
You know, I look at some of my heroes like maybe mother Teresa or Nelson Mandela or so forth. And, you know, we see them in their finest moments normally, usually. And we we think we tend to think that’s all there is to them. And, you know, that as if they came from a different planet perhaps or that their the makeup of their brains is somehow different than ours. Their their brains were made up of, you know, loving electrons, wise protons.
You know, there’s something something about their inherent nature has made them who they are. And I wish I would like I were like with them. But somehow, there seems to be an unbridgeable gulf. They’re of a different species as it were. They didn’t have to go through any difficulties, have hard times, dark moments of the soul.
And, you know, they didn’t have to practice to become who they were. Somehow, they they’ve always been who they are. But me, this poor schmo, you know, how could I ever be like them? Well, I’m I would think, and this is simply speculation that the Dalai Lama’s of the world and the Mother Teresa’s of the world and the Nelson Mandelas of the world weren’t always like they had become like they were. And that they become they had to go through a lot of trials and a lot of difficulties, a lot of self discipline.
They had to practice to become who they were. They weren’t always like they were. That’s my suspicion. So the skill of patience or tolerance is the ability to to reframe the problem in such a way that even if these external facts remain the same, we no longer see them as problematic. And therefore, they no longer disturb our minds.
We can change the entire personal significance, the meaning that we attribute to the situation or the person or the event and so forth, what’s happening. We have transformed our way of viewing the situation to a more skillful one, a more functional one. You know, what was once a problem and that was difficult to bear finds some kind of natural resolution just out of our shift in attitude, a transformation on how we’re our perspective and how we’re viewing the situation. What was what we couldn’t tolerate before becomes tolerable. And for, you know, for a Bodhisattva, this is the skill of a Bodhisattva, and this is the skill that we ourselves have to develop in our practice.
There is nothing good situations or bad situations which do not assist him or her in their awakening. And this is the primary goal of a Bodhisattva. This is the direction of their life. And there is nothing which he or she cannot make use of, cannot transform as a means of enhancing their achieving of their goal. Everything becomes a means for their awakening awakening out of this skill.
So the fourth of these six perfections is that of joyous effort. And sometimes this is translated as enthusiasm or perseverance, perseverance, you know, lots of different possibilities. But again, it it has its maybe it goes beyond our our usual connotations that we have in terms of effort. The kind of notion that we have of diligently keeping our nose to the grindstone, valiantly struggling on against the odds, seeing our goals through to the bitter end in one way or another. That’s kind of the heroic image that we have in the West around the notion of of effort.
Well, maybe it’s necessary at times. I wouldn’t want you to practice of in the practice of joyous effort lies in not only generating the will and energy necessary to achieve our goals, but specifically toward positive goals and a mind which delights in achieving that. So I guess the operational term, the key term here is delights and toward positive goals. So the practice of joyous effort is learning to persevere, to extend ourselves, you know, to push the envelope just a little bit from time to time in doing what is skillful, but most importantly, to take joy in doing so, to feel good about yourself and what you’re doing and what you’re doing. That seems to be terribly important.
So our our practice simply isn’t a matter of pushing. There’s pressure, without a sense of there’s no joy. You know, I think we’ll give up. I don’t think I don’t think that’s a skillful way to practice. We should be you know, I I’m I should, you know, I think maybe we should on ourselves a lot.
But ideally, or in in the most health healthy ways, if we can find ways that we feel a sense of of a joy in what we’re doing in our practice, that we feel happy about our pursuits, we feel glad, we feel a sense of fortune in our in this potential and in this opportunity. And then I think the happy mind is a healthy mind, and I think things our practice will go that much better. You know, it’s the eagerness of joyous effort which helps us to overcome our laziness and our procrastination, losing ourselves in distraction. You know, the mind is unhappy with what it’s doing, it’s easily distracted into something else. It’s looking for something else even while it’s pursuing, you know, whatever the activity might be.
It’s not happy in doing what it’s doing. And this applies equally to, you know, our practice. You know, for Bodhisattva, you know, it’s said that Bodhisattva is is that there is what’s called the the joyous effort, the armor of joyous effort. And this is like a metaphor. It’s like, you know, he it’s what protects him.
What or her. You know? What you know, we they talk about the fact that a Bodhisattva will go gladly go into the hell realms for the sake of others. That’s kind of unimaginable. I I agree.
But but why what is it that empowers the Bodhisattva? It’s joyous effort. And then they see they take they’re they’re able to find great joy in even that difficult most difficult of situations because they see it as a means of achieving what it is they’re central to their life. Awakening. Anything which helps them to awake, they find joy in, no matter what how difficult it might be, no matter what the immediate challenges might occur.
So, you know, this is what lies behind the motivation of a Bodhisattva, you know, their, their ability to continually work with others, you know, working with others is a, as a, as a challenge, isn’t it? I remember many years ago when I was this is I won’t mention any names but I was having some difficulty with one individual and I was talking to Lama about this and I said, oh, was we were talking about another subject but I brought this up. I said, well, I’m having this this difficulty with such and such a person and working together. And he just said, you know, what do you expect? Working with other people is difficult, it’s a challenge.
I think he’s right. So we have to have a sense of something that will carry us through, you know, something that we can look beyond the immediate challenge and difficulties. And I think it’s and we can take joy in. One one can there is even what’s called the pride of a bodhisattva. That’s a healthy pride.
That what what what we’re doing. And I think this extends to the pride of a practitioner. You know, we’re engaged in something which is extremely rare in our society, something which is extraordinary. Even to sit here and talk about these ideas and share these ideas, it’s like a, you know, it’s like a candle lit in a on a blast a vast dark plane of, you know, the the horrors and the the the atrocities which are occurring every day in our world. You know?
I think even to think about, to aspire to just even for a moment, Want to be a little more loving or more or more compassionate or more giving, more understanding, you know, all these various positive attributes that we that we that we hold up as a as a priority in our life. You know, it’s like a it’s like a streak of lightning on a dark night that illuminates the darkness of the earth. And just for a moment, even such a thought, You know? And I think in the in the cosmic perspective of things, you know, where we’ve been and where we might be going. And these fleeting thoughts of caring for others, something, you know, of of the awakened heart.
And meeting the meeting these rare individuals like the Dalai Lama and so forth. It’s, you know, perhaps we don’t appreciate ourselves and our great fortune as we might. And, you know, not appreciating, we don’t value. And therefore, not valuing it, it doesn’t we’re not moved. Affect us.
But, you know, I think if we were to pause and and and to look at the world around us and and very in a healthy way, not in judgmental way. And to see, you know, what it you know, what the world is doing on this Monday night and the things that are happening in the world and, you know, our coming together together and trying to do what we do together. I think it is an amazing thing, and I don’t think we should take it for granted in a in a very in a very healthy way in valuing it valuing it so that it makes a difference. So we we we appreciate ourselves and what we’re trying to do together. In a way, in in way, talk about becoming a Buddha, don’t we?
And but maybe we don’t know what a Buddha is. You know, whatever a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being. That’s a priority. You know, we we we can orientate ourselves toward adapt. You know, we have some that’s a purpose in life, isn’t it?
That’s a noble purpose. And we’re not doing it just for ourselves, you know, not just for our own piece of chocolate cake, but, you know, continually trying to raise the level of our motivation, the why behind all of what we do in terms of our practice. You know, trying to widen the circle of our concern to to a greater and greater number of people, some something beyond our egotistical ends. I think that’s that’s almost unimaginable. Just that.
So I’d like to thank you for being who you are and what what you are trying to aspire to. I think it’s it’s worth our life. It’s worth many lives. I go for refuge until I’m awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha through my practice of generosity and the other perfections. May I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings.
I go for refuge until I’m awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha through my practice of generosity and the other perfections. May I become a Buddha for sake of all beings. I go for refuge until I’m awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha through my practice of generosity and the other perfections. May I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. May all sentient beings have happiness 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 and rejoice in the virtues of superior and ordinary beings. Please remain until 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 last, last week, we completed our discussion of the three marks of conditioned existence, a way of a way of life and approach to life, which is under the control of karma and afflictive emotions, which this is the ultimate outcome of.
And we talked a little bit about ignorance and selflessness as the three marks of conditioned existence, suffering, impermanence and selflessness. So I thought, you know, it’s useful from time to time and that we haven’t really gone into it, discussed it. We it’s useful just to kind of stimulate our thinking thinking around what is the nature of myself, you know, in a deeper sense. The I, the person I I normally conceive myself to be. We’re going to talk about this in in great detail when we come to the third principal aspect of the path, when we talk about emptiness.
But I thought it would be useful, and we’ve done this from time to time, just to ask ourselves a few pertinent questions and begin to reflect on an area perhaps which has gone unquestioned up to now. So we’re going to, you know, ask ourselves some questions around the nature of the eye, and I’ll just lead you through that. Okay? So begin by taking a comfortable, firm posture. So we’ll first work through relaxing the body and bringing your awareness to these particular areas of the body and relaxing the tension, loosening the tightness and so forth.
And then we’ll practice the six breath exercise, simply breathing in normally comfortably, but breathing out, extending exhalation as if you were emptying the lungs of all the used air that builds up in our lungs. Breathing again in normally, comfortably. Again, exhaling, extending the exhalation, prolonging it, emptying the lungs. We do that six times. Then we’ll meditate on mindfulness of the breath.
And then we’re simply going to ask ourselves a few questions with regard to the nature of the eye, the self, and see what kinds of answers, if any, we can come up with. So beginning at the the crown of the head, the scalp, the forehead, feeling the wrinkles in the brow beginning to smooth out. The pressure in and around the eyes diminishing The muscles of the face softening, relaxing. Your jaw is relaxed. And the muscles at the back of the neck perhaps gently turning your head to the side a few times.
Just very gently stretching, loosening the muscles at the back of the neck. Relaxing the muscles in 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 through your body into the ground Coming down all the way down to your hands. Hands are soft and loose.
Relaxing the lower arms. The upper arms. The chest is at ease. Relaxing in the heart area, the lungs, The middle portion of the back, Stomach. And releasing the tension that we hold in our stomach muscles, allowing your belly to go soft.
The abdominal cavity. Relaxing the lower back muscles. Your buttocks. The upper legs, thighs. The lower legs, and your feet.
And bringing your awareness to your body in general, noticing any tightnesses, any tensions within the body. Focusing upon those areas, Consciously relaxing, softening, feeling the tightness loosen, the tension diminish. Your body becoming comfortable, at ease. That feeling of physical well-being pervading your body. Feels good to be in your body.
Just be with your body. And then bring your mind, then we’re going to practice the six part breath meditation breathing in comfortably, extending the exhalation, emptying the used air from the lungs, doing this individually six times. Individually six times. And when you’ve completed the six breaths just bring your mind to your breath, the easy natural in and out flow of the breath. If it’s helpful use the techniques of counting and noting the breaths.
Now we’re going to meditate on the nature of the eye. Let’s reflect put some questions to ourselves. If you if you stubbed your toe, if you hurt your foot, stubbed your toe, you might say, I’m hurt because I stubbed my toe. Are you your toe, or do you have a toe? Are you your foot, or do you have a foot?
I’m hurt because I stubbed my toe. Are you the toe, or do you have a toe? So if you say, I have a toe but I’m not the toe, then you can ask the question, am I by, am I the body or do I have a body? Am I the am I the body, or do I have a body? And if you had pleasant thoughts in your mind, you were thinking there’s some happiness in your mind.
You say I’m happy because I have pleasant thoughts. I’m happy because I have pleasant thoughts. Are you the thoughts or do you have the pleasant thoughts? And if you say I’m not the thoughts but I have the thoughts, likewise, do you have a mind or are you the mind? Do you have a mind or are you the mind?
So, if you say I’m I have a body but I’m not the body. I have a mind but I’m not the mind. So, you’re something other than the body and the mind. And why do you say when you hurt your toe you say I’m hurt if you’re if you’re not the body? And why do you say I’m happy if it’s just simply because there’s pleasant thoughts in the mind?
I’m happy. So the mind is happy, not you. It’s your toe that’s hurt, not you. If you set aside your body and mind, if you remove them from the from your seat, from your cushion, would the eye, the self, the person be left sitting on the seat? What would be left there if you remove the body and mind?
Would the eye be left over sitting there? What would it look like? And then bring your mind back to the breath. And then get in touch with your body. Notice the feelings and sensations within your body.
And in a gentle and relaxed manner, slowly become aware of your surroundings, just taking your time. There’s no hurry. Is there anything left on the seat? So we have looked at the three marks of conditioned existence, suffering, impermanence, and selflessness. And by conditioned existence, mean a way of life, an approach to life, Our world as we experience it, which is under the control of karma and afflictive emotions.
And they’re trying to emphasize the fact that karma are the afflictive emotions and the basis of all the afflictive emotions, hatred and attachment and so forth is ignorance. So when it comes down to it, we’re talking about we’re talking about cyclic existence or conditioned existence. We’re talking about ignorance driven existence essentially. And this is the world that we normally identify with. And this traditionally represented in Buddhist iconography by the wheel of existence.
Or we could call this the wheel of conditioned existence or the wheel of ignorance driven existence are the are the the outcome of ignorance. So it’s it’s it’s trying to it graphically depicts the driving force behind the world as we experience it. What is at the root of our experience? We live in a world which has evolved out of ignorance, not out of wisdom. And this is the is the end outcome of that process.
It’s it’s this is it it originates in dependence upon ignorance. It’s a dependent arising, originating out of ignorance. So, you know, we call this loosely, we could call it maybe the ego empire. It’s like the, the struggle to make the fictional self something very solid, very real, substantial, permanent. You know, ego ego, you it’s a I I don’t use the word so much, you know, but it’s it’s an interesting word.
It’s a it’s a Western psychological term. It’s not there’s no use of it as as as we know it in in Eastern or Buddhism as at least the way I’ve studied it. The notion of egolessness is has nothing to do with, what we’re talking about, selflessness. But it’s an interesting word. You know, it’s like, you know, we’re all involved with this struggle.
It’s an unending struggle. We probably don’t we only recognize it from time to time. We’re only aware of it from time to time, perhaps. But the, you know, it’s the the the struggle is itself, is ego. You know, the our it is and the ego cannot give up the struggle because it is the struggle itself to solidify, to concretize what is groundless, what is empty.
So this is our our lived experience of this the manifestation of this ongoing struggle that we’re all involved in, which goes unrecognized because it’s the medium in which we live. It’s like a fish trying to come to understand what is water. It doesn’t know anything other than what water. It doesn’t have a concept of dryness. So we have no understanding.
We have almost no concept what liberation might look like, what the what the end of the struggle might feel like. It’s almost unimaginable. So the the history of this painting, I I it was it was set at Buddhist community, the historical Buddha, lived in an in an outlying district, and a particular king at that time, his name was Udayana. He presented a a very precious robe to a fellow king in another area of northern India, Magadha, who’s and this king’s name was Bimbisara. I don’t know if you find this very interesting, but anyway, I’ll give you some of the few facts, the historical source for all this as it’s, you know, as it’s related.
And and so they this king, Bimbisara, didn’t have any have a have a gift of equal value to reciprocate the generosity of Uddiyana. And so he went to the Buddha and said, you know, I’ve got a problem, Buddha. What do I do? I have to I would like to return the the generosity of this King Udayana. What do you suggest?
And the the Buddha said, well, I suggest you make a particular type of painting. And it consists of four concentric circles or sectors. And the inner sector Yeah. Oh, you have them. There’s there’s more there for if if you don’t know how them.
I I tried to get them autographed by the the speller, but I couldn’t anyway. The the there’s there’s four sectors or four inner for concentric circles. The inner and we’re gonna go through these and how the inner circle is the represents the afflictive emotions. And and then the the second outer circle is represents the the various states of existence that we transmigrate or move through due to the force of karma, so due to the force of these afflictions. Okay, we’re gonna go through all this.
I’m just giving a rough rough overview of what the painting is all about. This is what the Buddha was suggesting that, King Bimbisara make a drawing a painting in this with this design on it. And then the next concentric circle or or segment is the various states of existence, which are the outcome, you know, of these various afflictions and karma. Afflictions and karma. These various realms of existence.
And then finally along the perimeter, the fourth concentric circle is represents the twelve links of dependent origination. This is the mechanism by which we are continually in this process, which which we’re caught up in this process, you know, this system that we are a part of. It’s the mechanism of how the process is operating. It’s it’s set out in twelve links or twelve part series. And the Buddha told Bimbisara to, you know, to make this particular painting, and and he Bimbisara made the painting and sent it to the King Udayana.
And it said that Udayana, upon studying the painting, realized its meaning and it was and gained high realization. So I hope all of you will do the same. Mhmm. So now we’re going to go through what all of this means. To gain some a sense of the system in which embedded.
We’re all caught up in. You know, the system is goes unrecognized to a large degree. And we moreover, we want to know how the system is working so we can develop a rationale, some strategy for stepping out of the system, how to intervene in the process. More essentially, we’re we’re developing the motivation to be free from ignorance and how we’re going and how and where the part ignorance is playing in our lived experience. So I read this some time ago, I’m going to read this again.
Please bear with me. It’s just gives you some idea. Or suppose person A is watching television. When person B comes into the room and shows evident displeasure with the situation, person A may think he understands the problem and tries to remedy it by exiting the present system, that television program, and flipping the channel knob, looking for a better one. Person B may have a more radical concept of what it is to exit the system, namely to turn the television off.
Of course, there are cases where only a rare individual will have the vision to perceive a system which governs people’s lives, a system which has never before even been recognized as a system, then such a person often since such people often devote their lives to convincing other people that the such a system really is there and that it ought to be exited from. I think this is what, you know, the Buddha spent, forty five years of his remaining life after he, you know, achieved awakening, trying to convince people, hey, you know, you’re involved in a system, trying to help them recognize it. And this is this and that within this system, there is no stable, reliable happiness. It’s not possible within this system. It’s it’s not an element within this set and within this system.
So the Buddha was a systems analyst, essentially. You know, he perceived a system which governed people’s lives, and he called the system cyclic existence or conditioned existence or ignorance driven existence. And he tried to that, you know, cyclic existence has a notion that it’s self reinforcing, you know, the way in which our lives are restricted to certain programmed ways of thinking and communicating and acting, which we enforce the system in itself. We keep it self perpetuating. A state of mind once established becomes self generating feedback loop.
What we have come to believe in about life, the output, is fed back into the system as input, and again and again and again without new feedback finding its way into the feedback loop. This self-reinforcing loop continues unabated throughout our lives. And we we everything seems to confirm the story that we’re telling ourselves about ourselves and the nature of our world. It all fits together really neatly. It seems like this is the only possible reality that you could honestly find.
And so there has to be we have to do we have to, introduce an element from the outside. We have to perturb the system and begin to introduce a new element into that system, the possibility of the nature of the system and the possibility of liberation. What it mean what it might mean to, you know, begin to recognize the system as a system and beginning to step out of it. And as long as we’re in this it’s like a second order change. Once a long time ago, studied family therapy for a few years.
I got interested in it because of just this, that they were interested in systems. That’s very interesting. I don’t remember anything that I learned, but anyway. It’s like it’s like, you know, there’s different orders of change. It’s like first order change.
You it’s like trying to you’re in a dream, and you work within the dream. You know? You try to make a better dream, adjust things here, and manipulate things there. But there’s a second order change that you can make to wake up from the dream. You step outside of that dream itself.
So, you know, we we are we are working with first order changes. We are working with within the system, trying to adjust things, trying to find some nice comfortable niche for ourselves, you know, manipulate the people and things about us to make things as, you know, as workable as possible, as manageable. But there’s a second order. That’s a first order change working within the system and all the elements within this. But the second order change is to step outside the system altogether.
And that’s what the Buddha is trying to get across to ourselves. You know, we we have we have created our own experience due in by our previous karma, you know, these conditioning factors within our mind, which predispose us to think and react in predictable fashions, bringing about predictable outcomes, reinforcing the very, you know, it’s a feedback loop. Our world of experience channels our behavior and sets limits on what we can do in this life, and and in turn, it sustains a particular it serves to sustain and increase our afflictions. The the the self the situation is self perpetuating, and this bring it always is continuing to bring more of the same. You know, it’s like a like a like a a crocodile that feeds on its own tail.
The more it eats, the more it’s nourished. The more it’s nourished the tail keeps grows, grows even more. And the more its tail grows, the more it eats. And there’s no beginning or end to the process. It just keeps circling around.
So Buddha said that that such a system is pathological and by pathological I mean it’s unhealthy. We’re making lots of mistakes and the mistake, the cost the the the cost of mistakes is suffering and dissatisfaction, disappointment, all its various varieties that we always the struggle that we’re continually involved all the time. We’ve never known a moment of non struggle, I think even when we’re asleep. And it has three marks, suffering, impermanence, and selflessness, and that this system ought to be exited from. And rather rather than simply turn it into another channel, turn the thing off.
That’s an option. But we’ve never known that option. That’s an alternative. So most of us, you know, we most of us, we we we compulsively turn the channel knob to another program. You know, one one program finishes, we turn it to another.
Or or we we we channel surf. You know? There’s gotta be something better on news. Even when we find something worth watching, there’s always the commercials. And then it finally comes to an end, no matter how good the program might be.
It’s it’s it’s nature. So this we develop, but some people take the situation inherently, you know, they move on to a higher order of being. They, you know, maybe even within this kind of situation, they they have more and more more refined tastes. They watch SBS more than a, you know, than a footy or something like that. I don’t know.
But, eventually, even they could become disillusioned watching these programs over and over again. And finally, maybe they turn the television off. So we I in a way, we’re trying to become disillusioned, discouraged by the whole process. So we’ve take up the we we begin to take up the possibility of liberation a little more seriously that there that there does exist an option, and it is open to ourselves. So the driving force of the hub this is in your your drawing is attachment, hatred, and ignorance.
Generally termed the three poisons. Ignorance is symbolized by a pig. The cock symbolizes attachment, and the snake is hatred. So this is the symbolism. So we’re going we’re just going to talk about some of these these three afflictions in a in a very general general fashion, very general way.
First, that of the cock or the sometimes we call it a rooster, whatever. They seem to have a lot of attachment or desire. You know? The the attachment is the desire to to to possess objects of sensual cognition, which we like, you know, which we find attractive, which we find agreeable to ourselves. We wish to include into our ego identity.
You know, we hope to get a sense of security, of having them as a permanent part of ourselves. You know, we the mind the mind wants to maintain contact with the object or or to repeat contact with that same object again and again in the future. The the the you know, is a tendency to we want to expand our territory out further. We want to incorporate whatever it is that gratifies ourselves, whatever enhances our feelings of our sense of well-being. There’s a feeling we there’s a sense of poverty inside of ourselves, and everything that’s of value is out there.
And therefore, we we can’t we can’t simply wait for it to come to death. We have to go out there and magnetize it and attract it, incorporate it into ourselves, and make it struggling to make it a permanent part of ourselves so we don’t feel as so insufficient about ourselves or lacking about ourselves. We fulfill we try to fill this black hole within ourselves. There is, you know, we try to appropriate, try to make, you know, make these things, you know, people, power, events, ideas, make them a permanent part of ourselves. Essentially, is, you know, are those attitudes of mind that involve getting stuck.
You know, getting we get fixated on an object or or or or other senses, you know, people or beautiful things, sounds, tastes, or ideas in our mind. And and the mind we it’s like glue. We get stuck. And these objects, even these ideals in our mind, they become hard to let go of. You know?
You know, for example, the obsessive desire. You know? I I have to get that Ferrari. I can I can or, you know, or it can be an idea, an ideology even? You know?
I I wouldn’t vote for anybody but labor. We get stuck. Moreover, and this is true of all the afflictions, there’s always, in the case of attachment, there’s an exaggeration of the attractive qualities of the object. You know, we’re not the mind is unbalanced unbalanced with regard to the object. It’s magnifying.
It’s exaggerating its attractive qualities. And at the same time, it’s filtering out. It’s it’s overlooking whatever negative qualities the object might have. The mind has come to an imbalanced state. So, you know, in traditionally, and I’d like to expand upon this a little bit.
We touched upon this in the last few weeks. Some of the ways that we as Westerners might misinterpret the teachings. And this, you know, generally, I try to I’m I’m a fairly, I think, a traditional teacher of Buddhism. Traditional teacher of Buddhism. Or, you know, I I present very much the way I’ve been taught the same ideas.
I try to work with them as I try to I try to work them to come to these understandings myself and try to understand the teachings for myself and can and try to share that. But here, we’re talking about something that hasn’t been taught by my teachers to me. It’s something which, in terms of what I’m getting at here is how as how we as Westerners are receiving the teachings. So this is, you know, so this is open to debate. It’s open, you know, by by all means.
But I just want to give some suggestions, some just share some ideas, some, which which has become which have become noticeable to myself around this and try to distinguish what Buddhism is actually saying and the way I see many Westerners taking what is being said, and perhaps wrongly so. So traditionally, in Buddhism, there are a number of different terms which are used interchangeably for the word that we’re using here attachment. For example, you know, use craving, desire, greed, thirst, clinging. These are many of these terms are used different terms, but they’re used in the in the simply, they can be interchanged into in different contexts. They all more or less evoke the idea of getting stuck or fixated on something or other, whether whether it be a person or money or possessions or ideas or power or position, anything, getting stuck.
So Western Westerners, I think, are often confused when they think that Buddhism is advising us to give up attachment. When, you know, you you hear the teaching. I just I just heard a joke the other day about that. You know, why why why don’t Buddhists like vacuum cleaners? Because they come with too many attachments.
I’m sorry. I just had to say that. Buddhism is always telling us to give up attachment. Right? That’s what we hear.
So it is saying, is not saying that what many Westerners confuse this by hearing that we should give up attachment, that we should give up craving, that we should give up clinging, that we should give up desire. In hearing that, they hear the teachings as saying that we should give up all wanting, all wishes, all our desires. We should give up motivated activities altogether. I’m not sure what that would look like, but anyway, that’s kind of the, you know, many people begin to take it that way when, oh, we should develop non attachment. We should should give up attachment.
We should give up desires. So in this regard, this holiness to the Dalai Lama brings out, you know, I just I think it may be helpful to share this and make this kind of distinction for ourselves. So this was a is a book on which he he this was one of his earlier books when he went to Harvard University, he gave a series of lectures. And this was part of a question and answer session that he gave after one of his particular one day of of his talks. And there was a question put to him.
If the root of all suffering is attachment, are the desire to have a family and the desire for liberation from contradictory? Answer. So this is the Dalai Lama answering. I think that it a distinction should be made between desires that are due to ignorance and desires that are reasoned. In Tibetan, a difference can be made between a wish and desire.
Now I have to that’s the English translation term here that’s been used. There’s a word that that’s being translated here. It’s called is Tibetan is dupa. Dupa also can mean to desire. It can be translated as desire.
Here, it’s being translated as wish. It can be it can be translate and the the word dupa means simply to want something, to wish for, to desire, wanting. Wanting. And desire, what’s being translated as desire is is afflicted. It’s generally translated as attachment or afflicted desire.
Okay? But I I don’t want you to get hum up in the word choice of his translations here. For instance, a Bodhisattva is reborn from his or her own wishes, not out of desire. Now this not out of attachment. Okay?
Similarly, it is suitable to aspire toward liberation. Also, persons such as foe destroyers. Foe destroyers are individuals who have completely stepped outside of the system, completely eliminated ignorance, all the afflictive emotions, and therefore no longer create karma. Who have completely overcome all the afflictions have thoughts such as such and such is good. I need it.
So this is a person this is a person with no afflictive emotions, with no attachment, with no ignorance. They would they have thoughts such as such and such is good. I need it. Merely such thoughts are not afflictive consciousnesses. Similarly, if we consider the desire for a family, there are persons practicing the Bodhisattva’s paths who have families.
Also in the scriptures of discipline, Buddha himself set forth vows for laypersons and vows for monks. Hence, there is no general prohibition of the wish to have a family. So it’s so the point I’m trying to bring out is that we have to make it’s necessary to make a distinction between reason, desire, and wanting. You know, for example, you know, I I want to get to work on time so I won’t get fired, you know, or or, I I want to get out of the rain so I won’t get wet. It’s quite reasonable.
And you have this kind of desires, this kind of wants, this kind of wishes. You know? I don’t think that would be a problem for any of us. On the one hand, an afflicted desires, afflicted wishes, such as, you know, wanting the latest style of clothes so people will think you’re you’re wonderful, you know, that you’re fashionable, you know, that people will admire you or or, you know, wanting to wanting a particular relationship driven out of a primary obsession with sexual relationships. You know, your obsession with sex, so you want to develop this relation.
That would be an afflicted desire. Wanting to get out of the rain because you don’t want to become wet is also a desire, but it’s not an afflicted desire. It’s a reasonable desire. So the the Buddhist teachings do not suggest to give up intentional activities in general, rather that we give up fixated adhesion, that we give up unreflected clinging to things stuck on ideas or stuck on objects. So, you know, the the teachings are encouraging ourselves to diminish and ultimately to eradicate driven, compulsive, stuck forms of engagement in whatever object, in whatever activity.
That kind of thinking, that kind of attitude, that way of relating to things and people and situations. So I think the key to avoiding what might be a misunderstanding is that engagement in what we want does not necessarily entail attachment. The difficulty, you know, it’s difficult for us to imagine what this type of act acting this way, you know, it’s like a Teflon way of acting, you know, a non stick way of relating with things. You know, the, we, you know, usually we’re so immersed in attachment. We can’t imagine relationships and ways of relating with objects and all the all the things of the world and even our own ideas in a nonstick, non attached way.
Non attachment so as an approach to practice, non attachment refers to reducing clinging to things and to preconceptions, even our own ideas, not holding on to them so tight. As a result of practice, it’s an aspect develop some internal freedom with insight. There’s a spaciousness about our thinking and the possibilities of the way that we relate. If you’re controlled by your, like I mentioned in the, in our motivation, if you’re controlled by your, your, the pursuit of gain and the avoidance of loss, the pursuit of pleasure, the avoidance of pain, you know, and fame and, disrepute and praise and criticism. You know, if if if you’re stuck on those, if, you know, if if that if that’s your standard, what you can’t let go of, then that that you really have no choices to be made.
You know, we what we’re what we’re trying to develop is the ability to make informed choices in our life. If you’re in in in order to make informed choices, we have to have a certain degree of freedom. If there can be no coercion involved in terms of internal pressures to to to to, to get or to hold on to, to to avoid. In such a way of relating, there’s no real freedom if is always this internal internal pressure to to get, to hold on to, and to or to avoid avoid, you know, whether people and situations and whatever. So in it the the the the eye, the teaching on non attachment is pointing to a kind of a spacious feeling, which of the capacity for making real choices of what it is that we really want, what’s in our best interest, informed choices.
You know, that space that gives us a real option where we can really begin to implement strategies which reason out our inner own self best interest. We’re not coerced, neither by the teachings nor by the world, but by through wisdom and compassion. So it it’s important to understand what what is the opposite of attachment? You know, generally, it’s said it’s non attachment. You know, that’s pretty easy thing to say, isn’t it?
But there’s another term we can introduce, and sometimes it’s used interchangeably, but we maybe we can begin to develop the vocabulary of Buddhism, refine it in English a little bit better, is the notion of detachment. So the opposite of attachment is non attachment. It’s not detachment. Non attachment is is, to attain some kind of openness. You know, we talked about we’re willing to to to a willingness to to let go even of possessions, even of things.
You know, our our our we talked about it in terms of the perfection of generosity as as non attachment. You know, we’re we’re willing to we we we we we let go of a centralized approach to life and referring ours everything back to ourselves. And, you know, my my possessions, my time, my security, my territory, my everything. And we begin to let go of that fixation on my, for example. The the you know, detachment is is an emotional distancing, an absence of commitment or or, you know, any activity.
It it can be it can be it can appear from the outside to be non attachment, but in fact, there’s no choice being made. This, you know, it it would be a big mistake to to confuse engaged non attachment with defensive detachment, you know, where where the individual is disengaged and lacks any desire, any strong feelings at all or or or, you know, any desires whatsoever toward anything. You know, like like, almost like an apathy, an ennui about life. And non attachment is a way of acting. It’s not a way of giving up on life or or withdrawing from life.
And this was brought out, you know, the the reason I I I present this, because we have to be a little refined in our understanding of this. There’s a story, and it’s a you know, it it’s about a a westerner who was translating for a particular teacher, and he tells this story. He was a Tibetan teacher. And this student said, oh, you know, I I I stay away from people. I I stay in my room all the time, and I don’t get involved in social activities and things and so forth.
What do you think of that? And the teacher says, oh, that’s that’s fantastic. That’s a lot of non attachment there. And this this person who translated this for this Tibetan teacher was a was a therapist, a psychotherapist, and he he knew this person and he understood this person. This person wasn’t making a choice.
This person was unable to engage with others, unable to engage in in relations and so he he could his his inability to engage was being validated as he was being reinforced by his notion of what the teachings on non attachment were being misinterpreted as. You know? He he wasn’t making a choice of whether with non attachment, we can engage or not engage. You know? We we have that we have that freedom, that that openness to make that kind of real choice.
But a person is detached. It appears the same, but there’s no choice. It’s coming from a completely different place. There’s no real option. So, I guess what I am trying to emphasize is not to misinterpret the teachings to validate a lot of our dysfunctional ways of being and thinking and acting, you know, a lot of our neurosis and use that as a guise for practice.
Like, can make some mistakes. Like, I make mistakes by not managing my time very well. We didn’t get very far. I said that last week, I think, and the week before that. Anyway, we’ll we’ll continue, and we can talk, you know, with these three basic poisons of attachment, hatred, and ignorance.
And maybe we can we can also apply this this same notion. I think it’s an interesting notion and and, you know, it’s just I’m I’m sharing this idea with you. And, you know, you can make up it what you will, and maybe we can bring it up in our discussion and share some of our our intelligence around this idea. Okay? So if you like to maybe get a cup of tea, and we’ll make a circle and have a discussion.