Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Opening with Goethe’s lines on commitment — “boldness has genius, power and magic in it” — Ven Jampa Gendun frames going for refuge not as ritual recitation but as a lived decision to care for oneself and others. In this 109-minute session he then leads a full guided loving-kindness meditation, moving from body relaxation through six-part breathing to a visualization that expands compassion outward from self to all sentient beings. The second half surveys Buddhist cosmology: why the form and formless realms, though attainable through deep concentration, are ultimately dead ends — “like an anesthetic that wears off” — unless paired with wisdom. He closes with the striking image of a single glass of liquid perceived as nectar, water, pus and blood, or molten lead depending on the viewer’s karmic conditioning.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 21 3PA 2007 09 03.mp3
UUID: 1cc5857a-e741-4e8e-8fdd-7ede512027f1
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 2006-2007 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2007-09-03
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 109.0 minutes
Words: ~10,194
Is that better? Yes. Yes. It’s easy. In conclusion, I just like to add a few final thoughts to that brilliant introduction.
For those of you who are listening. For those of you who you really missed something. Okay. The process of recommitting ourselves and getting back in touch with what is important, with what brings purpose and meaning to our life. It seems as if that’s very essential to finding authentic way of life.
Know, all the various passing pleasures perhaps don’t mean all that much, but finding meaning and purpose is as long as we can find a why, we can find a way. And we we we term this, you know, in terms of traditional Buddhism and going for refuge but in a way it’s like making some kind of commitment. Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts initiative in creation there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideals and splendid plans. At the moment one definitely commits oneself then providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no no person could have dreamed would have come their way. Whatever you can do or dream you can begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.
So you know commitment in a way is the is choosing the the discipline that whatever the context prescribes in terms of Buddhism. When we when we talk about going for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha we’re making some kind of commitment and we’re we’re it is consistent choosing of the discipline that the context of Buddhism prescribes that ensures that what we now choose is going to make a difference and that we can always choose but sometimes the choices we we make don’t make any real difference in our life. We want to ensure the kind of choices we make make a difference, a difference that will be of a qualitative difference in our life. You know commitment is like it’s a way of saying that that this way of life matters to me, it’s important to me even if I find it difficult to live up to its ideas and implement those in my practically in my everyday life you know that I find a sense of fulfillment and purpose in my life by way of this commitment. Commitment is a way of that we can begin to care for ourselves.
You know that way that we can honor our dreams and the way that we can care for ourselves and honor others dreams as well that we can do both for ourselves and our others. You know we have learned to be who we are. Our approach to the living of our life is a learned phenomenon and we can whatever has been learned can be unlearned and new learning can take its place. Know, we can we we can we learn to how to live our lives if we’re committed and I think you know at the beginning of any real learning process we have to the first thing that we have to learn is that what it is that we’re to choose and how to go about effectively choosing it so that it makes a difference. And and and necessarily we have to begin to believe that we do have choices and that we haven’t lost this ability in our continual unconscious denial of its reality.
You know, free we freedom is not a given. It’s not something it’s only in the in the implementing of choice. There are alternatives, and we do have the ability to choose. We can become a Buddha if we so choose, but it’s only in exercising that choice that we have the freedom to be that. You know, the the beginning of of genius and power of magic is in boldly believing we can.
If you believe you can or if you believe you can’t, you’re right. And we have to begin to believe that we can. But not just can, but to resolve I will. We are free to do what we will. We are not prisoners.
No traps or snares have been set around us. And there is nothing that should frighten us or upset us. We have been put into a life as into an element we most accord with. We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world for it is not against us. If it has terrors, are our terrors.
If it has abysses, these abysses belong to us. If there are dangers, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience. How could we forget those ancient myths that stand in the beginning of races? The myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses.
Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act just once with beauty and courage. So the path of Buddhism is very much of realigning ourselves with, with our courage, within believing we can. You know, the, Are we realigning, of our lives such that we forego our habitual hopes and fears which generally control our lives. We we begin to take responsibility for how we decide to live our lives, you know, in the light of our own truth to make decisions in terms of our own basic sanity and in terms of our own basic goodness. So it begins with a heartfelt commitment.
You know, our choices, the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. And we talk about these every week together, don’t we? What this entails. You know, is not that you know each of us has to begin to kind of formulate what brings meaning to my life? What do I feel is valuable to me as a very unique self actualizing individual?
What makes me feel good about myself and what I’m doing? What adds to the quality of my life? And within that context, you know, within the the meanings that we’re trying to arrive at, you know, we’re ready to implement them in our lives, we call that a Buddha. You know, it’s like the greatest meaning that we could hope to give our lives in terms of who we could do, who we who we could be and what we could do. And we try to, you know, translate that to something which is perhaps a little less abstract, you know, in terms of what a Buddha means, in fact, in terms of of wisdom, you know, trying to understand how things actually are beyond this continual fiction that our mind is creating about the world.
It’s trying to see things clearly. Divorced of our preconceptions or misconceptions. You know, it’s ideas around working with love and compassion. That’s important. And developing some inner strength of will, some kind of courage about ourselves and how we we implement those in our everyday life and in our relations, in our everyday life in terms of skillfully and as fearlessly as we can helping others to experience the same benefiting others.
Then you know when we talk about refuge it’s like we’re making some kind of real commitment to these values. If our refuge, if our going for refuge is has to have any meaning at all, it has to be reflected in how we live our everyday life, not so much in the words that we we say before we have a talk or before a meditation. Just in simple ways beginning to to demand of yourself the best that you can of yourself and trying to understand the way things actually are and trying to demand that, you know, anger and hostility and aggression aren’t the ways that you want to live your life, that you rather live your life in terms of of caring and love and compassion. And being a wimp, it just isn’t the quali isn’t enough in how you’re going to live your life, you know, to develop some inner strength of purpose and will. So, you know, we we are committing are continually committing ourselves to these qualities.
I guess reminding ourselves, reprioritizing ourselves. It’s pretty easy to get out of touch with what is important to ourselves and this is the context. This is the discipline which the context of Buddhism prescribes. You know, the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha which we try to, you know, to actualize in reality, not just beyond, not beyond some doctrine, beyond some abstract ideas but in the practical everyday applications of our life. And we this by means of the Dharma, you know, these teachings, the meditations, the way things actually are in their true nature.
You know, working together as we are, you know, sharing these ideas, you know, within the context of a spiritual community, those who assist us in implementing the means, these these teachings, this good good medicine, helping us like nurses, you know, then the world becomes like the hospital for healing and trying to raise the level of our motivation, the why’s behind and the purpose for our continuing involvement in this process, You know so that we ensure that what we do is going to make the difference. Know if we keep simply doing things for our own egotistical ends out of our own selfishness, own exaggerated self concern we can’t really expect all that much change in our lives. I am always reading the the quotation by the Dalai Lama, you know, on this outside this door in the other room where it says, I believe that the purpose of life is to be happy and the degree of inner happiness is in proportion to the development of our own love and compassion. So, you know, really, this is what the Mahāyāna comes down to. You know, it’s not so much that we’re, compassion is simply, a skill amongst our various other techniques that we make use of.
It’s not simply a desirable characteristics that it would be advantageous for us all to develop in some way or admirable or simply not that it’s emphasized in the practice of Buddhism, but it is the practice of Buddhism. Wisdom is the way that we can more effectively practice our compassion. So, you know, trying to widen the scope of our concern beyond our narrow egotistical ends, you know, if only to one other person. Some some one other person who’s at home now or somewhere that you can think about and your heart goes out to and that you might really and sincerely in a genuine fashion want to be of greater value to them in some way. Know, maybe just to be a little more caring, little more patient, a little more understanding.
In some way to be present for them in a more significant way. And maybe, you know, what we discussed tonight in our meditations and so forth maybe you can develop that if only a little bit more in some degree to in that direction that you’d like to go and you’re doing this not just for your own piece of the cake, this not for your own narrow needs but even if just for one other person, just one other person that you think about. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could leave here at nine fifteen? Oh, I know what is it. Yeah.
Nine fifteen, nine twenty, whatever. A little bit better of a person so I could be a little bit more effective, more useful, more beneficial to this one other person. I would like that. That would that would make my evening useful. That it would would be a small part of the great meaning which I’m trying to find for my life.
So checking up within each of our own minds and, you know, adjusting our motivation. It’s really up to us Within the privacy of our own inner world we have to work with these ideas for ourselves and with ourselves the craziness of each of our own minds and try to come up with some kind of clarity and some development of these qualities. So you know just it’s worthwhile just taking a minute and trying to internalize as best as you can some of the ideas which you know in terms of the motivation. Thinking of one person that you would like to be there in a little more significant way. Therefore, you know, I’m going to involve myself in this discussion, in this meditation for you.
I’m doing this for you. I want to be a better person for you. I go for refuge until I am awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Through my practice of generosity and other perfections, may I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.
Through my practice of generosity and the other perfections, may I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. 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 since beginningless time.
Rejoice in all the virtues as superiors 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 to meditate. Begin with relaxing the body, then the six part breath meditation and then mindfulness of the breath and then we’ll meditate on loving kindness and I’ll lead you through a meditation on loving kindness.
So it’s important you know in the guided meditations to actually, you know, the words are like fingers pointing beyond themselves. Know, we don’t get if someone points to a painting. We don’t get hum at, you know, what an interesting finger you have there. We look to what’s being indicated, what’s the intent. And so the words are are are not ends in themselves.
The word the words I love you, are not love. Love transcends those words. It’s it’s a feeling of the heart. And so in all of this, we being satisfied with words is not quite enough. You have to you know, this is, I think, one of the the skills of meditation.
There are many skills within meditation and I think this is an important one of these. Being able to evoke these various productive, skillful states of mind, developing that capacity using your imagination, your experience, your reasoning, you know, what what bringing your all your creativity, your life story to this process, and developing the abilities to to evoke in a very skillful and productive way these states. So when we talk about love, try to how can I how what does it mean? You know, the wish to be be happy. Having a sense that, you know, remembering what it meant, those moments of love meant, you know, using a model, maybe towards your children, maybe your parent or your partner, and being able to to have the same feeling but toward different objects.
Being able to evoke that feeling toward various types of people, and accustoming the mind to that process. So taking a comfortable firm posture, Starting at the crown of the head, the scalp, the forehead, feeling the wrinkles in your brow, smoothing out The pressure in and around the eyes diminishing. The muscles of the face softening, relaxing. The jaws relax And the muscles at the back of the neck perhaps gently turning your head to each side, just loosening, stretching, relaxing the muscles of the throat. Coming 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 moving down and through your body into the ground as if some kind of weight has been taken off your shoulders. The lightning of your being. Moving all the way down to your hands, your hands are soft, loose. Relaxing your lower arms, your upper arms, The chest is at ease. Relaxing in the heart area, lungs, middle portion of the back, and the stomach area.
Releasing the tensions that we hold in our stomach muscles. Just allow your belly to go soft. Relaxing throughout the abdominal cavity. The lower back muscles And the buttocks. Throughout the upper legs.
The lower legs. Your feet. And bringing your awareness to your body in general noticing any tightnesses, any tensions, any discomforts within the body. And gently breathing into those areas. Soothing, feeling the tightness loosen, tension diminish, the discomfort dissolve.
Breathing gently into those areas of the body where you feel any discomfort. Your body becoming comfortable, at ease. A feeling of physical well-being pervading your entire body. It feels good to be in your body. Just be with your body.
And then we’ll practice the six part breath exercise. Breathe in comfortably normally but extending the exhalation breathing out all the used air. Again breathing in comfortably normally again extending the exhalation doing this six times individually. And when you’ve completed the six part breath exercise bring your mind to the the breath just easy gentle in and out flow of the natural breath. If you find it helpful use the techniques of counting and noting the breaths.
Bring your mind back to the breath. Bring your mind back. Bring your mind back to the breath. Now we’re going to meditate on loving kindness and we’re going to medit begin with ourselves. So the feelings that you’re going to develop initially are going to be directed towards yourself.
Whatever may hit you, whatever you may have done in the past, all the various mistakes that you feel you’ve created develop a healthy sense of regret and you can begin again. And all the various plans, the type of person that you want to become in the future, the changes that you want to make, you you can make those. But just for this present moment we want to set set aside the past and the future and simply befriend ourselves in the present. This person that we are at this very moment is deserving of our love and compassion. We want to be kind to ourselves and wish this person who we are now well.
So just develop some kind caring feelings directed towards yourself. Sincerely, genuinely, may I be happy. May I be healthy. Wish yourself well. Wish yourself all the good things of life.
Keep coming back to it. Keep re invoking the sincerity and genuine genuine feeling of wishing yourself happiness sincerely, really, this person you are now. And now bring to mind someone that you like, that you love, and seeing them in front of you. If you can’t see them, it’s not so important. Just feel that they’re there and that these feelings are being directed toward them.
And remember the kindnesses that this person has shown you, you know, all the good times that you’ve shared together. And begin to direct out, to radiate out toward this person the kind, caring thoughts which naturally arise when you think of this person in this way, wishing them to be happy, that they not suffer. May may you have all the good things in life. May you be excited about life. Find meaning and purpose.
May you be happy. Wish them well. Wish them happiness. And now think of a stranger, someone you neither like or dislike, maybe someone you see in an office or at a shop that you saw on the streets today or you know you heard of, saw on the news, but you really don’t know their story. They don’t make much difference to you.
But one thing you do know about this person is that they want to be happy, and they don’t want to suffer exactly like yourself. That person there in front of you wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer. So simply out of the goodness of your humanity, just going out to a fellow human being even though you don’t know them, just because you’re kind hearted and care. Wish them well. Wish they find the happiness that they want, that they no longer experience the suffering that they don’t want.
Now think of someone that you don’t like. Someone you have problems with. And imagine that person there in front of you. This person wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer just like yourself and perhaps their method their method of finding their happiness, eliminating their problems is come in conflict with yours. Your methods of finding your own happiness, eliminating your own sufferings.
That’s just a conflict of self interest. And just as we have to begin to forgive the mistakes that we’ve created in the past, perhaps it’s come time to begin to forgive this person for some of their mistakes. So just for this present moment, just this present moment, try to set aside your hurt to your grudge your anger. See beneath all of that to this person in front of you who just like yourself wants to be happy, just like yourself doesn’t want to suffer. They’re essentially a feeling human being.
And out of the kindness of your heart let go of your grudge, your anger just for this present moment and go out to another human being and wish them well. May you be happy. And all the people in this room and people taking responsibility for their lives, for their minds, trying to grow. People are searching, exploring other possibilities. Wish everyone in the room that they find whatever it is they’re looking for, whatever would make them happy, wish that they had it.
It’s radiated out, direct outwardly a wish of kindness and well-being to everyone in the room. And extending this wish out further to all of Burnside and people in their cars and buses on walking on the streets, in their homes, watching television, preparing dinner. This radiate our wish of happiness and well-being to everyone in Burnside. Extending this wish out further to all of Adelaide, the offices, shops, factories, people on the streets, in their homes. Further and further to all of South Australia.
Melbourne and Hobart Sydney Brisbane Cairns Alice Springs, Darwin, Perth, the entire country. And eastward to New Zealand, northward, East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, Southeast Asia, Just extending this wish out allowing your mind expand out to all of Asia and Europe and Africa South America, North America. Just have a feeling that you’re taking the entire world into your heart. All the peoples, black, white, red, yellow, all the animals, all the insects. Everything that lives on the earth is at this moment being touched by your wish that they’d be happy that they not suffer.
Connect it to every living being on the earth and your wish. And extending this wish out in all the directions of space. Further and further without any limits, without any feelings of limitation. Until finally, without any center, without any boundaries pervading all of the infinite space that wish we all be happy. May there be only happiness.
May there be peace. Just be with that. Stay with that. And then bring your mind back to the breath. And get in touch with your body and notice the feelings and sensations within the body.
And in easy and relaxed manner, slowly become aware of your surroundings, taking your time. So we’ve been discussing the wheel of life, the wheel of conditioned existence. Our particular world version, which has as its origin ignorance, misconception as to the nature of phenomena and including the I, the self. It’s on that basis that we we go on to make a absolute distinction between self and others and where self centeredness discriminates between what is I and mine and what is not, that is say other. And out of this, we develop hostility for that which is other.
There emerges a attachment toward that which we could see with his eye and mind. Out of these three basic afflictions of ignorance, hatred, and attachment, at the center of the hub, we go on to create various actions. Center of the hub, we go on to create various actions. As a consequence of those actions, we have various experiences as a result in terms of not only in terms of the course of the life but from life to life. And so the second concentric circle is the karmic consequences of the various actions, the seeds of karma which have been implanted or deposited upon our consciousness as a result of our actions.
At the time of our death, a particular karma is activated, activated, a particular urge, gives some kind of directionality to our mind. We go on to we associate with the gross embodiment, which is consistent with that quality of mind, and we end up in this, for most of us at least, this third concentric circle. So that’s what we’re going to look at tonight. It depicts the various levels of the world. In particular, this is what’s called the desire realm.
There are in Buddhist cosmology, that is the makeup of the universe as described within Buddhism. There are three realms of existence, three levels of existence, which called the desire realm, the form realm, and the formless realm. So, the form and formless realm are are states of existence which are attained through the power of meditative concentrations. Okay, we’ll talk a little bit more about that. We have there the three realms.
Desire Realm, Form Realm, and formless realm. The desire realm is divided into six divisions in this drawing and also on your photocopied sheet, the the the third segment, which is the desire realm, is divided into six parts. So this represents the six levels of the desire realm of beginning at the top from gods, demigods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, and hell beings. Okay. Those are the six levels that we call desire realm.
We’re going to go, you know, this is where we live and we’re going to talk about this. We can talk, you know when we talk about the word desire realm it has, it can be explained in two different ways, has two different meanings. The first way it explained is that the beings in the desire realm and as was mentioned as we mentioned as was mentioned there are six levels within the desire realm amongst these six levels is the human realm. We are humans. So we’re talking about ourselves.
Our predominant desire is for objects of the physical senses, you know, shapes and colors, sounds, smells, tastes, objects of touch. So our prominent desires are are objects of the sense the five, six, the five physical sense powers. That’s one meaning of the word desire. So the beings who live within the desire realm are really caught up or desirous of these types, these five types of sense objects. That there’s another, another way of explaining this word desire realm and this has to do with the way that beings in the desire realm find a type of satisfaction in relation to others.
There are said to be four ways in which we, beings of the desire realm, find ways of finding satisfaction in their relation to others. The one is through the joining or the coming in contact with the sexual organs. That’s one way of finding satisfaction of a particular desire in relating to others. The second one is finding satisfaction through embracing and holding hands. Okay, the third way is simply through finding satisfaction through laughing and smiling with each other and finally the fourth way is through finding satisfaction is through just looking at each other.
This might sound very odd but I’m just explaining another way in which this desire is explained, word of desire realm, the four ways of fulfilling our desire in relationship to others, through joining sexual intercourse, the joining of sexual organs, through embracing, holding hands, through smiling and laughing or simply through looking into one another and this will become why this is presented in that way will become apparent when we talk about what we mean by the form realm and the formless realm. We said that there are three realms of existence, desire realm, form realm and formless realm. And we said that these latter, the form realm and the formless realm are attained by meditative concentrations. So the beings of the form realm are free of the type of desire satisfaction of all these four types of ways of gaining satisfaction in relationship to others. That is to say they no longer have a desire for having sexual intercourse.
They never, they no longer have have a desire for, you know, embracing and holding hands. They don’t need that way of satiating that desire in these ways. So the beings of the form realm have gone beyond that, that type of desire that is found, that characterizes the desire realm. They still have desire for forms. For example, they still have desire for shapes shapes and colors for sounds and touch in the form realm.
There are no odors or tastes in the form realm. So, but they do have desires for form, and by form I mean color and shape, sounds, and objects of touch. So they are no longer desire realm beings, Why? Because they no longer seek to fulfill their to be satisfied by means of their desire for sexual intercourse and so forth. But they still have a desire for certain types of forms.
Therefore, they’re called beings of the form realm. When we move up to the form and there are four levels within the form realm. There is what they simply termed the first concentration, the second concentration, the third concentration, and the fourth concentration. There’s simply deeper and deeper levels of concentration. But they’ve gone beyond a particular desire of the desire realm.
They still have a desire for certain types of forms. Therefore, their their term form realm beings. The realm above that in a way, in a manner of speaking, which is also attained by meditative concentrations is the formless realm. These beings have they’ve done exactly the fact of gone beyond the desire for as the form realm beings they no longer have any desire to to relate in all these four types of ways with others. But additionally, they no longer have any desire or attachment to the objects of the senses.
So they’ve gone beyond the desire or the attachment to shapes and colors, sounds, and objects of touch. Now, so the way in which they attain this is, for example, within the formless realm there are four different levels. There is, what’s called limitless space, limitless consciousness, nothingness, and the highest level within all of cyclic existence within this whole entire, ignorance driven process is the peak of cyclic existence. So they’re going to attain these levels, these deeper and deeper concentrations various attachments, by overcoming various desires. But we have to understand that in this entire process they are using what’s called a mundane meditation, in the sense that they are only able to, by the power of concentration, suppress the disturbing factors of the mind and most importantly attachment and desire.
And therefore as they are able to suppress more and more subtle levels of desire, their mind become more and more peaceful. But they have not transcended ignorance. No matter they can attain extremely deep states of peace. And these states can last for eons and eons of time, but eventually the karma to be to maintain which sustains these states will be exhausted and then they will go on to take rebirth again and most likely a lower type of rebirth. So these are only, these deep, states of concentration of absorption are extremely peaceful but they have no way because there’s no wisdom factor.
They have not transcended cyclic existence. They are still bound up in this process. It is simply a temporary suppression of the disturbing factors of the mind. For example, in, you know, the very first level of the formless realm is called limitless space. So how does this individual attain that level?
He’s, he, he or she has a very profound concentration and they begin to look at the lower level as being gross. They see forms, colors, and shapes, and sounds, and tastes, and smells, objects of touch as being being coarse, as being very gross. They see limitless space as being extremely peaceful. So as, you know, they look as the mind begins to orientate, begins to incline, and they begin begin to take limitless space to in their imagination more and more. And their mind begins to withdraw from the coarseness as they see it of colors and shapes and smells, you know, all these coarse objects.
And their mind begins to dwell in this sense of limitless space more and more. And finally, this is all that they discriminate. All that is known to this consciousness is vast open limitless space. But even that begins to they can begin to develop discrimination with regard to that. That limitless space is very coarse as opposed to limitless consciousness.
So they begin to take more and more limitless consciousness to mind. That’s a more subtle object and that limitless space is more coarse and so their mind begins to incline, toward limitless consciousness more and more until the only object which appears to their mind and this lasts for eons and eons of time is vast open limitless consciousness. Nothing more than that. And this is the way they they go on to the most subtle levels of consciousness. It’s almost when you reach the peak of cyclic existence, there’s barely a there’s a consciousness there, but it’s the it’s the most it’s the most subtle.
But it’s it’s like there’s almost nothing happening in that mind. It’s like almost there’s almost no discrimination. There’s only a mild, subtle discrimination which is discrimination which is active in that mind. Within this whole process, within cyclic existence, there’s no more peaceful state than that. But that is at best only temporary.
Eventually, the karma, the power to maintain, which maintains that state will be exhausted. And then they will die from that state and they will go on to take a lower state of rebirth according to the karma which is activated at the time of their death. So though it may be extremely peaceful, it may last for eons of time, in the end it’s a dead end. It doesn’t really go anywhere. They’re in a worse shape than when they started.
They’ve lost the ability, in some cases, be able to use their discrimination well. Their ability to their mind becomes rather dull, they find it difficult to really analyze well. We we we are going to look at the desire realm. Okay? That’s a good point.
No, it, it, no. You might want to develop some of these higher concentrations and conjoin them with wisdom as a means for penetrating to the deeper nature of reality, but these concentrations in and of themselves are a dead end. They don’t go anywhere. They only are deeper and deeper experiences of peace, but they are at best temporary. You know, this was in, in, there are schools, you know, at the time of the Buddha and probably still are, there were there was, schools of thought which took these as being ends in themselves.
You know, the Buddha when he renounced his kingdom and he set out to find out whether life was a bitch and then you die or, you know, whether there was something more to this situation that we find ourselves in and he wanted to find out the truth. So he studied with various teachers of his time and, you know, these were masters of the Vedas, masters of the various schools of thought that were current in that time of the Buddha. This is two thousand five hundred years ago and he mastered all the various types of meditations that they had to offer but he saw that at best they could only offer temporary relief from from the sufferings, that they weren’t they didn’t alleviate the causes of suffering. That that, it it was only, a a Band Aid at best. And so he he he that’s why he left his, all of his, those teachers, he went off for six years of practicing asceticism and he found that that too didn’t work and finally he sat beneath the tree in Bodh Gaya and he said you know I haven’t found the answer and I’m not going to arise from this seat until I found the truth.
Is there a way out of this situation of suffering? These continual reoccurrences of dissatisfactory patterns and rebirths of our lives. And, he resolved to find an answer or not rise from his seat and with the approaching of the morning star he had some kind of experience and he had a profound insight into the nature of suffering and he saw that at root it was ignorance that more of what this ignorance entails and how to overcome it and he developed the wisdom which understands the nature of reality at his deepest level and this was his great insight and so this whole process continues on and on and infinitely beginning with ignorance until we develop the wisdom which is able to eliminate it. So all of the states that we just described, the form realm and formless realm, they’re attained by temporary suppression of the disturbing factors of the mind. But the only wisdom has the ability to remove the disturbing factors of the mind completely from the root.
It’s like, you know, it’s like almost these are like an anesthetic. And pretty soon the anesthetic will eventually wear off and you’re back where you were. So no, that’s the short answer. Yeah. So these, the form and formless realm are both states of mind levels of concentration that we can attain even as a human being.
Know, we can attain we can go on to attain what is called calm abiding and on the basis of that calm abiding or Samatha we can go on to attain the first concentration and the second concentration. The mind is removing more and more disturbing factors from the mind. The mind is attaining a greater and greater level of peace. We can go on to four concentrations and we can move up to the formless realm. I mean, just as we’re sitting here as a human being, and we can go on to attain the formless, limitless space, limitless consciousness, nothingness, and we can attain the peak of cyclic existence.
We can attain that state of mind, that state of concentration, that absorption. We are at the same time creating karma. There’s plenty of karmic seeds by that activity whereby when we die, that karmic seed could be activated and you would you could take rebirth in the states themselves. That these are the the formless the form realms are actually places of rebirth. And the formless realms are also one can be born in those states due to the force of previous karma.
But that karma is created by the power of meditative concentrations. So one can attain that state as we sit here. And moreover, activity creates the karmic seeds to actually take rebirth in those places, in those states. But eventually the karma which sustains those states will be exhausted just as in the case of ourselves as human beings. The karma which sustains our life force will eventually be exhausted and we will die away from the human existence.
And likewise, with regard to those form and formless realms. So they are not satisfactory, only temporarily so, but not ultimately so. So okay. Where am I to isn’t what do you think? Yeah, that’s okay.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean this is yeah. So the formless realm is that these beings have no embodiment. So, they, they simply the the moment having created so as a human being having performed these particular meditations, having attained these meditative states, having created that karma, then as their mind, as they begin to die in the course of this life, then if this karmic seed which is being planted by the activity of meditation were to be activated, then the mind would simply arise in limitless space. The mind would not have any particular location, it would remain in that state where all that would appear to that mind is limitless space.
Something like that. Yeah. Sounds alright. Yeah. But you know, it’s like, it’s like waking up from a dream in a way.
I mean, even if you have most pleasant of dreams when you wake up, you know, whether the dream lasted an aeon or it lasted five minutes, it doesn’t make any difference. You woke up and now you’ve to go from where you’re at And the big cosmic picture of things. Yeah. It’s a useless Yeah. Yeah.
It’s true. It is a little in the big cosmic picture of things, it’s a little it’s like taking a nap, you know? Yeah. It’s an energy. It’s an energy.
And how’s that? I just got a second another nap. Yeah. So for the bodhisattva, you know, are mundane concentrations, what are called mundane concentration, worldly meditations. They don’t have a factor of wisdom involved.
Whereas the Bodhisattva cultivates a supramundane meditation. He or she may actually develop these concentrations but always in conjunction with wisdom because the mind becomes extremely powerful, concentrated, able to focus, and penetrate into the nature of things. So the the concentration is not an end in itself, not just a blissful escape from the world, but it becomes a tool of the mind for particular purpose to come to an understanding of emptiness. So they would cultivate some of these concentrations, not all of them. Some of them the mind becomes unserviceable.
But the deeper, the more powerful your concentration, more focused your wisdom analysis can become. So the, but it is not to say, but this is, you know, and I agree to, but we shouldn’t poo poo these concentrations. These people, it is not, if you look at our own minds and how crazy and berserk our own minds are, These are quite I suppose it’s discouraging. It didn’t mean that just the sort of thing that’s sort of self-absorbed. Yeah.
That’s right. It is. It is very self absorbed. That’s right. Yeah.
That’s. They say it’s, so I mean, in the Tibetan tradition they would say it’s, one has to be a bit wary of these because they’re like traps that you can fall into because it becomes so blissful and peaceful. It becomes like, you know, maybe you become addicted to the states like heroin or something. Yeah. So now we’re going to look at, the six realms, six realms, six levels of the desire realm.
And I guess in, you know, I think in a way we have to loosen up our mind a little bit. You know, basic notion within Buddhism is that knowing is an organizing into the known. That the world simply does not is not out there independent of our own minds, you know, as if we were just mirrors reflecting impassively what’s going on about us in the world outside of ourselves. You know, we are co creators with our reality. We, you know, we are evolving world versions and we are we play our part in this process.
I mean, it doesn’t seem like that, but it’s by way of appearances, we walk in this room and we feel if we left this room, the room would remain exactly as it is. We’re not saying it’s all in our mind. There is something out there, but what, what evolves in terms of out out there in terms of our reality in here, what the version that comes up for ourselves uniquely, we are co creators in that process. The world that we’ve come to know, we we play a part in bringing, bringing into existence. You know, it’s when we talk about, sometimes they talk about the world is illusion and maybe that can be a little bit misleading or deceiving.
An illusion is a composite of two things. One, it’s appearance, the way things appear and the way things exist. There’s a, there’s a disparity between the two. You know, like, what would be oh, like our friend, the coiled rope, the snake. Know, there there there’s a coiled rope in the grass and appears to be a snake.
So that’s that snake is is an illusion. Why? Because there is the appearance but there’s a there appearance of a snake but the actual reality is that there is a rope. Everything is like an illusion and by that we mean mean that there is appearance and there’s the way that things actually exist. Everything appears to exist independent of my mind out there as if it didn’t relate to my language, to my ways of thinking, to my all the cultural my cultural conditioning, and all the the processes that are operating upon my mind and who I am.
It seems as if we’re just our passive observers, you know, that everything is like there is a reality is given to us and it just kind of impinges on our mind. It forces itself upon our mind and it’s the only way that we can know reality. That’s what we call reality. Some objective, inherent, independent existing things out there, very solid and concrete. That’s the way things appear but that’s not the way they exist.
In fact, we are playing a part in bringing these things into their lived reality. Anyway we’re going to talk a great deal more about that but this is all that is meant or I shouldn’t say all that is meant but this is what is meant when we say that things are illusory like. Things come into existence due to their causes and conditions, their parts, language, language, conceptuality, all of this is coming together in like, like, like a, like a rainbow, you know, you have, you have this, you have a layer of, of, mist, liquid in the air, you have a sun and you have an observer and when these are in this exact right positions, a rainbow appears and the rainbow looks and it’s almost like you can almost reach out and grab hold of it. Looks, it looks like straight, but it’s only it’s only arisen when it’s only a happening. Certain conditions have come about just temporarily, just momentarily, and while those conditions maintain, this rainbow appears in the sky.
And then when those conditions alter the slightest, the rainbow disappears. But we have a sense that that rainbow is extremely solid and concrete. That’s just a minor way in which we can see how things arise and depends upon cause and condition. But they also depend. The fact that it’s a rainbow depends upon our thinking of it as such on language and so forth.
So, you know, it is we are very much involved in the creation of our world and we are, we are, our world is not given to us. We are educated into our world. As, you know, you know, what things are our mommy, our daddy, they point things out. This is a cat. This is a dog.
This is a table. We don’t know. And so we, we become, this is what we mean by conventional reality. This is a world of popular renown. This is our world.
It’s our shared reality together. Your reality is slightly different from my reality, but on the whole, it’s common. I’m seeing this microphone from this side, you’re seeing it from this side but there seems to be a commonality, a public object out there that we all partake of in some way. But we don’t realize that we’ve been educated into that. It’s not a microphone from its own side.
It’s not independent of ourselves and our shared experience. No matter how real a hellish state may seem to those undergoing it, it comes into being solely on account of the self destructive elements within one’s own psyche. In the fifth chapter of his book, so is mentioned in the book by Śāntideva, Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. Śāntideva asked who intentionally forged the weapons in hell, who constructed the burning iron floors? The Buddha taught that all such things arise from an evil mind.
So you know the Buddha taught that the three realms, the desire realm, the form realm, and the formless realm are merely mind, but he’s not saying that these are just in our mind but he’s saying that they arise due to our karma and karma is created by our mind. Why, in what way are they created by our karma? We’re trying to get across the idea one way of looking at karma is simply the way our minds have been conditioned and that we have predisposing tendencies to see things, to organize our reality in particular ways. You know, for example, this is this is a traditional example that’s given in talking about the different ways that one can organize one’s reality according to one’s predispositions. Our predispositions determine what it is that we perceive.
You we have a glass of liquid and it is said that to a being in the God realm that they would perceive a glass of nectar and if they were to taste it they would taste bliss, it would be a blissful experience. For being in the human realm. We see a glass of water, you know, and if we were thirsty, it would be very refreshing. If a person were suffering from, what do they got? They lose the ability to swallow.
They’re very afraid of water because they would choke on it. Anyway, a hungry ghost would see that glass of liquid. At that same place, they would perceive a glass of pus and blood and it would taste revolting. A hell being, at that same place, they would see that liquid would be molten lead and if they were to drink it, it would burn, it would burn through their bodies. A mosquito would see it as a place to lay its eggs.
A fish would see it as a complete environment. So, you what what we, our minds are conditioned that when they’re stimulated, they they think, you know, when, they think in such and such a way, something appears to our mind. Due to the conditioning factors in our mind, we react, we think good, we think bad, we think beautiful, we think table, we think all of these various labels that we’re continually applying. And then we we then we have the notion that these labels that we aren’t labeling the object, but that these characteristics that we are projecting up on the objects are coming from the side of the objects themselves. You know, when we see, you know, something stimulates our mind, some appearance, the mind reacts according to its conditioning, applies a label, thinks in a particular way with regard to the object and then that it it, imputes characteristics to the object, but it appears even though we’ve just imputed beauty with respect to the object or ugliness with respect to that friend or enemy all these various labels, table, whatever it might be, it appears that in fact that that characteristic is coming from the side of the object and coming back at us, that’s the illusory like quality.
It appears that, you know, that that that enemy is by his or her very nature disagreeable, unattractive. It appears that that, that, you know, that your your loved one is is glowing with attractiveness, with desirability from their own side. Isn’t you’re not imputing that. It’s not a projection from your side. That’s the illusory quality.
What it is what is it that makes us think and label and conceive and perceive the way that we do? Our minds have been conditioned by our past actions. That’s our karma. So when the Buddha said that the world is the three worlds are karma, the form realm, formless realm and desire realm are karma, that they come from the mind, he says, because they’re karma. We are involved in the cocreation.
There’s something there and the mind labels it. Creation. There’s something there and the mind labels it. And out of that emerges our present reality. We can look at these realms realms and I’m going to talk about these levels.
I’m going to talk about them in a rather figurative way not in a very clinical or methodical way because to get across the attitude, we’re talking about different modes of being, different ways of relating to our world and how these can, you know, in our daily life as human beings, how we can almost move through these six levels of states of being and how these attitudes might, if, you know, if they were given some kind physical representation, if if we could take, you know, the feelings of love or the feelings of hatred and give them give them some kind of form, what would they look like for us? You know, what would what would hatred look like to us if it could give some kind of visual form for ourselves? So, you know, trying to, you know, these real realms and levels, though they are conventionally real, you know, I’m not denying the existence. I’m not saying that hell realms don’t exist or the hungry ghosts the animals. Obviously, the animal realms exist.
We share that with the gods and, but they can be usefully thought of in terms of frozen projections of of, you know, projections of of, you know, habitual patterns of organizing our experiences in particular ways. So this is in a single day, we as human beings, we may experience the emotions associated with with all of these levels, but we we we are predominantly rooted in one of these. They resent they represent our particular version of reality. You know, the the it’s a particular channel that we’ve compulsively turned to. They are our our unique style of how we’re going to temper that we’ve temporarily adopted in our struggle to solve the fundamental problem of ignorance and of not being.
You know, if things don’t exist this way then they don’t exist at all. That’s the problem of ignorance. Know, what did they say? To be or not to be. If we are, anything is it must be solid, concrete, independent, inherently, truly existent.
If it’s not any of these it doesn’t exist at all. Then there’s nothing. There’s no thing. We thingify things and if they’re not things then they don’t exist at all. There’s no things.
But it’s difficult for us to even imagine that there’s another possibility, a way that things could exist. Even imagine it. That things don’t exist quite the way they appear to us. You know, it’s like trying to tell a fish what dryness is. It’s beyond their scope of experience so completely that they they think you’re fabricating.
It’s just, you know, stories. So I’m going to talk about these in six levels, but we can think attitudes of our mind could be given some kind of physical reality that we could relate with this frozen projection, solidifying of states of mind in a way. Anyway, try. So we begin with the God realm. That’s the top.
Six levels of desire realm. Top. In the desire realm, in the God realm, there’s a search for extreme mental and physical pleasure. So the whole orientation is pleasure orientated. There’s an, you know, there’s an attempt to to dwell on seductive goals of all kinds.
It might be, you know, you know, I’m talking about this as almost like a mentality that we experience as human beings. You know, this quality of mind when you completely, you know, seductive goals like health and wealth, beauty, fame. You know, this is where this is where the mind is at. Maybe like, you know, if you lived in Hollywood or something like that. Approach is is pleasure.
You know, it’s characterized. We begin to lose track of our rational hopes or fears. We become absorbed in, you know, the there are hopes and fears are temporarily at abeyance. We forget what why what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. Become so absorbed in it.
You know, like we’re consumed by whatever it is that we’re doing. You know, the tendency is it’s like regressing into kind of a womb state. We begin to develop, create a, grow or construct a cocoon around ourselves. You know, we’re working out some insulating ourselves from the hardcore realities of the world. You know, we we we just don’t want to we found some way to avoid having to deal with the petty annoyances of the real world in some way.
There’s a sense of wanting to numb numb ourselves, to become insensitive, to, you know, we we would rather turn ourselves off. We’d rather go back to sleep than wake. That kind of mentality. But that there always comes so we’re talking about a particular attitude approach that we probably have all had in one way or another, but there always comes some kind of disillusionment, you know, there our dream world, this pleasure world becomes a little bit shaky. You know, we the the womb goes into contractions.
You know, the the our cocoon begins to form little cracks. You know, the reality begins to seep in in some way, you know. We we can’t escape any longer. The anesthetic is wearing off. So so, you know, somehow our our our conscious demands to be heard, and we we can’t go back quite go back to sleep again.
We can’t quite pull the covers. You know, we we’d like to. We pull the covers and we get a little bit annoyed, you know, whatever it is that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s bringing us out of this, out of this state, you know, we, we, you know, we, you know, we’ve got to get back to work. Or there’s somebody knocking at the door. Or, you know, the the garbage has begun to smell.
It’s gotta I gotta take it out. You know, we just can’t quite go back to sleep again. And so we we we act with great with anger at what at whatever we identify with that is that is drawing us out from from this withdrawal from the world, our our little nest that we this insulated hideaway that we have developed for ourselves. And we have to move on to another way of relating to the world. So we we have to turn the channel now to another channel, another station.
So we we come to the level of the demigods. The demigods. Okay. Would you like to get a cup of tea? We’ll talk about some of this.
Sorry. I didn’t get very far. In Hollywood or something like that. They’re adulated and they have fame and beauty and lots of pleasure. And there’s not people don’t talk about nasty things and they don’t have to deal with it.
Yeah.