Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Sparked by a visiting teacher’s account of a woman who spent seventeen years on death row and reframed her cell as a meditation cave, Ven Jampa Gendun builds the prison as a sustained image throughout this 109-minute session to show how the eight worldly concerns become invisible walls — like explaining to a fish what water is. The session formally opens the second of Tsongkhapa’s three principal aspects of the path: the awakening heart. Gendun leads a guided loving-kindness meditation moving from self through strangers and enemies to all beings, then argues that love is understanding rather than sentiment, drawing on Thich Nhat Hanh and Lama Yeshe. He presents the Dalai Lama’s “wisely selfish” case for altruism and the aphorism that the psychology of misery is the pathology of epistemology. The session closes by naming two classical methods — seven cause-and-effect instructions and equalizing and exchanging self for others — as the road ahead.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 30 3PA 2007 11 12.mp3
UUID: 068480e0-6cd1-4f37-b80d-bbf6f00ad5ac
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 2006-2007 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2007-11-12
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 109.4 minutes
Words: ~10,374
How is everybody? How many people went to can you hear me okay? Yeah. How many people went to hear something of Robina? Wow.
Amazing, isn’t it? She’s quite fired up, wasn’t she? It was great. I’m thinking about changing my style. Oh, okay.
Well, dear, it’s not rocket science. Let me write that down. I was I guess, one thing that struck me, you know, maybe we can talk, you know, go over we can debrief over our discussion group. When he was talking about about the prisons, and the one woman who spent seventeen years on death row and I just thought that you know the image that she she brought up around, you know, you’re in this cell, know, this this iron cell, it’s not very nice. And you’ve got this guy sitting or a woman sitting, you know, couple a foot above your head, you know, and you’re going to be in there for maybe the rest of your life, and nothing’s going to change.
You know, the self isn’t going to change, the process of the judgment. Isn’t going to change. The prosecutor is not going to change. The judge is not going to change his mind. You you’re there, and you’re in this cell.
And what are you going to do about it? There’s nothing you can change. The physical circumstances are beyond your control. The fact that you’re there is beyond your control. What can you change?
So you you come down to some kind of choice, I guess. And I was thinking in our text, our three principal aspects of the path by Tsongkhapa. He mentioned, and we’re going to go over it maybe tonight, but probably next week. He says, Think about what is happening to your mothers, how they are swept along in the currents of the four raging rivers, are bound by the nearly unbreakable chains of compulsive actions and held in the iron grip of self grasping. So, you know, we can imagine these people in this cell.
It’s quite a vivid image, isn’t it? And like this woman who was on on death row for seventeen years, she decided she’s no longer in a cell. She’s in a cave. And the only thing that she can change is her mind. And as compared to the other fellow who went crazy, he just kept smashing his head against the wall.
He didn’t want to be there, but he didn’t have a choice. I, you know, I I was thinking, no. And how Lama Zopa replied to one of the prisoners who who wrote to one of the first prisoners of the Liberation Prison Project who was serving seven life sentences. I don’t know if they’re consecutive. I don’t know if they if they can do that or not.
And he he Lama Zopa said, you know, compared to the prison that the ordinary people in, your prison is nothing. And but we don’t really see these patterns of our mind, our attachments, and our jealousy, and our hatred as prisons don’t don’t do we? We’re kind of almost institutionalized to the extent where we don’t notice. How oppressed we are and how how much we are aren’t able to control our life the way we might like to live our life, the person we might want to be, what we might like to do with our life. Don’t have we probably don’t exercise or we don’t come across it because we don’t try to exercise much choice in the course of our life.
We go along with the, you know, what is what do they say, the eight worldly concerns in our preoccupation with avoidance of pain and the craving for pleasure, the craving for gain and the avoidance of loss, and the craving for gain, and so forth. You know, these are the eight rules for being a model prisoner in saṃsāra. As long as we go along with those, you know, we try to avoid pain at all costs. We try to our life is preoccupied with trying to gain various pleasures consistently, and we don’t want any type of loss. We only want gain.
Don’t want any criticism. We only want praise. We we only want we don’t want to be ridiculed in any way. We we only want, you know, to be thought of well and be famous or whatever. And this is and we don’t notice that we’ve created a prison for ourselves.
You know, these are kind of the the outer walls of the prison that we’ve created for ourselves. It’s very subtle, isn’t it? It’s like, I think, sometimes like trying to You know, what our teachers are trying to get across to ourselves is something Akin, I think, of trying to explain to a fish what is water. You know, it’s they have it’s the element in which they live. They don’t have it they don’t even know know it’s there, let alone what its characteristics are and become aware of it.
You know, it’s so pervasive, it goes unnoticed, the prison that we all live in. And this is why, you know, in in Tsongkhapa’s Three Principal Aspects of the path, the very first principle is developing this determination to be free. We do become we begin to notice our present situation and we begin to there’s a better life. There’s other possibilities, other alternatives and options open to ourselves. And, you know, it’s not a matter of either or, is it?
It’s, you know, it’s not as if it’s either saṃsāra or nirvana. It’s a matter of degrees. We can begin to make choices and begin to free ourselves with some of the chains that are holding us in this neurosis, these repetitive patterns of existence and thinking governing our lives, we can free it up a little bit and get a little bit of fresh air into ourselves. And we can, you know, see the sky once in a while. There’s still a sun out there, and it’s always been there.
We just, you know, been locked up so long we forgot all about it. So we develop a determination to awaken, to grow. I think that’s a wonderful thing. Just that feeling that that that sense that there’s something more to, you know, this is what we call this crazy, wild, precious life that we all are leading. You know, whatever our circumstances, there is there’s always the potential to make it meaningful.
We can there’s always something that we can begin to do to, you know, to to create the kind of life we we want for ourselves. And at least we can at least keep, you know, orientating ourselves, heading ourselves in the in the direction that we want to to move, the person we want to be, you know, twenty years from now, thirty years from now, a lifetime from now, however many. But anyway, I think in that in that there’s a little bit of nirvana, a little bit of freedom just in the trying and trying to live out our dreams as best we can and trying to build those foundations beneath the dreamed of life that we’ve all all built, those castles that we built in the in the air. And then we feel a self a sense of self respect. We feel good about ourselves.
We feel like we’re in touch with some deeper values, what our life represents, where there’s a certain authenticity. I think even that is a reward, isn’t it? Even that is worth the trouble, the legitimate suffering that we have to go through in doing what we’re doing. Even that, we can feel good about ourselves, and we can help others. I think that’s a wonderful thing to be able to do.
So the our inner focus of our life becomes Buddha, and this person that we want to be is a tremendously healthy, loving, sane human being. That’s kind of our orientation. We have to do something, don’t we? We have to we have to do our homework. You know, we have to do the necessary work to make it so, to put those foundations beneath those castles.
And we we have to practice. Practice the person that we want to be. You know, who we are is a learned experience. And whatever has been learned can be relearned. New learning can take its place.
We can we can relearn who we are. So this is our education process, training of our mind. It’s really quite fascinating, and I think it’s really worth our, you know, some of our time and energy that we’re putting into it. Makes life, I think, exciting and worthwhile. It’s a mobilizing, I think.
And we’re all sharing in this, aren’t we? We’re all like fellow travelers along this path, which is kind of nice. We’re all moving along together, you know, supporting one another. You know, I think, you know, I talk about I’ll talk about later. So this becomes our orientation, the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha, which we try to realize by means of the Dharma within the social context, this culture that we’re creating for ourselves here of the Sangha, the spiritual community, and again and again trying to raise the level of our motivation.
You know, again, just coming back to one person, you know, taking the time, you know, right now here, just seeing one person, if only one person. If you have the capacity, find two, three all sentient beings. Beginning with one genuine feeling that there’s someone out there, maybe a parent, a partner, a child, a friend that you’d like to be there for in some more significant way, a little more patient, a little more caring, little more understanding. In some way, you would really like to be there and be have the skill and ability to help them in some effective way to work with their problems to find happiness. That would make that would be fulfilling experience for you.
That would be worth the trouble being here tonight and educating ourselves and putting these various teachings into practice. That’s what I would like to get out of tonight. Even if it’s only one more step in that direction, that’s something. And I’m doing it just not for myself alone, but also for you. You know, it becomes personalized.
It becomes something very real and genuine. I’m doing it for some real flesh and blood person, not an abstraction, some idea of all sentient beings, but somebody I know and I want to be there for. So what I’m going to do tonight, this listening, meditating, discussing, this process of becoming what I want to be, I’m doing not just for my own self, but also for you. Kinda open your heart. I go for refuge until I’m awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.
Through the mere practice of my generosity and other perfections, may I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. You know, I we go one I go one week without a Monday night, and I forget all the things I’m supposed to be doing. Could we pass out the prayer sheets, please? I have to retrain myself. That’s why they don’t give me a break.
So if you’d like to recite along, this is kind of formalizing maybe some of the abstraction of what I said. 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 May I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings.
Go for refuge until I am awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha through my practice of generosity and the other perfections, may I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. May all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness. May all sentient beings be free from suffering 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 all the virtues of 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’d like to stand up and stretch, and then we’ll meditate. So, you know, we’re going to begin the second principle of the three principal aspects of the Path tonight. It’s a very auspicious occasion. The awakened heart. It’s an altruistic intention to achieve highest awakening for the sake of all sentient beings.
It’s even a lot to say, let alone do. And I thought we meditate on loving kindness. And when we move through through the process of loving kindness, we work with various individuals, beginning with ourselves, with the understanding that without developing a sincere wish to let ourselves be free of suffering, that we ourselves be happy. How could we ever develop a genuine wish that others be the same? You know?
We know our own experience directly, immediately. We only we can only, infer. We only know others’ experience secondhandedly. So if we’re ever going to we have to begin with ourselves. And then but then we we don’t leave it at that.
We we move on to others. Beginning with the various individuals, someone we are very close to, then a stranger, an enemy, someone that you don’t like. Maybe you don’t use the term enemy, but nonetheless someone you have problems with. And, you know, it’s a matter of just mentioning a few words around, you know, letting go, forgiving. It’s it’s it’s something that I think that we have to keep doing over and over, even with ourselves, but what to say about this.
You know, the what it might mean. You know, we’re not it’s not when we say forgive, it’s not a a misguided effort to somehow overlook the pain that we might feel or to suppress it to ignore it. We’re trying to understand all the conditions far and near which brought about that suffering experience and what happened. You know, and things that we might forgive, we’re not talking about forgetting. Things still may have to be said right.
You know, I mean, you might have to say, alright. You know, the nature of a relationship necessarily has to change or or I’m not going to allow that to happen again. You know, we’re not talking about becoming a doormat when we talk about forgiving. You know, forgiveness means giving up the hope for a better past, that the past could have been different, and as best you can to move on. We don’t we we’re trying to let go of the grudge, the wish to return harm.
It only is self defeating. It only hurts ourselves. It doesn’t hurt the other person who might hurt you. You might still feel hurt. You might feel betrayed, but we have to go let go of this desire to retaliate, to hurt back.
You know, we we we don’t we try to not put that person out of our heart. Yeah. So in some way, finding some inroad as a person suffering just like yourself. That’s the way we explain it. And just like ourself, we don’t always do as we might like to do.
But even if they did it intentionally, response. It’s our it our response that matters and taking control of your own mind and your own life and deciding what kind of person you want to be and how you’re going to respond to the hurt that other people have caused you. No. That’s our choice if we exercise it. If we don’t, then we’re we’re living in we’re just building this prison wall even thicker around ourselves.
We’re losing our our our most precious of gifts to constantly choose what it is that we want to make choices in our life. What this perfect, precious human life has given us, we lose that opportunity. We give it away. Anyway, I just wanted to mention that. Okay?
So we’re gonna go through this process. So beginning with relaxation of the body, working through the body, and then we’ll meditate mindfulness and breath. See what happens when I miss a Monday. We’ll begin with relaxation of the body, then we’ll do the six part breath exercise, breathing in comfortably normally, breathing out, extending the exhalation, you know, emptying the lungs, breathing in normally, again, comfortably, again, extending the exhalation, emptying the lungs, doing that six times individually. And then we’ll meditate on mindfulness of the breath, and then we’ll meditate on loving kindness, and I’ll lead you through that.
Okay? So taking a comfortable firm posture, you know, posture, you know, which is expresses body language. I’m in charge. This is my life. This is my mind.
I’m the authority. I’m going to decide, you know, what’s going to happen to my body and mind, at least for the next this meditation. And then firm like a mountain. Your back straight. And begin with relaxation, beginning at the crown of the head, the scalp, the forehead, feeling the wrinkles in your brow beginning to smooth out.
The pressure in and around your eyes diminishing the muscles of your face softening, relaxing. Your jaws relaxed. Moving to the muscles at the back of the neck. Perhaps gently turn your head to each side a few times. Just very gently stretching, loosening.
Relaxing the muscles of the throat. Moving down to the upper back and shoulders. Perhaps rotating your shoulders a few times, lifting them and allowing them to drop comfortably to the sides. Feeling this burden, this like a weight that we’ve been carrying around all day moving down and through your body into the ground. Some burden’s been lifted from your back.
Coming all the way down to your hands. Your hands are loose and soft. Relaxing the lower arms. The upper arms. Your chest is at ease.
Relaxing throughout the heart area and the lungs. And the central region of the back, Stomach. Releasing the tensions that we hold in our stomach muscles, just allowing your belly to go soft. Relaxing throughout the abdominal abdominal cavity and holding your trunk erect, relax your lower back muscles, Your buttocks. Throughout the upper legs.
And lower legs and your feet. I’m bringing awareness to your body in general. Just roughly scanning through the body, noticing any places of tension, tightness within the body, any areas of discomfort. And focusing upon those areas. Areas.
Consciously relaxing, softening, feeling the tightness loosen, the tension diminish. If there are any areas of discomfort don’t resist, don’t struggle against it, just allow it to be accepted. Just breathe gently into dissolving. Body becoming comfortable, at ease. A sense of physical well-being pervading every part of your body.
It’s a pleasure to be with the body. Just be with the body. Then we’ll practice the six part breath exercise breathing in comfortably normally, breathing out extending the exhalation, completely emptying the lungs and doing the same six times individually. When you’ve completed the six part exercise, bring your mind to the breath. Just the easy gentle in outflow of the natural breath.
If it’s helpful, use the techniques of counting and noting the breaths. Bring your mind back to the breath. Sitting up straight and tall. Bring your mind back to the breath. Now we’re going to meditate on loving kindness, and we’re going to begin with ourselves.
And whatever you may have done in the past, the various mistakes that you’ve created, you can just generate a healthy sense of regret, you can start again. And whatever you want to become in the future, you can become that. But just for this present moment, we want to become friends with ourselves, who we are as we sit here now with all our mistakes, with all our neurosis, all that we are. We want to simply be caring toward ourselves, be kind to ourselves, and wish ourselves well. So just generate and direct some kind feelings towards yourself.
May I be happy? May I grow? May I not suffer? May all the good things of life come to me. Wish yourself well.
Be generous with yourself. Now think of someone that you like, that you naturally care about, and imagining that person there in front of you. If you can’t see them, it’s not so important. Just imagine that these feelings are being directed toward them, and think about all the good times that you’ve shared together, the all the many kindnesses that this person has shown you. And begin to, to direct out, to radiate out towards this person, the kind caring feelings which naturally arise when you think of this person in this way.
Wishing them to be happy that they not suffer. May you have all the good things of life. I would like to see a smile on your face. May you never may you be out of harm’s way. May you be happy.
Wish them well. Wish them happiness. Now think of someone that you neither like and dislike, a stranger that you feel indifference toward, maybe somebody that you see from time to time in a shop office or on the street or someone on television, someone you don’t know, you don’t have much thought about them, any feelings about them. The one thing you can know about this person is that they want to be happy. They don’t want to suffer just like yourself.
That’s their story, the bottom line of their life. You know that about them. They’re a feeling being just like yourself. And just as you wish yourself happiness and not to suffer, just extending that same feeling to a fellow human being just like yourself. Simply honor the goodness of your heart, the generosity of your heart.
Simply wish them well. Just direct radiate out some kind caring thoughts toward this person. This person to be happy. They don’t want to suffer. Wish them that they had that happiness that they didn’t suffer.
Now think of someone that you have some problems with, someone perhaps you don’t like. Imagine that person there in front, just feel that they’re there. This person wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer just exactly like yourself, no difference whatsoever. And perhaps their method of finding their happiness, getting rid of their suffering has come in conflict with your methods of finding your own happiness. Getting rid of your own suffering, but it’s just the conflict of self interest.
And just as you have to begin to forgive yourself for the mistakes that you’ve made in the past, perhaps it’s time to begin to forgive this person for the mistakes that they’ve made. We’re all confused. We’re all under the control of afflictions. We have to be very forgiving with everyone. So just for this present moment, set aside your hurt, your grudge, just for this present moment and try to see someone very much like yourself trying the best they can to get some happiness out of life and making many mistakes along the way.
And just for this present moment, set aside your hurt, your grudge. Let go and wish them well as best you can. Just let go. Don’t carry it around with you anymore. And then all the people in this room and the people who are just like yourself trying to take responsibility for their lives, trying to grow, trying to make some wise choices in their life, radiate out a wish to everyone in the room that they find whatever it is they’re looking for, whatever would make them happy, wish that they had it.
Wish them well. Just radiate out a wish of kindness and well-being to everyone in the room. Extending this wish out to all the Burnside people in their homes cooking, watching television, on the streets, in the cars, dancing. Extending this wish out further and further to all of Adelaide, people on the buses and trains and cars and people in department stores and offices and factories and their homes walking on the streets. Further and further to almost South Australia, Melbourne, Hobart, Sydney, Brisbane, Cairns, Alice Springs, Darwin, Perth, entire country.
And eastward to New Zealand and northward to East Timor and Indonesia, Malaysia. Southeast Asia and all of Asia and Africa, South America, North America. Just have the feeling that as if 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 upon the planet is being touched by your wish that they’d be happy, that they not suffer. All the living being. And direction, directing this wish out to, you know, all the directions of space.
Further and further without any feelings of limitation, without any limits. Until finally boundaries, without any center, evading all of infinite space to wish me all be happy. May there be only happiness. May there be peace. Just be the peace.
And then bring your mind back to the breath. And then getting in touch with your body, perhaps the pressure of your buttocks on the seat, on the cushion, the pressure of your feet on the floor, noticing the positions of the various parts of your body. Just get in touch with your body. And then in a gentle and relaxed manner, just slowly connect up with the room about you, taking your time. There’s no hurry.
Should we stretch and stand up? It’s getting warm, isn’t it? No. Go ahead. Yeah.
I’ll speak very loudly. No. Go ahead. Okay. So we’re looking at the three principal aspects of the path, the will to awaken, the awakened heart, and the awakened mind.
Guess, you know, just perhaps put it in more simpler terms, more relevant terms. We’re trying to develop a real determinant real energizing ourselves to get unstuck. You know, it’s not hard. It’s not easy to change these patterns, these habits, these ways of thinking. There’s a all of our experiences are kind of channeling us back into repeating the same ways of thinking and acting and so forth.
We have these repeating patterns of existence that we’re trying to break free of this, and it requires some determination, a lot of determination, I think. I think, you know, we all know that just to give up smoking is not easy. You know? What to say of more subtle, more ubiquitous ubiquitous by the types of patterns which are governing our lives, the the walls that we don’t see, which are keeping us imprisoned. The, you know, the prisons of hatred and attachment, the prisons of jealousy.
So but we must say we’re trying to develop the determination to be free. But how you know, what ways are we to grow? How are we to develop? We want peace with inside of ourselves. We want to give up the struggle, which we’re all involved in almost constantly, all the time, in one way or another, to, you know, to set aside the burden.
So we need some peace with inside of ourselves. But that’s not, that doesn’t cover the full range range of human experience, simply being peaceful inside yourself. And then I try to I think if we look at ourselves, I think, you know, we have to we see that there’s another dimension to our being aside from our own internal experiences, this private world, which is inaccessible to others. We we exist. We are social beings.
We exist in a world without us. We can’t we can’t evade that. It’s the nature of our what it means to be a human being. Even if you go off into the Himalayas into a cave, that’s the way of relating with other human beings. We live with other people.
Somehow, we have to find a skillful and meaningful way of being in this world with others. Not it’s just an not a matter of finding some kind of isolated piece for ourselves. That would be only a partial understanding or realization of our potential. We have to find the most meaningful, skillful way that we can be in this world and others is through the mode of love and compassion. So, you know, we there’s no real there’s not really any choice in the matter.
We have to learn how to love. We have to find peace within ourselves and how to skillfully and fearlessly express that love in the outside world and to be with others and to benefit others and to help others. That’s the best way we we can be in this world. That’s the optimum way of being. We call that a Buddha, someone who can bring about the best possible outcomes in in the the various situation that life is continually bringing up for ourselves.
So what how do what when we say we have to grow, we have to change. Buddhism is saying that let’s grow in terms of our hearts, but also our minds. Let’s grow in terms of our ability to love and our ability to see deeply into the nature of reality. Those are the two directions of the path, the awakened heart, the awakened mind. So now we’re beginning to look second of these, these three principal aspects of the path, trying to open our hearts.
Tsongkhapa says in his text, he says, But even such a will, let us say the will to awaken, if not conjoined with the complete opening of your heart, does not serve as the cause for the perfect bliss of highest awakening. So though we want to change, if it’s not conjoined with, you know, this with love, we’re not going to become the best possible person we could ever hope to be. You know? Our story will be always incomplete in some way. You know, it’s like, you know, what are we going to do?
It’s like, you know, we’re we’re on the end of a diving board. You know, you you got your bathers on, and there you are standing at at the edge of the board. You know, what do you do? You jump. You know?
You overcome your hesitation. And about giving you know, we we are attracted to our cocoons, this this this little comfort zone that we worked out for ourselves, almost like a cell for ourselves. And we’re afraid of selflessness. We’re afraid of actually getting involved in the in the nitty gritty of others. You know?
Sentient beings are a hassle, aren’t they? People are a hassle. We’d rather not be bothered. But in a way, we have to work out a way of being in this world without it. We don’t have any choice, you know, really, when it comes down to it.
It’s you know, if if we continually avoid the challenges of being with other people, then we’re never going to grow in that way. And we’re never going to be the best possible person, you know, that we could ever hope to be about ourselves and what we could do in our lives. So this leap, you know, like leaping off the end of the board is the awakening of our hearts, The overcoming about our hesitation and giving up this nice little comfort zone, this little cocoon that we worked out for ourselves, which really doesn’t work anyway. And committing ourselves in some small way. I know we’re, you know, we take little steps to the welfare of others.
You know, mental health is ultimately a social phenomenon. We’re social beings. What it means to be healthy, part of that necessarily involves love. And I don’t mean in a romantic sense or a sentimental sense. You know, part of the human dilemma, part of our problem is that we’re so very much wrapped up in our own problems to oftentimes the to the exclusion and oftentimes the expense of others.
So opening up and responding to the world of others. And some, you know, we open trying to open up our hearts, overcoming our our inertia and our stuckness and summing up the inner strength, you know, to be there for others, the courage necessary to crawl out of these cocoons that we keep spinning for ourselves in one way or another. You know, we need, you know, we keep emphasizing, this idea that we need two wings. We need, we need both a loving heart and intelligent mind. We need integration of our affective, our our emotional aspects of our being, but also in terms of our cognitive, our intellectual aspects of ourselves.
We need both of those. We need to integrate those. We need a wise heart and a loving mind. And then the psychology there’s a there’s a I might have mentioned this term before. You know, the first time you hear it, it’s kind of baffling.
The psychology of misery is the pathology of epistemology. You can put that on your dashboard. The psychology of misery is the pathology of epistemology. It’s the psychology of misery, the psychology of our suffering. That is the nature in terms of our own minds.
What is the problem? What is the cause of the difficulties we’re always experiencing? The dissatisfaction, the disappointments, the frustration. It’s the pathology. Pathology means not healthy, diseased, bad, not good, of our epistemology.
Epistemology is the study of how we know. We know things in wrong ways, bad ways, diseased ways. We see our world through a glass darkly. Dysfunctional ways that we are approaching our life. We have these tools that we’ve developed, that we’re working with, and they’re not calibrated correctly.
Our levels are off. Our planes aren’t straight. Our souls are crooked. And then what kind of house can you build for yourself, even if no matter how hard you struggle, how hard you try? The only real method to go beyond such a way of life is is to grow in love and wisdom, to overcome our self centeredness, ness, to overcome our ignorance.
And these are the most basic dysfunctional tools that we’re making use of to try to find happiness and peace and well-being in our lives, and they don’t work. They don’t work, but we still we persist. We keep using them. We haven’t learned. We haven’t we keep missing the life the lessons that life continually bring us, so we keep dismissing or we keep forgetting those lessons that we once learned.
The reason that we don’t help one another, don’t have time for one another, we don’t have, you know, we don’t have energy for one another is because we don’t understand one another. We don’t even understand ourselves. There’s a this is by Thich Nhat Hanh. I mean, most of you are familiar with Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese monk usually based in France at Plum Village. Suppose we have a son who becomes an unbearable young man.
It may be hard for us to love him. That is natural. In order to be loved, a person should be lovable. If our son has become difficult to love, we will be very unhappy. We wish we could love him, but the only way we can is to understand him, to understand his situation.
We have to make our son as the subject of our meditation. Instead of taking the the concept of emptiness of some other subject, we can take our son as the concrete subject for our meditation. We don’t blame our son. We just want to understand why he has become like that. Through this method of meditation, we find out all the causes near and far that have led to our son’s present state of being.
The more we see, the more we understand. The more we understand, the easier it is for us to have compassion and love. Understanding is love itself. Understanding is another name for love. Love is another name for understanding.
So, you know, when I say, you know, that we’re not talking about some romantic notion of love or some sentimentality, it’s based in understanding and and actual coming to see what is the nature of our of our actual lived experience and how it’s evolved. And then what if we see that for ourselves, we will we can have some real compassion for ourselves, and we can begin to wish ourselves we’ll have some love for ourselves. We can just, you know, quit blaming ourselves, seeing ourselves as deficient people, but understanding the the situation that we’ve got ourselves caught up in. And we can extend that same all that we’ve learned in developing the will to awaken, that same understanding, we can begin to extend to all other living beings. And we can begin understanding all others.
We can begin to love them, perhaps, for the first time. You know? It’s not a matter of tit for tat. You you do me good. I’ll do you good.
You know? That’s not love. That’s a banker’s mentality. Keeping a ledger book. Love is concerned with the other.
Understanding the nature of our own pain, we can begin to love others and we begin to determine, you know, understanding our own situation. This is what we went through in all the various our educated process in developing the will to awaken. I determined I I went to I gotta change. And all the various steps that we took, because we now we understand our situation. Perhaps in understanding ourselves, we can begin to love ourselves.
And simply taking that, you know, that compassion, that love that we develop for ourselves, same love and compassion, we just change the object, and now it becomes other because they’re exactly the same situation as ourselves. They too want to be happy. Nonetheless, though though they want to be happy, they’re not happy. They don’t want to suffer. And though they don’t to suffer, nonetheless, they’re still suffering, just like ourselves.
No difference. You Beneath the superficial differences, we’re all very much alike, all of us here, you know, essentially. Essentially. You know? So we’re not unique in that in that in that way.
So we can understanding our situation, understanding the nature in its in its deeper sense, we can extend that quite we can begin to readily extend that to a growing number of others and truly love, and it’s possible. You know, taking taking some kind of realistic responsibility for others, for even for beginning with ourselves. You know, to take responsibility has the notion if you if if if if we if responsibility, the taking of responsibility is to have any real meaning at all, we we have to develop the ability respond. Otherwise, it’s just a wishful thought. It may be quite noble thought, but it’s still simply a matter of wish in our mind.
If we really are intent upon taking responsibility, then we will we then we will develop the ability, the necessary abilities, so that we can respond. You know, there’s a there’s a nice story. I don’t know if I can remember it very well. I haven’t I couldn’t find the source. I used to know it well.
It’s a there’s a one of my, I guess, what do you say, one of my heroes. But when I was growing up was Thomas Merton. Thomas Merton is a he’s dead now. He’s a Trappist was a Trappist monk or Carthusian monk. Anyway, a Catholic monk.
He did a lot of translating of texts, books, stories from the one of them was the wisdom of the desert fathers. And these were the desert fathers who lived on Egypt, you know, around the fourth or fifth century after Christ. And then this story is that of two of these desert fathers. You know, they were hermits and they lived in each isolated from each other in their caves. And it so happened that one of the fathers was looked upon as a very gentle and caring.
And, you know, if if if people who wanted to go for a confession, they would come to him if they wanted easy penance penance. You know? Those who the other father was the extreme opposite. He was very wrathful and gave very difficult penances, you know, if people came to him for, you know, some people were on a real guilt trip, they’d go to the to the heavy duty father father, you know, he would really give them a hard time and people would go, oh, no, I feel okay. So, but it so happened that both of these fathers simultaneously, they began to question their vocation, their calling.
Doubts began to creep into their mind about if this was in fact what they should be doing with their life. And then they began their face became a little bit shaky, and they became afraid. And they each thought to themselves that perhaps, you know, the the gentle father thought, I’ll go visit the wrathful father. He didn’t call him that, I don’t think. But, anyway, just for give him a name.
The wrathful father. He said, I’m going to go visit the wrathful father, and perhaps he can help me help me to restore my faith, to get to get back to my vocation. This is what I want to do. And simultaneously, the wrathful father thought, maybe perhaps if I visit the father, he can help me. He can, you know, this dark night of the soul that I seem to be experiencing.
So it so happened they set off for each of the each other’s caves, and it was a two day’s journey. And they came upon each other at the end of the first day’s journey at the same campsite. And the wrathful father said to the gentle father, but they didn’t recognize each other. They didn’t know who each other were. They only knew where each of them lived.
They had never seen each other before. And the wrathful father said to the gentle father, where are you traveling to? And the gentle father explained, well, there is a there is a a hermit who is very wrathful but very wise. And I’m going to he’s only a day’s journey from here, and I’m going to visit him. I’ve had some doubts in my mind about my vocation, about my calling, and I’m going through a difficult period, and I I hope to regain my faith.
And I thought if he he could help me. And the wrathful father said he he said, oh, I’m I’m the person that you came to see. Come along to my to my cave with me. Come home with me. So the the gentle father and the wrathful father, they went back to the wrathful father’s cave.
And the wrathful father said, now I want you to live with me for some time. And the people would come to do confessions before the wrathful father. The gentle father, he served the wrathful father for almost one year. And he saw how he acted, the various advice he gave to the various people who came to him, his various practices that he, his contemplations and so forth that he involved himself in. And finally after one year, the gentle father went to the wrathful father and said, father, thank you for all that you’ve done for me.
Watching you and listening to you, I have gained regained my faith. I have regained my calling. And now I’m going to take my leave. I want to thank you for all that you’ve done for me. I found my faith.
And the wrathful father, he said, you know, it’s been a year now. And you remember that one year ago when we met out on the desert at that campsite, and you explained to me that the difficulties that you were going through. You know, I did I’ve never told you this, but I was coming to see you. I too was experiencing exactly what you experienced. I was having doubts about my calling, my vocation.
And the gentle father said to the wrathful, well, why didn’t you say anything that night? Why didn’t you tell me that you were experiencing the same doubts and going through the same difficulties as I was going through? And the wrathful father said, if at that moment one of us had not been strong, we would have both been lost. So, you know, even within our selfishness, even within our self centeredness, there are moments when another person, you know, elicits in us, draws out of us our own inner strength, you know, that, you know, our capacity. We go beyond the limits that we conceive of ourselves.
You know, we the the we we find some kind of wider dimension of our being. There’s sort of the abolition of this temporarily imposed isolation and loneliness that we that we actually touch another living being. And sometimes, you know, I was talking, I think it was last Thursday with a and and and most of you people, many of you people have experienced this, you know, in the sense that especially with a when the first day a first child, you know, how many times parents are just they’re amazed at what they’re able to do, you know, physically and mentally. What you know, here’s this being that’s that’s completely dependent upon them. Without their care, this little being is going to die would die.
That’s the reality. And they respond. If they go beyond what they normally thought they could ever do in terms of their physical strength, in terms in terms of their stamina, in terms of their power to love, and to be there, to do what’s needed. And that others can draw out our inner strength in that way, can help us to go beyond our self imposed limits, this repeating loop of self talk about who we are and what we can do, which keep us stuck. If we need to, we will.
If we if we need to respond, we’ll find the inner strength, the inner skill, the way to go about doing it if we if we need to. And this is the way you grow, isn’t it? And then may maybe we would never do that for ourself. Chances are we won’t. But if somebody is completely dependent upon us, we’ll find a way.
You know? We live up to the necessity of the situation, this circumstance. Necessary. In invention is the mother of and then necessity is the invention is the mother of invention. Necessity is the mother of invention.
If if we need to, we will. If we need if we don’t need to, we probably won’t. So, you know, the this is the way that we can be wisely selfish. And this is I read you a paragraph by a quote by Lama Yeshe. As the Dalai Lama has said, if you’re going to be selfish, at least be wisely selfish.
What he means by this peculiar sounding advice is that in a way, bodhicitta, so bodhicitta is a Sanskrit term, which I’m using the term awakened heart, is like a huge selfish attitude. When you dedicate yourself to others with loving kindness, you get back far more happiness than you could ever experience otherwise. Ordinarily, we get so little happiness, and it is easily lost. So if you want to be happy as possible, the only way to do it is to dedicate yourself wholeheartedly to the welfare of others. When some people hear about bodhicitta, they confuse it with a sentimental, highly emotional state of mind.
Oh, how I want people to be happy. I cannot stand to think of their suffering. They feel so overwhelmed by the needs of others that their minds become depressed. But true bodhicitta is not like this. It has nothing to do with such an upset and paralyzed state of mind.
Instead, it is clear and easygoing, possessing a calm wisdom as well as a deeply felt compassion. It is an attitude of opening our hearts completely and leaving it open as much as we can. So, you know, this is, this is like the, I guess, the pragmatic approach. You know, we’re trying to, why should we do this? Why should I care about anybody else?
What have ever done for me? What am I gonna get out of it? There has to be some kind of payoff. Pleasure and pain take priority over logic, over, you know, over all our intellectual ideas. That’s where we’re at, the bottom of line.
So, we have to we have to see what are the advantages of opening my heart, of making this effort. It’s it’s not easy. I I better get something out of it. What are the disadvantages? So, we’re trying to look at it from as many points of view as possible.
One way it is, it’s pragmatic in the sense that we’re going to grow. We’re going to become so much more of a person than we could ever hope to imagine to be the more we care for others, to to to be able to respond to what they need. Their needs are infinite and universal. Ours are narrow and only very unique. At best, we could the skill to find a little to to shore up you know, patch up my cocoon that I’m working out for myself.
That’s probably what you know, the most effort that we’ll probably make for ourselves. But when that baby needs you, you you’ll be there for it, you know, no matter what it takes. If you if if it matters to you, and you become that much more of a person, that much more inner strength and skill. But, also, strength and skill, but also within our own experience. Again, Lama Yeshe.
So often we make such a fuss out of insignificant events in our life that we turn minor difficulties into major problems. As we develop the universal view of bodhicitta, however, these small concerns become unimportant and no longer bother us. As this burden of self concern drops from our shoulders, we experience a small taste of what complete freedom of the complete freedom that comes from the full spiritual fulfillment. Experiences like this are encouraging because they demonstrate so convincingly the practical day to day value of training and transforming our minds. You know, as I mentioned before, one of our biggest problems is that we’re completely wrapped up in our own problems.
We compound our problems, and life’s difficult enough as it is without creating more difficulties for ourselves, by trying to find happiness for only ourselves. And then there’s, you know, just the, you know, but there’s also I think, and I think this is very real and I think it needs to be acknowledged that there’s something, something intuitive or something that speaks to deep to our souls. I don’t use the word soul very often because it can be quite misinterpreted, but it’s a nice word. And when you use it kind of poetically, you know what I mean? Something a very deep part of ourselves.
The inarticulate whisperings of our own hearts that we need to listen to, that we’re quite often out of touch with, we’ve grown deaf to in some ways. And this is a verse by Shelley, the poet. For when the power of imparting joy is equal to the will, the human soul requires no other heaven. For when the power of imparting joy is equal to the will, the human soul requires no other heaven. You know, we we we’re not we don’t have to be saints or we don’t have to be superhumans.
We don’t want but we need to at least try to, in some small part, to live the life of our waking dreams, to be authentic, to live out our deeply held values. That’s terribly important, isn’t it? You know, we’re talking about something something more than normality here, isn’t it? Something more than just the present pleasure pain principle. We have to respect ourselves.
We we have to we have to like ourselves. We may have to feel that that some part of our life is being lived out of a very unique and personal part of ourselves. You know, a part which we may not fully comprehend, but but which we we believe in, in which which brings meaning to our life. You know, the intellect requires proof and demonstration. The soul requires belief and meaning.
And it is our souls which we are out of touch with, which which we are in danger of losing. So a part of ourselves which we when we are one with, we feel a oneness with ourselves. We feel a wholeness, an incompleteness is made full. And we feel our and oneness with the world about us. We feel at home.
We feel comfortable. The struggle is momentarily suspended. We just have to try. That’s all we’re talking about is trying, just making that effort. And then some kind of piece is there in your heart.
And then some the split in your being is healing. This is Suzuki Roshi. Suzuki Roshi was an American Zen master. Not an American, but he was a Japanese Zen master who lived in San Francisco for a number of years. He wrote a very, very beautiful book called Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.
It’s a very, very nice book. The result is not the point. It is the effort to improve ourselves that is valuable. There are four Buddhist vows. These vows are: Although sentient beings are innumerable, we vow to save them.
Although our evil desires are limitless, we vow to be rid of them. Although the teaching is limitless, we vow to learn it all. Although Buddhism is unattainable, we vow to attain it. If it is unattainable, how can we attain it? But we should.
That is Buddhism. To think because it is possible, I will do it is not Buddhism. Even though it is impossible, we have to do it because our true nature wants us to. But actually, whether or not it is possible or not is not the point. If it is our inmost desire to get rid of our self centered ideas, we have to do it.
When we make this effort, our inmost desire is appeased, and nirvana is there. You know, we we are we are selfish people, but we can try to be wisely selfish by trying to cherish others. So, you know, it’s not unrealistic, but even compellingly practical that we should try to develop a natural, rational, instinctively powerful altruism. Altruism is the most readily available remedy for our psychological ills. Just caring about other people.
Love. You know, we’re talking about mental health. Love is the most powerful remedy that we have available to us at present to, you know, we’re not talking this isn’t some complex philosophy or some kind of flight into some kind of fantasy. I don’t think so. It’s a simple pragmatic state statement about life and how to best live it.
The awakened heart, this internal revolution against the tyrannies of normality in our society. You know, to be normal in a society is at best to to what? To to is a way to cope. But coping is not good enough. Now we don’t why practice Buddhism?
No. We’re we’re not here simply to cope. We we we are asking so much more than that. And then, again, Thomas Merton. You know, we’re talking about normality of our society.
You know, what what people are. You know, this society of our of our the standards, the criteria, which which run people’s lives bigger, better, more. You know? Is that all there is? Is that the measure of what a life can be, of what a successful life could look like?
Simply bigger, better, more. And so I ask myself, what is the meaning of a concept of sanity that excludes love, considers it irrelevant, and destroys our capacity to love other sentient other human beings, to respond to their needs and their sufferings, to recognize them also as persons, to app to apprehend their pain as one’s own. You know, I I think I would the need for love is like an inconvenient truth. I was reading this book by Lama Zopa, letters from Lama Zopa. He wrote a letter to Al Gore thanking him for his movie Inconvenient Truth and I think sometimes maybe love is like an inconvenient truth.
It’s something just as necessary but it’s a bit inconvenient and it’s a bit of a hassle to learn how to love, to how to how to relate with other sentient beings. These you know? Who causes who are difficult. You know? Other sentient beings are a hassle, aren’t they?
But we have to learn how to love them. That’s an inconvenient truth, I think. So the awakening heart is so far removed from from our everyday attitudes that we might think it, oh, it’s only for saints. It’s only for special people. You know, the Dalai Lama’s, the Mahatma Gandhi’s, the Martin Luther Kings, the Mother Teresa’s of the world, you know?
Not poor me. Not ordinary me, shmo that I am. And we kind of think that Mother Teresa’s, the Dalai Lama’s, the Martin Luther King’s, they’re kind of like almost as if they’re from Mars, another planet, you know, different species than ourselves, something qualitatively different than ourselves. They have these loving electrons and compassionate protons, altruistic atoms in their body. They come from a different planet.
They aren’t like ourselves. They have to work through their discouragements. They didn’t have struggles like us. They didn’t have to experience failures like us. And, of course, of awakening their hearts.
They awoken their hearts. They just did it like we can do it. They’re not different than us. So, you know, we can’t at present, you know, we might not be able to conceive of ourselves with like them. What it what, you know, what is a mind of a Dalai Lama?
What a Dalai Lama thinks and feels? Or what the, you know, the compassion of a Martin Luther King who who who forgives his enemy from moment to moment or a Mahatma Gandhi or the compassion of a mother Teresa and these people. And though we not we we not may not be able to presently conceive it or feel it, we doesn’t mean that we can’t develop it. You know, it’s perhaps it’s not fit doesn’t fit in with our present imagination, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t develop it. We can’t be that.
The nature of the mind is clear and knowing. This word clear can have various meanings. One of the meanings is that it doesn’t inherently exist. It doesn’t have inherent qualities. You know, the stuff of mine is like clay.
You You can depending upon your skill and your determination, you can make of that wet lump of clay the transcended sculpture of a a Michel angelo, something tremendously beautiful, inspiring. Or you can make of your mind an ashtray. People put out their cigarette butts in. And it’s all it’s it has those potentials. And and we we we it is our in our control.
If we if we take control to choose which one of those are we will make up our mind. That’s our choice. You know, we we we couldn’t, you know, five, ten years ago, we couldn’t quite conceive of what we would be thinking now. You know, the various thoughts that we would have in our mind, the types of changes in our attitude, the way that we think now. But we changed.
Our minds changed haphazardly over that period of ten or twenty years. But just think if it wasn’t haphazard, if we actually directed that change. You know, we can’t quite imagine what that mind would be like, but we can begin to direct ourselves in that way. At present, we find it difficult to conceive ourselves as being any anyone else than we are now. But that should not stop us from setting off in the direction of the person that we want to be, even though it might be beyond our present imagination.
We simply, you know, we’re trying to implement these strategies, these good teachings, this good medicine. And and pointing ourselves and repointing ourselves again and again in the direction that we want our life to go. And just that trying. You know, the our only limitations are those we acknowledge. So we’re gonna we’re going to look at the the two the two meditative traditions for the development of an awakened heart, the seven cause-and-effect instructions and the equalizing and exchanging self for others.
And I said, we, I mean, we have the methods to work with. It’s just a matter of implementing, working with these methods. And then the result will arise. It’s a dependent arising. So should we have a cup of tea?
And then we’ll sit around and have a discussion. Okay.