Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. What does genuine compassion look like — and can it break through twelve years of failed meditation? In this 110-minute session, Ven Jampa Gendun opens with a sharp challenge: whether Dharma practice reflects real inner change, or whether practitioners become “zombies going through the motions.” A guided self-appreciation meditation moves through recent time periods before extending goodwill to friend, stranger, and enemy. The doctrinal core is equanimity as the foundation of the seven cause-and-effect instruction for cultivating an awakening heart. Gendun tells the story of Asaṇga’s twelve-year retreat, where three near-defeats give way to a breakthrough through compassion for an injured dog. He then examines how habitual labelling — friend, enemy, stranger — traps us in projection, drawing on Thomas Merton and Christ’s “love your enemies” to show equanimity not as detachment but as the open ground from which genuine love grows.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 31 3PA 2007 11 26.mp3
UUID: ec09b36d-8554-4d36-9f77-cd6f72980ee5
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 2006-2007 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2007-11-26
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 110.5 minutes
Words: ~10,344
How is everybody? Okay. So we begin by adjusting our motivation. I was I’ve been reading a book recently, and it pointed out the fact that as we grew up, when we were small children, were always seeking the approval of our parents, the love of our parents. It makes us feel safe and secure, protected.
Quite often, whenever we did something that we thought that it was approved of, that was said to be good. We behaved in a good fashion. We said, oh, our parents would say, oh, you’re you’re a you’re a good little boy or you’re a good little girl. So we we began associate doing good things with being good, that I’m good. And, you know, this served its function.
This has worked well. But when we became adults, we held on to that notion that by doing good things, we were good people. If we acted in our behavior compassionately, then we must be compassionate. If we acted in our behavior as caring, then we must be caring. And so sometimes think we can take the outward forms of certain behaviors and certain ways of acting and assume that this is an expression of an internal state of being.
But maybe it’s not always the case, is it? And of doing all these various spiritual activities that we may be involved in. They may take the outward forms of spiritual activities, but we have to question, is our mind in a spiritual state? Though we practice the outward form of Dharma, is our mind the Dharma? So this is what I think it’s terribly difficult to examine our mind and come to some surety of what is the state of our mind, where it is that we’re actually coming from in what we do.
But nonetheless, we have to try because the quality of the action, no matter what its external appearance may be, is determined by the quality of the motivation behind it, the intention, the reason for, the why. I think it’s quite challenging. It’s a bit of a hassle, actually, to keep checking up. I think otherwise we can be a, I don’t know, what do call it, zombie practitioners, just going through the motions if we’re not careful. And we don’t want that.
Life passes and nothing much really changes in terms of the quality of our minds and therefore the quality of our lives. There’s one famous, probably not so famous, but anyway, a Jewish theologian by the name of Martin Buber, who wrote a very really excellent book called I and Thou. And in it he said, If I am not for myself, who will be? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if I’m not now, when?
You know, if I’m not for myself, who’s going to who’s going to be? If I don’t take responsibility for my own mind and my own life, how can I expect anyone else? It’s quite dishonest in a way. And if I’m only concerned with myself, what kind of life story am I telling about myself in terms of what is a successful life? As if life could be defined in terms of what happens inside this skin encapsulated ego of mine.
As long as I in terms of gaining inner realizations for oneself, some way I could find a fulfilling, meaningful life, simply in that way. You know, overlooking the fact that we, of ourselves, exists in relationship to others in this world of ours. I think this is what the Mahāyāna, or the universal vehicle, is trying to emphasize to ourselves. We have to find some meaningful, fulfilling, purposeful way of being in this world with other people as a criteria of what it means to really lead a successful life. It’s not a romantic notion or a sentimental notion.
It’s a necessity of life. It’s challenging. People are a hassle quite often, but we have to learn to love them. You know, the most skillful way that we can be in this world with others, we call love, altruism, whatever you like. It’s just the best way that we can be in this world, a way that we can relate with other people, wishing them well and taking their problems as seriously as we do our own, and, you know, expanding some of our time and energy into benefiting them as well as ourselves.
And then I think we can that could be more of an exact measure of what a successful life might really look like. So, you this I think the practice of Dharma can be a practice of spiritual materialism, but it can also be simply a way of extending our problems, another way of being completely absorbed in finding my happiness, finding my peace, gaining my realizations. And it may not be serving our purpose as well as we think. So, you know, we have to be wisely selfish if we’re going to be selfish at all. Keep coming about.
You know, we’re here tonight. Okay. What is tonight? It’s Monday night, the twenty sixth, and they’re in Buddha House in Adelaide. So, you know, this this moment moment that we’re here together, this is a very precious moment.
It’s like the only moment we have, in a way, this moment of now. The future simply exists within our imagination, the time when we’re going to practice and when we’re going to implement these teachings in some meaningful way in our life. That’s a fantasy in the future, and we can’t practice in the past. That’s gone. That’s finished.
It only exists in our memory. If we’re going to change our minds and change our hearts, it is at this moment, this silly, mundane moment, this ordinary moment that we have right now. There’s no other moment than now. So we have to It’s not a matter of my words or the talk or the surroundings. It’s like we have to accept the challenge of going into ourselves.
And at this very moment, not some other moment, very moment, changing our minds. What I’m doing now, I’m doing not only for myself. I want to be happy, sure. I have every right to work toward that happiness. But my happiness simply isn’t defined in terms of what happens to this single person, that I have a greater vision than that, or I would like to aspire to that.
Some way I could be in this world with others, I could find a home with others in this world of ours. The more I am, the more I have to give. And I would love to be able to give more and more. And this is the way, through this education process, through this listening, reflecting and meditating, I’ll have more and more to give. So what I’m doing now is just not for my own piece of chocolate cake, the way I like chocolate cake.
That’s fine. But even if for one other person out there, I can be there for them in a more significant way. You know, I can be a little more understanding, little more patient, a little more caring than perhaps I’ve been in the past. I can make one other person a little more happy. I can help them work through some of their difficulties.
That would make this night, this Monday night, the twenty sixth of November, a worthwhile night to have spent, even though it’s simply an ordinary day amongst my many ordinary days of my life. It can be significant. I can make it significant. I can make it meaningful. The Pali word for path is patipada.
Patipada, very simple. It means putting one foot in front of the next. That’s what a path is constituted of. So tonight, I take a little step. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but tonight I can take a little step.
And the place I want to get to is a place where I can be of greatest optimum benefit, not only for myself, but others. That’s the kind of life, that’s kind of the value of my life I like to create for myself. And my life is really worthwhile. Whether I achieve that or not, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter in a way.
It’s trying that matters. Living out the kind of life we feel in our heart of hearts we should be, we would like to be, the kind of what our life stands for. Then it’s a good life and we can have a balanced life. So the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha, simply the best person we can possibly become. However, each of us might be able to conceive of that at the present, you know, with our limited scope of vision.
And we have to do something. We’re doing the work now. We’re listening, discussing, meditating. We’re doing all the work. That’s good.
We’re taking responsibility. It’s just not an abstract thought. Not wish. And it all occurs within the social context of a sangha. People just like yourself, or you yourself, not just like yourself, but you yourself.
People who can inspire others, who can be there for others, who are there for others, whatever way, helping them take another step. If only that other step, if only for that moment. That’s about all we can do, moment by moment, step by step. And perhaps before we know it, we’ve arrived where we’ve always been struggling to get to. But the journey is part of the goal.
We can live part of the goal in the course of the journey itself. And we try to raise the level of our motivation. Starting with one, for sure. That’s where we’re at. We can only start there.
We can’t start some other place that we might wish to. But we can aspire to expand the scope of our motivation. Just that it begins to encompass slowly but surely an ever widening circle of others. This is a tremendous demand Buddhism places upon us because it has tremendous belief in ourselves, and we have to believe in ourselves. 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 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 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 and the causes of suffering. May all sentient beings abide inseparable from the joy that is without sorrow. May all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free from attachment for some and aversion toward others. Reverently, I prostrate with my body, speech, mind.
I present clouds of every type of offering, those actually arranged and imagined. I disclose all my negative actions accumulated since beginningless time and rejoice in all the virtues of superiors and ordinary beings. Please remain to the end of cyclic existence and turn the wheel of Dharma for migrating beings. I dedicate all virtue, own and that of others, to the great awakening. So we’re going to stand up for a minute, stretch, then we’ll meditate.
So we’ve meditated on this before. It’s in terms of in the context of the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves and how quite often they’re terribly self impoverishing stories. Quite often we miss, we overlook, or dismiss what in fact it is that we do, what is we do right with ourselves, who we are and what we have done. If you do ninety nine things right and one thing wrong, and you pay attention to that one thing wrong consistently, then that becomes your reality. And the story that you begin to tell yourself about yourself is, There’s something wrong with me.
I’m not quite a sufficient person. I don’t quite have what it takes. I’m always making mistakes. I’d rather do otherwise, but I don’t know. Some vague sense of there’s something wrong somewhere.
Quite often it’s not a matter of what we’ve done or haven’t done, it’s simply a matter of what we pay attention to. Reality is what we pay attention to, and to a large degree, meditation is developing the skill of paying attention in terms of what we choose to pay attention to. That becomes more and more the story and therefore our reality about ourselves. Simply we’ve done this meditation before. We’re simply going to focus upon something that we did in different time periods, something that we did more than one month ago, something that was right, that we felt good about, that we did or had or were.
It doesn’t have to be finding a cure for cancer or winning the Nobel Prize or having won a million dollars or getting the third PhD or whatever it is. That’s not the, you know. We don’t have to be someone other than we are to feel good about ourselves. We don’t have to be perfect. So just looking within more than one month ago, something that you did, going back, something that you were, had, simply valuing it, giving it some significance for yourself, appreciating yourself, congratulating yourself, giving yourself a pat on the back.
I like that about myself. That was really a great thing I did. That was really sharp. That was cool. And then we simply change the time periods, one week to one month ago, and then yesterday up to one week ago, and today.
And then we’ll just shift our attention to a loved one, stranger, and then an enemy. And do the same with regard to them. Okay. So begin by taking a comfortable, firm posture. And we’ll start by the process of relaxing the body.
Starting at the crown of the head, the scalp, the forehead, feeling the wrinkles in your brow beginning to smooth out. The pressure in and around your eyes diminishing. Face softening, relaxing. Your jaws relaxed. Moving to the back of the neck, perhaps gently turning your head to each side a few times, just very gently loosening, stretching the muscles of the back of the neck, relaxing the muscles of the throat.
The upper back and shoulders, perhaps rotating your shoulders a few times, lifting them and allow them to come down, rest comfortably at your sides. Feeling this burden, this weight that we normally carry on our backs moving down and through your body into the ground. Moving your attention the way down to your hands. Your hands are loose and soft. Relaxing your lower arms.
Your upper arms, Your chest is at ease. Relaxing throughout the heart area and the lungs in the central portion of the back. Stomach. Releasing the tension that we hold in our stomach muscles, allow your belly to go soft. And throughout the abdominal cavity.
The muscles of the lower back. The buttocks, throughout the upper legs and your feet Bringing your awareness to your body in general. Perhaps moving from the crown of your head through to your toes. Just looking for any tightnesses, any tensions which remain in the body. Feeling areas of discomfort.
And focusing upon those areas and consciously relaxing, softening, feeling the tightness diminish, tension loosen. If there’s some discomfort, don’t fight with it, don’t resist it, don’t struggle with it. Allow it to be there. It’s okay. Accept it.
Treat it with kindness. Breathe into it. Bathe in it in a sense of acceptance. It’s okay. Body becoming comfortable, at ease, a feeling of physical well-being pervading the entirety of your body, completely throughout your body.
Just be with your body. And then bring your mind to the breath. First we’ll practice the six part breath exercise. Breathing in comfortably normally, breathing out extending the exhalation, completely emptying the lungs, again breathing in normally comfortably, again extending the exhalation and doing that six times individually. And when you’ve completed that, then bring your mind to the breath.
Just easy, gentle in and out flow of the natural breath. If it’s helpful, use the techniques of counting and noting the breaths. Bring your mind back to the breath. Sit up straight and tall. Bring your mind back to the breath.
Now we’re going to meditate on appreciating, valuing ourselves. So remembering back to more than one month ago, that you did or were or had that was positive that you feel good about. Congratulate yourself on it. Pat yourself on the back. Be pleased for yourself.
That was wonderful thing I did. I really did that well. That was wise. That was very loving. It was a good thing to do.
Be glad for yourself. Be pleased with yourself. Now we’re going to change the time period from one week, more than one week ago up to one month ago. Reviewing that period of time more than one week ago up to one month ago, recalling something that you did or you were that you had, and something that you feel good about, something positive you can be glad about and congratulate yourself and value it. And again changing the time period beginning yesterday up to one week ago.
Beginning yesterday up to one week ago. We’re simply going to change the time period again to today. So don’t overlook taking responsibility for coming here, taking care of your mind, your life. Now we’re going going to do the same value and appreciate, but this time with regard to three other people, beginning with a friend, somebody that you like, that you love, and thinking of that person as something that they did or have or are. And be glad for them.
Be happy for them. That they have what they have, that they are who they are, that they did what they did. Be happy for them. Congratulate them. Again, doing the same, but this time toward a neutral person, a stranger, and perhaps somebody that you saw on television that you’ve seen on the streets newspapers.
You don’t know them, but maybe something good has happened to them or they did something really wonderful or not so wonderful, but something really that can be appreciated. Be happy for them. Value what they did, who they are. Congratulate them. And then finally, think of somebody that you have some problems with.
Maybe you don’t like them. But search within who they are and what they’ve done and what they have. See if you can find something that you can appreciate, that you can value, You can be happy for them. Maybe they’re rich. That’s a wonderful.
That’s a nice thing to be. Be happy that they’re rich or be happy that they’re beautiful or be happy whatever it is that they’ve done in a positive, something good. Congratulate them. And then bring your mind back to the breath. Get in touch with your body.
Perhaps the pressure of your buttocks on the cushion, on the seat, the various positions of the parts of your body. Just ground yourself in the feelings and sensations of the body. And then in an easy and gentle manner, slowly become aware of your surroundings. Just taking your time. So we’ve begun an explanation of the second of the three principal aspects of the path, the awakened heart, developing an altruistic aspiration to achieve awakening for the sake of all sentient beings.
And we said that there were two meditative traditions for which we can work with in its development. We can cultivate the seven cause and effect instruction and equalizing and exchanging self for others. So we have sort of set the stage for these two, and now we’re actually going to begin the first of the, the explanation of the first of these two traditions, the seven cause and effect instruction. We said, you know, these have a lineage of practice, and going all the way back to Śākyamūni Buddha, and this lineage is important that we can have some kind of confidence that if we put the time and energy that we’re going to get the result, that many people just like us have been using it over the last two thousand five hundred years and have gotten the results. We can have that kind of confidence in this.
We said that specifically with regard to the seven cause and effect instruction that it had its origin in Śākyamūni Buddha, the historical Buddha, to Maitreya, and from Maitreya to Asaṇga, and down various, meditation masters to Asaṇga, and from Asaṇga down to Atisha, and down through from disciple, from teacher to disciple, from teacher to disciple, all the way down to our present teachers. And so the the there’s a story which is quite often told about how a Sangha came to receive this teaching from Maitreya. Maitreya is the small statue on the left side of the Buddha. Directly in the Buddha’s lap, it’s Tsongkhapa. He’s the author of the text we’re using.
He’s the fourteenth century yogi scholar who wrote this short text called The Three Principal Aspects of the Path. And then the next tier down to the right is an image of Lama Yeshe, who is also pictured in these three vertical pictures to to your right and the middle one, the founder of the foundation for the preservation of the Mahāyāna tradition. And to the left of the Buddha, on that top tier there, is Maitreya. There’s a story about how Asaṇga directly received these teachings from Maitreya. It’s an interesting story in a way.
Asaṇga is a series of pictures on the top of the wall there. The central figure is Śākyamūni Buddha. To Śākyamūni Buddha’s left is Asaṇga, and to his right is Nāgārjuna. So we’re talking about the figure to his left, Asaṇga. He He’s fourth century Buddhist master, and he wanted to achieve a vision of Maitreya.
He wanted to receive, as it were, teachings directly from the top. So he went into retreat. He went into a cave high in the mountains. And it’s said that he meditated for three years with great discipline, with great intensity. But he got nothing after three years.
Well, got discouraged. That’s what he did get. He decided, I’m not getting anywhere. He decided to give up on his meditation. So he left his cave and was walking down the side of the mountain.
And while he was walking down the side of the mountains, noticed that on this cliff face were some maybe swallowed nests. So there were some birds’ nests on the side of the mountain. And as the birds would come into their nests and fly out of their nests, their wings would brush up against the rock face of the cliff, the hard rock. And over the passage of time, with even the the the gentle brushing of these soft feathers against that hard rock, the rock in those areas had become polished smooth. And looked at that and he thought, well, if even hard rock can be polished smooth by the mere brush of the wings of a feather, the feathers of a wing, then I can wear out these obstructions over time.
There’s no reason why I can’t achieve it, what I’m trying to achieve. So he went back to his meditation. And he persisted. Again and again, with great discipline, with great intensity, meditated another three years. And again, the only thing he got was discouraged.
And again, he decided, this isn’t working. I’ve had enough. So he decided to leave his retreat. And he left his cave and was walking down the side of the mountain. And as he was walking down the side of the mountain, there was a spring, an underground spring was coming up.
Part of that spring, the water was dripping, was flowing over a rock. And there was a drop of water that was consistently just drop, drip by drip, falling falling upon a large boulder. And over time, just this consistent drop after drop, drip after drip, had worn a hole through this huge solid rock. Rock. Asaṇga looked at it and said, even if, I mean, even if a mere drop of water over time consistently can wear a hole in a rock like that, obviously I can achieve what I, you know, if I practice with consistency, with that kind of diligence, I should be able to achieve what I’m trying to achieve.
Anyway, he encouraged himself again and he went back into his meditation. What was that? That’s six years. Another three years passed and again he got nowhere except discouraged. Meditation.
Again he was walking down the side of the mountain. And this time he saw there was a man who, for a living, he would take iron bars and polish them to fine needles with a soft cloth. He would just keep rubbing the iron bar until he came to polish it down to a fine needle. And he thought, you know, if somebody’s willing to spend their life like that just for a little bit of money, you know, what to say of the great goal that I have for myself? If I can’t persist in that, then who am I?
I’ve got to go back and try again. Nine years, right? So another three years passed, and again the only thing he got was discouraged. I mean, didn’t even have a good dream of Maitreya, let alone a vision. To meet Maitreya directly, he said, This is it.
I’m finished. So he left his cave, walked down the mountain, and he got all the way down to the valley. And when he got down to the valley, there was an injured dog in great pain, moaning. Do dogs moan? What do dogs do?
Howling? Moaning? Anyway, the dog was in tremendous pain. And its hind quarters, it was nothing but a raw wound. And there were maggots crawling in and out of hind quarters.
And obviously, dog was in great pain. Asaṇga was overwhelmed by compassion for this dog. And he thought, I know I’ve got to help. I’ve got to do something. And then he thought, but, you know, if I if I you know, I’ve got to clean that wound.
I’ve got to remove those maggots. But if I just take them off, they’ll die. That wouldn’t be the right thing to do. So he cut a piece of flesh off his leg, and he put it down. He said, I’ll put the maggots on that piece of flesh.
But if I were to pick them off with my fingers, I’d probably injure them. I’d probably kill the maggots. He said, I don’t want to do this, but I’ve got to do something. I’m going to remove the maggots with my tongue. I can lift off each maggot with my tongue and place it on this piece of flesh.
So it was pretty nauseating, disgusting wound with all these maggots infesting it. So he closed his eyes, and he closed his eyes and he stuck out his tongue. And he bent forward and he kept going forward and he kept going forward and there was nothing there. And he looked up and there was Maitreya. And he was not only overwhelmed and surprised, was also a bit peeved.
He said, You know, I mean, it’s really wonderful that I’ve last met you. But you know, meditating for the last twelve years to get a vision of you, to meet you directly as I am now. Where have you been all this time? Don’t you have any compassion? And Maitreya said, Well, I’ve been in your cave for every day for the last twelve years.
I’ve been standing right next to me. Look. Look at my robe. This is where you spit on me while you were in meditation. Sometimes you would spit to the side.
Now it’s all over my robe. You couldn’t you couldn’t see me. You had all these obscurations, but your overwhelming compassion, your genuine sincere compassion was able to remove all of those obscurations, all those obstructions to finally having envisioned me, of being able to meet with me directly. Asaṇga was so overjoyed at having met with Maitreya, you know, his having realized his goal, he put Maitreya on his back and he carried him through the little village which was nearby. And he was yelling as he walked through the middle of the street, Come out and see Maitreya.
Come out and see Maitreya. Come out and see Maitreya. And everybody in the village thought he had gone crazy. Couldn’t see anything on his back. They couldn’t see Maitreya at all.
It’s said that one old woman could see the leg of a dog. That’s all. Anyway, that’s the story behind Asaṇga finally was able able to receive teachings directly from Maitreya, and there’s volumes and volumes of treat teachings that are attributed to Maitreya via Asaṇga. And part of these teachings is this method of the seven cause and effect instruction, then method for developing an awakened heart. On the basis of on the foundation, the even cultivated field of equanimity, we then go on to cultivate series of six causes: recognizing all sentient beings as our mothers, remembering their kindness, developing a sense of gratitude which wishes to repay their kindness, appealing love, great compassion, and exceptional resolve.
And finally, we develop one result, the awakened heart, bodhicitta. So there’s a total of six causes and one result. It’s called the seven cause and effect instruction. So we’re going to begin with equanimity tonight. This is the foundation.
I don’t think it’s easy. I think this method is difficult. It’s a challenge, but nonetheless, it’s useful. All of this is a challenge, I think, in some way or another for us. So the foundation for the seven cause and effect instruction is equanimity.
It’s an even minded, impartial, open, fluid attitude toward others. It’s an attitude which is free from attachment toward some, aversion toward others, and indifferent for the rest. You know, we hold some with attachment. We draw some close to ourselves. Others with aversion or hostility, we push them away.
And all the vast majority of people in our world, we have a sense of indifferent. They’re kind of in between us holding them close or pushing them away. They don’t matter to us, in other words. We don’t even acknowledge their existence, more or less. So without this preliminary of, like, we’re preparing a level ground, and we’re going to sow in this level ground compassion.
We’re creating the space where we can develop, you know, where we can nourish and grow the sprouts of an awakened heart. You know, we’re kind of weeding out our habitual, our ingrained tendencies to fixate on these categorizations, these classifications. This is my friend. This is my enemy. This person is a stranger.
Having fixated upon those classifications, making those kind of judgments are habitual emotional reactions as a result of that. In that context, with this uneven earth, with these weeds of attachment, hatred, indifference, then there’s no possibility our compassion, our awakening heart cannot there’s not enough room for it to take root or to develop, to grow. Normally, we react with attachment and cling closely to those who we see as helping ourselves, who we see as benefiting ourselves. This is our habitual reaction. Think we have to become aware of it and acknowledge that fact.
You know, we we see those who help us as pleasant. They become we call them we put them in a box called friend. You know, we we can use other names. Friend, lover, mate, that that that categorization. Other people, you know, we we we see them as, you know, harmful to ourselves, as as in some way detracting from ourselves.
You know, they’re preventing us from finding what it is that we want. In some way, they’re a hindrance to ourselves. So we put them in a box called enemy or a hindrance. We develop aversion. We want to push them away.
Other people, they don’t matter to ourselves. Whether they’re not attractive, they’re not unattractive, they don’t seem to be hindering ourselves, they don’t seem to be helping They don’t matter to ourselves. And we put them in another box, and we react emotionally with indifference. So we’re becoming aware of the fact that we are classifying. We’re going to talk more about that.
And in dependence upon that classification, on that labeling process of putting these in these various individuals into a particular box, we then habitually we fixate upon that, we cling to that classification, and emotionally react in these various three ways, either with attachment or hostility or uncaring or indifference. There’s a story probably some of you are more familiar with it than I I am. There’s a story about the Good Samaritan. Somebody was it’s a story about Jesus Christ, someone drawing water. There was an injured person.
The Jewish hierarchy, those who were high in the hierarchy, they walked by without helping the injured person. And a lawyer walked by, but a good Samaritan took the injured person and helped them. And there was a dialogue between Jesus and the lawyer. There was a lawyer who walked by. And Jesus asked the lawyer, he said, what is the first commandment?
And the lawyer answered Christ and said, to to love God and to love my neighbor. And Christ said to him, if you keep that commandment, you will have eternal life. But the lawyer wasn’t quite satisfied. He still had a question left. He said, Well, I know who God is, or I know he’s worthy of my love.
But what about my neighbor? Who is my neighbor that I am to love? And this is a quote by Thomas Merton, who was a Cistercian monk, who was American. We can assume that he meant by this that he had no problem about loving god since god is good, but that he was perplexed about loving his neighbor since some men are better than others. Who is the neighbor to be loved?
Who is the alien not to be loved? The question is a matter of classification. Therefore, it is a matter of judgment also. For to classify is to judge. How then does one classify people and judge them accurately as worthy of love or of hatred or of indifference?
This is a pretty question. But to the Lord, it was question that had no meaning, for he said, Judge not that you be not judged. Do not classify and do not be classified. Christ does not tell the scribe how to judge and classify, but teaches him that classifications are without significance in a matter of love. For we do not and cannot love according to classifications.
If a man has to be pleasing to me, comforting, reassuring before I can love him, then I cannot truly love him. Not that love cannot console or reassure, but if I demand first to be reassured, I will never dare to love. If a man has to be a Jew or a Christian before I can love him, then I cannot love him. If he has to be black or white before I can love him, then I cannot love him. If he has to belong to my political party, my social group before I can love him, if he has to wear my kind of uniform, then my my love is no longer love because it is not free.
It is dictated by something outside of myself. It is dominated by an appetite other than love. I love not the person but its classification. And in that event, I love him not a person, but as a thing. I love his label, which confirms me in attachment to my own label.
But in that case, I do not even love myself. I value myself not for what I am, but for my label, my classification. In this way, I remain at the mercy of forces outside of myself. And those who seem to me to be neighbors are indeed strangers. For, first of all, I am a stranger stranger to myself.
I think, you know, I mentioned at the very beginning, I think Buddhism places a great challenge before us. I mean, it asks a lot of us. I don’t think what it’s asking of us is easy. But Buddhism is saying that we’re all up to it. We all are going to become Buddhas, and this is the way you do it.
You know, if we’re talking about unconditioned love, aren’t we? An unbiased attitude which allows for that possibility. You know, we don’t even love ourselves, do we? Remember when I was talking about how we we look to our parents to approve us? And sometimes our parents gave us love, sometimes they withdrew their love according to whether we were good or bad.
But I think the real love of a parent is a love which is unconditional, isn’t it? I might not approve of what you’re doing, but nonetheless, nonetheless, I still love you. That a child who is nested in love feels safe and secure, and they can love themselves, not for what they can do or what they can achieve or not achieve and so forth, but simply who they are as a person. Simply being a human being is enough, is worthy to be loved, intrinsically so, unconditioned by these labels, classifications, these standards, these conditions, these criteria that we’re continually placing upon ourselves and others. You know, of being that no one can really earn our love, can they?
Otherwise, it’s kind of a banker’s love. It’s simply an exchange of emotions that passes for love. So equanimity means not to employ the habitual tactics of judgment and setting and assorting out others into the separate compartments, these boxes, friend, enemy, and stranger that we habitually do, and fixating upon these classifications, these categorizations, and then emotionally reacting as we normally do as a basis of how we’re going to relate with them. We relate in dependence upon these boxes we’re continually putting people in, not for what the person, who they are as an individual in and of themselves who is worthy of our love, regardless of what box we put them in, how we might classify because they are. So the power of thought enables us to construct models of things separate from the things themselves.
We can think about things. We can use symbols within our mind, representations. We can use representation models of enemies, friends, and strangers, for example, in thinking about various types of people. Very we rely upon these inner models to make sense of our experience of the world. You know?
But, you know, this model building extends to friends, enemy, and strangers. Sometimes the model Sometimes the model becomes much more comprehensible than the actual living being. Living beings are quite complicated. They’re not quite as consistent. They’re not quite as homogenous and dependable.
There are so me’s, so many I’s, and so many you’s. But we want something more consistent. We want something that we can fixate upon, something stable, something we can depend upon, we can rely upon as a manner of relating to. So the model becomes, takes on a reality all of it apart from the thing that it’s meant to describe. We begin to relate not with the actual flesh and blood living person, but our idea about that person.
We it becomes something much more real to us than the actual person that’s meant to infer real imply. We label. And moreover, these labels come with a tremendous amount of emotional baggage. And we dump that tremendous amount of emotional baggage on this poor person that’s in front of us, who we label friend, who we label stranger, who we label enemy. All of our many emotive reactions or associations associated in this complex mental image is projected upon this poor, unsuspecting individual who we now call friend, enemy, stranger.
You know, a label is a is like it’s a mental image. It’s it’s a complex of images, ideas, beliefs, feelings, emotions, and they’re interconnected in a in a single image like pattern. And these mental images take on a reality of themselves. Understand our world through them. We begin to not with individuals but with the mental image, our ideals about them.
And all that we relate with are these generic labels. We end up relating not with a person but with a generic label that we apply to them, the label friend, the label enemy, the label stranger. We do the same, don’t we? Men, women, Christians, Jews, blacks, Arabs, terrorists, Americans, George Bush. It’s a simplistic way.
It’s a shorthand notation. But it’s not a very accurate way of relating, is it? The map is not the territory. We use maps. They refer to something in reality.
They’re quite functional. There’s a great deal of advantage in making use of maps and getting to where you want to go. But it would be a great mistake to see the map as the actual territory. It refers to something out there, and you can’t drive down these lines, these blue lines and things. They indicate something out there.
So we use these mental images, these labels, to refer to something out there, real flesh and blood people. But the images begin to take on a life of their own. And we begin to not relate with real people, but with our ideals about those people. To some extent, to a large extent, all we ever see is our own projections reflected back at us. I call somebody a friend.
You know, I give I I give that label. I make that judgment, that classification, you know, that they appear as my friend, you know, because once they appear as my friend, you know, they’re kind, lovable, pleasant people, attractive. And then I emotionally react accordingly. I react according to the classification, my idea about them. You know, the process goes on.
Those who who I see as harming me, I label them. I classify them as enemy. They appear that way. I label them as enemy, and strangely enough, they appear that way. They appear as very hostile, aggressive, unpleasant, unattractive, undesirable.
That’s the way they appear to my mind, my mental consciousness. Kind of despicable, like they’re oozing those kinds of undesirable, despicable qualities. Would want to be a friend to such a person? Look at them. That’s in our mind’s eye.
Out of that appearance, I then go on to emotionally react with hostility, aversion. Get away from me. You appear so ugly and disgusting, revolting in my sight. And I do the same thing with a stranger. Those who I’ve judged, I’ve determined they’re neither pleasant or unpleasant.
They’re neither helping me or harming me. I go to label them as stranger, and they appear kind of boring, kind of blah. They’re just there. And I react emotionally in kind of indifferent manner. They just don’t matter to me.
You know, we are sent to the appearance of these appearances of what is being projected back at us, what is being reflected back at us as objective truths about what it is that we see. And we automatically react with attachment toward the friend, automatically react with aversion or hostility toward the enemy and indifference toward the stranger. We will help our friend. We will look upon their well-being with favor, with pleasure. We will seek to harm our enemy.
We will look upon their discomfort, the bad things that happened to them with pleasure, and we’ll totally ignore the stranger. All of these modes of relating are, you know, are are the various feelings that arouse within us are based upon one appearance or another. So the point I’m trying to make is the very process of labeling the same act as bringing into existence the appearance. The the the very act of labeling enemy causes that that person appearing as unpleasant, unattractive, hostile, undesirable. From the subjective side, we call it labeling.
We call it projecting this image on them. From the side of the object, we call it appearance. Because we label enemy, the object appears unattractive, undesirable, a threat. It’s the same act, just seen from two different points of view. We go on to assent to that appearance as being true, that this person is, in fact, undesirable, a threat to my well-being.
And we then go on to emotionally react with hostility, with anger, aggression to that appearance. So there’s a there’s a a a process which is operating here. We’re not trying to stop the notions of friend, enemy, and stranger. But but our bias, automatic emotional reaction of attachment, hostility, and indifference to these classifications, we’re not trying to do away There are Jews. There are Christians.
There are blacks. There are Arabs. There are terrorists. But and they they can appear that way. But we’re we’re beginning to trying trying to short circuit what is now an automatic process of emotionally reacting to those, first as true, and then in terms of the individual classifications with hostility, with attachment and indifference.
We’re trying not to have the way that we’re relating with others dictated to ourselves by the way they are appearing to us, that there is a deeper reality to that person than what is in fact our projections upon them. If someone first has to be my friend before I can love them, then I’m directing my not I’m directing my feelings of love, not at them, but my idea about them. And therefore, I really don’t love them at all for who they really are. And we all know this to some degree. We all know this.
This is why we had to earn our parents’ love. We had a sense that they didn’t really love me, yet there was some idea, some standard that I had to live up to. And that’s what they loved, many of us. And we don’t feel worthy of our own love. We’re always feeling, why are these feelings of insufficiency, of not quite having what it takes, of having the struggle to actually love ourselves?
You cannot earn love. You you can’t make yourself lovable. You already are. Simply being who we are. If someone, you know, if Christ said, but I say unto you, love your enemies and pray for those that persecute you, that ye be the sons of your father which is in heaven.
For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and good, and sendeth his rain on the just and the unjust. And there is a sūtra teaching of the Buddha where it says the Tathagatas and the Tathagatas are an epithet name for Buddhas. The Tathagatas create the whole world like a cloud shedding its waters without distinction. He has the same sentiments for the high as for the low, for the wise as for the ignorant, for the noble minded as for the immoral. So in the context of the universality of equanimity, Christ doesn’t say we are to love our enemies for any particular moral reason.
He’s not saying because, you know, that that this that this is what a good Christian is supposed to do or or it’s a it’s a righteous thing to do. But he’s saying that we are simply following the nature of things because the the sun rises on the what does he say? The sun rises on the evil and the good. That’s in the nature of things. When our in the Tathagatas, he sheds his what’s he say?
Like a cloud shedding its waters without distinction. Equally. Equanimity seems to be in the nature of things things once we’ve ceased judging others. It is unconditional. And if we’re going if we’re really going to to love ourselves and others, somehow we have to love others simply because of them being sentient beings, which is a tremendously tall order.
Love is simply the wish that they be happy. If we only love if we love if they have to do something to earn that love, we don’t love them. We don’t wish them happiness. Somehow, it’s always referencing back to ourselves what’s in it for me, for my purposes. You have to live up to some image, some standard, some criteria before I’m willing to love you, some idea in my mind of who you are.
If you say, Then I’ll love you, we don’t really love them. It’s only our idea about them. You know, our love for others is invariably mixed with attachment. And we talked about this previously when we talked about the the three root afflictions, you know, attachment, hatred, and ignorance. And quite often, we we don’t distinguish between attachment and love.
And, therefore, the notion of equanimity can can feel quite intimidating. In a way, we don’t I I remember there there are sometimes when we don’t even want we want to be special in somebody’s eyes, don’t we? Why is that? It’s difficult when you meet with another person who has equanimity. You can’t quite curry their favor.
They’re going to treat someone who gives them a hard time just as well as they’re going to treat you. Woah, that’s intimidating. That’s hard to take. They’re going to love this shmo over here just as much as me. Here I am doing all this trying to help you so much, trying to make you happy, and you’re going to love this person over here who doesn’t even care about you just as much as me?
That doesn’t seem fair, does it? There’s something not right about that. I want to be special in your eyes. I want you to love me in a special way. Want people to be attached to ourselves, in other words.
We even cultivate. Not only do we cultivate our own attachment toward others, but we cultivate the attachment others have for ourselves. And it makes us feel safe and secure. We’re not quite so safe and secure in ourselves. There there there’s a sense.
And I think I think this idea of equanimity can be quite intimidating in a way. It seems to place a tremendous demands upon ourselves, doesn’t it? To begin to relate with others not on the our condition by attachment, hatred and indifference. Sometimes we have the sense that, you know, if I cultivate equanimity toward my partner, that would destroy our relationship. There wouldn’t be anything left.
The attachment of your relationship might go out, but in terms of the quality of your relationship, very opposite might actually occur. Might be able to love them for the first time, I mean really love them, and see who they are for themselves, not our projection, our illusions, know, projecting our neediness on them, what they can how they can serve our wants. And seeing them filter through our vision of what we want from them. And the lack of attachment that equanimity allows us to value another for themselves, who they actually are devoid of our superimposing projections. And I think in such a relationship, can we’re actually offering each other freedom to be ourselves, freedom to act authentically, to grow.
Practicing Buddhism can be quite intimidating for a partner who’s not interested. This happens quite often. They feel the sense that they’re growing apart. They want to hold on to their idea of the other person. That’s the person that they feel secure with.
There’s no space for that person to become more in who they are. Is that love? That’s not love, is it? You want the best for that person, the best possible person they can become if you really love them. So there’s some kind of attachment, isn’t there?
And I think, you know, equanimity, there can be a possibility for real intimacy and real real communication. So it’s important, you know, to maybe to note that the opposite of attachment is not what is not detachment or is not, you know, the detachment of indifference, like we don’t care anymore. If I’m not attached to you, it doesn’t mean I don’t care anymore. Non attachment is the relinquishment or the letting go of a fixation. It allows the possibility of an open, fluid way of relating with the other person.
You know, I guess we could say the opposite of attachment is not detachment in the sense that, you know, where there’s emotional distancing, where there’s where there’s an absence of commitment to the other person. You know, it’d be a mistake to con you know, some people to mistake non attachment where where where we can have engaged non attachment. You know? We can be very involved and committed to the the other person. Whereas detachment is where the individual becomes disengaged.
There’s a lack of any feeling, a lack of any desires at all with regard to the other person. And there’s almost like a numbness about them. A non attachment is an open, fluid way of relating to people, things, ideals, not a way of withdrawing from them. You know, we’re not giving up on the world or on life or other people in the practice of non attachment. You know, non attachment, in terms of a Buddhist value, is not being stuck.
You know, we talked about like developing a Teflon mind where things don’t get they slide they kinda they you know, as opposed to a a Velcro mind where things, you know, keep getting hooked, stuck. You know? That kind of like, a fluid open way of relating, which allows possibilities, which allows for what for the reality of the other person. It allows for the other person to be who they really are and invites that. As an approach to practice, it refers to reducing our clinging to things even our clinging to our own preconceptions, our own ideas, our own images about things.
In terms of results of practice, it’s like an internal freedom, and we can offer that to other people as well. Instead of moving through life with a balanced attitude, instead of feeling some kind of pressure to be some particular way or to act in a particular manner. You know, the the some kind of internal pressure which holds on to to some things and tries to avoid other things. You know, it’s like there’s some kind of acceptance and freedom and able to work with what is and not our preconceptions about how things should be. The, the, the, how could you genuinely wish the best for others when your own agenda is continually running.
And it is, isn’t it? We’re selfish people, aren’t we? You know, whatever is best for you, that’s what I want for you. That’s what’s called unconditioned love, isn’t it? That’s hard.
It’s hard even to kind of think about. When we’re continually running, what’s in it for me? What can you do for me? How is it how does what’s happening for you refer to me? Whatever you decide, you know, in our relationship is always coming back to yourself, isn’t it?
To to a lesser or a greater degree, it’s influenced on how this is going to impact upon you. It will always be conditioned by your self interest when there’s attachment. That’s the nature of attachment. So, you know, in this quote of Christ, he says, Love your enemies. That’s a challenge, isn’t it?
And to be a Christian is just as hard as to be a Buddhist. Love your enemies. Pray for those that persecute you. He doesn’t say we have to like our enemies. We don’t have to invite your enemies over for dinner every night.
I don’t think Christ is saying. At least don’t wish them harm that bad things befall them. As I said, we’re not doing away with these these notions of friend, enemy, and stranger. Just as they’re they’re useful classifications in conventional terms. In in the way, there are Jews.
There are Christians. There are Arabs. There are terrorists. There are, you know, blacks. Are whites.
But but we have to begin to understand the emotional baggage which can be superimposed, is comes along with these labels that we’re continually applying and therefore causing the object to appear in a particular way. We react automatically, habitually, in a particular manner. So lack of aversion of equanimity means that we’ve created the inner space in which we allow for the possibilities of an alternative way of relating with this person. And it’s like we create we’re open to some a possible potential of relating to this person in a positive manner, even though they appear as my enemy. We kind of give the situation that benefit of the doubt in this person.
We have that fluidity of mind, that we’re not clinging to this label as if this person were always going to be that way, unchangingly so. That there’s a flexibility of mind which creates the open space for other alternative ways of relating. We’re going to replace those other ways of relating with something positive, unconditional positive regard. But we have to begin by developing unconditioned way of relating which is unconditioned by our usual habitual reactions of attachment, hatred, indifference. In that space, that flexibility of mind, we can begin to foster positive ways of regarding that individual.
But without beginning to lessen our fixation on those categories and the ensuing emotional reactions which habitually they arouse, there’s no space to develop a positive regard toward your enemy. It’s impossible. It doesn’t make sense. But Christ says you should. So instead of relating with the stranger as if they don’t exist in some confused manner, I don’t know whether you’re a threat to me or you’re going to enhance my life.
Haven’t figured it out yet. Therefore, for the time being, I’m going put you on this shelf over here and forget about you until it impacts upon my life in some way. We can create the space where they do matter to us simply because they are a sentient being. They don’t have to impact upon our lives. Our relationships don’t have to be dictated in terms of how it refers back to me, in terms of our self interest.
It’s simply being a sentient being. They are worthy of my caring. Creating that space and the possibility for a positive regard with strangers. So I don’t think developing equanimity, it neither makes us unfeeling robots, like machines reacting mechanically to other people, and I don’t think it weakens the meaningful relationships that we have with the other people in our life, the significant others in our life. Equanimity is like the leveled psychological ground.
It’s like the spaciousness of an even minded attitude that we can It’s characterized by an absence of attachment, an absence of aversion, and an absence of indifference. And we can relate with our partner in that way, can’t we, and love them. It serves as the foundation upon which we can go on to develop our awakening heart. We’re creating that psychological ground, that open space where we can begin to foster real love and compassion for others. Otherwise, nothing can take root.
It’s always going to be hindered by our self interest. It’s always going to be conditioned by what’s in it for me in terms of whether they are seen as friends, enemy, or strangers. Anyway, we’re going to work with the actual cultivation of the meditation, working with these three classifications: friend, enemy, stranger, and see if we can develop a more even minded attitude toward them. Our love will not be lost, I mean in the true sense of the word love. We are trying to diminish our attachment.
We are trying to diminish our aversion and our indifference toward others. We’re trying to foster love and compassion, altruism, caring, concern, all of these possible positive feelings toward others. So I think it’s worth thinking about that. At least we have to be open to that. So then we’ll meditate that, okay?
So if you’d like to get a cup of tea, we’ll have a cup of tea and maybe we can talk about some of these ideas. Oh, you go, commercial announcement. Some of you are going to leave. There’s a book of raffle tickets. The Barossa Buddha House Group is having a raffle trying to raise a bit of money so they can buy some cushions and equipment and so forth.
So if you’d like to buy a raffle ticket, they’re one dollar each, and they’re out on the table outside. You just write your name and telephone number, and good luck. And then also, Denise would like to make an announcement. You just take a minute. If you have that time, once in a while, just one off, talk to Denise.
Okay? It would be better if it was More consistent. Consistent. Four weeks of week. Okay.
For the next four weeks after the holidays then. But Good. Thank you.