Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A railway-platform visualization — imagining yourself in a Nazi death camp, scanning a line of strangers, enemies, and loved ones all facing death, and asking whether you can feel rather than merely understand their equal desire not to suffer — closes this nearly two-hour session by Ven Jampa Gendun. He opens with causal versus resultant refuge, unpacking the four qualities that make the Buddha a reliable guide. He then leads a guided deathbed contemplation built around the third root of the nine-round death meditation: why possessions, loved ones, and the body itself cannot help at death. The second half introduces equalizing and exchanging self for others from Śāntideva’s Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, with the story of Śāntideva floating onto his throne at Nālānda, and outlines the nine-part structure for cultivating genuine equality of self and others. For practitioners following a Lamrim curriculum.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 3PA 2008 03 04.mp3
UUID: 122bab70-587e-47af-af69-e96cad940ddf
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 2008-2009 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2008-03-04
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 110.7 minutes
Words: ~11,121
How is everybody? Good. It’s cooler in here, isn’t it? Can you hear me okay in the back? So we have to begin by adjusting our motivation.
You know, sometimes I quite often in adjusting motivation talk in terms of the idea of going for refuge. There are two types of refuge. One is called causal refuge and the other is resultant refuge. And sometimes we talk about refuge in a very general way, in the sense that the idea of going for refuge is in particular Buddhist is not particularly Eastern. We’ve all been going for refuge our entire lives, whether we call it that or not, whether we use that term or not.
We are all refugees from the human condition. We’re seeking some kind of safe haven for ourselves. And so we all have our particular refuges that we’ve worked out over the course of our life in one way or another, whether we’re aware of it or not. You know, some people take refuge in their families. Some people take refuge in their jobs, in money, sports, politics, sex, drugs, rock and roll.
Some people take refuge in consuming huge quantities of meat. Some people take refuge in being vegetarian. Some people take refuge in getting an abortion. Some people take refuge in joining in vitro fertilization clinics. Some people take refuge in getting married to find bliss.
Some people take refuge in divorces as a way out of hell. So there are a diversity of possibilities. Some people become presidents and secretaries and plumbers and criminals and saints and nuclear physicists. We all have our particular refuges that we’ve worked out for ourselves. We just the question becomes, is our refuge working?
Is it is it is there a payoff? Is it delivering the goods? Or maybe we have to begin to explore other possible refuges, possible methods to work with to find the happiness that we’re all looking for to help us to solve our problems. And so, you know, sometimes we talk about causal refuge and resultant refuge. And more than that, I talk about resultant refuge.
You know, I talk about ourselves being the final transformation, that we ourselves are our own refuge in terms of the development of our own mind, in terms of development of wisdom and love and compassion, the personal power, how these are expressed in our everyday life. We are our own refuge. And I think that’s quite realistic. Think it’s kind of a useful way to incorporate that in one’s world view. So we perhaps give up our unrealistic struggle struggle to find something outside of ourselves which is an ultimate refuge.
And as long as we’re looking for happiness and what it is we want where it cannot be found, and we miss the opportunity of ever really finding it, where in fact it can be found. But there’s another possibility in terms of refuge, that’s called causal refuge. You know, we talk about going for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha and what what that might mean. Why is why is the Buddha a a reliable refuge? And it said that there are four reasons.
You know, we all have our problems, however we might uniquely experience them, however we might see them, our perception of our difficulties, what actually is going wrong in our life, what it is that we see as the solution to those problems. But most basically, as we’ve discussed, it’s karma and afflictive emotions. And it is a Buddha who has worked through that problem, you know, has found freedom from that problem. And if that’s what it means to be free in terms of the Buddhist conception of freedom is to be free of karma and the effect of emotions. karma, or the residual conditioning of our mind coming from the past, our past actions, which condition in experiences.
And the afflictive emotions, emotions which aren’t rational, which aren’t based, which we might superficially be able to justify, but when we investigate them in a deeper manner, we see, in fact, that they’re quite unreasonable, you know, that is, the dysfunctional qualities of our mind like hatred and jealousy and pride and attachment, basically ignorance. So a Buddha is simply is one somebody who has become free of that, of karma and afflictive emotions. So, you know, it’s like, you know, who can we rely upon? You know, what can we rely upon to help us to work through our most basic problems? Or it seems reasonable to think, well, somebody who has worked through them themselves.
You know, otherwise we’re much like the blind leading the blind, aren’t we? You know, it’s like maybe two people who are sinking in quicksand trying to give each other a hand out. Doesn’t work very well. But a Buddha, in a very practical sense, has experienced the same path that we ourselves are trying to experience, has freed him or herself from the same difficulties that we ourselves are trying to be free of, and therefore is in a good position to be able to explain it to others. How did I do it?
I can show you the way I did it. It sounds rather reasonable in that respect. But the problem is that some people who have some skills I don’t know, remember a person not in the room. Okay, I can tell it. I think about three months ago, I asked somebody to show me how to work with a particular website.
I wanted to do some changes. And the person was an expert, a computer whiz. And they said, Well, if you just do this and this, do this and this. I said, Well, wait, wait, wait. Me write this.
And then if that doesn’t work, you do this. No, wait, wait, wait, wait. This went off about forty five And in the forty five minutes, I had no idea about how to change the website. And he was an expert at what he knew. But he had a hell of a time communicating it to anybody else.
Communicating it to anybody else. Somebody who’s found some method, some way to free themselves, who has some skill isn’t necessarily skilled in communicating to others. Think we’ve all experienced that in some way or another. So when we talk about a reliable refuge in terms of the Buddha, for example, someone who is skilled in what I want to learn, but moreover is able to communicate that in some skillful manner, reasonable manner. But that doesn’t seem to be quite enough.
There’s a third reason. Somebody has developed the skill and is really an expert at communicating this skill, but maybe they simply lack compassion and they could care less, you know, about what it is that we want, what it is that we’re looking for. And so they can’t be bothered. So when we talk about a causal refuge, this third quality of a causal refuge in terms of a Buddha would be somebody who it does matter to. They do care.
They’re interested in our well-being. But even that doesn’t seem to be enough. There’s a fourth reason. It is said that our Buddha is willing to share what they have to know. You know, that no matter what we do from our side, you know, they don’t turn it off and on their compassion.
It’s unconditional. That is to say, you know, we don’t have to say whether we say please or not, whether we’re polite or not, you know. Even if we give Buddhists a hard time, they’re still going to help us. So it’s not it’s not conditional on our taking a particular posture and acting in a particular way. It is unconditionally given.
So this is what is meant by a reliable refuge or a reliable person in terms of a refuge. Someone who has experienced freedom from the same problems that we’re trying to experience and is able to communicate them in an efficient, productive manner, has compassion. The fact is that our having this problem matters to them. And moreover, whatever we do from our side, they’re still going to help us. So this is why it’s said that a Buddha is a reliable person.
You know, in that respect, they can serve as a reliable refuge. And moreover, you know, if this individual is a reliable person, then we can infer from that that they’re teaching what it is that they have to say. Their guidance is also reliable. That is, say, the Dharma. And moreover, those who are correctly practicing these teachings, putting implementing them in their daily life can also be relied upon.
So this is, some of the reasoning by means of which, you know, when we talk about I go for refuge to the Buddha, I go for refuge to the Dharma, I go for refuge to the Sangha, what it actually means. You know, it has to have some practical implication. So we can there are people in this world that we can trust. And people who have gone beyond self-cherishing egotism, who have gone beyond dysfunctional qualities of their mind, who have developed in the love and compassion and are willing to share that with us. And such people can be reliable guides, and therefore we talk about going for refuge to them.
We acknowledge that, that we’re committing ourselves to working with them and working with what they have to teach and those who are actually relying upon those who are actually implementing these in a practice of their everyday life. That’s the causal refuge. But there’s also the resultant refuge. That is that we ourselves as Buddhists, you know, the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha, ourself as a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being. It is only ourselves as Buddha which can help us in all possible situations at all possible times.
In the end, it’s only this Buddha, ourselves as Buddha, which can be our final refuge, which solution to all our difficulties in the finding of fulfillment in our lives. And that becomes a priority that to become that Buddha. But we actually have to do something. You know? Sincerity is not quite enough.
We We actually have to do some work. And that’s implementing the Dharma in our everyday life. You know, these, the teachings, these meditative, you know, educating ourselves to developing another worldview, another way of approaching our life, of looking at our life. What is its nature? Where are our difficulties?
And what are some of the means that we can find some solutions to the difficulties in our life? And ultimately, it’s the truth. We want to know how things actually are. It’s the truth which is going to make us free. It frees us from karma.
It frees us from our afflictive emotions of our mind. And we have we need some tools to help us to help to discover what is that truth, which underlies, underlies, you know, the the fiction which we’re continually projecting upon our experiences in one way or another. And, you know, we this occurs within a social context. We are social beings. We we rely upon.
We interact with others. You know, we’re creating thinking and being which promotes this way of being, in our inner life is important both to ourselves but also to others who understand what we’re about, who are willing to validate our efforts, who are willing to act as supports, you know, doing whatever is necessary to assist, you know, advising us, teaching us, providing material means, a shoulder to cry on, emotional support, and creating that kind of social context where we can begin to access this deeply the spiritual parts of ourselves, which are more than our society, pays little value, pays little attention. But where it’s important and where we’re able to, you know, maybe experiment with other possible ways of being, express feelings and thoughts and aspirations which normally are unarticulated, which we can’t even perhaps are even unknown to ourselves. So this becomes a kind of refuge for ourselves, a priority in our life, amongst all of our other priorities in our daily life. You know, a good family, significant relationships, a nice home, clothes, fulfilling work, interests, entertainment.
Part of that mix, part of our priorities, becomes becomes our refuge in terms of the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. So we keep reminding ourselves of that. I go for refuge until I’m awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Through my practice of generosity and the other perfections, may I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.
Through my practice of generosity and the other perfections may I become a Buddha for the sake of all 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 of happiness and the causes of happiness may all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering may all sentient beings be inseparable from the joy that is without sorrow. May all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free from attachment for some and aversion toward others. Reverently, I prostrate with my body, speech, 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 to the end of cyclic existence and turn the wheel of Dharma for migrating beings. I dedicate all virtue, my own and that of others, to the great awakener. So we’re going to meditate. What what we’ve been meditating on is death.
You know, I mentioned in our going for refuge, we go for refuge in the Dharma. And and, essentially, the it is the truth, way things actually are, beyond this fiction, beyond our our wishful thinking that things would be otherwise. And and one of these truths is that and we probably would all wish it were otherwise, but nonetheless it’s still the case is that we’re all going to die and we don’t know when. In It seems like, in a way, we have any choice but to accord our mind with the way things actually are if we’re going to find some kind of peace. And when our minds, you know, whenever our mistaken views, our erroneous ideas, our wrong beliefs, when it comes up against, you know, when it rubs up against the world that actually is, we experience dis ease in our mind.
There’s a dissonance. Is a disharmony within the mind. And the mind is a self correcting system. It always tends toward tension reduction, towards an equilibrium, a peaceful state. So in it, our mind will take either of two paths.
Either it will try to manipulate the people and the things in the world about it such that they accord preconceptions, with our present ideas, that the world would be able to still serve our present needs as we see them in accordance with our present world view. That is, than changing the mind, we try to change the world about us so that it accords with what it is that we still want. That’s beyond our control. That disparity between our ideas and the way the world actually is, is experienced as a degree of suffering, dissatisfaction, disappointment, disharmony. But there’s another path, and that is to to to revise our world our mental maps, the way that we negotiate the terrain of our lives, the way that we view things.
To bring our own erroneous ideas into line with the way things as they actually are, such that they accord with the way things actually are. And then the mind will experience a harmony. It attunes itself with reality. In a way, we don’t have much choice if we’re ever to find any peace, if we’re ever solve our problems. But it’s a difficult process.
Many people don’t see the need, or they’re too tired, or they’re unwilling to take up the challenge of transforming their own minds, their worldviews. And they just keep perpetuating the same problems. They never end. Because the basis, they maintain the dysfunctional grounds of their mistaken thinking. They simply is continually recreated.
And the problems never end. One of these areas is around death. Now, you know, we’re not meditating on death simply to make ourselves depressed or any more depressed than we might already be. That’s not the point. It is to help us to get unstuck.
And in bringing about change, there’s a certain resistance. I think we have to be aware of that. There’s a certain fear of the unknown, the unfamiliar, that which we’re not accustomed to doing and ways of thinking and so forth. And it requires a great deal of determination. We have to see some kind of necessity for it.
We have to begin to, to perhaps remind ourselves of what is important to ourselves and to restructure our priorities in life. And I think more than not, of us lead some kind of compromise in our life. In one way or another, we tend to justify if we think about it at all. We lead something of a substitute life. Know, we never quite do what we really want to do with our life.
We never even try to find out what is most important to ourselves. We all have these various levels of desires, don’t we? At the superficial level, there are desires for sense pleasures, but there are levels of desire which we, more than that, distract ourselves from. And that is the desire for what is most meaningful for ourselves. What is of value?
And how can we live those out in our life? And so, you know, the idea of meditating on death is to value our life while we still have it. That’s the truth. It would be sad to die with regret, wouldn’t it? That you’re led to be diagnosed with cancer and you have I remember once on the radio there was a woman who had terminally ill and the interviewer asked her, What is it that you regret most?
And she said that I never thought about death till now. Otherwise, we can live a life of banality, of emptiness, of just living in distraction. So the idea of meditating on death is not to think about death particularly, but to think about life, that while we still have the chance to make use of it, to begin to live the type of life that we want for ourselves, to help us to get unstuck, to develop the energy to be able to do that. So we’re looking at a particular method of contemplating death. It’s called the nine-round death meditation.
There are three roots. Death is definite, the time of death is indefinite, and what is going to be a benefit at the time of our death. You know, in a way, in a way, and I think in a realistic way, you know, can we don’t have to think about, though we we meditate in this way, we can we can see parallels, or little deaths in the course of our life. You know, there’s times in your life when you’re perhaps when your whole life is turned upside down. You know, what it is that you took security and has been taken away from you perhaps in some way or another.
What you were able to believe in you’ve lost in some way or another. You know, there’s little deaths when we don’t quite know what to do, when there’s a transition, when there’s dramatic changes in our life, and even in some way or another? And how do we work with those? What is it that prepares us? What is it about some people who are willing to invite change in their life, who thrive on change, are willing to abide with the insecurity, the groundlessness, their fear around change.
And some people cling to the And past and hold on to what it is they have, even though it might not be much. There’s a maintenance of the status quo about what it is that we have now. I think to some degree, it’s simply having confidence in ourselves, in our innate sanity, our innate ability. We don’t know, or we can know only in vague and uncertain ways, the outcomes of change in our life. You know, to demand that we know every detail of any change that we seek to bring about in our life would be simply to ensure there will be no change in our life.
But we can have confidence in ourselves, in our innate goodness, our innate intelligence, that on the other side of that change, you know, I’m going to land on my feet, that I’m going to be a better person living in a better world, that things will be better. I don’t know all the details of that change, but I kept confidence that it will be well, all things will be well. And it’s simply a confidence in oneself, isn’t it? So in talking about what is going to benefit us at the time of our death. That’s a radical change of lifestyle, isn’t it?
But what about these small, little, lesser changes of life that we go through numerous times over the course of our life. What is it that serves you well? It’s the development of your own mind, isn’t it? So we can be this you know, so this is not just about that that big dramatic moment, end of the life, but it’s also talking about those those numerous moments in the course of our life. What gives us the confidence?
What gives us a sense of poise and helps us to stay with the necessary insecurity that change necessarily brings about, that we will experience in the course of change. What assists us in that transition? Something has ended, and the new is yet to begin. What is it that supports us? It is our own mind.
So I think this is trying to help us to not only prepare for that big change at the end of the life, but for all those little numerous changes, such that we’re willing invite change into our life. We’re willing to voluntarily seek it out as a means to live a much better life. So we’re going to work through this one third root. The third root is the fact that at the time of death, only the development of our mind and the imprints that we’ve left on our mind will be of any benefit, and we’re going to go through three reasons. I’ll just mention them now, and then we’re going to meditate meditate on them.
The first reason is that all our possessions, our enjoyments cannot help us at the time of our death. And we can always keep everything that I’m saying, we can apply this as well to these little changes which occur over the course of our life. At the time of our death, think of all the material things that you’ve spent your life, a great deal of your life, your energy and time gathering together about you, your home, your car, your furniture, your clothes, your television, your what’s it? LCD, what do you call it? Flat screen.
Your computer. That’s a big one for me, my computer. All the enjoyments that we spend such a great deal of time pursuing that we run after in one way or another, all our sports and creative activities. Imagine you’re lying on your deathbed and all of the symbols and actual articles. You’ve got the title title to your house there and your your your papers to your car there and you’ve your your computer and your camera and your television.
You’ve got all the material things that you acquire over the course of your life sitting there at the end of your bed. And now your mind is beginning to grow dim. The bond between body and mind is beginning to weaken. And slowly, the world is blanking out. You know?
And at that moment, as your mind is slipping away from the body, you know, of what use can any of those material things be to you at that moment? You know, you can’t even take one CD with you. You can’t rely upon those things at the during this transition, this this radical change which is taking place. You know, not only which will they probably not be able to benefit you, but your attachment to them, your struggle to hold on to them will make the change all that much more difficult, will make all would make dying all the more difficult. So we’re just trying to set our priorities straight.
No one’s saying that you should not have nice, comfortable home or a car that you enjoy driving, a nice television set, your entertainment. No one’s saying that. It’s simply a way of adjusting our priorities. It’s a reality check. That’s all, to keep things straight.
So again, at the time of our death, the second reason, even our loved ones cannot help us at the time of our death. You can imagine that you know, the the bond between your your body and mind is beginning to weaken. And and those who sincerely love you and really want to be able to help you, you know, they’re gathered around your deathbed. Some of them are in the corner praying, crying. And your mind’s mind’s beginning to slip away from the body.
And even, you know, they’re holding your hand. Even even if they dig their fingernails into the back of your hand, they can’t hold your mind back. And this happens in the course of life, doesn’t it? When we go through these dramatic moments of change in our lives, even those who love us most, how much can they really help us? No question, they can help.
Okay? But how much? You know, They can hold your hand. They can cry with you. But they can’t reach into your mind and make things better.
That’s not in their power. It’s only the degree that you develop the flexibility of your own mind, the ability to to work with change and and to to bear with the difficulties, which is going to be able to sustain you through that difficult period. And then there’s our own body. You know, it’s been our companion, you know, my entire life. And I, you know, I really take a good I try.
I I really take a good care of this, you know, I wash it every day. I give it vitamins, good food, and I, you know, really fairly nice clothes. You know? I go to the doctor. You know.
I try to try to put put lotions on it. I I spend I spend a great deal of time and care on my body. But at some point, it’s going to be not so much different than a a piece of meat in a butcher shop, is it? Even as my when my mind when that bond between mind and body breaks, it’s a lifeless piece of it’s a corpse. Even it can’t help me at the time of my death.
So, you know, we’re we’re we’re just trying to straighten our priorities, aren’t we, in terms of how we’re going to expand our time and energy, what we’re going to place greatest importance on. That’s all. That’s You know? We’re trying to come we’re trying to come to some conclusion, you know, to to help help us to get unstuck. You know, the conclusion that it’s some kind of determination to integrate the material things, our various enjoyments, our relationships, and even the treatment of our own body around the priority of developing our minds.
That’s amongst all our priorities, giving that some space, some time, some energy in your life. That’s a you know, you you wouldn’t think about going without eating a meal for one day. But the development of your mind doesn’t take very much priority. You’re you’re willing to go for weeks and months, maybe lifetimes without that priority even being considered. I’m not saying, you know, to skip your lunch and meditate, but maybe you could find some time in in your own particular way, unique to yourself.
That’s all. Your refuge. That’s what’s going to hold you in good stead through the difficulties, the vicissitudes, and life, and the time of our death. You know, this is you know, the mind is in its place, in its way, can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. It’s it’s the it’s the viewpoint in which we relate with all the material things in the people and even our own body.
It is from that it is coming from the mind itself, whether these things can act as sources of happiness and joy for ourselves or whether they’re simply a problem for ourselves, whether they become sources of difficulty and suffering for ourselves. They’re just the mind itself which determines all of that, not those things in and of themselves. In a way, these things about us and the people and situations are neutral. They’re like a scalpel, a knife in the hand of a surgeon. And a knife in the hand of a surgeon can be life giving.
It can be life enhancing. It can be constructive. That same knife inherently of a thief can be destructive. It can bring nothing but pain and misery. So it’s dependent upon the skill of our own mind, how we use and make use of, how we view the people and the things and situations about us, our understanding of them, our attitudes toward them, skill or lack of skill and how we relate with them, which is to determine whether they’re going to become sources of happiness or sources of suffering.
The mind is in its own place, in its way, can make a hell of heaven a hell of a hell of heaven, heaven of hell. So it comes down to our mind. And this is simply trying to help us to get that priority straight. We don’t know how much long we have her to go, when the next little death is going to occur, what to say of the big death. Okay.
This isn’t meant to be heavy. I sometimes talk that way, don’t I? Okay. So if you like to stand for a moment and stretch, and then we’ll sit and meditate. Okay.
Turn up. I have to speak a bit louder, I think. So What do you think? Does that sound pretty heavy? It does.
Is that a bad heavy or a good heavy? It’s a good heavy. A good heavy. Okay. As long as it’s useful.
Look. Pardon? It’s gonna happen, isn’t it? It’s gonna happen. So taking a comfortable firm posture.
So we begin with relaxing the body, starting at the crown of the head, the scalp, Feeling the wrinkles in your brow beginning to smooth out. The pressure in and around your eyes beginning to diminish. The muscles of the face softening, relaxing. Your jaws relaxed. Moving your awareness 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. Moving your awareness down to the upper back and shoulders. Perhaps rotating your shoulders a few times. Lifting them, allowing them to drop comfortably to the sides.
Feeling this weight, this burden that we quite often carry around on our backs, moving down and through your body into the ground. Bring your awareness all the way down to your hands. Your hands are loose and soft. Relaxing your lower arms and your upper arms. The chest is at ease.
Relaxing throughout the heart area and the lungs and the central region of the back. And stomach. Releasing the tension that we hold in our stomach muscles, your belly to go soft. Relaxing throughout the abdominal cavity. And keeping your back straight, holding your trunk erect, relax your back muscles.
Your buttocks. Upper legs. Lower legs. And your feet. And bring your awareness to your body in general.
And just moving your awareness throughout the body and noticing any tightnesses, any tension, any areas of discomfort which remain in the body. Focusing on those particular areas, consciously relaxing and softening, feeling the tension diminish, the tightness loosen. If there’s a place where you feel discomfort, don’t struggle against it. Don’t try to resist it. Just accept it.
Be kind. Just wrap it in a sense of accepting it, allowing it to be. Feeling your body become comfortable at ease, a sense of physical well-being pervading every part of your body. Should just be with your body. Just stay with your body.
If your mind is distracted, just note the thought. Note the distraction. And come back to awareness of the body. And then bring your mind to the breath. Just the easy, gentle, in and out flow of the breath.
Wherever the sensation, the movement of the breath is most obvious and clear. If it’s helpful, can use the techniques of counting and noting the breaths. Bring your mind back to the breath. Now we’re going to meditate on death. So this is going to require your imagination.
Imagine that you are fatally ill, that you perhaps have been in an accident with a heart attack or cancer, and you’re lying on a hospital bed connected to various tubes and machines, and there are nurses and doctors running here and there. And there at the foot of your bed are the symbols of all the material things that you’ve gathered over the course of your life. And there’s the title to your house and ythe title to your car and the receipts from your furniture and your camera and computer symbols of all the material things that you get together. But as well, are symbols of the work that you’ve been doing, what it is that you enjoy most in terms of your pursuits, your interests, entertainment. All these various objects are sitting, lying there at the end of your bed.
All the goodies of your life. And beside you are the people who who love you, who you love. One of them is holding your hand. Those nearest to you are you. Some are sitting around.
Some are in the corner crying. They’re all there for you. And there is your own body, your constant companion over your life that you’ve taken such good care of. So everything is there that has any importance, that has meaning for you in one way or another. And you’re dying.
The bond between body and mind is slowly weakening. Your mind is beginning to slip away. The light is growing dim. You can’t quite make out what the shapes are anymore. And slowly, the sounds are fading away.
You can’t understand what it is they’re saying anymore. You’re losing the feeling in your limbs. You don’t know where you’re going and you don’t want to go. At that moment, as the mind is slipping away from the body, what is it that can help you in a realistic way, can really be a support? None of the people there, though they want to help you, can go along with you.
They can’t hold you back. You can’t take even the smallest thing that you’ve gathered, that you’ve acquired with you. It’s all going to have to be left behind. Even your body is going to be left behind. Now imagine that the bond between body and mind is broke.
You’re looking down at the hospital scene from above. There’s your body lying on the bed. They’re unplugging the machines. Your loved ones are leaving the room crying. All the various material things have been removed from your bed.
The doctors have left. The nurse pulls the sheet over your head. An orderly comes in the room and transfers your body to a gurney and wheels it to the morgue. And they wash your body. And they tie together the hands and the feet and block up the orifices and tag a number on the inside of your thigh.
That’s your body. It’s what used to be your body. Now imagine it’s the funeral. There’s your body in the coffin, and there are lots all your loved ones and friends and people you work with and some people you don’t even know. And they’re saying what a fine person you were, what a wonderful wife, husband, father, mother, son, daughter, friend.
Telling all the fantastic stories about what a fine person you must have been, how much they cared for you, what you meant for them. And they close the lid of the coffin and perhaps it’s burnt or put into a grave. Imagine the gravesite. Coffin is lowered into the grave. Some dirt is thrown over.
Some artificial grass artificial covers up the grave. Everyone is gone. Everyone is left. The cemetery deserted. It’s over.
What have you got to show for it all? What did you do with this one precious life that you had? So see if you can come to some conclusions, kind of perhaps determination around all of this, that to integrate the material things of your life, your all your various enjoyments, your relationships, all around the priority of taking care of your mind, the development of your mind. That’s what goes on to the future. That has to be a priority as well.
And then bring your mind to the breath. And then get in touch with your body, perhaps the pressure of your buttocks on the cushion, on the chair, your feet on the floor, just some feeling sensation of the body. And in a slow and relaxed manner, become aware of your surroundings, taking your time. We’re looking at the second of the three principal aspects of the path, the awakened heart. And we said there were two meditative traditions for the development of awakened heart.
The first was the seven cause and effect instruction. And tonight, we’re going to begin the second of the two meditative traditions, and that of equalizing and exchanging self for others.. So this is the the primary textual source for this meditative tradition is Śāntideva’s Engaging in the Bodhisattva’s Deeds. It’s probably one of the most beautiful and most profound and most widely read of all the texts within Mahāyāna Buddhism. And there’s one particular chapter, the eighth chapter, which is on meditation, which serves as a textual source for this tradition.
The tradition comes from from the Buddha through Mañjuśrī down to Śāntideva, Atisha, and unbroken lineage to our present teachers of today. You know, Śāntideva was quite an amazing person in many ways. He was an eighth century monk who lived at Nālānda Monastic University, which is near Bodh Gaya in Bihar State. And it is said of him that he only did three things or three activities, eating, sleeping, and defecating.
Something like me, maybe. But eating, sleeping, defecating. He was known throughout the monastery as sarcastically referred to as he who possesses three knowledge three knowledges, eating, sleeping, defecating. He wasn’t very highly thought of in his monastery. And in fact, many of the monks thought he was something of a disgrace to their monastery.
And then some of them got together and formed a plot to get rid of him. Had this idea that, well, let’s ask Śāntideva to give a teaching. And we’ll invite a great mass of the public, and he’ll be so embarrassed, so ashamed that he’ll leave of his own accord. And, you know, they asked Śāntideva to teach, and he accepted, and they invited this great mass of people to attend this public teaching. And to make it even more embarrassing for him, they they built this huge high throne for him to deliver the talk from, the lecture from.
And they didn’t supply any ladder to get up to it. They thought they were gonna make a fool out of him. And came the time for him to give the teaching, and he approached the throne. And he paused a moment when he saw there was no steps leading up to the to the seat. And he simply floated up and sat comfortably down on the side throne.
And he began to teach what has become the most, probably, the the most renowned of all texts within Mahāyāna Buddhism, Engaging in the Bodhisattva’s Deeds. It has ten ten chapters. When he got to the ninth chapter, the ninth chapter is on the ultimate nature of reality. And as he as he began to explain the ninth chapter, he slowly started to rise off his seat higher and higher and higher. Finally, when he got to the tenth chapter, they could only hear this voice coming from the sky, and he was never seen of again.
So their plan worked in a way. They got rid of him. I think maybe they regretted it afterwards. Equalizing and exchanging self for others. So we’re going to work through This has a five part meditation.
Firstly, the equalizing self with others, the disadvantages of self centeredness, thirdly, the advantages of other centeredness, fourthly, the actual exchange of self or other, and fifthly, the practice, the med the imaginative technique of taking and giving. So these are the five paths to this meditative tradition of equalizing and exchanging self for others. The prerequisite, the basis of it, is this first part, this first meditation, equalizing self and others. So unless we can begin to see, or more important, to feel deeply the basic commonalities of the human condition, of all that we all share, our core experience is more or less the same for all of us, then we will never be able to actually be able to take others’ suffering as seriously as we do our own. We won’t really be able to identify with what is going on for them.
You know, we won’t be able to take their happiness and their suffering as seriously as we do ourselves. So on the foundation of this feeling of equality of self and others, we then go on to look disadvantages of self centeredness and exaggerated self concern that we’re all caught up in one way or another, self-cherishing. The guiding principle for most of us, the center of the universe, me first attitude. And it’s fundamentally flawed. It goes unquestioned.
It is like the given that we all accept, take for granted. But in fact, when we begin to analyze it, we see it’s self defeating, in fact. It does not bring what, in fact, we want, but, in fact, brings us all of what we don’t want, even greater suffering in our lives. It just doesn’t work. It’s a dysfunctional approach to relationships and relating with the world, being in this world with others.
It’s the source of most all of our problems and suffering our self centeredness, our exaggerated self concern, our selfishness. It’s simple word. On the other hand, we begin to look at the advantages and the benefits, the payoff. Buddhism is very pragmatic, and this is a good way to work with. We don’t have to put ourselves in some sort of spiritual straight jacket to conform to some abstract notions about how we should be, that we should be good boys and girls, and we should act in this way and not act in that way.
When we look at it in terms of happiness and suffering, you know, pain and pleasure take priority over logic. When we see that within our own lived experience, benefits of one way of proceeding and the detriments of another, we will naturally begin to shift. There will be some change of the mind. We naturally want to be happy. We naturally don’t want to suffer.
It is like we talked about at the very beginning of our talk this evening. If you think that putting your hand in a flame is the way to find happiness, you shouldn’t be surprised that you’re continually being burnt. But once you recognize within your own lived experience in terms of pleasure and pain that it hurts, that it’s not in your best interest to keep putting your hands in that flame, you withdraw it and you won’t put it back there again. We just have to recognize that fact, see it within our own lived experience. Then we can use our native intelligence, the natural sanity, to begin to bring to bear on the situation.
And there’ll be some kind of adjustment. We were talking about death before. We don’t have to walk around in a morbid state wearing black. I have a real confidence that just thinking about these issues from time to time in a very methodic and concentrated way, the mind we can draw upon the resources of our mind as self healing systems, and that there’s a lot going on that we don’t even have to be conscious of, that we don’t have to make conscious adjustments, that certain things will begin to shift, naturally fall away. And when I was a child, I played with the toys of a child.
They were terribly important to me. But as I grew up, I those aside. No one had to wrench them away from me. And I naturally began to place less and less emphasis, greater and less importance upon them, my mind turned to other things. And it began to shift in what my priorities were.
I think this is the way that our minds are operating. There’s a lot going on that perhaps we aren’t aware of consciously, but we have to make these conscious attempts at showing our mind what is the nature situation in terms of pleasure and pain, trying to work through our taking for granted truths, which aren’t truths at all, our assumptions which we are working on the basis of but which aren’t the basis basis of happiness. And then things will work out for themselves. We can enjoy our life. And there will be some kind of development, some kind of movement.
And things will be different from what they were five years from now, ten years from now. There will be some shift. Otherwise, we keep perpetuating the same difficulties in our life because we keep coming. We harbor the same misassumptions and the wrong views and mistaken ideas the way that we keep approaching our life, trying to find happiness and solve our problems. So in all of this, what we’re just trying to do is try to analyze what is really happening in terms of my lived experience.
Not in terms of what we think should be the case or what we would like to be seen as others to be seen as the case, what we’ve been taught, know, beyond all our ideologies and psychologies, the ways that we’ve been conditioned, religious conditioning and the propaganda that we aren’t even, the acculturation that we aren’t even aware of, the way our society is exerting pressures on ourselves to think and act in particular ways, but trying to get in touch with our own actual experience. Trying to see the truth of our own experience. And then our minds will naturally adjust. We don’t have to force ourselves to be happy. It’s in our very nature.
We just have to make sure what it is we see as happiness is, in fact, real happiness. We harbor we we we we at present, we have the assumption, the unanalyzed, unexamined understanding that somehow I have to get mine first. I’m the center of the universe approach to my living and my life. We take that for granted. This goes unquestioned.
Maybe we have to begin to question that. Maybe it doesn’t work. We’ve always assumed it did, but maybe, in fact, it’s not the case. Maybe a lot of our problems stem from that unexamined assumption that we’re working with. So the advantages of other centeredness.
We’re going to go through each of these. I’m just kind of giving an overall viewpoint, introductions to how this meditation is going to progress. But when you know, how many what are those really most alive alive times in our life when we really felt fulfilled and full of joy? We have to look to those for pointers, for directions of our mind, where we should be taking our life, how we might change the approach of our life, and look to our own experience. We are genuine, quite often it’s when we are genuinely concerned with another.
We step outside of our there’s a certain self forgetfulness, and we’re there for somebody else. When there’s some kind of automatic relief from this ongoing struggle for our own happiness, oftentimes at the expense of others. This burden that we carry on trying to find happiness all the time. This worrying, this planning that we’re constantly involved in one way or another. When we can become an instrument of compassion, when we actually can be a real benefit to someone that we really love, what a fulfilling, joyous moment that can be.
Life is really worthwhile in that moment. It’s meaningful. So looking at the disadvantages of self centeredness, the advantages of other centeredness. When we begin to really see that within our lived experience for ourselves, that we begin to reverse our usual attitude, and we begin to cherish others more than ourselves. And this is completed with an imagined technique in which we actually exchange role.
In that we take on, we reverse roles with other, and they become ourselves. So it’s an imaginative technique. It all begins in imagination. Reality has its source in imagination. It’s like the training ground for how we experience the world.
So that’s the actual exchange of self for other. Finally, we go on to make use of visualization technique called taking and giving, where we compassionately imaginatively take upon ourselves the suffering of others and lovingly, imagin to give away our own happiness. It’s a training ground, isn’t it? Like war games, like military does, with their smoke bombs and their blank guns, bang, bang, bang. So they practice in something of a realistic, imaginative fashion so that when it actually occurs, they aren’t overwhelmed by the situation.
They can rely upon their training, what they’ve built up in this practice, to see them through. So we can do this in our own minds in terms of development of love and giving away our happiness and taking upon the sufferings of others in terms of our compassion. This all leads to you know, you you you realize that, okay. This is only in imagination. I would really like this to do it for real.
Yeah. And so one begins begins to question, well, can I actually do it? Like we were talking about before, it’s very much like the blind leading the blind. I can’t even help one sentient being. I can’t even help myself completely free them.
So one determines. You make a choice. Life is full of choices. Consistent, it’s very empowering. We talked about this last week, That therapy is more about empowering than it is about happiness.
Empower lies where the choices are made. So you make a decision. And it is the consistent decision or the con consistent choice, which is dedication. I choose to be more than I I present am. You know?
I choose to be a Buddha. Making that kind of dedication. And it is empowering, which brings about the transformation. We develop the ability to actually express that in fact, to take responsibility, to be able to respond. We develop this altruistic aspiration to achieve highest awakening for the sake of all sentient beings.
That’s the Bodhisattva’s attitude. That’s the Bodhisattva idea. The more I am, the more I have to give. And I see that’s greatest, finest way I can lead my life. It’s the most meaningful and useful way what I can make of my life.
And so you begin to there’s a sense of dedication. Not heroic in a way, but it’s not martyrdom. One can one begins to see that it’s in the end, it’s the like a Dalai Lama said, it’s the it’s like being wisely selfish. It is in dedicating our hearts to others that we ourselves will find the greatest happiness and fulfillment in our own life. Now we don’t think that.
We think the exact opposite. So it all begins so the first is meditation is equalizing self with others. And I think this is a good this is really there’s a lot to work here with, you know. I think I think it’s something that we can is accessible for ourselves as Westerners. It doesn’t take any leaps of faith, something that we can’t identify with.
We can work with these quite reasonably, rationally, cultivating these states. In his text, Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, or Engaging in the Bodhisattva’s Deeds by Śāntideva, in talking about, we said that his text acts as a textual source for this particular tradition. So in terms of, in the textual source, there’s verse which says, First of all, I should make effort to meditate on equality between self and others. I should protect all beings as I do myself because we are all equal in desiring happiness, in desiring not to suffer. So, you know, in developing developing a will to awaken, there are three principal aspects of the path: the will to awaken, the awakened heart, and the awakened mind.
The will to awaken was this determination to change, the determination to be free, developing that commitment. That was brought about by understanding the nature of our own problems, all of our frustrations, our dissatisfactions, our disappointments, the truth of suffering in our lives, really taking a dispassionate look at it, we begin to see what it is that we really want to be free of, and what constitutes real happiness, what it is that we actually need to do to be happy, to find that real happiness. So under so, you know, we begin to understand ourselves. Be and begin to understand how we’re living our life. Understanding ourselves in this way, we can we simply turn that understanding.
We turn our attention to others and apply that same understanding to others as we did to ourselves, you know, extending the same understanding to all sentient beings. The fact is that all sentient beings, whosoever, you know, from from human beings down to the lowliest insect, are all the same. They all desire happiness. They desire not to suffer. This means that, basically, the wants and needs, their wants and needs are very much like our own.
And that that regardless of the superficial differences, basically, we are all just alike, everyone in this room and everyone outside of this room. So the insight that we’re trying to gain in this meditation on equality of self and others is that, essentially, the happiness and suffering of others is in no way different than the happiness and suffering of myself. You know, the purpose of meditating on the equality of self and others is that to develop a mind that seeks the happiness of others and their separation from suffering to the same degree that I now seek my own happiness and the separation from my own suffering. And we extend this equally to all sentient beings. Essentially, we take other people’s happiness and suffering seriously.
And we take our own happiness and suffering seriously. We begin to take theirs as seriously, equally so. So the method that we’re going to make use of in cultivating this attitude, and it’s not something that comes out of the sky, it’s not a matter of wishful thinking, it is a matter of cultivating this understanding. And there’s no reason why we can’t do this. You know, the the is the author here in in another place in his text said, there is nothing which does not become easier upon upon familiarization.
Familiarization. You know, when familiarization you know, when you move into a new home, it feels foreign. It feels alien. It doesn’t but after a while, after after you become accustomed to it, it begins to feel like home again. It feels like home.
You feel comfortable there as if it had always been there. It’s simply a matter of familiarizing one’s mind. Now some of these ideas feel foreign and alien to ourselves. But simply upon accustoming ourselves to these ideas, integrating them, they become our second nature. They become who we are.
So we’re looking at method of equalizing self with others. And we’re going to use a nine you know, Buddhism is is great about this, you know, the way it sets out these things in a very or method, a nine part meditation which comprises equalizing self with all living beings. And we’re going to use it’s going to be nine parts. Now the way we’re going to organize these nine parts is, first, we’re going to there’s a division from the conventional point of view and the ultimate point of view. So, so there’s that major division.
From the conventional equality of self and others from the conventional point of view and from the ultimate point of view. Then we’re going to subdivide the conventional point of view into two, from the side of others and from my own side. So that makes three. From the conventional point of view, from the ultimate point of view, conventional point of view is divided into two. From the conventional point of view, from the side of others, and from my own side, making three.
Okay? Each of those we’re going to make has three divisions, making a total of a nine part meditation. Okay? When we say ultimate, we mean at extremely profound level. You know, a point of view which is relatively deeper and more penetrating than from the conventional point of view.
Okay. The first of these. Examining self and others from the conventional point of view from the side of others. We’re going to look at it from both our own side and others’ side. You know, what we’re trying to understand how how we can feel a sense of equality between ourselves and amongst all sentient beings.
We’re going to approach it from many different points of view, meaning many different types of reasoning, using many different ways in which we can validate it within our own experience. From the conventional point of view, from the other side. Okay? First, all beings are the same and naturally desiring not to suffer. You know this might seem completely obvious to all of us that all beings naturally desire not to suffer.
Rationally, logically, we may think that is in fact the case. Intellectually, we might agree. But it’s not the normal way that we relate with we don’t emotionally relate with the world on that basis. I think we have to acknowledge the fact there’s a great disparity between what we intellectually understand and believe and how we emotionally relate, how we emotionally act in the world. Sometimes complete opposite.
For example, we want to, at our own emotional level, come to a sense of we want to be able to feel the equality of self another, not simply intellectualize it. From the side of all of you and everyone else, from your side, from the side of others, they all desire not to suffer. We overlook that, don’t we, when we become emotionally? We all that gets thrown out of the window. All our understanding, all our intellect intellectualization, you know, all these these fine ideas.
It’s this is what it’s it’s at the level of feeling that we are essentially feeling beings that we relate with others. When we feel hurt, you forget that this other person desires not to suffer. You you want to hurt them. Even though you might understand intellectually that they desire not to be hurt, that goes out the window at that moment. So it’s now how are we to be able to maintain that understanding, that insight?
Imagine, these are the kind of images that I work with, and I’m sharing these with you. And you can all work with finding your own images. Imagine it’s the Second World War. You’re in Nazi Germany. Okay?
You’re sleeping comfortably in your bed. All the ones just pounding on the door, and somebody’s with their rifle butts. It’s the SS soldiers yelling you to get out. Get up and get out of the come with us. And you’re thrown into the back of a truck, you and your family.
And maybe just with the clothes that you have on your back, your night clothes, maybe you were able to grab a few things as you were forced out the door. And you’re thrown on the back of this truck, and you’re taken to a railroad side, you’re loaded on the boxcars with a great number of other people. And after maybe days and days of suffocating and the horrors of traveling in a closed in boxcar, you come to a stop. The doors of the boxcar are thrown open. And you’re thrown down upon the railroad platform.
They’re sorting out people. Some go to the right. Some go to the left. And you’re being separated from your family, wife and your child and your husband and your parents and so forth. It’s this chaos.
It’s a horror. And you’re standing in this line, this long line. And you notice that you know some of these people standing in line. Some of them are people you remember from your own village. Some are very close to you.
Some are just acquaintances. You notice a few people who are your enemies, who you didn’t like. You notice that some of them are extremely beautiful people, very attractive. There are some rich people there. There’s some educated people there, some uneducated people there, there’s some ugly people there, and there’s some crippled people there.
And they’re all standing in this line. And from time to time, they’re all in line going in. There’s a large building there. And the door opens. And a number of those people, a group, passes through that door.
And the door closes. And the line shortens. And it’s just chaos and this horror that you experience. At such a time, who are you going to comfort, if you’re going to comfort anybody at all, if you if you have that presence of mind, if you have that caring of mind. You know?
Who who will you who will you draw near to you? Who who will you naturally be the center of your attention, of your concern? You know? Look at all these people’s faces. Know?
None of them want this nightmare. None of them want to be dragged out of their home, taken away from all that was comfortable, that was familiar. Know, none of them want to die. None of them. And that’s their truth from their side.
That’s their reality. And They’re all the same in that. Maybe just a word, maybe just a gesture on your part of going out to another fellow human being in these final moments could make a tremendous difference in their final moments of their life. But which one? Are their hearts any different?
Are somehow the beautiful able to withstand suffering more than the ugly, the loved one able to is more tormented by suffering than the enemy. You know, somehow somehow the the educated or it doesn’t bother them as much as the uneducated. Know, it’s like, can you deny their common humanity, their common vulnerability, whether they’re beautiful, educated, ugly, friend, stranger, or enemy. All of that’s superficial. That’s all beside the point.
They’re all the same in desiring not to suffer. You know, in that, there’s no difference whatsoever. You know, not the slightest difference. You know, to draw to draw the loved one new, to to, you know, to to to try to comfort the beautiful one, the rich one, and to and neglect and neglect the the ugly ugly one, the poor one, the enemy, the stranger. It demands that you deny your own truth that you know in your own heart.
It demands that you harden your heart, that you reject your own consciousness. You have to deny your own understanding, your own knowledge, tells you the fact that nobody wants to suffer, every one of them. You know that at some level. Not just your loved ones, not just the beautiful, not just the rich, not just the educated, but all of them. That’s their reality from their side.
Yeah. Yeah. And we’re gonna have to continue. Okay. I didn’t get very far inside.
So the conventional point of view from the side of others that they all desire not to suffer. Can can you actually feel that? And beneath the superficialities which we normally relate, that level we normally relate with, we, you know, these transactions which pass for relations in terms of, you know, what’s in it for me, and how, what are the normal standards, the criteria of our giving, of our caring, of our concern? We’re calling those into question. So we’ll continue.
It’s a heavy evening, wasn’t it? Sorry I didn’t save any time for questions either. But if you’d like to remain, and we’re going have a discussion around these ideas and so forth, if you’d to get a cup of coffee or a cup of tea. Otherwise, have a nice evening. So next Monday is a holiday.