Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 116-minute session, Ven Jampa Gendun opens with a guided loving-kindness meditation before turning to the philosophical heart of the evening: why friend, enemy, and stranger are relative labels rather than fixed realities. A deceptively simple question — is your ring finger long or short? — anchors the argument, drawing on Śāntideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life to show that these categories exist only by comparison and can reverse overnight. Gendun then walks through Śāntideva’s pointed challenge to self-interest: why does the hand pull a thorn from the foot when only the foot is hurting? The answer — they share one body — leads to the session’s central image: self-cherishing as a cancerous cell that has forgotten it belongs to a larger life. Suited to those following the series from the beginning.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 3PA 2008 04 07.mp3
UUID: a3db75da-aa07-4d53-9e56-a40d144b7c11
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 2008-2009 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2008-04-07
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 116.0 minutes
Words: ~9,630
How is everybody? It seems like every everybody’s so spread out. Let’s all huddle together. Hi. No, yeah, I’d wherever you feel comfortable.
Everybody are people cold, warm, comfortable? Comfortable? You wanted the need a group hug. Yeah. Yeah.
Some group warmth. We can turn the air conditioning’s on. Was thinking maybe we could turn it off. Let me know, okay? Did you have a suggestion?
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I’ll check-in the office. Disconnected. They work on the same channel. No. Oh, I think George is going to look for some batteries.
So I’ll speak up. I’ll speak to the last row. Can you hear me in the last row? Okay. You know we’re talking about equality of self and others.
That’s and part of that equality coming to the understanding is simply that you know our experiences of life are to a large degree not any different than others. Obviously there are superficial differences but there is this underlying quality of unsatisfactoriness which pervades anyone who is under the control of karma and afflictive emotions whether they’re all the way from kings down to slaves. It’s, life is very much in terms of that is very much the same and you know there’s nothing particularly special about each of ourselves that we’re all equal in this regard and what we’re trying to what we’re looking at in with regard to developing a sense of equality of self and others is to begin to appreciate this fact that everybody wants to be happy and no one wants to suffer just like ourselves and moreover their overall experience of how they’re experiencing their life is very much like our own. Know things could be better if we were honest with ourselves. Moreover that in developing this sense of equality of self and others we begin to take others difficulties their problems as seriously as we do our You know, it’s not that we aren’t to prioritize, you know, like, you know, if you were an emergency crew that came upon, you know, there was a natural disaster, You would prioritize of how you’re going to make use of your resources, your time, you know.
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Tight We’re gonna have to give a refund, George. Well, these are just old ones I’ve been lowering. Right? So you think it was something other than that? But this doesn’t show that the batteries are working.
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You made it fast enough to the teacher on the governance. That’s right. I was there to have a devious mind of trying all the different combinations. Keep hunting around anyway. Yeah.
We use the other mic or not? I think I think that was I think it was unplugged in order to plug in the no. No. George, I think, yeah, the channel three. Okay.
So the inner focus of our life, it’s just the fact of, you know, dedicating some of our attention, some of our time, some of our energy to becoming something more. Getting in touch with what it is that we want with our life and working out some real life strategies how we’re going to go about implementing that person that we want to become and orientating yourself to actually do it. Wishing it so is not sufficient. We actually have to do the work. This is why we study.
This is why we meditate. This is why we try to share these ideas together, in order to help us to work out more effective strategies to develop the inspiration and the energy more. Yeah. Thank George. So, this is. So we call this whatever it is that you feel is worth your life, worthy of your time and energy.
We call that a Buddha. This person that you want to become. You know, the the best possible story that we could tell ourselves about ourselves and what we could do with our life. Who would who we could become. You know, we have to dream a little bit, don’t we?
I think in our logic, we’ve grown deaf to the voice of our own hearts. And then We’ve gotten out of touch. Know, the inarticulate whisperings asking us to be something more than we have. So this is, you know, we have to, inspire one another. We have to, share whatever experiences and whatever understandings that we’ve come to over the course of our lives together.
And we can we try to help each other as best we can to become a better person, to, you know, for to live in a better world, both for ourselves and others. And so we try to orientate ourselves in that way. I go for refuge until I’m awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Through my practice of generosity and other perfections may I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am awakened to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha through my practice of generosity and the other perfections may I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings.
I go for refuge until I’m awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Through my practice of generosity and the other perfections, may I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. May all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness. May all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. May all sentient beings be inseparable from the joy that is without sorrow.
May all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free from attachment for some and aversion toward others. Reverently, I prostrate with my body, speech, and mind. I present clouds of every type of offering those actually arranged and imagined. I disclose all my negative actions accumulated during beginningless time and rejoice in all the virtues of superiors and ordinary beings. Please remain till the end of cyclic existence and turn the wheel of Dharma for migrating beings.
I dedicate all virtue, my own and others, through awakening. Okay. We’re going to meditate. So perhaps we’ll just, we’ll meditate on, we’ll do a meditation on loving kindness together. Okay?
So I’ll lead you through that. So taking a comfortable firm position. So we’ll begin with relaxing the body starting at the crown of the head, the scalp. Feel ing the wrinkles in your brow beginning to smooth out. The pressure in and around your eyes diminishing.
The muscles of your face softening, relaxing. Your jaws relax. And bring awareness to the back of your neck, perhaps gently turning your head to each side a few times, very gently stretching, loosening the muscles of the back of the neck. Relaxing the muscles rotating your shoulders a few times. And allowing them to drop comfortably to the sides.
Feeling this weight that we carry around on our backs. Moving down and through your body into the ground. Bringing your awareness the way down to your hands. Hands are soft and loose. Relaxing chest is at ease.
Relaxing throughout the heart area. The the back and the stomach. And releasing the tension that we hold in our stomach muscles, allowing your belly to go soft. Relaxing throughout the abdominal cavity. And keeping your back straight, your trunk erect, relax your lower back muscles.
In your buttocks, and throughout your upper legs and your lower legs At your feet. Bringing your awareness to your body in general. Noticing any tightnesses, any tensions which remain in the body. Any areas of discomfort. Focusing upon those areas consciously relaxing, softening, feeling the tightness loosen, the tension diminish.
If there’s some discomfort, don’t resist or struggle against it. Surround it with a sense of acceptance. It’s part of who you are at present. It’s okay if it’s there. Be kind to yourself.
Your body becoming comfortable, at ease. Feeling the physical well-being pervading every part of your body. Just experience your body. Just be your body. And then bring your mind.
We’re going to practice the six part breath exercise. Breathing in comfortably normally, but when you breathe out, extending the exhalation, completely emptying your lungs. Again, breathing in comfortably normally. Again, extending the exhalation and doing this six times individually. When you’ve completed the six breaths then bring your mind to the breath just the 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. So now we’re going to meditate on loving kindness and we begin the meditation with ourselves. So if you can imagine yourself in front of yourself that that would would be good, that would be excellent but if you can’t see yourself it’s not so important just feel that these feelings that you’re generating are being directed in this case toward your yourself. Whatever the various mistakes that you feel you may have created in the past, you can simply develop a healthy sense of regret and you can begin again.
Whatever of changes you want to make in the future, you can become that. You can make those kinds of changes. But just for this present moment, we want to make friends with ourselves as we are at this very moment in the present, the person who we are now. So we’re going to develop some kind, caring feelings toward ourselves, this person who you are now, wishing ourselves well. So develop some wish of happiness towards yourself.
May I be happy. May I have all the good things of life. May I not suffer. Be kind to yourself. Befriend yourself and wish yourself well.
Wish yourself all the good things in life. Whatever it is that you might want most, wish that you had it for yourself. Be kind to yourself. Now think of someone that you like, that you love. Imagine that person there in front of you.
Just feel that this person is there. And remember some of the good times that you shared together, the the many kindnesses that this person has shown you. Why did you love them so much? And begin to direct out toward this person, radiate out toward them the kind caring feelings which naturally arise when you think of them in this way. You know, feelings of wishing them to be happy that they not suffer.
May you have all the good things of life. May you be Now think of someone that you neither like nor dislike. You feel indifferent toward a stranger. Perhaps somebody you see from time to time in a shop or at work or a neighbor down the street. You don’t know this person.
You don’t know this story, but the one thing you do know about them is that they want to be happy and they don’t want to suffer just like yourself. So just out of the the goodness of your heart to going out to a fellow human being just like yourself as an act of unconcerned kindness. Kindness. Wish them well. Wish them happiness as you would yourself.
Now think of someone that you have some problems with, somebody you don’t like. Imagine that person there in front of you. This person wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer just just like yourself and perhaps their method of finding their happiness solving their problems has come in conflict with your method of finding your own happiness. And solving your own problems is just a matter of conflict of self interest, yours and theirs. And just as you have to begin to forgive yourself for mistakes that you’ve made in the past, perhaps it’s time to begin to forgive this person.
So just for this present moment, set aside your hurt or your grudge and try to see someone very much like yourself doing the best they can to get some happiness out of life. Oftentimes, making mistakes about how they go about it. And understanding if we are ever to be free, we have to learn how to forgive. Just for this moment, let go and simply wish them well. And all the people in this room, people are trying to take responsibility for their lives, searching, exploring.
Wish that they find whatever it is that they’re looking for, whatever would bring them happiness. Just radiate out outwardly a wish of happiness and well-being to everyone in the room. And extending this wish out to all of Burnside, the people in their homes watching television, eating dinner, getting ready for bed, people in their cars, on the streets, shops. Extending this wish out to all of Adelaide, factories, department stores, office buildings, their cars and buses and trains. Extend his wish out further and further to all of South Australia, to Melbourne and Hobart and Sydney, Brisbane, Cairns, Alice Springs, Darwin, Perth, the entire country.
And eastward to New Zealand and northward to East Timor, Malaysia and Southeast Asia. All of Asia and Europe Africa, South America, North America. Just feel as if you’re taking the entire world into your heart. All the peoples, black, white, red, yellow, all the animals, the insects, everything that lives on the earth is touched by wish that they’d be happy that they not suffer. And extending this wish out further, radiating out in all the directions of space.
Further and further without any feelings of limitation, without any limits. Until finally without any center, without any boundaries pervading all of infinite space. I wish we all be happy. May there be only happiness. May there be Just keep coming back.
Completely open space and peace. And then bring your mind back to the breath. And get in touch with your body. The pressure of your buttocks on the cushion on the chair your feet on the floor just some feeling sensation within the body. And in an easy and relaxed manner, slowly become aware of your surroundings.
So we’re looking at the second of these two meditative traditions for awakening our hearts. And I think it seems like it seems terribly important, doesn’t it? I think, you know, whatever else it is that we do with our lives, whatever our various as we’re talking about our various priorities, how we spend our time and energy and make use of our resources that we make conscious effort to to cultivate and express love in our life. It seems like any any real definition of successful life has to it seems like that has to play a a primary part in our definition of what a good life might be like is the ability to love. These two meditative traditions for cultivating the awakened heart, the seven cause-and-effect instruction and equalizing and exchanging self with others and we’re looking at the second of these two and within the equalizing and exchanging self with others we’re looking at equalizing self with others.
So, you know, essentially, you know, we’re not trying to be robots. We’re not trying we but we have to become aware that we have these reactive patterns, which, because of which we habitually relate in terms of attachment, aversion, and indifference. When we label someone as a friend, we automatically unthinkingly, instinctively react with attachment. When we label somebody as an enemy, we instinctively, automatically relate with aversion. And with the vast majority of people, those whom we categorize or label as strangers, as if they don’t matter, we automatically, instinctively relate with a sense of feeling of indifference.
These are our instinctive reactions. And it’s not that friend, enemy, and stranger don’t exist, but we’re simply trying to become a diminish the the reactive patterns of these particular ways of existing so that they we can begin to not our way of relating is not conditioned by these automatic reactive patterns of attachment, aversion and indifference, that we can begin to develop a neutral space where there’s no longer these reactive patterns operative in our minds. We can begin to replace the mode of how we’re going to relate with others in a positive way. Love, compassion, caring, concern, you know, an unconditional positive regard. So by unconditioned, not conditioned by these are normal habitual ways of relating.
We can, yeah. So we’re working through, you know, developing this sense of even mindedness, you know, we’re working with, from the conventional point of view and from the ultimate point of view. And we’ve, we’ve looked at the conventional point of view from the side of others and from our own side and that from the side of others, you know, that they’re all the same in the sense that they all desire happy, to be happy. They all desire not to suffer. And the desire to be happy, they don’t have the happiness that they want to.
They desire not to suffer. Still, don’t. So they have suffering. And then from our own point of view, from our own side, that they’re all equal. In the sense that all of these beings have been our primary caregivers in the past.
This has been, you know, as our mothers and so forth, as our fathers, those who cared for us in all the various ways that they did. But this entails that we have some firm conviction in rebirth, that our infinite lives are we’ve taken infinite numbers of rebirths, and over those infinite number of rebirths, all these various beings about us have been our primary caregivers in the past. But even that’s from our side but even if without that we can begin to consider the unique ways in which all beings are kind to us. And we’re training our minds, aren’t we? Somehow we feel so very justified in our present ways of thinking and holding the positions that we do, way that we relate, as if that’s the only possible way that any rational and intelligent person like myself could hope to relate.
Obviously, some people are enemies, and they try to hurt me. Why should I be kind to them? And that’s stupid. And we’re trying to create some space where we maybe we can begin to call into question these habitual ways of relating, unquestioned, taken for granted truths that we that we assumptions that we’re continually making and basing our lives on that aren’t working, even if they were true, which they aren’t. And that all And this is a matter of training, isn’t it, of our minds, that all beings, whether friend, enemy, or stranger, are kind to ourselves.
They’re not kind in the same ways. That would be stupid. No one’s saying that. Your your your partner or your your parents and so forth, those people we categorize as friend categorize as friend. They’re they’re kind in a particular way.
They’re concerned about your welfare. They’re trying to bring about your immediate happiness. But strangers, you know, we can begin to appreciate rather than feel indifference toward all the all the prosperity and the physical well-being that we take so much for granted that goes unquestioned. The space that we have to share, light, which will turn the switch and there’s light. Have transportation, we have food on our tables, we go to the supermarket and there’s all this available for us quite readily, quite easily.
What would we be doing without all these people? We can develop a sense of thankfulness and gratitude toward that. Whatever their motivation, whatever their intention for doing what it is that they do, still it benefits us. I mean, I think that’s pretty I think we have to acknowledge that fact. And then there’s enemies.
And this is the hard one, isn’t it, to appreciate an enemy? It’s enemies who make us strong, who show us where we’re really at, who help us to cultivate patience, who really teach us how to love. When Christ acknowledged us to love your enemies, he was challenging us. You know, it’s easy to love when the sun is shining and people are nice. But to love to return kindness for harm is a real triumph.
It’s an act of a bodhisattva, someone who has gone beyond self centeredness and self-cherishing. And moreover, we all are the same in the face of death. Your friend, your enemy, and your stranger, they’re all going to die. And what’s the use of the of the of your attachment? What is the use of your indifference?
What is the use of our grudge, our anger when in a in a matter of, what, seventy five years? No. Much less than fifty years, all the people that you hold these feelings towards, they will no longer be. They’ll just be dust. And then we looked at it from the ultimate point of view, here’s a conventional point of view from our own side, that that friends, stranger, and enemy do not exist the way they appear in truth.
You know, that we we mistaken you know, we label somebody as a as a friend, friend, and they appear that way. We aware of the part that our own minds are playing in the creation of that appearance, that this person appears able, likeable, kind, pleasant from their own side. And we, on the basis of that, we develop attachment. We want to make them permanent part of ourselves, of my, mine, my friend, my lover, my partner, whatever. We label this person an enemy, and they appear that way.
But we don’t see how the part our mind is playing in bringing forth that appearance. They appear from their own side, inherently very unpleasant people, not very nice, unlikable. And we react to that appearance with aversion. And the same holds true with the stranger in the middle. So, you know, the map is not the territories.
We are dealing more than that with our own ideals about people than actual flesh and blood people. And this the the ideas about the person become much more vivid and stable, and we end up in basing our relations on our preconceived ideas about them. And we don’t really see them for what they are. They’re deeper, more essential, more universal quality. Secondly, we looked at the equality of others from the ultimate point of view in terms of friend, enemy, stranger are uncertain.
It’s like a bubbling pot of stew, vegetable stew. Sometimes there’s a potato on top, Sometimes there’s a carrot on top. Sometimes the peas are on top. And it’s controlling this rolling pot of stew. And our relationships are undergoing constant change.
They’re tenuous and changeable in changeable in nature. Our best friend, just a few unpleasant words and misunderstanding, can become an enemy. That happens to us. We’ve all experienced An enemy, just a kind gesture, a change of circumstance. They’ve become our best friend.
So not holding so tightly to these categories. We’re not saying that you invite your enemy over for dinner, but just simply being a little more open, a little more fluid in the way that we relate, and not holding not mistaking these these our ideas, these categories for the actual flesh and blood person and moreover not fixating, not getting stuck on these categorizations and thereby automatically reacting, instinctively reacting with our normal reactions of aversion, attachment diversion and indifference. Okay, that’s what we’ve covered thus far. And then tonight we’ll look at the third. So we’re going to complete the equality self and others.
From the ultimate point of view, the relativity of friend and the main strangers. And what we mean by ultimate is that we’re talking about this relationships in perhaps a more profound, deeper way than from the conventional point of view. You know the source of this particular teaching on equalizing and exchanging self with others is Śāntideva and mainly the text is the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. Śāntideva was an eighth century Indian master. He also wrote another book, Compendium of Training.
In his Compendium of Training, says both self and other are dependent. So we’re going to talk about the relativity of friend, enemy, and stranger. Okay? By relativity, mean, things exist not absolutely, but they exist relatively. Both self and other are dependent like this side and that side.
If one does not establish the self then in reliance upon what can other come about. So self and other, they are established by means of convention. They do not ultimately exist as such. But this is true of all the various dualities that we make use of in our daily life. High would not exist without low.
Short would not exist without long. Good would not exist without bad. They don’t ultimately exist or absolutely exist. They relatively exist. For example, your ring finger is that long or short?
Question. Is that long or short? Anybody want your finger? Is your ring finger long or short? In the middle of what?
Exit. Okay, good. You got the idea. In and of itself, can’t speak of it as being long or short. You see, absolutely is not long or short.
It is only relatively long or short. Relative to my little finger, it’s long. Relative to my middle finger, it’s short. In and of itself, it’s neither. So this is what we mean by relatively existing as opposed to absolutely existing.
If, you know, if far side absolutely existed, then even if we drove toward it, it would always be the far side, no matter how long we drove. That would be its inherent nature. It’s the far side in and of itself. But we know that’s not the case. It’s the far side relative to the near side, where I am now.
Relative to that, that’s far. But once I approach it, once I drive over there, then what the far what was the near side becomes the far side. And the nearest and the far side becomes the near side. So it’s not ultimately so in and of itself or absolutely so. So getting this feeling, what we mean by relatively existing.
I’ll read a quote. In just the same way, all of the opposites share an implicit identity. That is however vividly the difference between the these opposites may strike us they nevertheless remain completely inseparable and mutually interdependent and for the simple reason that one could not exist without the other. Looked at in this way, there is ob there is obviously no inside without outside, no up without down, no win without loss, no pleasure without pain, no life without death. Says the old Chinese sage, Lao Tzu, is there a difference between yes and no?
Is there a difference between good and evil? Must I fear what others fear? What nonsense? Having and not have arise together, difficult and easy complement each other, long and short contrast each other, high and low rest on each other, front and back follow one another. So what we’re to use that idea, and we’re going to try to extend it to the nature of these three categories, a friend and enemy and stranger.
The those people we we categorize as friend are not friends absolutely so, only relatively so. If we didn’t have any enemies, we wouldn’t have any friends. If we didn’t have any friends, we wouldn’t have any enemies. If we didn’t have friends and enemies, there’d be no strangers. They they are they are distinguished by a comparative mind, you know, making these contrasts.
We can have like a continuum of relationships of individuals. This person treats me the best. I drive the most pleasure out of our relationship with this person. This person, I drive the most pain in terms of our relationship. And then there’s this various gradient through the middle, from one extreme to the other.
We categorize this. We call this group, friends, strangers, and enemies. What happens if you lost all your friends, you lost the first third of this gradient, this continuum of relationships, then you begin to look upon what these people who were more or less strangers. Maybe you had some kind of connection. Oh, they’re my friends.
Compared to them, they’re my friends. That is to compared to my enemies, they’re my friends. I don’t have this other third category to to make this comparing comparison with any longer. I lost all my friends, those who used to be my friends. Compared to them, they’re my compared to my enemies, the strangers now become my friends and so forth.
So the in dependence upon but this also, in very deeper manner, even depends upon in conceiving of self, we conceive of other. If we didn’t didn’t conceive of a self, there would be no other. It’s because we have a sense that this self exists absolutely, independently, that we that we have a it becomes difficult for us to feel the equality of self and other. It it takes, you know, it becomes difficult for us to take others happiness as seriously as we take our own difficult for us to take others’ happiness as seriously as we take our own happiness. Why?
Because we don’t see a relationship between self and other, that they both exist absolutely independent of one another, that they don’t exist relative relative to one another. Know, Śāntideva, we’re going to go you know, I mentioned that Śāntideva is the source of this particular explanation, this particular meditative tradition. And he’s going to present some arguments taking up this argument of why the rationale between developing a sense of equality between all others. And he tries to, you know, there’s a disputant who’s going to argue against him. And he tries to show, you know, that various objections have have no basis in reality.
That’s okay. You know, we have to ask ourselves, it has to be something, you know, more than idle speculation or curiosity or wouldn’t it be nice to be a loving person? And we have to satisfy not only our not only our rational mind, but our feeling hearts in this journey that we’re on in bringing about these kinds of changes in our hearts and minds. Know, Śāntideva is going to help us to satisfy some of our rational arguments that we might have against us, some of the obstacles that we have in our thinking. You know, why should I dispel the suffering of others?
Why should I? I mean, unless you answer that question for yourself, you probably never will dispel or make the effort to dispel the suffering of others. That’s not our natural inclination at present. Reading from Śāntideva’s the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. So this begins with Śāntideva.
The suffering that I experience does not cause any harm to others, but the suffering is mine because of conceiving of myself as an I. Therefore, it becomes unbearable. Likewise, the misery of others does not befall me. Nevertheless, by conceiving of others as I, their suffering becomes mine. Therefore, it should be hard to bear.
Hence, I should dispel the misery of others because it is suffering just like my own, and I should benefit others because they are sentient beings just like myself. When both myself and others are similar similar in the wish to be happy, what is so special about me? Why do I strive for my happiness alone? And when both myself and others are similar in that we do not wish to suffer, what is so special about me? Why do I protect myself and others?
So he’s presenting some ideas, isn’t he? And there’s someone’s going to argue against him, a disputant. He says, But why should I protect them if their suffering does not cause me any harm? Okay. That’s a pretty good argument.
Then Śāntideva answers, then why protect against future suffering if it causes me no harm now? It is mistaken conception to think I shall experience the suffering of my next life for it is another person who dies and another person who will be reborn? You know, I get, you know, okay, why should we, you know, like, for example, you know, we don’t have to even think about future lives and so forth, you know. We can put it in the context of this life. Why do we deprive ourselves of the possible present pleasures that we could get out of the money that we put into superannuation or pension fund?
We’re taking some money away from our present selves and we’re putting it into a fund, the person who’s saving that money is never going to experience isn’t going to is the present self who’s who’s who’s forgoing pleasure that that money could possibly have brought them. That person who’s saving the who put the money in the bank or put the money in the pension fund and superannuation isn’t going to experience the result of those pleasures that that money’s going to bring in the future. Nonetheless, we think it’s quite a logical, reasonable thing to do, you know, to provide for my future. Even though the person’s saving, even the person’s foregoing the pleasure at present isn’t going to be around when that future person who I’m going to be someday experiences the result of having saved that money in retirement. So the present person doing the saving and the later person who’s going to reap the benefit of that saving are not the same person.
But, okay, so this is like Śāntideva answering. But then this disputant, he answers back. He argues back with Surely wherever there is suffering, the sufferer must protect himself from it. Okay. So whoever if they’re they’re suffering, the sufferer should protect themselves.
I mean, that’s pretty much accepted, I think, in our society. It seems pretty reasonable, logical that the sufferer is the one who should protect themselves. But then but Śāntideva answers, but the suffering of the foot is not that of the hand. Why does it protect it? So Śāntideva says, well, if you you say, you know, who who’s ever experiencing the suffering should protect themselves.
The the sufferer should protect themselves. And that sounds quite reasonable. And but why like, when you step on a thorn. The hand’s not hurting in the least. It doesn’t feel the pain of the thorn.
Why does the hand reach down and pull the thorn out of its foot? That’s not hurting. Why does the hand pull the thorn out of the foot? And the disputant answer is although this may not be justified, it is done because of grasping of the self. And Śāntideva says, but surely whatever is justified for myself or others should also should at all costs be rejected.
In the same way as the hand and so forth regarded as limbs of the body. Likewise, why are embodied creatures not regarded as limbs of life? So, Śāntideva is trying to get across the argument, You know, why okay. Why do okay. Why does the hand reach down, take the thorn out of the foot?
Question. The hand is not hurting. Right? Why does it reach down and pull the thorn out? To take the foot.
So to take the pain out of the foot. Alright. They have the same nervous system. So they’re both that’s right. I think you’re both right.
I mean they’re both part of the same body aren’t they? When the body’s in pain it becomes a responsibility for all the parts of the body to remove that pain. Yeah. So the Śāntideva is trying to get across the idea and it’s a very difficult idea I admit that we are all limbs of this great being of sentient life and as long that great being of sentient life is suffering, it’s the responsibility for all the parts to remove that suffering. Whether I call it my suffering or other suffering is beside the point.
No one wants to suffer equally. So Being part of this whole, as long as suffering exists, it’s up to each part to remove that suffering. Śāntideva says, Being no inherent owner of suffering, there can be no distinction at all that of myself and others. Thus, I shall dispel it because it hurts. Why am I so certain that I shouldn’t eliminate the suffering of others?
You know, there I remember this was a number of years ago when I lived in Dharamsala. I had the good fortune to have a few audiences, private audience with the Dalai Lama. And he was telling me about another westerner. I guess I can say this. Okay.
Maybe another westerner who was going into a long retreat. Retreat for a few years. And this westerner had come to the Dalai Lama prior to his retreat and he said, know, I have a great deal of difficulty cultivating compassion. And I, you know, because I think all things are of the mind. You know, all things are an illusion.
Therefore, you know, then there are these beings who are experiencing suffering are just an illusion, and their suffering is an illusion. And it was going on and on like this in this way. And the Dalai Lama finally said, well, it’s it’s obvious that that you haven’t studied enough. You know, that though, you know, we’re so sure in our way of thinking that, you know, that we cannot even conceive that it becomes difficult for us to actually generate compassion because of our, you know, because we’re very much stuck in it from, in our present particular perspective and goes unquestioned. We don’t even know that we’re basing our whole way of relating on a particular worldview of how we think things exist.
We have a sense that they exist truly out there, separate. That self exists out there, and I exist over here. And there’s a big black line isolating us from the rest of the world that we can’t even begin to imagine what it might mean to if this big black line, which isolates us from others, in fact, doesn’t exist in reality, that we exist in interdependence. That, in fact, we may all just like a sometimes I think of it in terms of cancer. What happens?
There’s all these cells of this body working harmoniously. They’re each playing their role in the well-being of the whole. Supplying the needs, creating, you know, balance of chemicals and hormones and doing all that needs to be done to to maintain the well-being of the whole. And then a few begin to draw a big, thick, like, black line around themselves. And and they become, what, renegade cells.
And they they no longer see I don’t know about see. They no no longer relate with the rest of the body as if they were part of that body, as if they were all that existed. And their own welfare becomes primary, even at the expense and the well-being of the whole. And sometimes I think that maybe in one way, we’re like cancer cells. Our self centeredness, our self-cherishing is like a cancerous disease in which we conceive ourselves as being separate from the whole.
And we begin to relate and make use of others at their expense, at the exclusion of the whole, and oftentimes at the well-being of our environment and others. We we we exist in that way separate from the rest. Just like cancer cells destroying the body in which they live. The disputant, in talking with Śāntideva, the disputant says, but since neither the sufferer nor the suffering truly exist, why should I turn away the misery of all? And this is what I was meant when I was talking about this this Westerner.
Sometimes, you know, nothing truly exists. And we’re going to talk a great deal more about that when we come to the third principal aspect of the path, the correct view of emptiness. But though nothing truly exists, it doesn’t mean that things don’t exist conventionally, relatively. Suffering exists. Relatively.
Suffering exists. It may not truly exist, but nonetheless exists. Its existence is an experience that none of us want. You know, this is kind of like what I was mentioning with regard to this Westerner who had a little bit of knowledge, but it went astray. He didn’t quite understand the deeper implications of what he was thinking.
Things may be illusions, but even but we can experience illusions as painful. Even though that painful even though that pain might be illusory pain, it’s still an experience that no one wants. And that’s what we mean by pain. So in equalizing self with others, we’re trying to discover an alternative way of relating with others, you know, feeling the essential sameness of ourselves and others. You know, just as we want happiness and don’t want to suffer, likewise, all living beings, whosoever want happiness and don’t want to suffer.
There’s no difference in that. So the implication of this, what we’re trying to get at, is to identify ourselves with all beings equally in the sense that there’s to take their suffering suffering as seriously as I do my own. In the same way, you know, that I’m used to identifying with my own suffering, you know, whatever part of the body the suffering occurs, I take it as seriously as whether the hand is suffering or the foot is suffering. It’s not as if, Oh, the hand is suffering. I don’t care about hands.
I’m interested in feet. That’s where I’m concerned. We don’t think that way toward all the various parts of our own body. So we identify with all the various parts of our body in an equal manner. We have equal concern with all the various parts of our body in terms of its suffering and its well-being.
You know, wherever the pain might occur, whether it’s in the foot, the hand, or the head, we’re equally concerned with that pain. So, we have the same degree of concern wherever that pain occurs within the body. So, you know, we might object like this objector was talking with Śāntideva, that it’s unrealistically it’s unrealistic to expect us to automatically respond to the pains of others in the same way that we respond to the pain of ourselves, you know, the various parts of our body. Since we don’t feel the pain of others, but we feel the pain of our body, there seems to be some dramatic marked qualitative difference between I don’t feel the pain of others. I do feel the pain in all the parts of my body.
Śāntideva analyzes this argument and he says that we only feel what we feel, you know, for example, our own pain because we appropriate it through a habitual identification with it as being my pain. You know, it’s our pain or my pain. A baby isn’t born with that. They don’t make distinguish they don’t automatically have a distinction between the self and not-self. It is a learned recognition.
You know, they begin to see that they have more control over certain parts of their environment than others. They can they they they begin to see that they can they can wiggle this hand, but they can’t wiggle that glass. So what they have more control over, they begin to think of as being my I and mine. What the the less control, they begin to think as not I and my, as other. So they begin to make this kind of demarcation, one of the first learning processes in self identification of what is me and what is not me.
So it’s a learned process. You know, but there are there are but this process isn’t first off, it’s not automatic. And more and and and oftentimes, even the course of our life, this distinction temporarily subsides or lost in some ways. You know, there are many occasions when in the heat of emotion or when we’re, for example, under anesthesia, when we cannot cannot feel at all the pain, types of pain which would be normally excruciating. You know, soldiers are in battle and they’re injured, they can carry on with having to do what is needed at the moment, and only later do they experience the tremendous pain, which normally would be excruciating for them.
And the same holds true, you know, being under when we’re hypnotized and so forth. You know, under their hypnotized and so forth. There are conditions when we are temporarily not identifying with our pain as our pain. Our own feelings are due to a habit of identification, and identification can be modified. What is it about the minds that keeps us from the recognition of the quality of self and others that makes it so easy to forget.
One factor is that we mainly encounter others through the medium of sight. You know, when we think of others, what is the impression that we have? We see bodies. That’s the first thing we see. It’s difficult to see feeling beings.
That requires some training of the mind. Our initial impression is thing, body. We see others visually. That’s our primary way of relating with others, normally. One factor is we normally, mainly encounter others through the medium medium of sight, through our visual consciousness or eyes.
We mainly see other people, but we mainly feel ourselves. How do we make, how do we experience ourselves? We, We feel. We are primarily feeling beings. This how we subjectively experience ourselves.
And we remain primarily concerned with our own feelings of warmth, cold, hunger, thirst, breathing, having this pleasure or this pain. We use radically different modes for self and others. Mainly, we see others and we feel ourselves. So Śāntideva here is suggesting that through cultivation, we can accustom ourselves to identifying with the pain of of other beings. We can actually come to feel their pain.
We can expand our sense of identification of what is our pain. We’ve learned to, we’ve accustomed ourselves, we’ve appropriated our pain in that to our sense of identifying as my pain. It’s not something which is out there. It’s my pain. But we can begin to modify that sense of identification in which we can actually begin to appropriate the pain of others as my pain.
We can feel the pain of others just as we know we feel our own pain. You know, that is we can begin to feel the equality of self in others. This essentially is what we’re saying. Then Śāntideva goes on to explain that the arbitrariness and the expansibility, the expandability of our self-identification, you know, the way that we’ve learned to identify what it is that we’re concerned with, what it is that we’re more than not concerned with, what is me and what is not me? It’s a learned process and what has been learned can be unlearned and new learning can begin to take its place.
So we’re learning about how we’ve come to understand what constitutes me, I. We take it so much for granted, but it’s been a learned training process. Although the basis is quite impersonal, through constant familiarity, I have come to regard the drop of sperm and blood of others as I. So in the same way, why should I be unable to regard the bodies of others as I? Hence, it is not difficult to see that my body is also that of others.
I mean, this is really stretching the imagination. It’s hard to be able to actually begin to conceive of a possibility of training one’s mind in this way. But nonetheless, Śāntideva is presenting it as a real possibility. You know, we didn’t begin to, as children, to identify with our bodies automatically. We had to learn it to do it, and we became accustomed to that.
You know, the semen of our father and the ovum of our mother, they formed a body for our consciousness, which our consciousness entered into in the womb. You know, if you were to find some semen and an ovum on your sheets, you know, you might find them rather repellent. And then you might go wash the sheets. But what was repellent? You’ve learned to identify as me.
And at one time, it was something other than you. It was simply some substance that came from your mother and father. Now what has evolved out of that other has become me, I. And it comes quite naturally. And yet, but this is true.
This ability to suspend identification, to expand identification even temporarily, is it’s experienced by soldiers when they go into battle, when the citizens of nations or the believers in religions. We can recondition our identity. Sometimes identify with the group over and above the individual. You know, this is even more so, I think, in the East than it is in the West. In the Western tradition, we have a great emphasis on individualism.
I think more in Eastern societies, the family, they identify more identify more with the well-being of the family in terms of priorities, in terms of needs. It is the family in which they have a greater priority than the individual. But we do this when people die for their religion or die for an idea or their, you know, even over and above our survival instinct. When soldiers die for their comrades, they identify with the well-being of the group, with their unit. Śāntideva is suggesting, why cannot we be conditioned to expand our sense of self identity to include all limbs, you know, all beings as a as a the limbs of this great being of sentient life.
The body of life. That sense of identification identification rather than a single individual having a sense that we are all limbs of a great being of sentient life and identifying with this being of sentient life. And so the Śāntideva says, In the same way as the hands and so forth are regarded as limbs of the body, likewise why are embodied body creatures not regarded as limbs of life? Through acquaintance has the thought I arisen toward this impersonal body. So in a similar way, why should it not arise toward other living beings?
So, you know, it’s not unrealistic but even compellingly practical that we should develop a natural, rational, instinctively powerful altruism. There’s nothing artificial about the fact the essential equality of self and others, that all living beings want to be happy just like myself and that they don’t want to suffer just like myself. Cult and then finally, in cultivating the qualities of a Buddha, we rely both on the victors, though the victor is an epithet of Buddhas. So we rely both on the so we if we want to become a Buddha, we rely both on the Buddhas, but we also rely upon sentient beings. Just as we pay homage to the victors, let us say the Buddhas, how can we not pay homage to sentient beings?
So, you know, in in talking about the equality of self and others, we equally rely on sentient beings as we do the Buddhas in becoming the best possible person that we can become in learning how to love, and learning how to develop ourselves in all these various practice. We need others. We need the teachings which come from the Buddhas, but we also need others toward whom we put the teachings in the practice. We equally need each of them. They’re equally important to our well-being.
So the insight that we are to come to in developing this equality self and others is that the suffering and happiness of others is in no different is in no way different than our own. I don’t know. Maybe we really, you know, with our myopic perspective, maybe we really never question this, do we? We never take this into consideration. We never really think about it.
That, you know, to that all of these beings, you know, the people here in this room this evening, that we’re all feeling beings, and we all want to be happy, and we all don’t want to suffer equally in exactly the same ways. And what kind of implication does does that have in terms of how we’re going to live our lives? How can I use you? How can I make you into an object for my for actual potential use, for my well-being, with knowing all the time that you, just like myself, equally want to be happy and don’t want to suffer? How can I cause you suffering when I know you don’t want to suffer just like myself?
It becomes difficult, doesn’t it, if one’s mindful in that way? You know, to take others’ suffering and happiness as seriously as my own. It requires some kind of really some real thoughtfulness and real training and looking at things in a very much a different way than we’re habitually used to viewing them. I guess we really have to be moved in some way to take up this difficult challenge. But whatever degree, I think we’ll be that much happier.
I’m not saying that we can fully realize these teachings. Eventually we all will. But at least seem to talk about them and consider them to think about them, reflect upon in your everyday life that all the people you’re going to meet on the street tomorrow, the buses in the street, driving their cars and and to work, they’re all feeling beings and all just like yourself. They want to be happy. They don’t want to suffer.
And they don’t it’s not that as if we are we are to force ourselves into some preconceived way of reacting. That’s that’s not the point. It’s, I guess, it’s just being mindful of that fact and making it a part of how you view and how you relate with others. And then the way that you react will take care of that itself. We don’t have to force ourselves.
Into some kind of spiritual straight jacket. It’s just that maybe these ideas can become more and more a natural part of our normal ways of thinking. And then how we relate will take, you know, organically evolve out of that. And I think maybe in that experience as a Dalai Lama keeps saying, you know, I keep repeating again and again, you know, the purpose of life is happiness. And the greatest happiness is experienced to the degree that we experience compassion and love.
And out of that, you know, becomes self validating. These ideas become you know, we we naturally want to be happy. And we find that these ways of thinking make us happy a happier person, then they naturally become more and more an instinctive part of who we are. So, in the equalizing and exchanging self with others, we’ve completed the section on equalizing self and others and we’ll begin the second of the five parts of this tradition in looking at the disadvantages of self centeredness and the advantages of other centeredness. Okay.
So we’re going to dedicate the positive energy we’ve created together. May all beings everywhere plagued by suffering of body and mind attain an ocean of happiness and joy by virtue of my merits. May no living creatures suffer, commit evil, or fall ill. May no one be afraid or belittled with a mind weighed down by depression. May the blind see forms, the deaf hear sounds.
May those whose bodies are worn with toil be restored on finding repose. May the naked find clothing, the hungry find food. May the thirsty find water and delicious drink. May the poor find wealth, those weak with sorrow find joy. May forlorn find hope, constant happiness, and prosperity.
May there be timely rains and bountiful harvest. May all medicines be effective and wholesome prayers bear fruit. May all who are sick and ill quickly be freed from their ailments. Whatever diseases there are in the world, may they never occur again. May the frightened cease to be afraid and those bound be freed.
May the powerless find power and may people think of benefiting each other. For as long as space remains, for as long as sentient beings remain, until then may I too remain to dispel the miseries of the world. Through these skillful actions, may I quickly become an awakened spiritual master and lead each and every living being to that awakened realm. May the supreme jewel, the awakened heart that has not arisen arise and grow. And may that which has arisen never diminish, but increase more and more.
In the land encircled by snow mountains, you’re the source of our happiness and well-being. Powerful Chenrezig Tenzin Gyatso, please remain at the end of cyclic existence. Thank you. So if you’d like to grab a cup of tea we’ll have a discussion otherwise have a good night okay.