Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Jampa Gendun opens this nearly two-hour session by completing the series’ overview of all six perfections, using a memorable cookbook analogy to explain meditative concentration: evoke a skillful state of mind through sustained reflection, then prolong it — the way mist slowly soaks through clothing without your noticing. A guided equalising meditation on friend, stranger, and enemy follows, asking students to sense the feeling being beneath each habitual label. The session then turns to its central argument: that self-centredness is the root of loneliness, paranoia, and an inability to love. Drawing on Lama Yeshe, Lama Zopa, Thich Nhat Hanh, and psychiatrist Oliver Sacks, Gendun makes the case from lived experience rather than doctrine, closing with an open discussion prompted by Sacks’s claim that other people constitute our very sense of reality.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 3PA 2008 04 14.mp3
UUID: 4792a8fc-f54e-4312-bc88-7c0d3f6f793b
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 2008-2009 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2008-04-14
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 104.7 minutes
Words: ~10,221
Can you hear me okay? Okay. Good. We begin by as we always do by adjusting our motivation. Part of our motivation, generally, as a way of formalizing it, we recite the verse, you know, of going for refuge in the generation of the awakened heart.
And within that, there’s, you know, by means of the practice of the six perfections, so we’ve been looking at a very brief explanation of what that entails. What are the six perfections? We’ve got generosity and joyous effort separate. Is that alright? What was it?
Wisdom. So we’ve got four. Go through what? So, we have, thus far, I listed generosity, ethics, joyous effort, and wisdom. That’s five.
Okay. Meditation. That’s close. Meditative concentration. Yeah, we covered that.
One more. Now you’re just going to have to be very patient with yourselves. Clever. You want a cigar. Okay.
So these are the core practices of a bodhisattva. Who has awoken their heart. Has awakened their heart. Anyway, it was generated bodhicitta. What do they do for a living?
After having done that, then they practiced the six perfections. We’ve gone through the first four of these six perfections of generosity, ethics, patience, and joyous effort. The perfection is, as was mentioned, meditative concentration. You know, it’s the way that we can remain focused on what’s important to ourselves and not be distracted. We capture and prolong and integrate various skillful states of mind.
I mean, in a way, that’s one there are many ways we can look at meditation, aren’t there? There’s different approaches and aspects of it. One of them is, and I think it’s a useful aspect, it’s like, you know, it’s like, sometimes I think of it like a meditation manual that’s like a cookbook. You you want to make a lasagna. Okay.
I like lasagna. And, you know, it tells you, you know, all the various ingredients you put in. You put them together in the right combination get the oven going in the right heat and everything, and you come up with something very delicious to eat. It’s like they have these recipes, right? So a meditation manual or the various types of meditation are like recipes.
And but we’re we’re we’re not trying to produce some something delicious to eat, but some delicious state of mind, some skillful state of mind. You know, you think this way, think about this, think about this. And then you put everything, get all the ingredients in the right proportions and everything, the various balance of mind and the way that we see things. And And you evoke a particular skillful state of mind. Maybe it’s compassion.
Maybe it’s wisdom and so forth. But having done that, you know, you’ve probably put a lot of work into evoking the state of mind. You know? A lot of part you know, a great part of meditation is simply going through a lot of thought and a lot of reason and using your experience and so forth in order for the penny to drop. That is the one that’s what you’re trying to evoke.
Yeah? Then you want but having done that, you’ve probably spent a great deal of time and work and having, you know, generated that and you want to be able to hold on to it for some time. You know, if it if you get the and then it’s gone, well, you spent fifteen minutes to get one moment of, you know, of the state of mind that you’ve been working toward. And that would be wouldn’t be very effective. But if you’re able to prolong that moment through the power of your own meditative concentration, then so you capture a particular skillful state, you evoke prolong it.
And it is the prolongation is the is the means whereby it’s integrated. You know, it’s like a sometimes it’s like a like walking through mist, you know, on a misty day up in the mountains or something like that. You don’t even notice. But slowly, your your clothes become they they absorb the moisture from the air. And after a while, you actually be your clothes become damp, almost wet.
You you didn’t didn’t notice at what moment they became wet. It was just a slow, gradual absorption of this mist. So we evoke these various states, and we try to maintain them, hold on to them as long as possible. And our mind becomes accustomed. You know, it’s like absorbing this mist from the from the air.
And it becomes an actual part of you know, this is a part the the the integration of these various states. And we through this process of familiarization, and it becomes more and more our second nature. You know? It becomes who we are. Our mind changes.
You know, the mind is is not a thing in and of itself. It’s not absolute. It is it is dynamic in nature. It’s always in movement. It’s always change.
But more than not, it’s self most of the changes are the source of most of our progression are in our from past habits. So the mind, though it’s changing from moment to moment, it’s replicating a lot a lot of old ways of thinking. But that we can introduce new ways of thinking into into this process. And it will naturally begin to replicate those ways of thinking, and they become part of our ways of thinking and therefore our behaving, and we change. This is this is one of the advantages of of the clear and knowing quality of the mind.
That is to say, it doesn’t have any inherent qualities of itself, and it’s it’s not inherently negative, for example. Whatever qualities that it displays are simply a matter of habit, and habits are subject to change. But as we all know, that takes some determination determination and some effort on our part to bring about these kinds of changes. There’s a propensity or a tendency simply to fall back into what comes easiest. I think we do minds usually take the course of least resistance.
So we fall back into the old patterns. And so it requires a great deal of determination to open up new pathways in our mind, in our nervous system, and so forth. But the possibility is there. And the greater our degree of concentration, the greater that the opportunity is available to us to accustom ourselves to a different way of thinking, new particular skillful state of mind. So, meditative concentration, it’s in a class of meditative states called calm abiding, Samatha.
So, calm abiding. The mind abides upon a skillful internal object. That’s the abiding. Having calmed its distraction, it’s running away to external things, external objects, or other objects other than the object of our focus. Calm abiding.
So, you know, the the Bodhisattva, these are the practices of Bodhisattva. Right? And he he cultivates what’s called a supra mundane meditation. There are two types of meditative concentrations. One is called mundane, and one is called supra Supra means beyond mundane.
Through a mundane practice, you know, through a mundane concentration, you can temporarily suppress the various emotions. You can temporarily suppress attachment, desire, hatred, and so forth. They’re not able to arise. While your mind is concentrated on a particular object, if you’re able to hold the mind to that object, then these other states of mind are temporarily unable to arise. You can’t become angry.
You can’t become attached. But we would you know, the moment your concentration wanes, then the what has been suppressed is able to arise. So it’s what we call a mundane concentration is simply the temporary suppression of particular afflictions due to the force of concentration, whereas a supramundane is a has a factor of wisdom, and thereby the the afflictive emotions are actually not only suppressed, but they’re actually eliminated eliminated from the mind. We it’s necessary that we have a wisdom consciousness which undermines the the the causes for those afflictions to arise. And most basically, you know, each of the various afflictions has a particular antidote to that of hatred, it’s love.
To that of jealousy, it’s rejoicing. To that of attachment, it’s repulsiveness. To that of ignorance, it’s the wisdom, understanding, emptiness. So by means of these supra mundane methods, the afflictive emotion is actually uprooted from its you know, it’s gone from the mind altogether. It’s simply not just suppressed.
Meditative The sixth perfection is that of wisdom. And, generally, wisdom is an analytic function of the mind. It is, you know, the ability the faculty of mind that allows us to probe the object in a deeper fashion, to penetrate into its nature. It’s a discriminating quality of the mind, which tries to see beneath the superficial appearances of things. Generally, there are three types of wisdom.
Wisdom of conventionalities, and these are what sometimes is a term, this type of wisdom is concerned, is called the five sciences. Anyway, that’s what it’s normally termed as. The five sciences. Sciences of medicine, art, logic, language, medicine, art, language, philosophy, and contemplative practices. Philosophy and contemplative practices.
So the medicine, art, language, medicine, art, logic, philosophy, and contemplative practice are said to be the five sciences. The second type of wisdom is the wisdom which is able to understand what brings about the welfare of others. It has that ability to discriminate what is to be adopted and what is to be rejected as a means of finding happiness. It understands the deeper causes of happiness and suffering beyond the superficial level. And then, finally, the third type of wisdom is the wisdom that we normally think of when we think of when we talk about wisdom.
It’s the wisdom understanding the deeper nature of reality, wisdom, understanding emptiness. So these are the six core practices of Bodhisattva. And all his efforts are in terms of these six practices of generosity and ethics and patience and meditative joyous perseverance, meditative concentration, and finding wisdom. They’re like the first five are said to be method. They are like what empowers the Bodhisattva’s consciousness.
The sixth is wisdom. They’re like the two wings of a bird. In order for a bird to fly, we need two wings. One part of those wings are method. These various practices, the first five of these six practices, motivated out of compassion and love.
And then the sixth is that of wisdom. Essentially, what we mean, the emphasis that’s being made here is simply we need a wise heart and loving mind. We need an integration, a development, an integration of both our cognitive as well as our affective, our emotional life. Compassion is quite necessary, but that in itself is not sufficient. Wisdom is quite necessary, but that in itself is not sufficient.
We have to make effort in developing both of these areas of our being in order to be of greatest possible benefit both to ourselves as well as to others. So this is where all of these various teachings and all of these various the whole of Buddhist philosophy is kind of hinged around these practices in helping us to cultivate and bring them to fulfillment. That’s why we we talk about, for example, the three principal aspects of the path and so forth, the awakening our hearts and awakening our minds. So, you know, if if our time together, you know, talking talking about three principal aspects of the path, you know, as we’re doing tonight, if it’s going to be a benefit to ourselves, if it’s actually going to serve as a far reaching mean to help us to solve our problems and find the happiness that we want. It’s very much dependent upon our motivation.
Simply hearing about these things and gathering the information is not sufficient. We need a good good motivation. And we start with ourselves and wanting to solve our own problems. And we’re learning some skills, aren’t we? We’re educating ourselves into the deeper ways of the mind and life.
And it doesn’t seem like this education is available elsewhere to a large degree. They don’t teach it in our schools and universities and so forth. So this is like an extended education program that we have on that we’re involved in. But whether this is of use to ourselves is very much dependent upon the why and the purpose. So we’re using it initially for ourselves.
That’s our present reality for most of us, our own self interest. And that’s okay. That’s the that’s the place to begin. Genuine. But perhaps we can extend that, not only to help ourselves and to work, you know, to find more of what we want in our life and be a bit of more of what we don’t want in our life.
But maybe able to develop the skill and the ability to help even if only one other person. So bringing the mind even one person, somebody you know, a parent or a partner or a child or a friend, somebody that you’d like to be there for in a more significant way than perhaps you’ve been able to in the past. And if we could if I only I could be a little more understanding, a little more caring, a little more patient, then I could be for there for you in helping you to work through your problems, to find happiness. I would like that. That’s part of my what is brings meaning to my life is you and your happiness.
So I’m doing this not only for myself, but also for you, for us together. So in this process, the inner focus of our life our life becomes Buddha. That is to say the person that, you know, that we want to become somewhere down the line, what it is that we value most in terms of what looks like a successful life to ourselves at present. Present. And we’re using the means of the Dharma, you know, all of these teachings, these these educational program, the truth of things, essentially.
And this all occurs within this supportive context of a social community, those who facilitate this process. And again and again, trying to raise the lower of our motivation such that we’re doing it not just for ourselves, but even if this one other person, someone beyond our own ego. 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 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 suffering and the causes of suffering.
May all sentient beings be inseparable from the joy that is without sorrow. May all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free from attachment for some and aversion toward others. Reverently, I prostrate with my body, speech, and mind. I present clouds of every type of offering those actually arranged and imagined. I disclose all my negative actions accumulated since beginningless time and rejoice in 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 out of others, to the great awakening. Okay. Would you like to stand up for a stretch for a moment then we’ll meditate? So, in terms of our meditation, we’ve been looking at the, this meditative tradition of equalizing and exchanging self with others, and within that, the initial meditation of developing a sense of equality of self and others.
You know, I think if this is really a, you know, there’s so much to know and there’s almost too much to know. Maybe we have to become specialized. I think this is worth our efforts in in the development of this one, understanding that all sentient beings, whosoever want to be happy and don’t want to suffer, you know, you know, obviously, rationally, intellectually, we can probably accept that quite readily. And again, it’s not a matter of intellectual. It’s how do we integrate that into our emotional being to make it a part of our worldview.
And that’s the challenge. And I think that’s something really worthwhile. And if all the various you know, we have to become familiar with all these various areas, it’s worthwhile. But maybe we don’t have all the time and energy to be able to pursue them, each and every one of them. Even the great masters don’t.
So maybe but I think this is one of those areas which is worth, you know, priority in our life. Just this one human beings are essentially feeling beings. That’s what we mean by sentient life, in a feeling. You know, though though we perceive others primarily as form, our mode of perception of others is is most normally a matter of perceiving form. The way we perceive ourselves, the mode of perception of oneself, is mainly feeling.
What is the state of my being? How do I feel? We perceive we have two different modes for perception of self and other. So, what is true of ourselves, in that we are primarily feeling beings, is equally true of others. When we visualize the various people, the three categories, a friend, stranger, and enemy.
Our first impression is a visual impression. And then when you submit when you meet someone, your your mind is already sizing them up, aren’t you? Putting them into various categories, boxes, male, female, you know, young, old, good looking, not so good looking, black, white, well dressed, not so well dressed. And you’re you’re making all these computations. But very rarely do we go do we go beneath that that that immediate impression and go to a deeper what is essential and universal, that there’s a feeling being there.
I mean, how many times do you meet somebody and you think, oh, there’s a feeling being? You know? You don’t we don’t have that that particular viewpoint. It doesn’t readily come. That this whomever you meet, that whatever the superficial differences amongst them, just even scratching beneath that superficial appearance.
There’s there’s there’s a feeling being who wants happy feelings. Doesn’t want the it doesn’t want any suffering feelings. That’s the deeper truth about them. The rest is conventional and mundane, superficial. We’re all the same in that.
So I think, you know, that that really would be worthwhile. It’s not to say that we don’t use these categorizations aren’t useful. You know? But that’s not the basis of our way of relating. We can’t be allowed to remain at that level.
That we have developed the facility of mind, the flexibility of mind to be able to go to relate with others at a more primary level and make that an important perspective on how we relate with others, that whosoever, whoever, even people you don’t like, still, there’s someone there who wants to be wants happy feelings, doesn’t want the suffering, doesn’t want suffering feelings, who whosoever. And they do what they do because they’ve learned this is the way to fulfill that desire. And maybe it doesn’t maybe you don’t approve, but then you can voice your objection. But, nonetheless, this is still who they are, essentially. So we’re going to meditate on that.
Just you know, it doesn’t have to be an elaborate meditation. You know, if you can if you can visualize or just imagine or feel these individual representative of these three friend, stranger, and enemy and just see the person anew. It’s by anew, I mean, you know, we fall into the old habitual dynamics of ways of relating with people. We use these old labels. We see this person through our old these old glasses that we’ve which we relate with them through.
But just for this present, see if you can see them anew for the first time that there’s a being there, you know, your friend. And by friend, it’s just a category. We mean people you like. It could be your partner. It could be your parent, whoever.
See them for the first time, not in terms of what’s, you know, your agenda, but in terms of their deeper, essential nature, that there’s a being there who wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer. See if you can actually penetrate to that level that there’s a feeling being there who wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer just like yourself. And try to hold that, you know, when the penny drops. When you have this, ah, yes. When you’ve able to actually, you know, go you know, been able to go beneath habitual way of relating to your impression of them, to something, to this deeper truth about them, in the same way with a stranger, in the same way with somebody we normally perceive as enemy.
Okay. So it’s a simple, but but I think extremely profound meditation. You know, meditation, one one way of and meditation has different lots of different meanings. But one way of looking at meditation is it is a way of refocusing our attention rather than having our attention controlled by our habitual unconscious choices. We attend to something which we haven’t looked at before.
We pay attention in a new way for a for a new purpose, to come to a new understanding, a new feeling. Here, we’re paying attention to this fact that this person wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer. A refocusing of our attention to ways we haven’t considered perhaps previously, or we dismiss, or we overlook. We pay attention to that, this deeper truth about them. And it becomes a greater part of our of how we go about normally relating our our worldview.
So taking a comfortable, firm posture. And 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 diminishing. The muscles of the face softening, relaxing.
The jaws relax. Bringing your awareness to the back of your neck, perhaps gently turning your head to each side, very gently loosening, stretching the muscles in the back of the neck, relaxing the muscles of the throat, Bringing your awareness to your upper back and shoulders. Perhaps rotating your shoulders a few times. Lifting them and allowing them to drop comfortably to the sides. Feeling this burden, this weight that we 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 soft and loose. Relaxing your lower arms. Your upper arms, The chest is at ease. Relaxing throughout the heart area.
The lungs, the central region of the back, the stomach. We’re releasing the tension that we hold in our stomach muscles, allowing your belly to go soft and throughout the abdominal cavity. Keeping your back straight, your trunk erect, relax your lower back muscles. Your buttocks. Throughout the upper legs And the lower legs.
Finally, your feet. Bring your awareness to your body in general. Noticing any tightnesses, any tensions which remain in the body, areas of discomfort and focusing upon those areas, consciously relaxing, softening, feeling the tension diminish, tightness loosen. If there’s an area of discomfort, don’t resist, don’t struggle against it. Just surround it with a feeling of kind acceptance.
It’s part of who you are at present. Just allow it to be there. It’s okay. Your body becoming comfortable at ease. Feel feeling the physical well-being pervading your entire body.
Stay with your body. At ease, relaxed. And we’ll practice the six part breath exercise breathing in comfortably normally. Breathing out extending the exhalations completely emptying the lungs. Again breathing in comfortably normally again extending exhalation and doing this six times individually.
When you’ve completed the breath exercise, 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. Now we’re going to meditate on equality of self and others, bringing to mind a friend. So it could be a partner, a child, a parent, or a friend. Just bring them to mind.
And we want to go beyond beneath our usual habitual ways of relating the dynamics of our relationship. See what we normally relate with and we want to try to feel the deeper reality of this person is that they want to be happy and they don’t want to suffer. Try to come to that feeling about this person and hold prolong that feeling. Keep coming back and reinvoking that feeling. Now let’s move on to a stranger.
Somebody perhaps you see once in a while in a shop or on the street or but you don’t know them. You don’t know their story. But one thing you do know about them is they want to be happy, and they don’t want to suffer. So see if you can penetrate be the this universe the superficial appearances which we which we usually relate with and try to see that about them, this deeper nature. See if you could feel this about them.
And then finally we’ll move on to the third category, somebody that you don’t like, you have some problems with. And go beneath the the surface appearances, the usual dynamics. There’s a feeling being there who wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer. See if you can feel that. Now if you can just imagine these three people there together just feel that they’re there and you have different superficial feelings for each one of them they appear very differently to you But see if you can capture the feeling.
The deeper nature of all three is exactly the same. They’re just alike in wanting to be happy and not wanting to suffer. Exactly like, exactly the same. And then bring your mind back to the breath. And get in touch with your body, perhaps sensation, feeling within the body, your buttocks on the chair, your feet on the floor.
And then, easy and relaxed manner, become aware of your surroundings. So we’re looking at the the the second of the two meditative traditions for developing an awakened heart. Equalizing and exchanging self with others. And we’ve, we’ve, this has five parts. First, the equality of self and others, which we’ve completed.
And now, this evening, we’re going to look at the advantages, the disadvantages of self centeredness, that’s the second, and the advantages of other centeredness. And then the fourth part is the actual exchange of self for others. And the fifth is the imaginative technique of taking and giving. They are leading up to this this final fifth meditative method whereby we can actually, you know, feel as if we’re willing to and imagine doing the taking on the suffering of others and giving away our own happiness, training the mind in that. It’s quite unusual.
Usually, it’s the other way around, isn’t it? We give away our suffering and take everybody else’s happiness. So we’re going to look at we’re going this evening, we’ll begin to look at the disadvantages of self centeredness and advantages of other centeredness. This is important. Any kind of change you want to make, the initial step is to look at the advantages of that change and the disadvantages of that change.
If you haven’t gone through this process, then there will be you the it was a matter of idle speculation or curiosity or wouldn’t it be nice? Wouldn’t it be nice? You have, you really haven’t examined it for yourself. The, this, the locus of agency isn’t, isn’t yourself. Maybe somebody’s saying, oh, you should do this.
Why don’t you get your act together and do this? Whatever. You hear the the decision to to bring that to make that kind of change hasn’t come from yourself, then you won’t change. So, you know, whatever it is. If you want to quit smoking, what are the advantages of smoke of quitting smoking?
What are the disadvantages about quit smoking? And you you know, you have to be quite honest and look at your own experience and clarify the advantages and disadvantages. You know, there’s a certain, you know, basic sanity about us. It’s what we mean by sentient life, is that there’s a certain degree of intelligence and caring. Intelligence in the sense that we make some kind of discrimination in terms of whether an experience is threatening or whether it’s going to enhance our existence.
That’s basic. And there’s a caring because it matters whether that experience threatens or enhances our existence. So, you know, whatever it might be. And we will tend to avoid out of caring those experiences, the and the objects which are associated with those experiences, which tend to threaten our existence. And we will approach.
We will tend to adopt those experiences which tend to enhance our existence. That’s our basic that’s a basic movement of the mind. Approach avoidance. And then there’s a vacillation between the two when when we’re not sure. So, you know, it’s true.
This is true even in the very mundane areas of our life. But it’s equally or even more so true here. We won’t make this radical adjustment unless we see it’s to our advantage, no matter matter how we might like to change, we have to actually see for ourselves that this change is in our own self best interest. It’s going to bring about happiness. There’s no idea.
You know? There’s even the development of awakened heart. The initial interest, the is in terms of, wow, that sounds know, is in terms of how it’s going to make us happy. It’s like the Dalai Lama says, we are naturally selfish. The more we’re concerned with others, the happier we will be.
This is called wise selfishness. We have to be wisely selfish. We’re trying to bring about our welfare, and even altruism can be a way to do that. And it sounds like we can forego our own our own welfare, you know, become faceless with other I think that would be, you know, probably opposed to our very nature of of this intelligence and caring. But we just have to make sure that what the direction our mind is headed is actually going to bring about what it is that we are seeking, the solutions to our problems, the attainment of happiness.
So the psychology of an awakened heart. It’s really not something otherworldly. It’s not like a huge sacrifice know, beyond the normal call of of of the average human being, the normal human being. What you know, it’s if we look into our own experience, it’s evidence from our own personal experience that human beings are never happier than when they transcend if even if only to some de small degree, the the their the self confinement of their habitual self centeredness. They’re they’re completely you know?
And they’re never more miserable when they’re when we are completely caught caught up in our our this claustrophobic world of of our neuro self concern. And selfish people aren’t very happy people. Alt caring people are more happy. That seems to be the nature of things. And but you have to check this out.
And that’s not only in our own experience, but maybe we can begin to see that around us as well. Real happiness and satisfaction. So this is an expert on the subject, Lama Zopa. Real happiness satisfaction start when you begin to live your life for others. You retreat for others, practice Dharma for others, study for others, work in the office for others, cook for others.
When your attitude is transformed so that you do everything for others to pacify their suffering and attain their happiness, there is real satisfaction and peace in your heart. When you are cherishing yourself, thinking only of yourself, how can I be happy? How can I be free of problems? There is no happiness in your heart, only worry and fear. You see only problems, and your mind is not relaxed.
But in the next moment, when you change your object of concern to another sentient being, even if only one other sentient being, suddenly your heart is released from self-cherishing like limbs released from chains. As soon as your object of concern changes from yourself to someone else, your heart is released from the bondage of the self-cherishing thought. As soon as you change the object of your cherishing, there is suddenly peace in the very depth of your heart. Right in that very moment that your mind changes from self-cherishing to cherishing others, there is liberation, freedom from the tight bondage of the selfish mind. You know, often not you know, often, perhaps more often than not, we’re completely caught up, completely en enwrapped, absorbed in our own problem.
And then the it’s like I remember when my my very first you know, I I lived in India, in Dharamsala, which is a hill station up in and it’s just beginning to go move up into the Himalayas. My And I spent a number of years there. And I remember the very first monsoon I spent there. It was was I guess it was considered a very heavy monsoon. And, you know, you’re up high in the mountains.
And I think we we went for maybe over two months completely enwrapped in clouds. And and your world becomes quite narrowed down. And sometimes you can’t see very far in front of you even. The clouds are so the mist is so thick. You know?
And you you you all your your entire reality just becomes a very small area, this little territory of maybe fifteen feet in radius, something like that. And that’s the way that I think we more or less approach our life, and more than that, completely wrapped up in our own problems, in the fog, in the midst of our own problems. And in such a situation, the sun of our own wisdom can’t break through. We, more often than not, we are compounding our problems in such a state. Our approach to the solving of our problems has become part of the problem itself and becoming so absorbed and wrapped up in our own problems.
You know, in talking this way, know, again, we have to verify it within our own experience, but in talking this way, no one’s saying that somehow we are to overlook or avoid the practical necessity of dealing with our own problem. No one would ever say that. That’s not the case. The point is that in the midst of our problems, we are not to forget about others. Yeah.
We are not to lose sight of their reality as well, that they too are experiencing problems, that that they too want to be happy just like ourselves, that we are not unique. We’re not alone in that. This is a a quote from Thich Nhat Hanh. I’m sure most of you are familiar with Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese monk who has a center now in France. We have been practicing engaged Buddhism in Vietnam for the last thirty years.
During the war, we could not just sit in meditation hall. We had to practice mindfulness everywhere, especially where the worst suffering was going on. Being in touch with the kind of suffering we encountered during the war can heal us of some of the sufferings we experience when our lives are very are not very meaningful or useful. When you confront the kind of suffer difficulties we faced during the war, you see that you can be a source of compassion and a great help to many suffering people. In that intense suffering, you feel a kind of relief and joy within yourself because you know that you are an instrument of compassion.
Understanding such intense suffering and realizing compassion in the midst of it, you become a joyful person even if your life is very hard. You know, the the point is that the moment we become aware of the fact that others also have problems, we we stop compounding our own problems, thinking that we alone are unique in having a problem. You know, there there’s a saying. I felt sorry for myself because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet. And it, you know, it does hurt not to have any shoes, and something practically needs to be done to alleviate that problem.
But the point is, in the midst of that understanding and working with the necessity of dealing with that problem of finding some shoes, we are not to lose sight of the fact that there are other people who also have no feet. You know? That that that that we don’t isolate ourselves in in become completely self absorbed in our own difficulties, sometimes to the exclusion and oftentimes at the expense of others. In the midst of our suffering, you know, to try to we the point is we can to stay connected with the suffering of the world, even in the midst of our own suffering, that we are not alone in our problems and our difficulties. It is the nature of the human condition.
And to make that kind of mindfulness an integral part of how we live our daily lives, there is suffering in the world. However, whatever our present state, our personal state may be. The moment that we put our problems in some kind of broader context that includes others, there is automatically some relief in terms of our own difficulties and how we’re confronting and dealing with our own difficulties, our own problems. You know, we have we find we kind of find some kind of perspective, some a broader vision. We’re not completely wrapped up in that cloud any longer.
And in such a state, you know, yet, immediately, the problem becomes more workable. You know, the the sunlight of our own wisdom can begin to to break through our pre you know, our complete absorption with our own difficulties. The problem becomes more workable. Your way this you know, the we’re more able to make use of our resources of our own mind, our own wisdom, you know, for finding some kind of solution. In opening ourselves to others’ difficulties through other sufferings, our own problems begin to pale in significance.
And oftentimes, they find some kind of natural resolution. We don’t even we don’t even have to figure out the solution. The problem goes away as of itself. The one that was so that so preoccupied ourselves, the one the one that we were continually turning to our attention toward, that we are completely absorbed. And and, you know, when you’re when you’re distracted from it, even for a moment, and having to take care of somebody else, you come back, oh, what was that problem again?
You know, that we experienced that many times again and again. Again, Lama Zopa, as long as we remain so tightly focused upon our own happiness, whether temporal or ultimate, we will never no. This is Lama Yeshe. As long as we remain so tightly focused upon our own happiness, whether temporal or ultimate, we will never experience the expansiveness of a truly open heart. The only way to achieve the total vision of complete enlightenment is to be free ourselves from the restrictions of this narrow self-cherishing attitude.
In the teachings of all the highly evolved men and women of the past, it is clearly stated that this narrow self-cherishing habit of mind brings us nothing but spiritual suffocation. If we truly wish to fulfill our highest potential, or even if we want to want to achieve a certain mundane satisfaction in our daily life, then we must overcome this self-cherishing and dedicate ourselves as fully as possible to the welfare of others. This is the only way to achieve a completely open heart, the only way to experience lasting happiness. Dedication simply means that having created a certain atmosphere of positive energy within yourself, you’re determined to share this happiness with others as much as possible. According to Buddhist psychology, if you do not have a dedicated attitude to some extent, you will never be totally satisfied.
Instead, you will remain bored and lonely. As the Lama says in his Tantric text offering to the spiritual master, self-cherishing is the cause of all misery and dissatisfaction while holding all mother sentient beings dearer than oneself is the foundation of all the realizations and knowledge. Therefore, inspire me to change my self-cherishing into concern for others. You know, we’re not talking this isn’t some kind of abstract theory. We’re trying to take some religious dogma and incorporate it into our worldview and force it upon ourselves in some way to live up to some lofty spiritual standard.
A it’s a we’re trying to bring it down to some relevance to our everyday life. A very simple statement about how we actually experience our lives and what is actually happening for us. People are never more miserable than when they are completely absorbed in their in the narrow confines of their own problems and are never happier, never more fulfilled, never find greater meaning when they’re able to be a benefit to someone that they love, when they’re able to bring happiness and alleviate the problems of others. There’s a real richness in their life, a real meaning, purpose in their life. It’s quite a different, totally different level of experience.
We to feel fulfilled, to to have that kind of self respect, that that that you that you have some abilities to be able to help another person in a real way. And then we have to find some way of opening, if only slightly, some crack in this prison of self centeredness that we’ve created created for ourselves. This I’m number one, me first, center of the universe approach, how we relate with everything and everyone. We have to ask ourselves, does it work? Now, I mentioned this in making this chart, this list, advantages and disadvantages.
Does my particular approach are we talking about our underlying approach to how we relate with the world? You know, what is the mindset we we are bringing to the as a means to find happiness and solve our problems in terms of the people and situations and the world about us? Part of this mindset is in terms of complete absorption within in terms of ourselves. Part of it, that is to say, we perceive, we evaluate, and we respond to others in all the various situation lines bring us in terms of what’s in it for me, for my purposes, in terms of my welfare. Our total reference point always comes back to oneself.
You know, you you listen to the evening news or you you you you look in the newspaper, and there’s there’s some statement. Does that affect me? How does that relate with me? Is that is that beneficial to me, beneficial to me, or is it somehow detrimental to me? It’s it’s our primary interpretation of of how we look at the world, how we evaluate the world.
It’s always self referencing, coming back to oneself. You know, looking at our actual experience, so does that work? That in particular, you know, that that mindset that we bring to all our experiences, all our relationships? If we if we look at it, I think we begin to say that maybe it doesn’t work very well. And that we can begin to see that us are not getting what to do, whatever it is that we want.
We want fulfillment. We want peace. We want love. You know, whatever is your foremost value to yourself. That that such that very approach that you’re that you’re bringing to relating with and as an as the the means, you know, as the underlying means of how you’re going to go about getting what you want is actually working against yourself.
You know, maybe there’s another way, a more skillful way. You know, right now, this sounds very alien, doesn’t it? This idea. It sounds it sounds foreign. It sounds unusual.
And it’s like when you move into a new house. You know, it’s it’s it’s not home. But after a while, you know, you you know, you you put your pictures up on the wall, and you dig around the garden, and you cook some meals there. And your mind slowly becomes accustomed, familiar. And what was initially alien?
What was something other? Gets to feeling like home. It’s what I call home. It becomes familiar to oneself. These ideas it’s not so it’s not as if we are to implant something, foreign object into our mind stream.
Simply by becoming the scene, by working with these ideas, they become we become accustomed. They become our natural way of seeing things. There’s some kind of evolution. Maybe there really is another way, and we’re investigating that, a more a more skillful way to be in this world with others than the way that we’ve learned and we we express at present. In deeper terms, we will find that all the sufferings and problems and anxieties of not finding what we seek, of being separated from our loved ones, of physical illness, of suffering from want, lack of contentment, quarrels, and so forth come about because of our underlying attachment to the self and self-cherishing attitude that tries to protect such a self within ourselves.
The more selfish a person is, is, the more suffering and anxiety. Yet we never recognize the truth that these are all the doings of self-cherishing mind. You know, under the control of self centered ness, we’re all trying to take advantage of someone else. It’s, you know, to profit only for ourselves. It is if that, you know, as if in all the world, it is only me who seeks happiness, who doesn’t want to suffer.
You know, that I have this unique, this sense of unique importance about all that I’m concerned with. This happiness and suffering, which relates to myself, is uniquely important. It’s paramount above all else. Almost the entire world is built self centeredness, you know, selfishness, exaggerated self concern, you know, racism, classism, sexism. Big countries overwhelm small countries.
Big children take away candy from small children. It’s all the same. I make up this person a friend because I see them as benefiting me. I make up this person an enemy because I see them as harming me. I make up all the rest of the world strangers because they don’t seem to be doing either to me.
It’s always in relation to me. That’s our total reference point. It’s just what’s in it for me. And it’s the same, but it’s the same with the rest of the world. Everybody is doing the same.
Everybody is using themselves as single most important reference point in how they’re going to be in this world. Know, husbands and wives and parents and their children and individuals, groups, societies. They all have their own agenda. Everybody wants something that doesn’t want something else. And it using who they can and what they can to get that in order to satisfy their supposedly uniquely important needs.
But how many of us ever stop? And this is the point. How many of us ever stop and question? I mean, deeply question. Does it work?
Does does does such an approach to the living of our life actually bring us what it is that we want? How old are we now? How many, you know, years have gone by? And have we gotten how far have we gotten in the enterprise of finding the successful life? Have we arrived where we wanted to go?
Are we still very much struggling? We haven’t gotten anywhere. We just keep going through the same motions and coming back to the beginning again and again. So, you know, we’re setting aside all our religious doctrines, all all the various types of ethical theories. We have to really to see whether or not our selfishness, exaggerated self concern is in fact is me first, I’m number one, center of the universe.
Attitude approach to living our life is the underlying cause for most all of our problems, most all of our difficulties, for most all of our unhappiness. We just have to look at our own personal experience. That’s what it all comes down to. I mean, Buddhism should always come down to our own personal experience. It doesn’t do much good to take the word of others.
It doesn’t bring about much change at all. Our feelings of loneliness, our feelings of conflict, of defensiveness, of jealousy, of fear, you know, feeling of being unloved and unable to love, of feeling that we cannot trust, that everyone is and everything are just so many objects to be manipulated in one way or another to be objectified, used in one way or another for our own well-being above all else. You know, that everyone is just so many consumer items for exploitation. It’s all product of our self centeredness, this total preoccupation with ourselves alone. There’s no space for others in our lives.
There’s no real touching of others or being touched by others. There’s no real possibility for intimacy in such a context. There’s just this kind of a painful wound around which we build this iron fence. And in keeping others out, we imprison ourselves within. Because you have attachment and selfishness in combination.
Because we have attachment and selfishness, we are always paranoid. You people are not paranoid. Paranoid means you’re always thinking, maybe she is taking advantage of me. I better be careful. Or maybe he is taking advantage of me.
I should be careful. You understand? You’re always paranoid, thinking that society is taking advantage of you. Your boss is taking advantage of you. Your mother is taking advantage of you.
Your father is taking advantage of you. Your girlfriend is taking advantage of you. Your husband is taking advantage of you. Or the Tibetan monk is taking advantage of you. You know what I mean?
Police are taking advantage of you. Jesus is taking advantage of you. So paranoid of being taken advantage of all these feelings of tenderness and intimacy. They remain locked inside of us. We’re so afraid that we might be taking advantage of if we were to be vulnerable.
If we if we express our deepest most feelings, what would happen to us? So we remain bitterly isolated, alone with others. And this is the story of our society, isn’t it? More than not. This is the foundation of this rugged individualism, which is so highly promoted in the West.
We don’t need others. I got what I need. I can take care of myself. And we’re bitterly unhappy people. Self centeredness is like taking a knife and twisting it in your heart.
You know, normally, you know, I don’t know. I’m going on here, aren’t I? What do people think? I I don’t wanna sound like a used car salesman here trying to promote my product. Well, I guess it’s something that, you know, it’s something we’re talking about feelings, aren’t we?
And, but in light of logic and reason, you know, we’re not being carried away by emotionalism or sentimentality, but trying to see how things actually are, how we emotionally experience our life, looking at it in terms of rationally as possible. You know, normally, we react to pain by by narrowing down, you know, by contracting our focus awareness and shrinking the area of our concern to to to ourselves, my pain. And to some extent, to a certain extent, this is quite necessary so that we can begin to concentrate our attention and our energies and begin to become sensitive to what our pain is trying to tell us in the process of directing our healing. You you have to become sensitive to your own pain. Pain.
You have to listen to your pain. So it’s necessary to become to begin to narrow down your focus at some to some degree in directing our healing. But there’s another healing which goes beyond this conventional healing. You know, additionally, our pain cannot only be a call for self assertion in the immediate process of healing ourselves. But as well, it can be a powerful reminder of others’ pain in the process of an even greater healing, you know, and integrating of ourselves with others, an awakening of our hearts.
And this pain can serve a greater purpose. The moment you become aware of your pain, you can be assured that there are tens of millions of people who are experiencing that exact same pain exactly as you are. The moment you become aware of that pain, you can use that as a way of connecting with the world about you and the pain of others. You have to concentrate in your pain. You have to deal with the practical necessity of healing that pain.
But over and over that, it it can be a a means of bringing about a greater healing, of going beyond our own self centeredness and being compounding our problems by thinking, this is I’m the only one with this pain. It can be a way of connecting with that pain of others, which we have in common. Whatever it might be, it can serve a greater need. You know, we we as human beings are essentially social beings. To be a social being, you know, we we are mental health is a social phenomenon.
And, you know, this means that the solution to our most basic problems not within the isolating sphere of self centeredness. Within self centeredness, we’re never going to become we’re never going to arrive at the solutions to our deeper most problems because the very methods or approach to solving our problem has become part of the problem itself, that mental health is found within the social domain of other centeredness. And that we this is a different approach. It’s a is a different perspective. Perspective.
This is one of my just a quote from Oliver Sacks. He’s quite an excellent writer. He’s an American psychiatrist. The establishment of a proper relation with the world and, in particular, with other human beings or one other being. For it is human relations that carry the possibility of proper being in the world.
Feeling the fullness of the presence of the world depends on feeling the fullness of another person as a person. Reality is given to us by the reality of people. Reality is taken from us by the unreality of un-people. Our sense of reality, trust, of security is critically dependent on a human relation. Kinship is healing.
We are physicians to each other. The world is the hospital where healing takes place. So part of our well-being is intimately related to how we be in this world with others. And this is where the holism of the Mahāyāna places its greatest emphasis, that there are two dimensions to our being, what it means to be a human being. There is the private, existential aspect to ourselves, which we’re trying to bring peace in terms of our own lived, inner lived experience.
But there is but there is the the the that part of our there is an aspect of ourselves which exists in relation to the world. We aren’t these isolated egos cut off from the rest of the world as we normally conceive ourselves to be. We are intimately related with the world about us. And part of our well-being is defined in terms of how we relate with the world about us. And the most skillful and the most productive way of relating with the world is love, is altruism, is compassion.
That if we’re ever going to find realize our potential, if we’re ever going to find fulfillment in the fullest possible meaning to our lives, we not only have to make effort in bringing about peace inside of ourselves, but find how we’re going to find some skillful way of being in this world with others. That is we have to learn how to love. The love of yeah. Go ahead. Ask what you think you mean by the part of the unreality of the I yeah.
I do. Yeah. I guess it’s inauthentic or what do other people? Disability. It’s a very strange statement.
I agree. There’s nobody there. That’s what I can’t do as well. Yeah. That’s that sounds good.
Reality reality is given to us by the reality of people. Real That’s the reality that if the people are there, and if we can’t Yeah. See that they’re there, it’s the unreal. And reality is taken from us by the unreality of un people. Our sense of reality of trust, of security is critically dependent upon human relation.
Security is critically dependent upon human relation. Yeah. That’s sounds pretty good to me. Yeah. That is interpretation.
Would you look at it? How do you mean, Haney? Any other thoughts on this line? Be nice to be nice to get a commentary from Oliver Sacks. But I think that sounds good.
I know why what what came what what along with kinda going along with Amy. You know, what what can it’s like what came to mind, and this maybe is very tangent in a way, is what happens when you lie. You know, it’s like if you have a if you’re if you have a partner and and you lie to them, they can no longer trust themselves in the sense that they have a they have an intuition. They might have an intuition about what is what is in fact the case, but they’re taking their word. They’re taking your word that you’re being honest.
And this underlie undermines their own intuition about what was true. And they’re good. You know? And then they can they long they lose the the ability even to trust themselves. Now this you know, by your disingenuousness, ness, you cause them to where they can no longer even know what the truth is any longer, what reality is.
When somebody says, no. I don’t know. I didn’t do that. I didn’t I’m not having an affair. I’m not having — but they have a feeling that you’re you are.
But they’re willing to set aside their own intuition because out of trust in you, and you’re being disingenuous, then they you’re taking their reality away from them. And they never they no longer know what is real. I don’t know. That’s That’s something that’s like from both. Yeah.
Any other thoughts or So, yeah, I I mean, this I think this is it’s stuff where, you know, we we just have to be educated too. It’s a it’s a different it’s a radically different viewpoint, isn’t it? And it sounds foreign. It sounds maybe strange, or it doesn’t sound practically possible, it doesn’t sound reasonable. You know, we would we our mind throws up all kinds of object objections to it.
So it really requires that we that we really investigate it. And without, you know, without any, you know, a kind of exposing you know, just like this, exposing ourselves to these ideas and and and examining them. Just like and I think it’s like this, you know, this this image of walking through mountains when there’s a mist. And, you know, without even being aware of it, you become eventually, you become soaked. You never know what the point was when you actually but that mist that mist slowly penetrates your clothing.
And you begin to, you know, slowly over time, you the way that you look at the world shifts. Anyway, this is part of education. So if you’d like to get a cup of tea or a cup of coffee, maybe we can have a discussion around this. We’ll continue next week with the advantages and disadvantages of self-centeredness and advantages of other-centeredness. I’ll get it right.
Yeah. I it