Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Jampa Gendun opens this 108-minute session with Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” using the poem to ask whether we make conscious choices or simply drift along habitual paths of least resistance. After reflecting on how minds either evade or confront discrepant reality — with a supporting quote from psychiatrist Scott Peck — the talk moves into two guided meditations: a body-scan relaxation and an imaginative exercise in which participants embody admired qualities, then their own underdeveloped strengths. The second half returns to the series, presenting a detailed walkthrough of taking-and-giving meditation: three graduated levels of compassion, three of love, and a striking visualization of self-centeredness as a black egg at the heart, dissolved by compassionately absorbing another’s suffering. Some prior context from the series is assumed.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 11 3PA 2008 05 19.mp3
UUID: f5cb23b9-a77d-4a7a-b154-e3f159c5a3ea
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 2008-2009 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2008-05-19
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 108.3 minutes
Words: ~10,138
How is everybody? Can can you hear me in the back okay? Yeah. Good. So I have to begin by adjusting our motivation, the why behind and the purpose for what we do.
There’s a verse by Robert Frost, American poet. I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence two roads diverged in a wood, an I, I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference. You know, it’s the idea of choice, isn’t it? It seems like it’s, at least for me, it’s been somewhat bit on my mind lately.
It seems like it’s a very important area of concern for ourselves. You know, whenever our minds whenever one of our many erroneous ideas or our mistaken beliefs or our wrong ideas about the world and so forth come up against the world as it actually is in its true nature, we experience dis ease, some kind of dissonance of mind, there’s some kind of inner tension, disharmony inside of ourselves. And our mind, as a self correcting system, will then either take one of two paths. One path is, proceeds in the direction of ignoring or evading some kind of denial. We shrink down the scope of our awareness.
We withdraw and absorb ourselves into our own fantasy, you know, our own make believe world that we’ve created for ourselves in one way or another. You know, our mind will attempt to bring a discrepant world into accord with its own inaccurate inner description, with its own inaccurate mental maps that it’s using to make sense of its world, to gain what it is that it wants, to get rid of what it doesn’t want. So we try to change the world about us, the people, the things, the situations around us. The other possibility, the other path that our mind can take is in the direction of exploration and insight. You know, we begin to expand the scope of our awareness.
We confront a discrepant reality. We begin to challenge our projected illusory images which we’re placing upon the world about us in one way or another. And we find new ways of interpreting our reality, our experience, what it is that we feel is going on for ourselves. We come into new understandings of our experience. So our mind will seek, will attempt to identify its own inaccurate inner picture in order to reinterpret our experience, in order to come to new understanding, and thereby adjust our own inaccurate inner pictures in accordance with the way things are.
You know, there’s a certain dishonesty in demanding that the world be other than the way it is. And that we can’t do the impossible, can we? Sometimes we try. We quite often try. And we experience either a sense of rage because the world doesn’t run according to our our wants, our needs, our particular unique agenda, or we experience a feeling of emptiness and failure because we can’t do the impossible.
One path leads to the endless repetition of the mistakes, you know, there’s no learning taking place. The other path leads in the direction of learning, some kind of change, and finally some kind of resolution. Arrive at a higher order of being. We’ve corrected our own inaccurate inner picture such that it accords with the way things actually are. You know, it seems as if in Buddhism there’s always tendency, this emphasis on harmony.
Internal harmony and harmonizing ourselves with the world about us, both in terms of the social conditions but also in terms of the nature of the way things are. And if we’re ever to find any peace, we really don’t have any choice in this matter. We simply cannot demand demand that the world be other than the way it is. We have to begin to harmonize our own inner maps, how it is that we navigate the terrain of our lives, the pictures that we make use of, the beliefs and our worldview. You know, this inner network of ideas, beliefs, and by means of which we negotiate the terrain of our lives.
So we have to be willing you know, most people probably don’t see the necessity in one way or another. Many people are simply just maybe they’re too tired or they’re afraid or they really don’t have any interests in taking up this difficult task. Or maybe they simply don’t see the real need to do so. So they feel that their inner picture of reality is more or less complete and really doesn’t need any revising, so to speak. So they live and die, to some degree, unreflectively.
They really have never considered the actual nature of what has their experience been. You know, aren’t aware of having made all the many choices of the path that their life was to take. Life seems as if it’s almost an accident that happens to them rather than they’re somehow being involved in its co creation and what we come to experience and the quality of our lived life. So the point is that the quality of our life, whether it’s coherence, it’s livability, it’s adequacy, it’s experiences being as joyful or joyless. Whether we experience our life as being fulfilling or simply meaningless, purposeless life.
And all that lies between all of that, you know, the whole of what potentially lies of our life could be, is just the outcome of the many choices that we are continually making each day of our lives. But how many of us are? How many of us are conscious in our choices? How many of us have chosen to be doing what we do and be the person we presently are? Or did we maybe imperceptibly become who we are, doing what we do, simply out of our drifting into those ways of being and doing which have come to define us.
The point is, you know, that when out of attachment or closed mindedness or fear or laziness or when we avoid the difficult path and from the blindfolds of continuity and routine and all the taken for granted truths of our lives, we choose the path of least resistance, you know, our habits, in other words. We inevitably come around to the same places in terms of the lived experience of our life. And even when we refuse to take responsibility for our lives, when we refuse to consciously choose or make some kind of decision about what I want and don’t want. Nonetheless, we’re still choosing. We’re choosing the default pattern, you know, what has come before.
We’re never not choosing. We can’t escape it in a way. So, you know, I think the really significant choice for us is to become conscious, aware of the many choices that we are making, and begin to see if this is the types of choices that are bringing about what it is that we want for ourselves in terms of the quality and who we might be with our life. Perhaps, you know, the real tragedy of our life is not to freely and constantly choose who we will be. Know, what, you know, not control or have or own, you know, for our greatest reward for all that we’ve done, you know, all the blood, sweat, and tears that we’ve expended over the course of our life, it is not so much what we’ve gotten for it, but who we have become as a person for having done it.
The tragedy of our lives derives from our denying and forgoing our freedom to choose, by our constantly choosing what it is that we do. We are, in many ways, the direction and destination, you know, the summation of all the many paths that we have chosen to take up to now. That’s who we will become. There’s a quote by, I think it’s Scott Peck. Scott Peck was an American psychiatrist.
Everybody wants to lock himself up after having undergone a few transformations in adolescence and perhaps a few years after that. Everybody chooses some state of being, usually without even realizing that he chooses it and says more or less explicitly, That is the way I am or happen to be. Or, I have always said that. Or, I am the kind who or one takes refuge in heredity and environment, or if one has read some of the psychoanalysts, one blames one’s parents’ mistakes, it is all their fault. To choose to be changed is not only a call for continual growth.
It is an implicit denunciation of all these myths. You know, to say, I’m such and such a kind of person, is perhaps to describe a certain fact. But to go on to say, and that’s the way I’ll always probably be, is to abdicate our freedom, to become what it is that we want to be, to make kinds of choices of the type of life that we want to live. You know, it makes us prisoners of myths and over which we have little or no control. We become victims.
You know, the more our life is accounted for by a heredity, by our environment, by what our parents did or didn’t do, by what happened to us years and years ago, the more our life becomes the story, the autobiography of a victim. You know, the greatest gift that we have as human beings is our capacity for free and conscious choice. You know, all that we have as human beings, our genetic make up, our culture, our environment, they all open they’re like a window of opportunity for ourselves. A window of opportunity which will not always be open for ourselves. The opportunity to begin to make free and conscious choices of the kind of life we want to live for ourselves, who we want to be.
Even though, you know, we really have not much for all that we’ve all the blood, sweat and tears that we’ve expended over the course of our life, and all our struggles and planning, in all our worrying, trying to figure out how am I going to find the best life for myself. Even though we have very little to show, nonetheless we still unthinkingly avoid the difficult path. And we keep choosing more of the same unknowingly. We keep taking the path of least resistance, the path which hasn’t gotten us anywhere in the past and never will except more of the same, in the same perpetual cycles of dissatisfaction in one form or another, in one way or another. It is our free and consistent choice of the path less traveled.
In Buddhism, it’s conceived of the path of opening our hearts minds to the nature of reality. You know, we call this the path to awakening, which will, in years into the future, in years hence, have made all the difference. You know, it will have brought us that much closer to what it means to be, to some kind of real and lasting solution to what it means to be an ordinary human being, just like everybody else around us. An ordinary being sharing a world with other ordinary beings who are just very much like ourselves. And it’s a suffering world and it needs each of us, both individually and collectively, to bring it to some kind of peace.
There are options.. There are alternatives in how to go about effectively choosing those options and integrating the choices and becoming that person that we want to be, both for ourselves but also for a greater vision of what a successful life might look like in terms of how we can be in this world and share it with others in the most effective and meaningful ways. That becomes a real solution. Life has meaning and purpose. It’s our choice.
We don’t have to be victims. If we choose not to be so. I guess it’s hard to keep all this in mind, isn’t it? You know, we keep narrowing down our vision. We keep losing sight of all that we could be.
We settle for a great deal less in our lives. So this is part of what we do on Monday nights, isn’t it? Reminding ourselves of other possibilities or other alternatives that we might consider and choose from time to time. When the opportunity presents itself, we can continue to follow the path to least resistance and keep going around in the same habitual cycles of dissatisfaction. Or we can take alternatives.
We can take up the challenge. I guess in a way, you know, I’m not talking about particularly Buddhism, though I think Buddhism offers us a description of what a successful life might look like and the means to achieve that. But, you know, just pausing and taking stock of your life, you know, just now, this very moment. And getting in touch with some of your deeper values, you know. What brings meaning and purpose to our life?
What makes me feel good about myself, gives me a sense of respect, a sense of connected with others, a greater vision about what I might do with my life, this thing that’s going to come to an end someday, this fragile, quivering spark of life that someday is going to vanish and be no more. What can I do while I still have it? What is the best life I could lead for myself? And I think it’s necessary to ask ourselves this question from time to time, and in the silence just wait for an answer. You know, we’ve grown quite deaf to the voice of our own hearts.
So the inner focus of our life becomes: what does it mean to be a Buddha, in terms of who I could be. But, you know, we actually have to do something. We actually have to take up the challenge, the difficult path, The path which is going to lead us to the way things actually are, the truth of things, essentially, and beginning to live our life in accordance with that. And this all occurs within the social of the spiritual community, those who validate our story, who respect what it is that we’re up to, what we’re trying to do, and are willing to assist us.
If only words of encouragement, only being there, coming together and sharing. And we’re trying to raise the love of our motivation, what our vision of the good life might look like, so that it includes another, somebody besides our own ego, if only one other. Somebody that you’d like to be there for in a more significant way than perhaps you’ve been able to in the past. You know, a little more loving, a little more patient, little more understanding, kinder, whatever. Some way that you could be a little more something for somebody else.
And that somebody else we can begin to expand in terms of the scope of somebody else’s, and we can begin to increase it to two and three. And, you know, it’s a vision of possibilities for ourselves. But, you know, whether we achieve it or not, it’s the trying which makes the difference. So we kind of formalize all of these few words that I’ve said. 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 Through my practice of generosity and the other perfections, may I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am awakened to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Through my practice of generosity and the other perfections, may I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. May all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness.
May all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. May all sentient beings 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 the beginningless time and rejoice in all the virtues of superiors and ordinary beings. Please remain until the end of cyclic existence and turn the wheel of Dharma for migrating beings. I dedicate all virtue, my own and that of others, to the great awakening. So would you like to stand up and stretch? And then we’ll sit and meditate?
You know, we we we’ve been talking about We are always in the embrace of an image. Right off in the image that we are in the embrace of, we are unaware of. You know, I mentioned, we talked about this last week, in helping ourselves to redefine our self image into that of the archetypical bodhisattva, someone who has awakened their hearts to all sentient beings. But, you know, we can do that and work with this image of ourselves and who we might see ourselves to be. And I thought we would experiment with a particular meditation.
It’s simply we’re going to call to mind. We’ve done this before. We’re going to go through various individuals, different types of individuals, you know, female and male and so forth. And we’re going to call into imagination. We’re going to play a role.
First, we’ll begin with a female, a female that you admire, that you respect a great deal. And as best you can, you know, deciding what it is that you admire so much about them. What is it that you respect, that you appreciate about them? What quality, what characteristic? And maybe, you know, I guess the first, in my own case, the first female that comes to mind is maybe Mother Teresa.
What is it about her? And there was a humility and love, giving, selflessness, devotion to others and her religion and Christ, these kind of qualities. And then having sort of defined those qualities for yourself in terms of this individual, imagine as if you yourself had the same quality to the same degree. And setting aside, as best you can, our present self image. I’m this poor shmo, you know, who doesn’t have quite what it takes, I’m whatever.
This self defeating, self fulfilling prophecy that we keep telling ourselves about ourselves, this story that isn’t probably working ourselves in our lives. And maybe we can begin to kind of reform this our own self image and tell ourselves a different story, a more productive and skillful story about ourselves, beginning to identify aspects of ourselves which we normally overlook or dismiss about ourselves. So, you know, I can just, using my imagination, and the forerunner of all things is the imagination, Taking on that role and actually feeling as if, you know, that I have the same exact quality to the same exact degree, you know, as best you can, and creating an imagined situation where you are that quality. You know, don’t figure out how I would act if I had that quality, you know, how I would if I had a million dollars, how I would spend that money. No.
But we are that quality and we act out of that quality. We as if watch to see how that quality would be expressed. Be that quality in all possible ways, actually in a physical sensation, emotions, but also in terms of activity. How would you express? How is that quality expressed that you’ve just become?
That love, that selflessness of a Mother Teresa or whoever. Just be that quality and then create an imaginative situation where you allow that quality an opportunity to be expressed. And we’ll do that same with the male and then we’ll look to ourselves and try to work with a quality that we now possess and that we probably overlook or that we dismiss about ourselves. And we want to acknowledge that quality within ourselves, but we try to imagine if it’s many, many times more fully, constantly developed, and act out of that fully developed quality. And then finally we’ll look at a quality that we don’t like about ourselves, something that we see as a shortcoming of ourselves in some way.
And imagine having the opposite quality, the positive counterpart to that negative quality. And again, doing the same thing, creating an imaginative role, being that quality, and creating a situation where you allow that quality to find expression. Okay? So taking a comfortable firm posture. We’ll begin with a process of relaxing the body.
So bringing your awareness to these various areas as we move through the body. Starting at the crown of the head, the scalp, feeling the wrinkles in your brow beginning to smooth out. Pressure in and around your eyes diminishing. The muscles of the face softening, relaxing. Your jaw is relaxed.
And bring moving your awareness to the back of your neck, perhaps gently turning your head to each side a few times, very gently loosening, stretching the muscles of the back of the neck. Relaxing the muscles of the throat. Bringing awareness to the upper back and shoulders. Perhaps rotating your shoulders a few times. Lifting them and allowing them to drop comfortably to the sides.
Feeling this burden, this weight that we carry around on our backs moving down and through your body into the ground, like some weight’s been lifted off your back. And moving your awareness all the way down to your hands. Your hands are soft and loose. And relaxing your lower arms. Your upper arms.
Your chest is at ease. Relaxing throughout the heart area. And the lungs, and the middle area of the back, the stomach, And releasing the tension that we hold in our stomach muscles. Just allow your belly to go soft. Relaxing throughout the abdominal cavity.
And keeping your back straight, your trunk erect, relax your lower back muscles. Hips.. Throughout the upper legs and the lower legs, and your feet. Now bring your awareness to your body in general, and notice any tightnesses, any tensions within the body, any areas of discomfort. And focusing upon those areas consciously, relaxing, softening, feeling the tension diminish, the tightness loosen.
If there’s some discomfort in your body, don’t resist it, don’t struggle against it. It’s part of who you are at present. Surround it with a kind acceptance. It’s okay if it’s there. Be kind to yourself.
Your body become becoming comfortable, at ease. The feeling of physical well-being pervading every part of your body. It’s a nice place to be in your body. Just be your body. Relaxed and at ease.
Just be with your body. And we’ll practice the six part breath exercise, breathing in comfortably, normally. Breathing out, extending the exhalation, completely emptying your lungs. Again, breathing in comfortably, normally. Again, extending the exhalation.
And doing this six individually. When you’ve completed the six breath exercise, bring your mind to the breath. Easy, gentle, in and out flow of the natural breath. If it’s helpful, the techniques of counting and noting the breaths. Bring your mind back to the breath.
Sitting up straight and tall like a mountain. Now we’re going to meditate on an imaginative role. We’re going to begin with a female, someone that you admire, that you respect a great deal. Think of a female that you look up to. What is it about them?
What characteristic, what quality do you admire so much that you respect, that you value? And now using your imagination, imagine that you yourself have the same quality to the same degree as this female that you now admire so very much. Be that quality. Don’t stand apart from it. And create an imaginative situation which allows that quality that you are to find expression.
Completely identify and just allow it to express itself in an imaginative situation. Now we’re going to do the same with this time with regard to a male. Think of a male that you admire, that you respect. And what is it about them? What quality?
What characteristic? What do you value about them? Value about them? Imagine that you yourself have the same quality to the same degree completely. Become that quality and create an imaginative situation where you’re allowed free expression.
Expression. Just be that quality. Feel it and allow it to express itself. Now think of a quality that you like about yourself, something that you value in yourself. And now imagine that that quality, that which you value about yourself, is many, many times developed, fully, completely developed.
Many, many times more than now, completely develop, whatever it might be. And be that quality. Completely feel, embody that quality, and create an imagined situation where you express this fully developed positive quality about yourself. And then finally, think of something that you don’t like about yourself, some quality that you don’t feel so good about. But now imagine that you have the positive opposite counterpart to that quality.
What it is that you don’t like about yourself at present. Completely the opposite, fully developed. And be that fully developed, positive counterpart. Feel it, identify with it completely, and create an imaginative situation where it finds expression. And then bring your mind back to the breath.
And get in touch with your body. Perhaps the pressure of your buttocks on the cushion, on the chair, your feet on the floor, just some feeling, sensation within the body. And then, in an easy and relaxed manner, slowly become aware of your surroundings. I’m not sure where we left off last time. Do you remember?
Did we begin taking and giving, or we just get up to it? We got into it. Thanks. Usually I put a little mark. So we’re talking about the second of the two traditions for the awakening of hearts.
So there are three principal aspects of the path: the will to awaken, developing a real determination to change, to be free The compulsive patterns of dissatisfactory existence, which very much mark our present experience of life as we now approach it. And then the changes that we want to make are in terms of awakening our hearts and awakening our minds. Essentially the development of love and compassion and the development of wisdom, which understands the deeper nature of reality. So in the second tradition of awakening our hearts, equalizing exchange in self for others, it has five parts. On the basis of generating a sense of equality of self in others, that we’re all essentially feeling beings, and that we all want happy feelings, we don’t want suffering feelings.
The rest is rather superficial relative to that. That’s essential and universal. And we looked at the disadvantages of self centeredness and the advantages of other centeredness, and then the actual exchange of self for others, where we began to develop a determination to shift the psychological center of gravity of our concern, from that of our habitual concern with ourselves alone, our selfishness, self concern, self attachment, becoming more and more concerned about the welfare of others, at least equally, creating some kind of balance in our life. And then this is brought to completion by role playing, identifying as best we can, and developing the sense of empathy with the experience of others being able to develop a multifaceted viewpoint, looking at the world out of other people’s eyes, a sensitivity to, you know, what they’re experiencing, what is happening for them. And then finally, this is all brought together in this final practice of giving and taking, we have begun.
I photocopied the actual meditation on taking and giving. If you’d like to pass those out, there’s some on the chair there. There’s a copy for everybody. This particular, describe, is a rather detailed meditation, a description of how to meditate on taking and giving. There are many you can simplify it a great deal and we can do that.
But this is a particular description that was given to me by my teacher, Khensur Rinpoche, which I wanted to share with you, and we’ll go through it together. But I thought you could, for your own practice, if you wish, you can make use of it. It would be there for you. So we talked about how important this practice can be, you know. It’s a practice of imagination, but it’s like training.
If we can’t imagine it, we can never be it. It all begins in imagination. And even this building began in imagination, in its physical surroundings where we’re now sitting. Some masons got together with an architect and they said, Well, we want a new building. And the architect asked him a few questions, Well, you know, what do you need and what would you like for it to look like?
He said, Well, we this kind of room and we need this and we need this. The architect, you know, say, the masons were thinking, using their ideas, their imagination, and the architect began to rough out a sketch and then finally made an architectural plan and gave it to a contractor and gave some kind of physical expression to that plan. It became a reality. So it all begins in imagination, the person we eventually will become. If we can’t imagine it, will never be it.
It. And we’re trying to reimagine, reimagine ourselves, along the lines of an archetypical bodhisattva, someone who has awakened their hearts. Maybe it sounds far fetched. That’s okay. It’s something worthwhile to aspire to.
It gives our lives meaning and purpose. I think that’s what a great deal of life is about, isn’t it? You know, if we’re ever to begin this process of action, we’re going to imaginatively take upon ourselves the suffering of others and imaginatively give away our own happiness. And with great compassion and fearlessly, we’re going to get involved in the difficulties, the nitty gritty, the messiness of other people. I remember once a long time ago, I won’t mention any names.
I was talking with Lama Zopa on the phone and I was here at Buddha House many years ago, and I went away for some time and came back. It’s been a little over two years since I came back this time. Lama Zopa, I don’t know if some of you or most of you are familiar with Lama Zopa, but Lama Zopa is the spiritual director of what is called the FPMT, the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahāyāna tradition. On your right hand side, the upper picture, Lama Zopa is the one. He’s the director.
I was talking to him how I was having some difficulties with the director, the director at that time at Buddha House. We were having some differences of opinion and so forth. And said, Well, what do you expect? You’re sentient beings. You really can’t expect something other than that.
We have these It’s like Lama Yeshe used to say, We have these crazy minds. And when you get two crazy minds together, what can you expect? So, know, we would rather not get involved with others if had an option, I think. We’d rather not choose even to get involved with our own suffering, to acknowledge our own confusion and difficulties in our life, if we could avoid it. And we try to avoid it as much as possible, acknowledging it and working with it.
So, we’re ever going to genuinely gain the feelings of this meditation in our imagination, you know, we have to begin with that one person. If we have any hope of actually feeling love and compassion for her, we start with, and that is ourselves. You know, sometimes it’s interesting that people never in fact acknowledge about themselves that they too are sentient beings. And that like everybody else they don’t want to suffer, they want to be happy. You know, some people it’s kind of a surprise or a shock.
I never thought about that. Yeah, I am a I do want to be happy. I don’t want to suffer. You know, it’s like clarifying some issue which has been the basic driving force of their entire existence, which they never really considered. And it sounds like a simple minded fact.
But it seems to be that sometimes we overlook those simple minded facts. So, present reality is that if we’re ever going to deal with suffering, have to begin with our own. And it’s like Śāntideva says. Śāntideva is the textual source for this tradition of equalizing self for others. He was an eighth century Indian master.
If those beings have never before even dreamt of such an attitude for their own sake, how could it ever arise for the sake of others? And if we have never really sincerely wished ourselves to be free at a very fundamental level and to find happiness, how can we ever develop such a sincere feeling and wish for others? You know, we know our own experience directly, you know, this confusion on this side of the looking glass, and this pain on this side. Over there, we can only know what’s happening vicariously, secondhandedly. If knowing our own experience directly, within our own lived experience as we do, if we can’t develop compassion and love for ourselves, how can we ever develop a sincere, rational, stable love and compassion for others when we only know their difficulties secondhandedly?
At best, you know, only by inference, in a way. Though we might have a strong sense of empathy for them, still we cannot experience what it is that they’re experiencing. So if we’re ever going to sincerely open our hearts and develop a genuine wish that others be happy and not suffer, And if we’re ever going to take practical responsibility for bringing that in fact, we have to begin with that one object toward whom we can most readily generate these feelings and this aspiration ourselves. So we begin to practice the beginning and taking with ourselves. What we’re going to do is, we’re going to compassionately and fearlessly take upon the suffering of another and lovingly and joyfully give away our happiness.
It’s a training, isn’t it? You know, we talked about this, anyway. It’s like military maneuvers, you know. All these smoke bombs and blank bullets going off bang bang, all the mess that these And they accustom their mind to the confusion, to the chaos, to getting into the mud and the nitty gritty. They familiarize with a semblance of what it might be like when they actually have to go into battle, so that they’re able to maintain their composure, some kind of pause.
You know, meditation means to familiarize, doesn’t it? It means to accustom. So, you know, we can begin the accustoming process in imagination to familiarize ourselves what it might be like. And then, lo and behold, maybe in little ways, small incidents, we actually express that practice in our everyday life, just like we did with this meditation that we did tonight. You might surprise yourself if you’re aware, if you watch.
So we begin the practice with ourself. First, yourself in front of ourself. You know, okay, it sounds a bit strange, but that’s the way we have to begin. And, you know, the visualization isn’t so important. It’s useful.
It’s useful. You know, it’s interesting in Buddhist psychology. There’s different classifications of states of consciousness, functions of mind. And conceptual consciousnesses, all thought consciousnesses, are classified as mistaken. It’s interesting.
When I say mistaken, I don’t mean that they’re incorrect, they’re wrong. You know, like, Today is Monday, isn’t it? I can think the thought today is Monday, and is it correct? But the thing about conceptual consciousness, what do we mean when we say it’s mistaken? It means that we take our thoughts to be reality.
A part of our mind, not our rational mind, not when we analyze and think about it. But part of our mind takes our thoughts as reality. The images which arise in our mind are taken to be the things themselves. When you there’s a part of your mind when you think about Okay, there’s a thought experiment you can do. You know, I’m trying to get across the idea that this practice of visualization and the associated feelings that we’re trying to generate have an effect upon the mind which we might not even be aware of, which goes beyond our rationality.
You know, you can, you know, okay, if you close your eyes for a moment and you imagine you pick a lemon off a tree and it has this hard, cold peel with all these little dimples. It’s very yellow. Bring it up to your nose and smell the lemony scent. Then maybe put it on a cutting board and you cut the lemon in half, and then some of the juice squeezed out. And take half a lemon and bend your head back and squeeze the lemon onto your tongue, into your mouth, dripping the lemon juice into your mouth.
Is your mouth water? Why is there water? There’s no lemon there, Is there? But part of your mind believes there’s a lemon there. That’s why a thought consciousness is said to be mistaken.
Part of your mind is taking that appearance, what is in fact merely a mental image, image, for the actual thing itself. So, you know, part of our mind, when we’re taking on this suffering, is almost is a a very real experience from part of our mind. That’s why the training can have such effect. That’s why, in fact, there might be some resistance to the training. That’s why, you know, we might not want to get involved with the training because part of our mind believes it’s real.
Even though we, you know, we can intellectually or rationally think, Oh, this is simply imagination. It’s simply pictures in our head. So we begin this process with ourselves in front of ourselves. Know, if you can’t see yourself, people have different abilities with regard to imagination, with visualization. The most important thing is the feeling, but the visualization can add that extra dimension of reality to what we’re doing.
And that all that we’re going to the various states of mind, the compassion and so forth, that we’re going to generate are being directed towards yourself. Just feel that. It’s being directed towards yourself. So, we’re going work at three different levels of time, the present, future, and then the ultimate, okay, in terms of suffering, in terms of happiness. We’re going to begin by taking our suffering and then we’re going to give away happiness.
We begin by taking suffering because if somebody, you know, even if you give somebody a present, you know, somebody likes chocolate cake. I like chocolate cake. But if I have a toothache, it’s very difficult for me to enjoy it. Yeah? So first you want to take their suffering.
At least get them to a neutral state, and then you can give something pleasant. They have an opportunity, they’re open to enjoy it. So first we’re going to take on their difficulties, their suffering. And we’re going to begin with their present suffering. So, in this case, ourselves, or in this case, you know, we’re beginning the illustration of this meditation with ourselves.
On the basis of ourselves thinking of some present difficulty this person, in this case yourself, is going through. It could be mental, it could be physical, you know, maybe loneliness, maybe sadness, some disappointment, some frustration, you know, things aren’t going right somewhere. It could be physical sickness, you know, something they don’t like about their physical appearance. Anyway, some difficulty in terms of their mental or physical state. You know, connecting up with what this person is going through, this person in front of you is hurting in some way or another, physically or mentally.
And they don’t want this unhappiness. And even though in this case it happens to be you, it doesn’t make any difference. You don’t want unhappiness as well. This is a simple truth about yourself that maybe that you haven’t acknowledged about yourself, that basically you don’t want to suffer. But still, it is our lived experience.
So we know through our contemplation, you know, we’re bringing all our this homework that we’ve done in terms of equality of self and others, in terms of disadvantages of self centeredness and advantages of other centeredness and the actual exchange of self for others. We’re going to make use of all those preliminary contemplations and meditation, all those understandings, those abilities. We’re going to apply them in this process. This person I know doesn’t want to suffer. Why?
Because they’re just like me. We understand that because having meditated on the equality of self and others, whoever it might be, even though in this case it’s you, we can know that. At a deeper level, nobody wants to suffer. Everybody wants to be happy. We’re all the same in that.
So you can, you know, you can readily feel that. You can feel the equality of self in that. You know about that person. So based upon this, then based upon our training and the actual exchange of self for others, where, you know, where we began to develop a sense of empathy, you know, the ability, sensitivity to have where you find a parallel experience in yourself. You have some feeling for what that person is going through because you’ve been you’ve had a similar experience yourself.
And you know they don’t want that experience, even though in this case it happens to be you. Okay? So then we’re going to we’re developing compassion, aren’t we? Compassion is concerned with suffering. Love is concerned with happiness.
We’re going to develop three levels of compassion. We’re going to develop what we call caring compassion, just a friendly, kind thought, a wishing compassion. You know, we’re getting more involved, we’re actually making some kind of determination in our mind, I wish you didn’t suffer. And then finally, a compassion which is a resolve. You come to some conclusion, I’m going to do something.
So there are different degrees, intensity of this compassion. We’re going to work through each of those three different levels. So beginning with, first, just generating this sense of caring compassion. Just a friendliness, a sense of connecting with this person. A sympathetic involvement.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have this difficulty? I would like that. You know, taking some kind of you’re not a neutral observer. You’re at least becoming you’re acknowledging that this person is unhappy. And at least you’re doing that, and you’re making some kind connection with that, their unhappiness.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you didn’t have this difficulty, if you didn’t have this problem, this suffering? I would like that. That would be nice. You know, it’s not you know, nobody’s asking you to tear your arm off and give it to them. Making that simple connection with another fellow human being, in this case yourself, in terms of their suffering, acknowledging their suffering and coming to some, you know, caring about it.
I wish you didn’t have this. You know, it would be nice if you didn’t have this. And then we try to intensify that level of compassion. Know, we have to remember, and this is the difficult part, I mean, you know, this isn’t easy. Describing it is much easier than the actual experience of it.
Know, meditation is really a skill. And I’m not saying it’s a skill in terms of developing single pointed concentration or otherworldly states of being. I’m talking about the ability to conjure up these various skillful states of mind, to using your creativity, your imagination, your experience. It’s a very creative art. The words, you know, words I wish you didn’t suffer is not compassion.
These are words. Compassion is something beyond words. It is emotional state of being. It is a mode of relating with the object in terms of suffering. You know, when you talk about the map is not the territory.
This is why I said all conceptual consciousness are mistaken. Sometimes we take the map as the territory, don’t we? You know, have a map, you have all these blue lines and red lines and black dots. You can’t drive on those little blue lines and red lines. Or you can’t, you know, you can’t get a you can’t go to a restaurant and that little black dot there.
These little blue lines and red lines and black dots, they refer to something findable in reality. There’s something out there which they correspond to. So we shouldn’t, in our meditation, the challenge is not, you know, not to take the words as the reality. The words I love you are not love. But sometimes we take the words as being, you know, if we can think those words, we imagine that that must be the state of being, of love.
So we’re taking the map as the territory. The words and the thoughts making use of these words are like fingers, you know, pointing. We look to where what is being intended by that finger, nothing. We don’t get hum up in the finger itself. So somehow, you know, even if we have to be very humble in this.
If you can generate just a little bit of compassion rather than simply repeating words, it’s infinitely greater value. And even if it takes years just to do that little bit, it’s much of greater value in your practice than all the words that can eloquently repeat in our head. The words are not the feeling. How to get the feeling? That’s the skill.
So we’re developing a second degree of compassion. You know, we’re going to intensify our feeling of involvement with this person, caring beyond a mere liking. You know, beyond simply how nice it would be if you didn’t suffer. And that’s something, for sure. That’s not indifference.
That’s a hell of a lot further along the line indifference. It doesn’t matter. It matters. But we’re going to intensify. Wishing it were so.
You know, you’re coming to some kind of position with regard to how you yourself are going to relate with this experience. I wish you weren’t suffering. It’s like, you know, I wish this pain and this difficulty were ended. You let it be so. And it was like, you know, you come to some kind of conclusion.
You’re no longer wishy washy. And it was like a king who said, whatever they emphatically command, let it be. That’s what I want. Clarifying what it is that you want in this situation. May you not suffer.
May you be free of this difficulty, this pain. How does that feel? Then we’re going to intensify this into the third degree of compassion. I’m going to help you. Know, you’re really getting involved.
I’m going to take responsibility, you know, in terms of what we can, in fact, do. I’m going to commit myself to working with you to help you to resolve your difficulties, to solve your problems, to be free of your suffering. So you’re really getting involved with this. You’re really in there. You’re no longer just a kind hearted observer.
You’re opening up to that pain and making a difference in your life. So, then we recall, we’re going to use our, you know, these preliminary meditations that we’ve done, our homework. You know, understanding our contemplation of disadvantages of self centeredness. You know, how self centeredness is continually destroying our chance of happiness. It’s like turning a knife in our own hearts.
Our exaggerated self concern, our selfishness, our me, my, I, center of the universe, our approach to life. And it doesn’t work. And moreover, it causes us nothing but pain. Our inability to love and our inability to trust others, our inability to experience intimacy. If there’s one thing in this world that is deserving of our disgust, of our aversion, of our anger, it is our own self centeredness, our own selfishness.
So we’re going to taking that, you know, so really working yourself up. If you want, this is a place where we can sublimate all our angst and all our negative feelings, and we can begin to we can harness it in a very positive means. It’s extremely positive to use the emotion of what we call anger against the real enemy, and that is our own selfishness, our own self centeredness. And they’re really getting serious about destroying your own self-centeredness, not yourself, you know, our own exaggerated self concern. Imagine your own self centeredness as a black egg at your heart.
You know, I kind of imagine, like, you know, one these polished marble black eggs, you know, somewhere right there. This is this symbolizes, this represents your self centeredness, you know, what has destroyed your chance for happiness your whole life, which is nothing but has brought you pain and difficulties and everything that you didn’t want in your life. That’s the cause right there. That’s what’s been that’s what’s done it all along. You know, all our isolation, loneliness, all our, you know, all the conflicts, the feelings of hostility, the inability to love, you know, the whatever it is.
This is where it’s coming from, most basically, our own self centeredness. It’s all represented there. Once you’re going to do something about it. You know, more than that you’ve been its servant your entire life. And now you’re going to take a stand.
And you’re going to do something. You know, this path lets travel, you know, the difficult path. You’re not going to take the path of least resistance. They’re going to take their suffering. The one thing that your self centeredness, your self-cherishing doesn’t want to involve, doesn’t even want to go near.
And you’re going to voluntarily take that suffering on yourself, but not on your own self, but where it belongs. You’re going to use it to destroy your own self centerednessness. You’ve never really been able to care about anybody else your entire life. And now you’re going to do something different. You’re making another choice.
You’re testing out another option, another possible pathway, exploring that. You’re going to take this very caring for somebody else and use it to destroy your own self centered. You’re suffering and I’ve committed to helping you. I’m going to take your suffering upon myself. I’m going to put it where it belongs, on my own self centeredness.
So with this understanding, with this emotion, this feeling, imagine that all this person’s present difficulties, all their mental and physical difficulties, their problems, their suffering, disappointment, frustration, worry, loneliness, physical problems, sickness, whatever it might be, it transforms into a thick black smoke and rises up from them into your nostrils and down and begins to eat away like acid at the black egg of self-cherishing, self centeredness at your heart. Again and in, again and again, compassionately and fearlessly, taking upon this person’s even though in this case it happens to be yourself, doesn’t matter. Again and again taking their in the form of this thick black smoke, which again and again eating away the black egg of self centeredness at heart. Again and again, until finally they are no longer undergoing this present suffering and completely eaten away,, obliterated, destroyed the black egg of self centeredness. You know, it’s like really getting uptight with your self centeredness and really getting angry, getting pretty disgusted with your own self centeredness and destroying it, you know, again and again.
So now they’re no longer undergoing this present suffering and the present difficulty. But we know from our understanding of equality of self and others, we all want to be happy, equally. And you can understand that about this person, even though in this instance it happens to be yourself. You know you want to be happy, and you can understand from that that this person also wants to be happy. So, you know, we can generate three levels of love, just as we did with compassion: a caring, a wishing, and finally a resolution, really deciding what it is that you’re going to do.
So love is concerned with happiness. Beginning with the first level of love, a simple friendly thought, like connecting up with this person in terms of love. I know you want to be happy. You’re just like me. It would be wonderful if you were happy.
It would be wonderful if you had the positive counterpart of that previous suffering. You know, whatever it might have been, I wish you it would be it would really be nice. Yeah? But then we go on to intensify that level of love beyond wouldn’t it be nice, and then this caring love to one wishing. I wish you had that happiness.
That would, you know, may you have that happiness. Really wanting them to have happiness. And then finally, bring the third degree of love, a resolve. I’m going to do something. You know, I’m going to take personal responsibility.
You know, how many times have we driven by in a car and seen an animal lying alongside of the road? And we think, well, somebody will stop. Sure, you know, it’s a busy road. Somebody will stop. Here, that’s in with this this love of resolve, I’m going to stop.
It’s my responsibility. I can’t abdicate it to somebody else. I’m committing myself to bring you that happiness. Okay? So then understanding the, you know, that the having contemplated the advantages of other centeredness, you know, how, you know, if we look into our life experiences and be sensitive to them and reflect upon the quality of those experiences, I think we’ll see that a great deal of our, you know, really what we call my peak experiences, the most fulfilling moments of our life, are in relationship to others, or when we step outside of our own self.
There’s a certain self forgetfulness when we’re there for someone else. The most meaningful moments of our life are in terms of the other centeredness, the cherishing of others, being an instrument of help for others, being able to be there for others, and really fulfilling meaningful moments in our life, what life is really all about. We call that other centeredness. Through our understanding of the exchange of self for others, you know, what would this person need? What would they want?
You know, you’re able to, you know, in some sense, step in, put yourself in their shoes. What would it be to be them? You know, the the with his understanding, you know, we we go beyond all our fears and misgivings and hesitations to the contrary. He says, I’m going to give it all away. You know, we’re really training.
Whatever your own self centeredness would most like to hold on to, you’re going to let go of it. You know, whatever your self attachment, your own selfishness would least like to see you give away. That’s exactly what you’re going to give away. So with this understanding, in spite of our fears and our hesitations and our misgivings. This determination we imagine that everything that you value, you’re going to give it all up.
Know, usually this is classified into three categories: our merit, anything that any all our positive actions that we’ve created in the past, the causes of future happinesses, you know, all our possessions, even my computer. Wow. Not my computer. Okay, my computer. Your own body.
You know, we’re training, aren’t we? Letting go. Again, you’re going have to let it go someday, involuntarily, so we can train in letting go now. You’re going to give it all away. You’re going to give it to this person.
That’s the advantages of other centeredness. So imagining that all that you possess, your merit, your various valuables, even your own body, form a brilliant white light in the area of your heart. And they rise up, and they extend out through your nostrils. And as this white light approaches this person, it transforms into the positive counterpart of their previous suffering, their previous difficulties, no matter what it might have been. You know, if they were lonely, this white light transforms into a loving partner.
If they had economic difficulties, it transforms into wealth. If they were homeless, it transforms into a comfortable home. If they had a sick body, if they were ill, it transforms into a beautiful, healthy body. You know, you decide. It’s up to you.
It’s what this person needs, what they need, what they want. You’re going to give it all away. And again and again, transforming all that you have, your merit, your possessions, even your own body in this brilliant white light, and again and again radiates out and transforms into whatever it is that would make them happy, bringing them present temporal happiness. And then you see a smile on their face, you know, they’re no longer suffering. They’re content, for the moment at least.
And you share empathetically, you know. You rejoice in their newfound happiness. You share in their happiness with them. Okay, we’re going to go on. We’re going to work with future sufferings and happiness in the same way, and then we’re going to work with ultimate happiness using this process of imagination.
Okay? So we’ll continue this next week. A couple of minutes. Does anybody have any comments or questions, anything you’d like to share? I thought we’d just do that now.
We’ll just describe it. It’s your homework. We’ll do it in meditation next week, just going through it and describing it. So there’s still some description left of the actual meditation itself. Okay.
Anything else? So we can dedicate the positive energy that we created. You know, we can dedicate it in any way that we wish, but are ways that we can dedicate which give us a chance to have a greater vision about what it is that is a meaningful life in terms of what we can aspire to and how we might like to relate with the world around us. May all beings everywhere plagued by suffering of body and mind, obtain 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 and 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 the forlorn find hope, constant happiness and prosperity. May there be timely rains and bountiful harvests. May all medicines be effective and wholesome prayers bear fruit. May all who are sick and ill be freed from 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 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 this 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 are the source of all happiness and well-being. Powerful Chenrezig, Tenzin Gyatso, please remain at the end of cyclic existence. So if you’d like to get a cup of tea, we’ll have a kind of informal discussion. Thank you.
Have a good evening.