Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Opening with T.S. Eliot’s lines on knowledge, ignorance, and death, Ven Jampa Gendun completes his commentary on the second of the Three Principal Aspects — the awakened heart — in this nearly two-hour session. He surveys the many things people instinctively take refuge in, from the refrigerator to romantic love to nationalism, before sharing a personal story of waiting years for a sister who died at twenty-one and asking what each of us is still postponing our lives for. A guided Tonglen (taking-and-giving) meditation follows, illustrated by a moving account of a dying patient whose heart broke open at 4 a.m. by sensing the shared pain of countless others. Gendun distills the practice to a single conscious breath — taken when pain arises, given when pleasure comes — then closes with Śāntideva’s case for bodhicitta, the resolve to attain Buddhahood for all beings, and signals that the third aspect, wisdom and emptiness, begins next session.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 13 3PA 2008 06 02.mp3
UUID: ee709da1-5a9e-4239-9014-3e584736bc44
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 2008-2009 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2008-06-02
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 111.5 minutes
Words: ~10,440
Is it doing something more now? Okay. I didn’t I didn’t have it on. I think perhaps many of you are familiar with this verse by T. S.
Eliot. Speech but not of silence, knowledge of words and ignorant of the word. All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance. All our ignorance brings us nearer to death. But nearness to death no nearer to Where is the life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? The cycle of heaven in twenty centuries brings us farther from God and nearer to the dust. So, you know, we begin by adjusting our motivation. And generally, you know, this is taking the time to pause and see perhaps taking a look at our the quality of what we’ve been doing over this last week and has it been supporting the quality the type of life that you might like to lead.
Now the idea of going for refuge, what have you been going for refuge to over the course of your week? The idea of going for refuge contains the kind of notion there’s somebody that we can rely upon or we can depend upon in some way, some thing or situation or idea, something that we can do or make use of, that’s going to help us to find the happiness that we’re all looking for, help us to solve the problems that none of us want. So, you know, the idea of going for refuge is not particularly Buddhist, it’s not particularly Eastern. We’ve all been going for refuge our entire lives, whether we call it that or not, whether we think of it in those terms or not. You know, where do we avail ourselves when difficult feelings come up, for example, you know, uneasiness or anxiety or depression, where do you go?
I guess a lot of people go to the refrigerator or try another channel on the television? Anyway, there’s lots and lots and lots of possibilities. Know, some people go for refuge to their families, money, to material things, to fame or power. That’s where they think they’re going to solve their problems. That’s where their happiness lies.
Some people go for refuge to romantic love, to science, to arts and sports and politics, hobbies, entertainment, sex, drugs, rock and roll. Some people go for refuge to environmental issues, you know, playing a part in the world community. Some people become nationalist patriots to their country. That becomes some direction, some purpose in their life. Some people take refuge in their racial identity.
Some people take refuge in their getting together with the boys on Friday night or the local football team. Some people take refuge in vegetarianism. Some people eat as much meat as they possibly can. Some people take refuge in celibacy. Some people take refuge in cup of tea.
Some people become religious fanatics. And others see religion as something of a like the opium of the masses. Take refuge in dialectic materialism. Some people take refuge spending more money than they earn. Some people go to abortion clinics.
Some go to invertor fertilization programs. Some people get divorced as a way out of hell. Some people get married as a means to find eternal bliss. So, you know, some people become presidents, saints, criminals, factory workers, scientists, rock and roll stars. You know, I guess, you know, everybody’s doing what they’re doing to find happiness, to solve their problem.
And there is, I guess, there’s many, about as many different ways or refuges as there are people. But sooner or later we have to begin to question, Well, does my particular refuge, is there any payoff? Is it working for myself? You know, has it actually been of real use in getting what I want into my life? You know, everybody’s got problems.
Of us have some type of problem one way or another most of the time. You know, it doesn’t have to be heavy duty major tragedies. It can just be minor irritations almost every day of our life, there’s something. So when we talk about what it is that we go for refuge to and what we’re going for refuge from, we have to begin to question. We’re not looking at all the many instances of desirable and undesirable events.
But, you know, if you can step back from the trees of our life and look at the forest, what is our felt impression around the quality of our quality of our life? Do I feel good about myself? I, do I, does my life, am I excited about life? Does it afford me as a sentient being, a purpose in my life? Do I stand for anything?
Do I feel connected with something beyond my own ego? You know, with the people around around me and the world. I guess, you know, asking ourselves, how far have I gotten in this project of life? Or haven’t I gotten far enough? You know, where has it all where has all this blood, sweat, and tears, where has all of this trying to figure out this worry, this planning, this manipulation?
Where has it gotten me in my project of finding a successful life? You know, what I guess you know, what are we going to do with this this one precious life that we have? What are we living for? I guess they’re pretty heavy questions. Where are they?
Yeah. You just have look at it. You know, life simply a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing? Is that life in general or is it just my life? What is it all about?
There’s another passage, another verse by T. S. Eliot, What shall I do now? What shall I do? I shall rush out as I am and walk down the street with my hair down so.
What shall we do tomorrow? What shall we ever do? The hot water at ten, and if it rains, a closed car at four. And we shall play a game of chess, pressing lidless eyes, waiting for the knock upon the door. And it just, you know, life becomes like a series of experiences.
You go from one experience to another. There doesn’t seem to be any thread or overall meaning to the whole thing in one way or another. Just so many events. You know, that we fill up our life with becomes like a substitute for life. You know, we find a new partner or a new wife or a new husband or we find a new therapist or a new guru or we maybe I’ll go it alone for a while and see how that feels.
Or we change our course of study at uni or we change our jobs or we change our careers or we start a new business or we just maybe I’ll stop work for a while and just go off and do something else for a while. Or maybe we move to a new home or a new flat out in the city, out in the suburbs, in the country. Or just say, Well, I think I’ll just give it all for a while, I’ll just go traveling for a while. You know, we we have we have another baby. It’s a good project.
We have another affair. We have you know, we don’t quite figure we can’t figure out what to have next, what to do next, you know, at least for a while, something to fill in the space, the next event. So there’s always another project, always another event, something, you know, just around the corner. The happiness is just around the next corner, you know. Another auspicious beginning.
This is going to work out the way I want it. This is going to bring me the happiness I’ve been looking for. I have a good feeling about this time. You know, there’s always another roadside attraction to occupy ourselves for a while, at least for a while. So this is kind of the endless stream or the endless doings.
I don’t know why they call us human beings. I think they call us human doings. Most of us don’t have time to be. We’re kind of running on this treadmill towards something else in the horizon, something to divert our attention to for a while. But in spite of it all, you know, more than not, you know, the same themes keep coming about, the same problems keep reoccurring in our lives.
They keep coming back one way or another. The same dissatisfactions, the same disappointments, the same boredoms, the same sense of passengership in our life. The feeling that our lives are being lived out waiting for a knock on the door. And quite often, even though we know it’s going to depress us all the more, it’s going to make us, what, more discouraged, make us maybe sometimes despise ourselves all the more, we keep resorting to the same patterns of thinking and behaving when these uneasy feelings come up. Hope that somehow they’re going to work for us this time, the same types of thinking, the same ways of behaving.
They didn’t work before, but this time there’s will be a surprise ending. Things will be different. So we continue to struggle with attempts to manipulate the people and the things and the situations about us in the hope of forming some kind of permanent refuge for ourselves, somewhere we can you know, we’re all refugees from the human condition in one way or another. But, you know, it doesn’t work for long, for one reason or another. People are continually coming in and out of our lives, things wear out, tired of them, they have to be replaced, situations changed, we have to keep moving on.
You know, guess, you know, over the course of my life, I guess, you know, maybe when you get a bit older, get some perspective, and you begin to see the patterns and the various refuges that you try to make use of over the course of your life. And it gives you, you know, you can step back from the forest, from the trees. You know, but, you know, except for the outward trappings, not much changes. You’re still like on this treadmill in many ways. Of course, you know, the body’s getting older, different place, different situations, different relationships.
But the mind is struggling. So, you know, we I think at some level and I think it’s difficult to recognize this and moreover to be mindful of it and to make the effort to bring about some kind of change. But at some level, there is an unexamined assumption that we are unknowingly basing our life on, is that the dominant themes of our present ways of thinking and behaving can remain the same, and yet, how things are going to turn out the way I want them, if we’ve ever even considered what the way that we want them to be. That things are going to be different. So in a way we’re all waiting, aren’t we?
I think it’s quite difficult begin to think for oneself in the kind of life, what a successful life might mean for each of ourselves, and become the author of that life, to begin to create that kind of life. More than that, I think, you know, we haven’t empowered ourselves to make the choices, the consistent choices, to bring about that kind of life for ourselves. What is it that each of us is waiting for? I guess I’ll give you a share of something with you. Don’t know if it you When I was young, I had an older sister and she used to be of great help to me.
And I used to rely upon her because she was someone who was interested in my well And eventually not eventually she died she was in a car accident when she was twenty one, when I was sixteen. And I remember for many years waiting for her to come home. She went to university and she didn’t come back. She didn’t come back alive. And it was like putting my life on hold, waiting for that knock on the door for her to come through the door and take the place that she used to serve in helping me work through and achieve the things that I wanted.
And it took a long time for me to come home at a very perhaps feeling level, emotion level, that she wasn’t coming back. Whatever it is that I wanted out of my life, I was going to have to take the initiative to find it. It was my choice and I was going to have to do the work. You know, who are we waiting for to get on with our life in one way or another? You know, we’re all waiting in some way.
You know, waiting for the telephone call, you know, the life you’re waiting for has arrived. Shall we deliver it? Will you come down and pick it up yourself? It’s a hard one. Most of us don’t, you know, perhaps think we can create the kind of life that we want for ourselves.
And even if we were, it’s hard to be mindful of that and be motivated to do just that. You know, I guess we have to ask ourselves what it is that we’re all waiting for in one way or another. So we maybe notice that most of the time we don’t even notice that we’re waiting. And over the course of all this waiting, all our hopefully look forward to tomorrows, one by one imperceptibly drift down into the disappointing todays and each their turn fade into the unlived, forgotten yesterdays of our life. And life creeps on at its petty peace.
What did Elliot say? Always nearer to death, but no nearer to life or to God, no nearer to life, the life we want to lead. So, you know, we would talk about going for refuge. I guess we just stop speeding, stop distracting ourselves from ourselves, create that space, just here on Monday evening about seven twenty. Later than that now, isn’t it?
And we just pause. And what was the quality of my week? Did it support the quality of life that I want for myself? Do I know what the quality of life I want for myself? And if not, why not?
Isn’t it about time to try to find out what it is that we really want? You know, what are our deeper held values? And begin in some small way to work with some strategies, both short term and long term. Whatever those might be for you as a unique individual. And begin to kind of creating the kind of life we want for ourselves.
We call this in the Buddhist terms, you know, we call this going for refuge, but where do we go for refuge to? Where do we see the highest values? What is successful life from the point of view Buddhism? It’s to become a Buddha. There’s nothing better that we can make of our lives and what we who we could be and what we could do with this life.
And that’s the ultimate value. And that, you know, just so is not enough. It’s important. It’s like gives us some our energies and our focus, and we can keep coming back orientating ourselves. But still we have to have to walk the walk.
We have to take all the many steps to get us to that goal. We have to implement the Dharma in our daily life. So these teachings, this educational process, is the strategy to achieve what is of highest value as seen by Buddhism, to become a Buddha. And these are the methods, these are the strategies. And here we’re learning tonight about these methods.
We’re educating ourselves in these strategies, but we have to implement them. We’re implementing them to help ourselves, you know, to become the best possible person that we can become, you know, to create a real refuge. And we become a refuge for others as well. And this whole process we’re assisted in this process, you know, it’s by those who are teachers, the Sangha, the spiritual community, and those who built Buddha House, who fund Buddha House, who support physical situation that we can avail ourselves in, ourselves together and sharing our ideas together, supporting one another. So this is social context in which this process is occurring.
And we can, you know, we can begin to raise the level of our motivation. You know, we can widen our vision about what successful life might look for look like to ourselves in some small way to include an ever widening circle of others. Maybe if we begin with one with another person, that’s a star, that we can build on that until we begin to include all other living beings. And this is a huge vision, a whole huge goal. It’s a life transcendent goal.
It’s going to, you know, it’s a cosmic goal, if you like. But it affords our life meaning. Whether we can achieve it or not, whether we become Buddhas or not, we want meaning and purpose in our life. Who was it? Carl Jung, I think, said, The intellect requires demonstration and proof.
The soul requires meaning meaning and belief. We want to believe in something, and moreover, we want meaning in our life. This feeds our deeper needs. And I think this is what we’re all about. So the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha, which we achieve by means of the Dharma within the social context of the spiritual community, and continually raising the level of motivation such that we’re doing it and seeking this goal, this highest of values, for the purpose, for the sake of ever widening the circle of others.
And this is like a lifestyle. It’s just the way it lives. It’s going to go somewhere. You can feel assured of that. I go for refuge until I’m awakened to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.
Through my practice of generosity and the other perfections. May I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha through my practice of generosity and the other perfections. May I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am awakened to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha through my practice 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 enchantment 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 beginning this time and rejoice in all the virtues of superiors and beings. Please remain at the end of cyclic existence and turn the wheel of Dharma for migrating beings. I dedicate all virtue, mine and that of others, to the Great Awakening. So if you’d like to stand up and stretch for a minute, we will sit and meditate.
So we’re going to meditate again on taking and giving. We’ll just repeat the same process that we meditated on last week. Rather than taking ourselves and choosing someone who you feel close to, that you can naturally begin to generate these various love of compassion and love toward. And just very briefly going through the meditation, getting in, you know, it’s done in in terms of different time, present, future, temporal sufferings and happinesses, and then ultimate happiness and so forth. And then with regard to the three levels of compassion, the three levels of love, the first thing with a sense of caring and connectedness, and just thinking, wouldn’t it be nice if this person didn’t suffer?
And then intensifying that, may you not suffer? And are they coming to some conclusion in your mind? It matters to you? I’m going to free you from your suffering? Making a commitment to this person, taking responsibility.
And then we’ll work with the three levels of love, again, caring, wishing, and resolving. Simply connecting, you know, it’d be nice if you were happy, may you be happy, and then finally, I’m going to make you happy. So in beginning, we’re going to imagine someone that you love in front of yourself. And connect up with some present suffering they have, some difficulty they’re experiencing in their life, something that’s not going right, physically or mentally. Developing these three levels of compassion would be wonderful if you didn’t have this problem.
And then we’ll go on, May you not have this problem. Then we’ll go on, I’m going to help you. And imagine taking that suffering upon yourself, you know, working with our previous meditations and understanding that no one wants to suffer, everybody wants to be happy, including this person. And moreover, understanding disadvantages of self centeredness, and how it’s in fact destroys our chance for happiness, how it creates only problems for ourselves in our life, and that you’re going to take this very suffering from this person and you’re going to destroy your own self centeredness. And the one thing that we don’t want, our self centeredness at least doesn’t want, is suffering.
It’s a total preoccupation with the avoidance of suffering and the pursuit of happiness. And we’re going to relate with it in complete opposite fashion. We’re actually going to take on suffering and then later we’re going to give away happiness. Taking on the suffering of this present suffering of this person that you love in the form of thick black smoke coming up through your nostrils and down, Imagining, you know, giving the image of a black egg of self centeredness at your heart, and this smoke comes down and begins to eat away acid at the egg of self centeredness at your heart. Again and again, taking on their suffering in the form of an aspect of thick black smoke, again and again eating away their self centeredness at their heart.
Now you’ve eliminated their present suffering, but still they want to be happy. You everybody wants to be happy. Everyone’s equal in that regard. And we’re, you know, having contemplated the advantages of other centeredness, how it’s the most fulfilling, most meaningful, purposeful moments of our lives, connected when we step out of our own world and are there for someone else in a very, you know, real, in a meaningful, significant way when we’re able to help someone that we love. There’s a great joy in our heart, fulfillment, and life becomes really worthwhile.
And I’m going to give away all that I have. We’re going to give away imagining whatever you hold is valuable, whatever you want to hold on to, that is to say, your self centeredness wants to hold on to all your various possessions, my computer and so forth, my virtues, all the positive actions that I’ve accumulated, but also even my own body. Just that sense of what you can do and they’re going to give it all away and transforming those all into a brilliant white light which forms at the center of your chest, rises up out of your nostrils and it approaches this person that you love. It transform s into the aspect of the counterpart of that previous suffering. Know, if they had the flu, healthy body.
If they are having difficulties with examinations, wisdom, white light transforms, they really know the material really well, confidence and so forth. And whatever it was that they were suffering, the counterpart, the positive counterpart, that brilliant white light transforms them. And then you imagine them happy. And you generate a sense of rejoicing, a sense of delight in their happiness. And you share in their happiness, a sense of gladness in your heart.
You’ve made this person that you love happy. Okay? So I’ll go through that with you as we go through the meditation together. So taking a comfortable firm posture. We’ll begin with the process relaxing the body, starting at the crown of the head, the scalp.
Feeling the wrinkles in your brow and your forehead beginning to smooth out. The pressure in and around the eyes diminishing. The muscles of the face softening, relaxing. The jaws relaxed. Bring awareness to the back of your neck gently turning your head to each side a few times.
Very gently, softly stretching, loosening 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, allowing them to drop comfortably to the sides, feeling this weight, this burden that we’ve been carrying around on our backs throughout the day, moving down and through your body into the ground. Make some weight’s been lifted from your shoulder.
Bring your awareness all the way to your hands. Your hands are soft and loose, not tight. Relaxed. Relax your lower arms, upper arms. Your chest is at ease.
Relaxing throughout the heart area and the lungs and the center portion of the back, the stomach, releasing the tension that we hold in our stomach muscles just allowing your belly to go soft. Throughout the abdominal your lower back muscles. Your buttocks. Throughout the upper legs Lower leg. Your feet.
Bring your awareness to your body in general, noticing any tightnesses, any tensions which remain in the body, any areas of discomfort. Consciously relaxing, softening, feeling the tension diminish, the tightness loosen. If there’s an area of discomfort just don’t resist it, don’t struggle against it. Surround it with a kind, caring acceptance. It’s part of who you are at present.
It’s okay. Just allow it to be there. Your body becoming comfortable, at ease. A feeling of physical well-being pervading every part of your body throughout your entire body. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, nothing to think about.
Just be your body, relaxed, at ease. To stay with your body. And then we’ll practice the six part breath exercise, is breathing comfortably normally, breathing out extending the exhalation completely and emptying the lungs, breathing in comfortably normally, again extending exhalation doing this six times individually. And when you completed the breath exercise, bring your mind to the breath. Easy, gentle, in and out flow of the breath, wherever the sensation is most clear and obvious.
If it’s helpful, you can the techniques of counting and noting the breaths. Bring your mind back to the breath. Now we’re going to meditate on taking and giving. Begin with someone that you care a great deal about, that you’re very close to, that you love. Imagine that person in front of you.
If you can’t see them it’s not so important. The feelings which are the most important, the visualization is secondary. This person whom you care about has some present difficulties or suffering in some way, physical or mental. And connecting up with that suffering, with a simple caring. It would be nice if you didn’t have to undergo, if you weren’t experiencing this difficulty, this problem, this suffering.
A simple caring, it matters. Intensifying that caring to wishing, I don’t want you to suffer. May you not suffer. I wish you weren’t suffering. I wish you didn’t have this problem.
Intensifying that wish to resolve, I’m going to do something. Take whatever responsibility I can, commit myself in helping you work through this problem, this suffering. I’m going to take that suffering. I’m going to place it upon my own self centeredness. I’m going to take your suffering upon myself.
Like a mother who wants to remove the least bit of suffering of their child, would gladly take it upon their self if they could. Imagining that your self centeredness is this black egg at the center of your chest. This is what caused you so much problems over the course of your life. Your isolation and loneliness and inability to trust your paranoia, your conflicts in relations. You’re going to take the suffering of somebody that you love and destroy your own self centeredness.
So imagine this present suffering rising in thick black smoke through your nostrils and down and like acid eating away at the black egg of self centeredness at your chest. Again and again take upon yourself your suffering. Again and again eat away the self centeredness at your heart. Use their suffering to destroy your self centeredness, your selfishness. Again and again.
Now we’re going to develop the three levels of love toward this person that you care about. It would be nice if you had the positive counterpart to that previous suffering. I would like that. I want you to have that happiness, that pleasure, that well-being. I wish you had it.
That’s what I want for you. I’m going to give you that happiness. Take responsibility for bringing it about. Imagine transforming all that you want to hold on to, all that all your objects of attachment to good things, possessions, even your lovely body to bring it where it lightens your heart. Rises up, streams out through your nostrils and approaches them, transforms into the positive counterpart, healthy body, healthy mind, whatever it might have been.
Again and again give away whatever it is you want to hold on to. Again and again transforming it and bringing them happiness. You made them happy. Be glad. Rejoice in their happiness and share in their happiness.
And then bring your mind back to the breath. Get in touch with your body, pressure of your buttocks on the cushion on the chair, your feet on the floor, just some sensation and feeling within the body. In an easy and relaxed manner, slowly become aware of your surroundings. Do you wanna stand up and stretch? You’re welcome.
So we’ve been looking at the final step in this process of awakening our heart, the tradition of equalizing exchanging self for others. And we’re looking at practice of taking and giving, taking upon ourselves the suffering of others and using it to destroy our own self centeredness and giving away our own happiness. And we went through the entire visualization, various levels of intensity of both love and compassion, you know, taking with compassion, giving with love, and working at different times, the temporal present and future, and then the ultimate happiness of Buddhahood, and working with lots and lots and lots individuals. There’s, you know, talked about some adaptations, the way that this can be practiced in simplified form, or a form that we can make use of in our everyday life. One of the most powerful, most useful and powerful adaptations of taking and giving is this practice when we ourselves are actually undergoing some difficulty, when we ourselves are undergoing some suffering ourselves.
This can be a very powerful practice for ourselves, both in terms of a temporal benefit but also in terms of our practice and ultimate benefit. You know, it’s at times when we ourselves are suffering, going through some difficulty, but also there are times when our most joyful moments, when we’re really happy, that we can, we’re most able and open to connecting up with others, that we can most readily identify and participate in the lives of others. You know, it’s at those times when suffering or extreme happiness that we realize how very much living beings are feeling beings. How the feeling is primary to our experience of life in terms of pleasure and pain. This is the key point about Tonglen.
Tonglen is the Tibetan word for taking and giving. Tong means to send or to give and len means to take. This is the key point about Tong len. Your own experience of pleasure and pain become recognize your kinship with all sentient beings, the way that you can share in the joy and the sorrow of everyone who’s ever lived, everyone who’s living now and everyone who will ever live. You’re acknowledging that the discomfort that you feel is something that all human beings feel, and the joy that you feel is also people’s birthright.
You’re breathing in the same pain, but now think to yourself, let me feel it so that no one else on the whole earth has to feel it. In other words, it becomes useful. I’m miserable. I’m depressed. Okay.
Let me feel it fully so that nobody else has to feel it, so that others can be free of it. It starts to waken your heart because you have this inspiration to say, This pain can be a benefit to others because I can be courageous enough to feel it fully so no one else has to feel it. You know, normally when we react to pain, we react to pain by narrowing down, you know, contracting the focus of our awareness, shrinking the scope of our concern to ourselves alone. And in some way that’s quite necessary, you know, that’s useful and needed. We have to focus our attention and energies on being sensitive to what our pain is trying to tell us in directing our healing.
There’s either some kind of physical or mental pain. You know, our pain is like a mouth. It’s saying there’s something wrong, and we have to listen. And we have to be sensitive to what that mouth is trying to communicate to ourselves in bringing about, you know, directing our temporal healing. But in addition, our pain can be a call for not only self assertion in the process of healing ourselves, but can be a powerful reminder of others’ pain.
It can be used in a greater healing, in the greater healing of integrating ourselves with others. You know, we in the West, we live to an extreme of individualism. You know, are benefits to be derived from individualism. You know, we can decide what is uniquely important for myself, what do I value, and we can pursue our goals. And that’s a wonderful opportunity that our individuality presents ourselves with.
But our individualism, the extreme of individualism, has a tendency to isolate ourselves from others. That we withdraw into, we become self absorbed into our own small worlds of ourselves. And we lose connection with others and the world around us. So in a way, I guess in its most simple, basic form, the practice of taking and giving can help us to maintain a connection with the world around us and the people. We don’t lose sight that we’re always being reminded there are others in this world who are also feeling beings, and we maintain some connection with them.
We don’t get lost in our own complexities of our own inner world, difficulties, our I, me, mine, center of universe approach that we normally make use of. This is quite a long it’s a long quotation, I think it’s quite a moving quotation. Anyway, it’s from a book by Stephen Levine, who does a lot of work with hospice work, works with the dying in the United States. We were working with Hazel, a woman who had come into the hospital in a very contracted state. She was a very difficult patient.
The nurses called her a real bitch on wheels. Few wished to spend time with her. Hazel’s physicians and attendants said that whenever she rang the bell, they were greeted with nasty comments and considerable verbal abuse. And so, of course, every time she rang the bell, it took a bit longer to be answered. All her life had been struggle for control.
Seldom had she just let life be. All that she didn’t want or could not have was judged and pushed away from her heart. All that she could get was grasp at feverishly. And so she found herself dying alone in great deal of pain. She had judged so many so often that even her grown children would not visit.
She was becoming a self fulfilling prophecy of anger and despair. For six weeks her her isolation and pain increased until one night something changed. She came to a point where she could take it no longer. She could not stand the suffering in her back and legs or the pain of her unlived life. At four a.
M, feeling like jumping out of her skin, she began to review her life amidst the pulsations of her pain. Never had it been so clear how her intense holding had created such an intense dissolution and aloneness. She saw how the considerable suffering she had caused during her lifetime had come back to her at death time. She had nowhere to turn. She had never felt more alone or helpless.
Feeling death approach, she remembered herself as a youngster, open and hungry for the world. She saw how she had closed down over the years. With a deep sigh, she let the helplessness wash over her and, exhausted, unable to fight another moment, she surrendered. She let go and she died into her life, into the moment. Letting go into the pain in her spine and legs, she began to sense quite beyond reason that she was somehow not alone in her suffering.
She felt what she later called the ten thousand in pain. She began to experience all the other beings who at that very moment were lying in the same bed of agony. At first there arose the experience of herself as a brown skinned woman, breasts slack from malnutrition lying on her side, a starving child sucking at her empty breast, spine and legs twisted in pain. The musculature contracted from starvation and disease. For an instant, she became the Ethiopian woman with the same pain in the back legs and hips lying on her side, dying in the mud.
Then there arose the experience of an Eskimo woman lying on her side, dying during childbirth, tremendous pain in her back, hips, legs, and dying the same death. Then her experience became that of the body of a woman in a twisted car wreckage, her back and legs broken, slowly dying alone by the side of the deserted road. Image after image arose of the ten thousand in pain. She experienced herself as a youth with yellow skin curled up on her side on a dirty mattress dying of hepatitis in a junky flat, as an old woman with grayish skin dying of old age, each with the same pain in the lower back and legs. She saw herself as a woman, her lower back crushed by a rock fall, dying by the banks of a river, alone bereft of the touch of another human being.
She saw herself dying of cholera as an Asian mother with an ill child in her thatched hut. She was each dying beside the other. She experienced the ten thousand sufferings simultaneously. In the hour of her greatest agony, something in her connected with the enormity of the suffering she was sharing at that moment. The pain was beyond my bearing.
I couldn’t stand it any longer and something broke. Maybe it was my heart. But I saw it wasn’t my pain, it was the pain. It wasn’t just my life, it was all life. It was life itself.
As the days unfolded after extraordinary experience, Hazel’s heart opened more and more to all the others in pain in the hospital. She constantly asked after them. As the weeks went by, she continued to get a deeper sense of what she had participated in. She went beyond herself, and the room became a place where the nurses would come on their break because it was a room of love. Soon her children came to visit because of the warmth and surrender of her phone calls responding to the plea for forgiveness.
Her grandchildren sitting on the edge of her bed, the grandchildren she had never met, the hearts she had rejected before they were born. Her room became a place of healing, of finished business, of universal care. Hazel’s teaching to us was that the deepest healing can be done solely in the personal. It needs to be done for the whole, for the pain we share, that the very root of healing is a sense of the universal within the separate, the personal. So, you know, using our pain to connect up with the universal.
In the throes of our pain, we can use our pain to join in the community of pain. We can use our pain to open up our hearts. We can heal into a greater healing. Maybe the physical healing will never get better, but there will be a spiritual healing in the depth of our hearts. We can open our hearts to the pain of the ten thousand.
You know, we can go beyond the particular to the archetypal. We can move from the personal to the universal. In our pain, all the difficulties of our life can be a continual reminder of the human condition in which we all share. There’s nothing unique to any of us, these difficulties. There can be a connection like a kinship.
We’re all brothers and sisters in this. It can be an antidote to this extreme of individualism that I mentioned, in terms of our habitual tendency to lapse into our self absorption, to isolating ourselves from others and closing our hearts to others. Whatever our pain, whatever difficulty, whatever we are experiencing, we can be sure, one hundred percent absolute, that there are thousands, that there are ten thousands of people on this planet at this very moment experiencing the exact same pain, the exact same difficulty that we are experiencing. You know, we can know their pain. We can feel their pain.
This is our direct experience. Are all these thousands and thousands of people feeling the exact same pain that I’m feeling at this very moment. You know, we can know exactly how they feel. We don’t have to speculate. We don’t have to even imagine.
We don’t have to it’s not a projection on others. You know, whether it be just a simple headache or whether it be the loss of a loved one, tens of thousands at this very moment are experiencing that same pain, that same discomfort. We are kind of you have a kind of a kinship, a relation. We’re related in that pain. If we have to feel this pain, if we have to endure this difficulty, why not make it of some use?
Why not use it to open up our hearts? Why not try to use it skillfully to overcome, to destroy our own self centeredness? I know how it feels. I know how you must be feeling now, all of you ten thousand. I know how exactly how you feel.
I’m experiencing that pain myself. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you didn’t have to experience it? If my pain were enough for us all, I would like that so very much. May it be enough for us all. I want to wish it were enough for us all, you know.
The pain I am feeling now is the pain of the ten thousand. I am experiencing the pain for all of you. Maybe that’s what Christ did on the cross. Maybe he was doing Tonglen, taking all on our sins, who knows, I don’t know. So it’s in this way that our suffering and our difficulties can be ultimately meaningful.
They can be transformed into a means of awakening our hearts to others. Otherwise it’s just pain. It’s useless. It doesn’t go anywhere. If we’re skillful, then we can always be using our difficulties, our pain, and so forth as a way of healing our hearts and a greater healing.
You know, in taking and giving, we’re trying to find a way to stay connected to others. On the one hand, we’re trying to avoid shutting down in the face of difficulty, in the face of others’ pain, numbing out, becoming insensitive, avoiding, turning our backs, our minds in some way. We don’t want that. We don’t want anything to do with that. At least part of our Self doesn’t.
Our Self centeredness doesn’t. Our selfishness doesn’t. And moreover, on the other hand, we’re trying to avoid getting completely caught up in our own material, in terms of our own happiness. When we experience pleasure, we forget about others. When others experience pain, we forget about them.
And that’s our usual approach in terms of our relationships with the world. So a way that we can begin to practice this so an easy practice, you know, remember I mentioned when you gained some proficiency in taking and giving, you mount it upon the breath. The breath becomes associated with taking on, and the inhalation becomes associated with taking on, exhalation with giving out. Pain, happiness. And the way that we can practice it in a very simple way, but I think it’s a very profound way, and I think it’s an extremely useful way.
I think it’s a very healing way. When you experience some pain or difficulty for yourself, just briefly, I’m not talking about this doesn’t have to be a formal sitting situation, you know, meditation. You can do this, know, riding on the bus, walking down the street, sitting, watching television. Some difficulty, the slightest difficulty is sinus pain, remembering that there are others, there are these ten thousand who are experiencing however slight, however extreme that difficulty, that suffering might be. There are those ten thousand who are experiencing the exact same pain.
And just take the time recall that and take one breath, just one, intentionally to breathe in, associating that with the taking in. That’s all. And at the the moment you become aware that, know, some difficulty, some suffering, just others, there’s ten thousand who are experiencing that at this moment, intentionally take it in, just with one single breath, and then get on, and then move on, you know. It doesn’t have to be That instant of some difficulty, some problem is a way that it connects us up with the world so that we don’t lose ourselves in our own difficulties. We don’t become self absorbed.
It’s a way of opening our hearts. Pain becomes a way of healing. Just that one breath. At those times when you experience some pleasure, just very briefly, you know, you eat and taste something delicious. Delicious.
One moment. There are those who don’t have this pleasure, that they would like to experience this pleasure. Just breathe it out, share it. You’re tasting, you know, you have some ice cream, your first spoonful. Remember others and share it.
Just one breath intentionally breathed out, sharing that pleasure with others. That’s all, just one breath. When you see someone experiencing difficulty or pain, rather than shutting down, turning your back, you know, it could be something, you know, somebody missed the bus, or could be something major, something extremely minor, Just take in a breath. Connect up with, you know, don’t shut down in the face of that pain. Be open, even with slight.
Take it in. Just one breath. Take it in. That’s all. It doesn’t have to be heavy duty.
When you see somebody happy, share in that. It’s not all about suffering. You see somebody succeed, somebody win an award, something good happens to them, be glad for them, rejoice. It’s quite a simple practice. When you yourself experience even the slightest difficulty, you know, then you’re always connecting.
Positive and negative feelings that you are experiencing, that you see being experiencing, are always a way to connect up with people. And we’re overcoming this extreme individualism which is so predominant in the West. And we keep reminding that we are the primacy of feeling of what it means to be a human being, and continually connecting up. You know, we begin to integrate. Integrate.
And it’s pain and pleasure which do that because that’s primary to what it means to be a human being. So we’ve worked with these various practices. Looking at the quality of self and others, disadvantages of self centeredness, the advantages of other centeredness, the actual exchange of self for others, the completion of the actual exchange of self and others, and this all culminates in this practice. And this is, these are like the preliminary steps, and we bring this richness of understanding and experience to the practice of taking and giving. And we’re developing the courage, at least imaginatively, to take on the difficulties of others, the suffering of others upon ourselves and give them our happiness, and At least training our imagination to be able to do this.
But we have to ask, we have to question. We did a meditation this evening, taking on suffering, giving away happiness. And I think that’s really good training. I think it’s really useful. I think it makes us a better person.
But when we open our eyes, nothing’s really happened. Nothing’s really changed. I think it was very meaningful and valuable training. But we have to ask ourselves, Have I really brought about what I really want? How am I going to translate what is simply imaginative process in some type of real physical reality?
However noble and however genuine our longing and however heroic our courage may be, it really hasn’t done anything to change the world. It’s all been in terms of training our mind. Obviously something much more, much more has to be done. I have to do something. You know, I have to do something.
This is my job. This is my responsibility. This is something I personally have to actually do. We have to ask ourselves, can I actually do anything? I can’t even help free one sentient being.
I can’t even free myself. What to say of all sentient beings, you know. It’s kind of a joke. You know, like everybody else, we’re handicapped by the various afflictions. You know, if you in the idea of taking responsibility, if responsibility is to have any real meaning, it is just what it says.
In taking responsibility, we have to be able to respond. Otherwise, responsibility is only in words. Like everybody, we are presently handicapped by our afflictive emotions, by our karma, by our suffering, by our fears, by all our obscurations and so forth. In order, if we’re really going to help others without discrimination, without error, you know, we have to be able to understand their particular situation. We have to be able to understand their problems.
We have to be able to understand the actual methods, you know, develop some skill around their problems. You know, we need, we also need some kind of power, some strength to be able to do what’s needed to be done. You know, we have to be free ourselves from all the obstacles to be able to help others. This sincere commitment to the wealth of others has to find some way of being translated beyond a mere wish, merely thinking that I want it so. The only way is that I must become a Buddha.
Someone who is completely skilled in the liberative means, someone who understands others’ minds, who has the experience necessary to be able to adapt the means to this particular individual on their particular journey according to their present needs. You know, we have to become experts, don’t we? You know, it’s not enough simply to wish ourselves, though that’s a great deal for sure. But that we have to go beyond that. You know, if somebody needs a quadruple coronary heart bypass, it’s not quite enough to be a nurse and wish wish it were so.
There’s simply no other way that if we’re going to be able to help unlimited beings in unlimited times, in unlimited ways, that we ourselves, we have to awaken to our own unlimited potential. You know, there’s no other possibility. It’s indispensable. I have to become a Buddha. Whatever we call that, whatever we mean by that, this optimum mode of being in terms of ourselves and others, what we can possibly do, to realize our fullest potential.
Our practice will be as powerful as our intention. If your intention is to smooth over some of the edges, the rough parts of your life, then your practice will be commensurate to that intention. You will that much powerful, will accord with that. If your intention is to save all sentient life from suffering, your practice will be commensurate with that in terms of its power and what you actually achieve. We draw energy from our heartfelt desire to attain the qualities of Buddha as soon as possible in order to benefit others, if becomes necessary.
Then necessity is the mother of invention, if it becomes necessary. You know, for the sake of all that lives, I must become a Buddha. I must become a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being, supremely skilled in liberative techniques and understanding of others and how to apply these liberative methods in benefiting others. You know, someone who can actually do something in a very real way. That is what I wish to do.
And we’re trying to develop this attitude, this thought. I will become that. I will resolve from the depth of my heart to become that. So this is exceptional resolve. I must become a must become a Buddha.
I have to become something much, much more than I am at present, because people need me. They’re depending upon me. And I accept that responsibility, and therefore I have to develop the ability to respond. When this desire to attain highest perfectly complete enlightenment awakened for the sake of all sentient beings just arises spontaneously without any effort, without any forethought, without having to go through any logical reasoning. Just by seeing one person, one sentient being, I have to attain awakening for that sentient being.
I have to become a Buddha for that insect. When that continually arises, spontaneously, effortlessly, then one has given birth to the awakened heart. And in that birth is reborn as a child of the Buddha, as a bodhisattva. So dominated by such a thought, all our actions become the practice of the universal vehicle, the Mahāyāna. They’re all dedicated, they’re all directing, they will all empower one to achieve Buddhahood, to become the best possible person you can become because that is an imperative.
That’s the driving, that’s the intention behind all that you do. The magnificent conception of this will to enlightenment is a central moment in the evolutionary career of a living being, the moment in which a new spirit of love and compassion pervades its whole life and destiny, and its further evolution becomes a purposive, creative progress. From this moment the living being becomes a bodhisattva, worthy of honor by gods as well as humans. Śāntideva states that as soon as a being conceives the spirit of enlightenment, he or she becomes at once a son or daughter of the Sugatas, a buddha child. He or she should rejoice in the newfound fruitfulness of their existence.
This spirit is a kind of spiritual gene, a DNA molecule of universal evolution, life after life. Once one possesses it by conceiving the will to attain Buddhahood, the perfection of wisdom and compassion for the sake of all living beings, the quality of one’s experience and even one’s biological continuum is marked forever onward. You know, there’s no that I know of, you know, I don’t know much, but, you the years that I’ve been hanging out with in the Dharma and so forth, at least exposing my mind to it, though my mind’s pretty tough. There’s no more noble thought than this, nothing higher we could ever aspire to. There’s no more powerful method to go beyond our own suffering and our own present limitations than just that.
There’s no greater way that we can be of service to others than to awaken our hearts to others. And this our life, you know, if we went if we I remember I was talking about the quote from Carl Jung where he said, The intellect demands logic of proof. The soul requires meaning and belief. There’s no greater meaning that we could bring to our life than just that, to awaken our hearts. And quoting from Śāntideva, and he’s the source of this present tradition that we’re looking at: It is the supreme ambrosia that overcomes the sovereignty of death.
It is the inexhaustible treasure eliminates all poverty in the world. It is the supreme medicine that quells the world’s disease. It is the tree that shelters all beings wandering and tired on the path of conditioned existence. It is the universal bridge that leads to freedom from unhappy states of birth. It is the dawning moon of the mind that dispels the torment of disturbing conceptions.
It is the great sun that finally removes the misty ignorance of the world. It is the quintessential butter from the churning of milk of Dharma. For all those guests traveling on the path of conditioned existence who wish to experience the bounties of happiness, this will satisfy them with joy and actually place them in supreme bliss. So this is the conclusion of the second of the three principal aspects of the path. The first being developing the will to awaken, and here we’ve been looking at the second awakening of our heart.
Simply that we’ve awakened our heart is not sufficient. Our journey is not quite over yet. Without awakening our mind to the ultimate nature of reality, then this aspiration of the awakened heart would simply remain only a lofty thought, no more than an idea. Without the awakened mind, the great vehicle would simply be a sublime ethical system, where the bodhisattva awakens his or her heart wishing to free others, but in fact there’s no way to free them, such that to place them in lasting happiness and peace. There would be no way.
Without awakening the mind, there’s no way that we can bring about a type of reliable, lasting peace. So, you know, there’s no way of liberating ourselves from suffering. We have to go on to awaken our mind. So this is now what now that we’ve become bodhisattvas, now we’re going to train in wisdom. You know, if we’re ever going to liberate others, we have to learn how to we have to realize emptiness.
So otherwise there’s no real way to bring ourselves or others peace. So we’re going to begin in the next session. Maybe we’ll do a short review of what we’ve covered thus far in the Awakened Will, the Awakened Heart. We’re going to, very soon, next week or two, begin the third of the three principal aspects the Path, the awakened mind. Okay?
Got five minutes before nine. Is anything that people would like to ask or share? Any comments? Any concern? I’m not aware of that for you.
You can pretend. So if we can dedicate the positive energy we created together. It’s quite a simple exercise, there’s four ways we can stay connected with others. When you yourself experience some uncomfortable feeling, you know, just a little annoyance and some difficulty, physical or mental. Immediately, it can be associated through familiarity that there are ten thousand others.
And just taking a breath. When you experience some happiness, breathing out, sharing it with others. You know, it’s kind of a nice the mind becomes habituated to staying connected with others. When you see some difficulty of others, taking it upon yourself just in a breath. When you see others happy, you know, sharing, rejoicing, being glad for them, That’s important to yourself.
Male beings everywhere plagued by suffering of body and mind attain an ocean of happiness and joy by virtue of my merits. May no living creatures suffer, commit evil, or fall ill. May no one be afraid or belittled with a mind weighed down by depression. May the blind see forms and deaf hear sounds. May those whose bodies are worn with torment.
May the naked find clothing and 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 quickly be freed from their ailments. Whatever Whatever diseases there are in the world, may they never occur again. May the frightened cease to be afraid, and those bound be freed. May the powerless find power, and may people think of benefiting each other.
For as long as space remains, for as long as sentient beings remain, until then may I too remain to dispel the miseries of the world. Through these skillful actions may I quickly become an awakened spiritual master and lead each and every living being to that awakened realm. May the supreme jewel, the awakened heart that has not arisen arise and grow, and may that which has arisen never diminish but increase more and more. In the land encircled by snow mountains, you are the source of all happiness and well-being. Powerful Chenrezig, Tenzin Gyatso, please remain at the end of cyclic existence.
So next week, we won’t have Monday night classes for for the following two Mondays. Okay? So be good. And if you’d like to grab a cup of tea, we’ll have a discussion.