Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Jampa Gendun opens this two-hour session with a passage from Alan Wallace’s essay on mental balance, using it to frame the evening’s central claim: transient pleasures have genuine value but cannot substitute for inner development. He then leads a three-phase Śākyamūni Buddha purification practice, first walking through the four opponent powers — regret, reliance, restraint, and antidote — before guiding a visualisation in which white then golden lights purify negativity and fill the mind with wisdom and compassion. The second half reviews the seven cause-and-effect instructions for developing bodhicitta: equanimity as the foundation, recognising all beings as former mothers, remembering their kindness, wishing to repay it, appealing love, great compassion, and surpassing resolve. A Thich Nhat Hanh passage on understanding as love and the Dalai Lama’s “wisely selfish” argument for compassion sharpen the discussion. Best suited to practitioners already following a Lamrim curriculum.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 18 3PA 2008 08 04.mp3
UUID: 1fa5c01b-4a7d-43fe-b988-ba17e47b6db6
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 2008-2009 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2008-08-04
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 127.8 minutes
Words: ~12,867
Is it is that too loud? Sound is it good? It’s a good tone. Good. Okay.
That’s a four. Just remember a four. So we have to begin by, like we always do, adjusting our motivation. I’d like to share a couple paragraphs from an interesting article. It’s called Mental Balance and Building Bridges Between Buddhism and Western Psychology.
It’s by Alan Wallace. Some of you have probably heard of him. He’s becoming quite famous, I think. He used to be a monk, a Tibetan Buddhist monk. I remember his time in Dharmasala in India.
And now he’s gone on to bigger and better things. He has a center in Santa Barbara, but it’s not a Dharma center particularly. It’s called Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies. Anyway, so he co authored a particular article and talking about, you know, injecting our motivation, I think it’s quite useful. A common misconception is that Buddhism uniformly denies the simple pleasures of life, let alone the joys of raising a family, creating fine works of art, or making scientific discoveries.
All of these have their own merits, but a life that is concerned with such pursuits alone does not give rise to lasting well-being. This is not a matter of choosing well-being instead of pleasures, some of which, like the joys of friendships and worthwhile accomplishments, may be very meaningful. The enjoyment of such transient experiences is not in opposition to the cultivation of positive attitudes and commitments to the cultivation of the types of mental balance that yield inner well-being. In fact, one may derive greater enjoyment from pleasures such as a result of cultivating well-being. What is important is not to conflate the two and mistakenly believe that external pleasures will bring lasting happiness.
So, I guess, sometimes I maybe I try to emphasize this in my own clumsy way, creating some kind of balance in our life in terms of whatever pleasures that we may be able to derive, and it’s not to deny that they are not pleasures, and that they we can derive a great deal of meaning through our our relationships and the things that we do, that we create, our various pursuits. But they’re they and themselves cannot last. Either they themselves are going to move on in some way or another, or we ourselves are going to move on one way or another. We’re going to separate from all of those. But it is what but in terms of what is in our mind, in terms of our development of our attitudes, worldview, which can remain with us, you know, whatever the transient world about us holds for us.
If we can meet it with the proper attitudes, the proper perspective, then we can always maintain a sense of well-being, no matter what happens. And can you imagine if all of what you take pleasure in were taken away from you and were somehow gone? What type of well-being would you be left with? You know, all that you take security and all that you find meaning in around you, things about us, if somehow they were all taken from us, what would be the state of your being, the state of your mind? It might be worth something to meditate on, I think.
Whatever sense of well-being that would remain is authentic, is part of who we are. And this, I think, you know, Buddhism is trying to emphasize that we can have both. We lead a balanced life. So all that is being said is that not only in the pursuit of the outer world, creating all the happiness in terms of our relationships and so forth. But we have to keep some kind of perspective and devote some of our time and energies, create that kind of space in our life to ensure that we develop our internal attitudes.
You know, this is, I think, the way we can have the best of both worlds. Otherwise, we will have probably neither in the end. So it’s a matter of ourselves, you know, just simply taking the time to reflect upon what is meaningful for ourselves and determine to pursue those values and ways of being, but also in terms of determining to develop our own minds, in terms of our attitudes, our opinions, our ideas, our perspectives, you know, these trainings that we’re involved in. The end process, the outcome of all this is what we call a Buddha. So a Buddha is a way of being, isn’t it?
It could take, you know, all the possible varieties of forms. It’s not to say it’s limited to one conceived image or another. But it is, in terms of its inner qualities, is qualified by wisdom, love and compassion, and an inner strength, and expressing these in our daily life in terms of skillfully and fearlessly working with others. So whatever the outward forms, these are the inner qualities that we can pursue in terms of our own inner development in our life. So this is, you know, this is why we come here, this is why we do what we do.
So the inner focus of our life becomes just that, but, you know, we have to do something. So we involve ourselves in study, listening to the teachings and trying as best we can to put them into practice, trying to see the truth of things as best we can and begin to adjust our conceptions, our ideas, our worldview to accord with that, to harmonize with the way things actually are in their actual nature. And this process occurs within the social however we want to adjust our motivation, I think most essentially, okay, we all want to be happy. That’s our basis of operation. That’s the bottom line.
And we all have our various inclinations and the ways, the methods, the tools that we’ve developed over the course of our life, what we see is going to bring us happiness and the various methods that we’ve developed in order to achieve that happiness. And that’s proper, that’s all well and fine. And, you know, to become skillful at that, to make sure those are really going to be the happinesses which, in fact, you want. Over and above that, in all these various transient pleasures that were, you know, the meaningful, valuable things of your life, putting some priority into changing your mind for the better in terms of wisdom, love, and, you know, inner strength. And then no matter what happens to us.
And we have a balance. We have the best of all possible lives. That’s all. And not neglecting one for the other. I mean, you know, not not becoming fanatical in one direction or another.
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. I go for refuge until I am awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Through my practice of generosity and other perfections, may I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am awakened to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.
Through my practice of generosity and the other perfections, may I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. 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 beginning of this 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 from migrating beings. I dedicate all virtue, my own and that of others to the Great Awakening.
So I thought as part of our meditation tonight, we could do something we’ve done it before, but not very often. It’s a bit different. It’s a recitation of a mantra with a visualization. And this is the mantra of Śākyamūni Buddha. So we can do this practice in conjunction with purification.
And the idea of purification is that we have certain karmic seeds propensities from past karmic actions, which in the case of negative actions, when they ripen, just like a flower seed and so forth, when they meet the proper activating condition, they bring forth the result flower. And likewise, with these negative karmic seeds within our mind, when they meet with the appropriate activating condition, they’re going to bring about a type of undesired result, some type of suffering in one form or another. But there is a, you know, we can’t undo the past. That’s beyond our control. But we don’t have to let our past undo our future.
Have some kind of there’s some kind of control over the process. We can weaken these karmic seeds, and we can actually eliminate them completely from our mind. And this is done by means, and we’ve talked about this, the four opponent powers. I’m just going to go through these very briefly, and of course we can apply these in the course of this particular practice. The first of these four powers is the power of repudiation.
Sometimes this is called regret, but the actual term is repudiation. Know, repudiation Repudiation is like, say, Well, I don’t want anything to do with that. Repudiate that statement or that idea and so forth. People use that term in that way. And the way that this is actually in fact done is that we develop a genuine sense of regret.
And so there’s a great deal of difference between regret and guilt, isn’t there? With regret, we’re focused upon the behavior. I made a mistake. I added one and one and made three. Okay?
That I’m not calling to question myself as a worthwhile person. And all that I have done in my life and all that I will do in my life and who I am, that’s not the problem. I made a mistake. It might have had catastrophic effects, but it still a mistake. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t have done that.
I was just so angry or so stupid or so full of attachment, in one reason or another. Okay. I’m sorry I did that. One is just develop a genuine sense of regret of having committed that past negative action. Of these four powers that we’re going to apply, this is the most important.
If there’s no genuine regret, then the rest of the practices will be ineffective. It will be weak, if anything at all. So we recall a specific negative action that we’ve created, develop a genuine sense of regret. That’s the power of repudiation. Then there’s the power power of reliance, the second of these four powers.
And it’s said that we can create negative actions with respect to two objects, overall. The first is Buddhas, and the second is all living beings other than Buddhas. Okay? That’s quite a lot. Okay.
So, with regard to Buddhas, in the case of when one has formally or even informally made some kind of commitment or taken some vow of one sort or another. vows are to help us when our minds aren’t clear, when our minds that we aren’t aware of, our wisdom, our compassion and so forth aren’t as operative as we might like them to be. We make mistakes. We lose sight of our goals, what it is that at some moment in life we would like to commit ourselves to. So vows can help us through those kinds of moments when we lose sight of our priorities.
When our wisdom is not operative, we can say, Well, I’m not going to do that because I took a vow. At some point in the past, I saw clearly that, for example, to kill was not right. That’s not what I want to be about. Therefore, I took it out either formally or to oneself and made a commitment not to intentionally kill again. But at other times, we lose sight of our priorities, our thinking isn’t all that clear, and we might think, Well, maybe I’ll go fishing today.
I took a vow not to kill. That’s right. So that can kind of bring you through these moments when you lose sight of your priorities, what do you really want the direction you really want your life to take. So when we actually act contradiction to what we want to commit ourselves to, when we contradict the Vow that we’ve taken, then we are, as it were, turning our back on our own wisdom, on our own compassion, on our own Buddha inside of ourselves, or in the fact that we actually took a formal vow in a formal ceremony. And so, in terms of the power of reliance, we recommit ourselves to our own Buddha, to our own sanity, our wisdom compassion with inside of ourselves, you know, to the direction I want my life to go.
So we go for genuine heartfelt refuge to the Buddhadharma and Sangha. That’s like getting ourselves back on track. What is our priority in life? In this particular instance, whatever, you you’ve acted in contradiction to. The other object toward whom we can create the negativity is just sentient beings in general, you know, all living beings other than Buddhas.
And this we do simply by harming others. And essentially ethics, Buddhist ethics, the a way of life is non violence, not to harm, most essentially. To act unethically is to harm. And harming sentient beings is not what I want my life to be about. Having harmed someone, whatever the reason, however we try to justify it, to rationalize it.
We, having developed some kind of sense of regret, we develop the antidote to that harmful intention, which is compassion. We recommit ourselves to helping others rather than harming them. That’s what I want my life to be about. So we simply generate the awakened heart, to simply generate, you know, love and compassion toward the person that we harmed in some way or another. That’s s the power of reliance.
The reason it s called reliance is we use the same object. It’s like falling down on the ground. When you fall down on the ground, you use that same ground to pick yourself back up. So having fallen down, you know, in terms of acting in contradiction to a vow or a commitment that we made, or having harmed a sentient being, we use that same Buddha in terms of inside ourselves or in the case of a formal ceremony, or we having harmed others. We use that same object to pick ourselves back up by going for refuge and or generating compassion compassion and love toward the person that we harmed.
The third power is the power of restraint. Okay. One of the residual effects of creating an action is the tendency to create it again. It’s called habit. You know, having done it once, it becomes easier to do the second time.
Having done it the second time, becomes easier to do it the third time. The tendency begins to feed back in on itself, and we find ourselves stuck in a groove. So the power of restraint is to help us to get unstuck. We have make some kind of realistic commitment to refrain from committing that action again. To say, I’m never going to lie for the rest of my life, you know, it might be well intentioned at the moment, but it’s probably not something that we could follow through with.
On the other hand, to say, I’m not going to lie for the next twenty four hours, okay, would be a realistic challenge. Know, requiring mindfulness and determination and moreover, one that we could practically meet. We could be that mindful and we could be that determined to actually follow through with that restraint for the next twenty four hours. Probably could. And this would actually interrupt that pattern, that habit, and therefore it would weaken that karmic result.
And then finally, the fourth of the four powers is the power of antidote. This simply involves applying an antidote to counteract negative effect. So a countervailing positive action to counteract the negative effect of that previously committed negative action. Now, there’s a list, you know, a traditional list of positive actions that we can do. There is what’s called the Disclosure to the Thirty-Five Buddhas, a particular practice.
There’s a recitation of the Vajrasattva Mantra, reciting the Chenrezig mantra, Om Mani Padme Hum. There’s lots and lots of different positive actions, which are meditation on emptiness, meditation on love and compassion, and so forth. These are all acts as a means to help and as a power of antidote. In fact, we can do any type of positive action that we do intentionally within the context of applying these four powers that is done as an antidote, can serve as an antidote, can be used as a countervailing force. But here I thought, you know, we can do a particular practice.
Think it’s a nice practice. It’s a simple practice, but I think a very effective practice. What we will do is, we’re going to meditate on Śākyamūni Buddha. So, you know, we’re just going to meditate on Śākyamūni Buddha. So, you know, we’re just going to you can examine the painting of Śākyamūni Śākyamūni visualization is useful.
It makes it more realistic for ourselves, makes it more vivid, the experience. But the feeling is most important with these first applying these other three powers. And then we’re going to imagine that Śākyamūni Buddha appears before us. Generally, it’s imagined, the figure is imagined about a hand’s height at the level of your forehead, approximately an arm’s length away, and some kind of real, vivid, lifelike quality. Know, it’s simply not a practice of you know, the Buddhas are in fact everywhere, but this helps us to crystallize what is in fact an abstraction for ourselves at present.
It gives us something more substantial to relate with. It helps to evolve the feelings which are most important. So just imagining and of course, if you can’t, you know, visualization takes a great deal of practice and some will have a greater ease in visualization than others. And if you see a golden light or if you just don’t see anything, you just see a blank space, that’s okay too. Just let the Buddha’s there, because the Buddha is there.
The Buddhas are omnipresent. Wherever there’s consciousnesses, wherever there’s phenomena, there’s a Buddha. There’s a Buddha’s mind, and therefore there’s a Buddha. So visualizing the Buddha in front of yourself in that way. And we’re going to apply, we’re going to recite the Śākyamūni Buddha Mantra in three phases.
We recite it seven times for each of these phases, the first time in the context of applying the four powers. So imagine the in front of yourself, and then recalling the first some negative action, and then applying the four opponent powers. You know, first the power of repudiation, developing a genuine sense of regret, the power of reliance, in the case of having harmed someone, developing love and compassion for that person, developing a wish to help them rather than harm them, or in the case of having broken a vow or something like that, going for heartfelt refuge to the Buddhadharma and Sangha, and then the power of restraint, determining not to repeat this action again for some realistic time frame, even if it’s only during the rest of the night. That’s okay. It’s something.
But try to follow through with it. Mean, take it seriously, sincerely. And then finally, as part of the fourth, the power of antidote, we’re going to, in context of applying those four opponent powers, recite the Śākyamūni Buddha’s mantra seven times. Imagine from the heart of Śākyamūni Buddha, a tube of light extends to the crown of your head. And as we recite this mantra, this white nectars and white lights, completely flowing into your body, completely filling up your body with these brilliant white lights and nectars.
It’s like a light switch that you you turn on in a dark room. Instantly all the darkness is gone. You don’t know where it went, but it’s gone. Your body and mind completely illuminated with these brilliant white lights and nectars purifying these past negativities. But having purified negativities is not sufficient for all that we’re trying to do.
You know, we talked about previously, we have to develop these qualities, you know, if we’re actually able to help ourselves and help others. Qualities such as wisdom, love and compassion, some inner strength. And we aren’t alone in this, completely alone in this enterprise, though it is very much an individual task. Nonetheless, there are teachers, but as well, are benevolent forces which are trying to, in their various ways, according to what is particular karma, is lead us along the path. You know, opening up to some kind of assistance in this process.
You know, I need to develop wisdom, love and compassion, and some kind of inner strength. And I’m working with these, you know, I’m trying to implement these practices. But I could use some help along the way. And in response to some kind of heartfelt wish, some kind of prayer, that from the heart of Śākyamūni Buddha, at this time a golden tube of light extends down to the crown of our head, and as we recite for the second phase, Śākyamūni Buddha’s mantra seven times, brilliant golden lights and golden nectar flow through the crown of our head into our body, completely filling our body with golden lights and nectars, which is all the wisdom, love and compassion, all the excellent qualities of the person that we want to become. You know, beyond your limited preconceptions about who you are, your present limitations and so forth, there’s no space for that anymore.
Your self centeredness, your, know, I’m just poor me self pitying attitude. There’s no space left in your body and mind. It’s replaced with this golden light, which is the essence of wisdom, love and compassion, inner strength, completely filling your body and mind. Then having recited that, then Śākyamūni Buddha comes to the crown of our head and turns the same direction of ourselves and dissolves into light, enters into the crown of our head. And we ourselves, beyond conception, beyond your present imagination, beyond this self-imposed limit that we hold ourselves to, this ego identity that we hold as being so solid and concrete, that you yourself are Śākyamūni Buddha.
And remembering and developing a sense of divine pride, a healthy self esteem that I can help, I can do something. And remembering all the sentient beings who are suffering. And out of a sense of compassion and wanting to be a benefit, we radiate from our lights, brilliant white lights, in all the directions of space, touching the infinite numbers of sentient beings, purifying all their negativities and placing them in complete peace. Just by the power of that light, these beams, these rays of light radiating in all the directions from our own body as we recite the mantra for the third phase. And then we’ve completed our task.
There’s nothing more that needs to be done. All living beings are at peace, and they absorb into ourselves, and we ourselves absorb from the top down and from the bottom up. And then there’s only vast open space and peace. Okay? We’re going to try that.
I’ll guide you as we go along. So take in a comfortable firm posture. Muni, Take yourself into a comfortable firm posture.
We’ll begin by relaxing the body. Starting at the crown of the head, the scalp, feeling the wrinkles in your forehead and brow smoothing out, the pressure in and around your eyes diminishing, muscles of the face softening, relaxing. Jaws relaxed. Bringing awareness to the back of your neck, gently turning your head to each side a few times. Just very gently loosening, stretching the muscles at the back of the neck.
Loosening the muscles of the throat. Bring your awareness to your upper back and shoulders, rotating your shoulders a few times, lifting them and allowing them to drop comfortably to the sides, to feel feeling this weight, this burden that we oftentimes carry around on our backs moving down and through your body into the ground. Bring your awareness the way down to your hands. Your hands are soft and loose. Relaxing your lower arms in your upper arms, your chest is at ease, Relaxing throughout the heart area.
And the lungs and the central region of the back. The back and the stomach, releasing the tension that we hold in our stomach muscles, just allowing your belly to go soft, Relaxing throughout the abdominal cavity. And holding your trunk erect, keeping your back straight, relax your lower back muscles. Your buttocks, your upper legs and thighs. Lower legs.
Finally, your feet. Now bring your awareness to your body in general, just roughly scanning your body, noticing any tightnesses, any tensions which remain in the body, any areas of discomfort. And focusing on the upon those particular areas and consciously relaxing, softening, feeling the tension diminish, the tightness loosen. If there’s an area of discomfort, don’t avoid it or struggle against it. Just breathe into it and surround it with a caring acceptance.
It’s part of who you are at present. It is already happening. Be kind to yourself and allow it to be. Your body becoming comfortable, at ease. A feeling of physical well-being pervading the entire body, every part of your body, from the top of your head down to the bottom of your feet.
Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. Nothing that needs to be thought of. Give yourself yourself a chance, a break. Just be for a moment.
Allow yourself just to be. And then we’ll practice the six part breath exercise, just breathing in comfortably normally, breathing out extending the exhalation, completely emptying your lungs. Again, breathing in comfortably, normally. Again, extending the exhalation. I’m doing this six times individually.
And when you completed the the breath exercise, then bring your mind to the breath. Just the easy, gentle, in and out flow of the natural breath. Bring your mind back to the breath. Now we’re going to apply the four opponent powers in the practice of Śākyamūni Buddha. So if you want to begin by first applying the first of the four opponent powers.
This involves recalling some negative action that you’ve created, some mistake that you feel you’ve made in the past. The power of repudiation, developing a genuine sense of regret. I made a mistake. Sorry I did that. Then the second power, the power of reliance.
If you’ve broken a commitment or a vow of some sort, recommitting yourself to Buddhadharma and the spiritual community if you’ve harmed a fellow sentient being, in directing and developing love and compassion in a wish to help that person rather than harm them. I’m going to help you. Wish that they not suffer, that they were happy. And the power restraint and determining to some realistic time frame not to repeat this action again, even if it’s only for the rest of the evening, even if it’s only for twenty four hours. Something you’re willing to follow through with mindfully and with determination.
And finally, the fourth application of the remedy or the antidote. So if you want to take a minute, we’ll examine the painting of Śākyamūni Buddha. Just going through the colors, the design, where the arms are, where the head is, positions, and colors, and so forth. Then bringing this to mind, this image, approximately an arm’s length away at the level of your forehead, perhaps a hand one hand in height. Just be satisfied with whatever you can see or whatever you can’t see is not so important.
But all the feelings and so forth are being directed toward the Buddhas, these enlightened beings, are all about us. That’s most important. And within the context of having applied the three prior powers, the power of repudiation, the power of reliance, and the power of restraint, I’m now going to apply the power of antidote as a means of purifying this negativity. And the way I’m going to do this is by reciting the mantra of Śākyamūni Buddha. So as we recite the mantra, we’ll recite it seven times together from the heart of Śākyamūni Buddha, white shaft of light.
White shaft of light extends from his heart to the crown of your head. White nectars and lights begin to flow in your body, completely eliminating all the negativity and darkness. So your body and mind completely filled with brilliant white lights and nectars purifying all the the heaviness, the feeling any feelings of guilt, the negativity completely gone, completely finished, vanished like darkness when light switch is turned on. So just identify with a sense of purity. Clean, clear, clear.
It’s all gone. Clean and pure. Then we make heart felt prayers, just aspirations, wish, that generate the positive qualities, wisdom, love and compassion, inner strength, and the skill and fearlessness to express these in our everyday life and benefiting others. In response to our wish, our aspiration, our prayer, a shaft of golden light extends from the heart of Śākyamūni Buddha to the crown of our head. As we recite the mantra, white golden lights and nectars begin to flow, completely filling our body and mind with all of these excellent qualities.
Body and mind completely filled with these golden nectars and lights, all the excellent qualities beyond conception, beyond our imagination. And Śākyamūni Buddha comes to the crown of our head, turns in the same direction as ourselves, dissolving into light, enters into the crown of our head. And we become union oneness with the body, speech and mind of Buddha. But still there are sentient beings who are suffering and want to be happy. All these sentient beings.
Radiating out lights from our own body in all the directions of space, touching every living being. And simply by that touch, all their problems, all their difficulties, all their suffering, completely gone. Banished. All experiencing peace as we recite the mantra. There’s nothing more that needs to be done.
There’s only peace in all the worlds and all the universes of existence. So imagine all these infinite sentient beings absorbing back into your body with the rays of light. And you yourself absorbing downward from the top, from the crown of your head, and from the bottom upward until there is only vast, open, infinite space and complete universal peace, only vast, open space. And universal peace. Just stay there.
Remain in that state. And then bring your mind back to the breath. And get in touch with your body, perhaps the the pressure of your your buttocks on the cushion, on the chair, just some feeling sensation within the body. And in a relaxed and comfortable manner, become aware of your surroundings. We’re going to just before we begin the three principal aspects of the path, the awakening mind.
So we are going to complete a review of the first principle aspects of the path, the will to awaken, developing the determination to be free. Essentially, you know, trying to what we talked about before. We can’t we have to balance our priorities. We can’t rely upon the outside world to bring us the deeper happiness which is incapable of giving us. We have to develop our inner qualities.
There has to be a prize, you know. We have to create some space, some put some energy into that, to lead a balanced life, developing that kind of determination. How we’re going to determine our priorities in our life? Putting some emphasis on developing ourselves. And how are we going to develop ourselves?
We’re going to develop our hearts and our minds. So we’re going to quickly go through the second of the three principal aspects of the path. Just go through a review of the methods for developing an awakened heart. Okay? So in his text on Lam Tsö Nam Sum, on The Three Principal Aspects of the path says, But even such a will, let us say the will to awaken, if not conjoined with the complete opening of your heart, does not serve as a cause for perfect bliss of highest awakening.
Thus, those of you who truly understand go on to develop a supreme awakening heart. Growth is very much essentially an individual task. It’s something that we can only do for ourselves. Occurs as an but though it is an individual task, it occurs as authentic response to not only your own needs, but as a response to the needs of others. So, you know, the, you know, the final the final source of our difficulties, of our suffering, is our own minds.
These dysfunctional ways that we know our world and that we interact with our world. So a life based upon, you know, the mental patterns of ignorance and self centeredness is programmed to suffer. The only real method to go beyond such a way of life is to grow, to grow in love and wisdom. These are you know, we’re talking about priority. Okay.
These are our priorities, to grow in wisdom and love. You know, to grow simply means, today I understand things a little bit better than I did yesterday, I care a little more than I did yesterday or the day before. That’s all. That is a priority, that kind of attitude, that kind of, you know. So understanding the nature of our own suffering, which this is what we tried to get out of the Will to Awaken, that section, trying to see the deeper nature of our problems so we don’t deal with them superficially as we have been putting our hopes for finding happiness in the wrong places and always being disappointed in one way or another, for deeper happiness.
Sure. People, relationships, things, materials, they can bring us a level of pleasure, but they can never satisfy our deep and most needs, what in our heart of hearts we all want. There is a certain dishonesty in demanding that the world give us what it is incapable of giving. We have to begin to look elsewhere to fulfill those needs. We have to look within our own minds in terms of development, in terms of wisdom and love and compassion.
So understanding the nature of our own suffering and learning how we learn how to love ourselves, ourselves, have compassion for ourselves. We have to begin with ourselves. And we determine to grow, to develop ourselves, to be free of these sufferings, and experience well-being. We develop the will to awaken, whatever. We don’t have to use that particular terminology, just something in that vein.
I have to develop myself, I have to grow. Then, you know, when we begin to understand ourselves, we can extend that understanding to others as well. If we don’t understand ourselves, how are you ever going to understand anybody else? So we understand others, determine to help them to grow. They’re just like ourselves.
We develop an awakened heart, the will to become the best possible person we can become for their sake. You know, the reason that we don’t help each other, that we don’t have time and energy for one another, is because we do not understand each other, each other’s needs, what each other is about. This is a quote by Thich Nhat Hanh. Suppose we have a son who becomes an unbearable young man. It may be hard for us to love him.
That is natural. In order to be loved, a person should be lovable. If our son has become difficult to love, we will be very unhappy. We wish we could love him, but the only way we can is to understand him, to understand his situation. We have to take our son as the subject of our meditation.
Instead of taking concept of emptiness or some other subject, we can take our son as a concrete subject for our meditation. We don’t blame our son. We just want to understand why he has become like that. Through this method of meditation, we will find out all the causes near and far that have led to our son’s present state of being. The more we see, the more we understand.
The more we understand, the easier it is for us to have compassion and love. Understanding is love itself. Understanding is another name for love. Love is another name for understanding. So, you know, acknowledging and examining our own pain, we begin to understand, you know, our own problems.
What are my real problems? Where is this difficulty? Where is this constant struggle coming from that I haven’t been able to solve in spite of all the blood, sweat and tears, all the worrying that I’ve expended over the course of my life, still I’m struggling. We begin to understand ourselves a little bit better and where our problems are coming from. Beginning to understand ourselves, we begin to love ourselves, have compassion for ourselves, wish ourselves well.
And we begin to extend that same understanding toward others, understanding them and begin to wish them well. We begin to truly love and determine to take responsibility for others. You know, to take taking realistic responsibility, responsibility, not, you know, not Taking realistic responsibility of others is the most powerful method available to us as a means to develop ourselves. When you take responsibility, whether it be for yourself or for others, if it’s to have any real meaning, I mean realistic responsibility, we have to able respond. Or it’s simply, you know, a sentimental wish, though it might be, you know, it’s a value.
If we really want to translate that wish into some practical application, then we have to develop the determination to respond in the ways, all the myriad ways that is needed of ourselves. Ultimately, we can only do this through developing ourselves, through growing ourselves in wisdom, love, and compassion, and some kind of inner strength. So why should we do this? Why are we going to do all this? We need some good reasons.
We have to convince ourselves. I think this is one of the things that I was most impressed with in in the Dalai Lama’s teachings recently in Sydney in June. He just was so logical and rational, and they didn’t they didn’t, know, he didn’t try to, you know, know, to I can’t think of the word. Provoke any sort of emotionalism or sentimentality or romanticism around the development of love and compassion. But in a in a very reasonable, rational, systematic way, he tried to show us how love and compassion are the best ways that we can live our life in terms of our own finding of happiness and how we’re going to relate in this world and how we can be best served this world.
There’s no better way than we can do that, even in terms of our own happiness. We’re selfish people. Our present reality is our own self interest. We have to begin there. We have to see that it’s in our own best interest to develop love and compassion.
It can’t be somebody else. We can’t somehow be magically altruistic and, you know, this is where we’re at. So within that present, from that, we have to move, we have to progress from where we are at now. We can’t start from some other place. So we have to look at it, some kind of something which kind of makes sense to us, which moves us, some kind of a genuine response, something which is authentic for who we are and where we are right now.
And even within the selfishness, in our self centeredness, are moments when another individual elicits from us the capacity to reach out to some kind of deeper dimension, some kind of wider way of being, another vision. Abolished in somebody’s situations or circumstances of one sort or another, which abolish temporarily this prison of our of our complete self absorption. Complete self absorption, which we, more than that, completely consumes our life. And it abolishes temporarily this self imposed isolation isolation and loneliness that we all experience most of our lives, most of the time. Individuals who have acted as a condition for drawing upon our resources of wisdom, you know, our caring, our inner strength, which caused us to participate in the life of someone else and drew us out.
As the Dalai Lama has said, If you’re going to be selfish, at least be wisely selfish. What he means by this peculiar sounding advice is that, in a way, bodhicitta so bodhicitta is the Sanskrit term which I translate as the awakened heart. bodhicitta is like a huge selfish attitude. Okay? So it’s a selfish attitude.
This is where we’re at. We have to start here. We can’t be altruistic. We can’t set aside our own agenda, our own material, and be somebody else. It’s almost paradoxical to say that we can become wisely selfish in developing love and compassion.
But if we can see that development, love and compassion you know, it seems like we should be already altruistic. But it’s like a piece of wood that consumes itself, you know, in in this piece of wood of self interest and selfishness. It is, you know, it ignites the fire. It’s the fuel, but eventually it’s gone. And it’s used up in the process, and we find ourselves selfless in the sense of altruistic.
And we find we have fulfilled that self interest, and we’re no longer interested in the self or interested in others. As a dharma is like a huge selfish attitude when you dedicate dedicate yourself to others with loving kindness. So this is an aspiration. We can’t do this overnight, but if we can direct ourselves in that way, you get back far more happiness than you could ever experience otherwise. You know, we have to create some kind of crack, some kind of in this prison of self centeredness that we’ve created for ourselves.
You know, at least this could be a direction that we might consider a priority. Though it sounds inconceivable for ourselves now, we have to, you know, and we lose sight of it from moment to moment. Ordinarily, we get so little happiness and it is easily lost. So if we want to be as happy as possible, then the only thing to do is to dedicate ourselves wholeheartedly to the welfare of others. But we can also look to our own experience.
This is most important. So often we make such a fuss of insignificant events in our life that we turn minor difficulties into major problems. As we develop universal view of bodhicitta, however, these small concerns become unimportant and no longer bother us. As this burden of self concern drops from our shoulders, we experience a small taste of complete freedom that comes from a full spiritual fulfillment. Experiences like this are encouraging because they demonstrate so convincingly the practical day to day value of training and transforming our minds.
So even with our own when you’re there from others, when you see, you know, like the man who’s, you know, like the saying, I felt sorry for myself because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet. Does hurt to have no shoes, but in the the bigger picture of things, maybe it’s not so important. I mean, something practically doesn’t need to be done, you know, to find some shoes. But, you know, maybe we can keep that importance relative relative to the bigger picture of what’s going on about us in the world and the suffering about us. And therefore we won’t become totally absorbed and lost.
And we can make mindfulness so that there are other people who don’t have any feet a part of our daily practice. And then there’s something, you know, the way that we can practically experience the lessening of this complete burden, the Velcro mind that keeps getting caught up by all these little insignificant details. Then there’s the in terms of our own intuition, and this is important. You know, this, what I, you know, this, a personal calling, if you like, some kind of something of the heart, some kind of intuition, asking us to find meaning in our life. The poetry of the soul, if you like.
For when the power of imparting joy is equal to the will, the human soul requires no other heaven. You know, we don’t have to be saints. We don’t have to be superhuman. But we have to at least try in some small part to live the life of our waking dreams, of of our finest aspirations, take, you know, to take these these aspirations out of our hearts, the chest, the drawer of our hearts, and try them on from time to time so they’re not lost to us, so they don’t rot there. You know, we have to feel that part of our life is being lived out of a very unique and personal part of ourselves.
You know, part of ourselves which we might not really fully understand, it might seem almost irrational. Where has our rationality gotten us so far in this project of life of ours? You know, think it was Carl Jung who said, The intellect requires proof demonstration, the soul belief in meaning. And that’s what we’re in danger of losing our souls, of believing in anything, of finding any meaning in our life. You know, we are selfish people, but we can become wisely selfish in trying to cherish others.
And it’s direction that we can try to move. No one’s asking to give up anything, to sacrifice, to, you know, to endeavor to some superhuman task. Just slowly, just orientate yourself in that way and do whatever little you can along that way. Know, altruism is the most readily available remedy for most of our psychological ills. And then slowly it’s beginning to work its way into contemporary psychotherapy, compassion, altruism.
They’re beginning to see the real value of it. And just in their practical everyday lives, to lead a happy life, a meaningful know, it’s this isn’t some kind of complex theory or some kind of a romantic flight into some kind of fantasy. But it’s it’s a simple and pragmatic statement about the best possible way that we can live our lives. You know, presently we find it difficult to conceive of ourselves, to be anyone else but ourselves. You know, this poor, poor me, you know, I don’t quite have what takes.
But that shouldn’t stop us from setting out, to at least orientate ourselves in that direction, aspiring to that, dedicating some, even if only a small part of our time and energy, become that person, to implementing the methods, to actually be that kind of person that we want to be, in finest, in our heart of hearts, in our finest moments, in our peak experiences of life. So in actually implementing the methods, the methods, there are two meditative traditions for awakening our hearts. Seven cause and effect instruction and equalizing self from others. We went through this. I’m just going to go through this very briefly, okay, just to refresh our memory.
And a lot of path is simply repetition. There’s no getting around it. Meditation means familiarization, accustoming. We meditate on self centeredness, selfishness every day of our lives if we don’t counter that with the meditation on its antidote, love and compassion and other sentient beings, there’s really no hope. We have to lay down new tracks, new pathways within our minds.
So these two methods, the equalizing and exchanging self for others in seven cause and effect instruction. Beginning with the seven cause and effect instruction, it has its foundation in equanimity. Equanimity is an even minded, impartial, open attitude toward others that is free from attachment, you know, holding some close, attachment, you know, holding some close, aversion, holding others at a distance, and indifference, you know, holding others at majority of others at equidistance. You don’t you don’t quite know how to relate with them, whether you should be hold them at a distance or draw them near to you. You know, without this preliminary of developing this it’s like a level ground.
It’s a nonjudgmental attitude in regards to friend, enemy, and stranger. You know, the the without, you know, without creating creating the open space of having, kind of weeding out this deeply ingrained habit. You know, what do we do? Is it the habit of fixating upon and emotionally reacting to such categorizations? You know, we talked about the fact we’re not doing away with these categorizations.
They’re useful, you know, in communicating. Just as we say someone’s an Australian, someone’s an American, someone’s a friend, someone’s a stranger, someone’s an enemy. We’re beginning to this categorization exists. But what happens is that we fixate upon them and we emotionally react to such categorizations as a basis of relating. As long as we emotionally react, you know, there’s an appearance of a friend and I automatically react react with drawing close to me.
There’s an appearance of an enemy, and I emotionally automatically, like a button is pushed, I automatically push them away. As with within such a reactive mind, that imbalance of mind, we can then our efforts will not take root and our love and compassion will remain like a withered plant. We can’t there’s no there’s no ground for it to to develop. This universality of the awakened heart, this reactive mind, and within that there can be no universality in terms of directing our love and compassion toward all sentient beings indiscriminately. You can’t.
So equanimity means that don’t fixate upon these categories of friend, enemy, and strangers and automatically react to them with attachment, hostility, and indifference, as we normally do, as the basis of how we’re going to relate with others. And then we don’t have second thought. We don’t even think about it. It just comes naturally, instinctively, automatically. This is we categorize categorize and we we automatically relate on that that appearance.
So in doing that, we have we’re trying to create some kind of space where we don’t automatically react. Friends still exist, enemies still exist, strangers still exist, but we don’t have to react. We aren’t forced to react. It’s only by we have habit that we push we draw that person near, we push that one away, that category of strangers we could care less. It’s on that foundation.
In doing that we have prepared the psychological foundation of even mindedness upon which we can develop the awakened heart. So the first that’s the foundation. Then the first of the seven cause and effect instruction is called recognition of mothers. So, you know, coming to a recognition that all sentient beings, without exception, have literally been our mothers. And this is difficult.
This is why this particular meditative tradition is more difficult than the latter, the second of the two, that is equal and exchange yourself with others. You know, it’s recognizing all sentient beings, but we have to have some real conviction, some firm confidence of the beginningless mind. You know, we went went through some of the proof of rebirth, of the beginninglessness of mind, you know, the fact that, you know, everything in nature, all products necessarily have a cause. They don’t arise from nothing or causally or from intervention of a greater being, but they arise from appropriate cause. And moreover, that cause is similar in type to the result.
In a way, a wheat seed, we get a wheat plant, we don’t get corn, we don’t get rice, we get wheat. There’s a similarity in time between result and its cause. So if we apply that to mind, there is only one thing which can act as a cause for mind, and that is the previous moment of mind, that which is similar in type in being clear and knowing. So with regard to the mind which exists at the moment of conception, that mind is a product. It necessarily has a cause.
It necessarily has a cause which is similar in type to it. And that cause of that first moment of mind, that mind at conception, was the last moment of the mind of the previous life. And if we trace that back, that mind of the previous life, it too had a cause, and we go back infinitely. Within that continuum, we can ever find a first cause. This is when this particular continuum came into existence.
Every moment necessarily has an antecedent cause, a previous cause, which is tracing infinitely without beginning. And over the course of endless moments of mind, we’ve had infinite numbers of rebirths. And over the course of those infinite numbers of rebirths, we’ve had infinite numbers we’ve been born infinite numbers of times to infinite numbers of mothers. There’s not one living being who we can point to and say, this person has not literally been my mother in the past. So the implication is that there is not one sentient being in whatever form who has not literally been our mother.
So, you know, when we meditate on this, we have to understand that we’re not saying that all living beings have been my mother, this particular individual, Jampa. But there’s a continuum of I, you know, of which Jampa is a particular instant, but this is only one instant in this beginninglessness of this continuum. And on this we have labeled I, okay? Body in its subtlest energy and subtlest mind, without beginning, without end. All sentient beings have existing relationship to this infinite continuum as mother.
All sentient beings have existing in relation to that continuum as their mother, as their mother. Okay? But it’s not sufficient simply to remember that, you know, that have a sense of relatedness. Essentially, we’re trying to develop a sense of relatedness, that we’re not, you know, something to go beyond the separation feeling and of separation and unrelatedness. But it’s not sufficient even to have that sense of relatedness even as profound as that of a mother and child.
We have to nourish and reestablish what that meant for us at some time because we ve lost that to a large degree. The meaning of profound psychological associations, which the sense of relatedness, that sense of Buddhahood once had for us. This is the second of the seven cause and effect instruction, remembering the kindness of our mothers. So here, we want to associate the feeling of unconditionally love, being loved, with every sentient being. Unconditional love through mother love.
We want to associate with all sentient beings, our mothers. Each and every sentient being, each and every person that we will meet today, that we will meet tomorrow, that we have ever met, that we will ever meet has loved us in the same way, has given us the same caring, protection, and nurture, shown us the same kindness, sacrificed for us in the same ways, have been the center of our world, been a part of us all in the same way. They have all left us. And it is only due to time and our limited vision that others appear to us so separate and so distant to us now. Okay.
You know, some, you know, okay, some may argue, okay, that what a mother does for a child, they do out of, not out of kindness, but out of a sense of obligation. What would people think if I neglected my child? So, you know, we forget that there was a time when we were completely dependent upon someone else, a caregiver. For most of us, that caregiver, our primary caregiver, was our mother. Our mother was the one who accepted responsibility for us and bore the sacrifices in accepting that responsibility.
Whatever her reasons, whatever her intentions, it was kind. We wouldn’t be here now alive if she had not accepted that responsibility. We are alive directly due to that kindness. You know, open our hearts to others is as much to allow ourselves to feel cared for by others as it is to ourselves to care for others, that we were cared for at one time undeservedly. We couldn’t deserve the kindness of our mother.
You know, there’s no way a baby can earn that kind of care, that kind of love, that kind of sacrifice. It was given. The second, remembering our Mother’s kindness. The third of the seven cause and effect instructions is wishing to repay that kindness. You know, by thinking this way, and going through all of the and trying to get in touch with what it must have felt like, to have to be this to have been loved unconditionally, you know, to even after long hours of labor, to be taken, you know, after with all the great pain, even the danger to her life, which giving birth entailed.
All that forgotten. And she took us tenderly into her arms as if we were the most precious jewel, most precious object in our universe. And she held us close to her breath. And that we experienced that and what that meant for us, how that must have felt. You know, it’s kind of a wishing to repay their kindness is kind of a natural response of becoming clearly aware of just how much we have been given by our mother.
You know, we’ve lost that somewhere. Somewhere along the line we’ve taken on the mentality of a banker, know, accountant. These tit for tat exchanges of transactions that pass for love. This is simply simply a wish to return. You know, we want to we want very much to return the cuddle.
There’s immense we feel gratitude, and we wish to repay them for what they have given us. And that’s the wishing that’s the third of the seven cause and effect instruction, wishing to repay the kindness of our mothers. And then the fourth of the seven cause and effect instruction is appealing love. So this is where we begin to pay attention to others. And we begin to them, what’s happening for them, and begin to look at others.
Not what’s in it for me, but we you know, like a mother looks to her child. We begin to look beyond our self centeredness, our self serving world vision, and begin to look deeply like that mother looks at her child. Know, and begin to in a child, other people, we begin to notice, are looking to us. And it’s sometimes frightening. The mother is looking at the child, and the child is looking at the mother, and their eyes meet.
And within that vision, of love comes into view, when we begin to take up the difficult task of loving. But if our love is only a kind of imagination that is not likely to have any real effect, it is in the midst of our daily life and in our actual contact with others that we can know whether our mind of love is really present and how stable it is. If love is real, it will be evident in our daily life, in the way that we relate with people in the world. The source of love is deep in us, and we can help others realize a lot of happiness. One word, one action, or one thought can reduce another person’s suffering and bring him joy.
One word can give comfort and confidence, destroy doubt, help someone avoid a mistake, reconcile a conflict, or open up the door to liberation. One action can save a person’s life or help him to take advantage of a rare opportunity. One thought can do the same because thoughts always lead to words and actions. If love is in our heart, every thought, word, and deed can bring about a miracle because understanding is the very foundation of love. Words and actions that emerge from our love are always helpful.
So this is appealing love. The word appealing, you know, is not again, it’s not like we’re sacrificing anything. We’re the poor you know, forcing ourselves into some kind of spiritual straight jacket or following some kind of moral imperative that we should love. Begin you know, people begin to look you know, sentient beings, they begin to look very beautiful, attractive in our eyes. This is why it’s called appealing love.
And I’ve become fascinated by them, like a mother who watches her child. So the object of appealing love is living beings who do not have happiness. Love is concerned with happiness. These beings don’t have happiness. We begin to see that if we watch, if we pay attention.
The subjective aspect is, you know, three different levels. We work through, you know, wouldn’t it be wonderful, simply a kind, caring wish, you know, we can all do this. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this person had happiness? I would like that. You know, we can we can we all have that much abundance in ourselves.
We can afford that. Wouldn’t it be nice if this person were happy? One level. We then we intensify that. We come to some kind of conclusions.
May you be happy. And you said, you know what it is that you want in regard to this person. May you be happy. Then we go on. And this is the more difficult part, for sure, for sure.
No question. I’m going to do something. I’m going to take responsibility to make you happy. So those are are the subject aspects of love. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you were happy?
May you be happy? I’m going to see that you’re happy. Take responsibility if you’re happy. Then there’s the stages of appeal that we work through in cultivating appealing love, beginning with first with those easier objects, you know, our loved ones, our friends, working on strangers, working on enemies, and then directing that until one includes all living beings in that aspect, with that intention. So that’s the fourth of the seven cause and effect instruction, appealing love.
Love is concerned with happiness. Compassion is the other side of the coin of love. And in becoming aware of the kindness of others, we now we we naturally develop a gratitude, which which is to repay the kindness of others. You know, others appear very appealing to us and we want to make them happy. Compassion concerns itself with suffering and its alleviation.
And in particular, in this fifth, yeah, the appealing love is the fourth, this is the fifth. And this fifth seven cause and effect instruction is called great compassion. It’s great compassion concerns itself with all the suffering of all living beings. That’s why it’s called great. Okay?
Compassion is characterized by caring, a feeling of concern about someone our own, we can have compassion towards ourselves or another’s suffering, a feeling of involvement, you know, sharing in experience. There’s some kind of empathy. There’s a feeling of connectedness. Ideally, the connectedness here in this context is that of the bond between a mother and a child. It involves using our intelligence, using our abilities, our resources, our own experience, and helping others to alleviate their suffering.
We have a lot to bring to the table. We have a lot to give. Sometimes we don’t appreciate that. Sometimes it doesn’t take all that much to make a significant difference, to make a difference in another person’s life. Sometimes we aren’t aware of that.
You know, we look to what we lack, what we don’t have. So the implication of all this is that the more that we have, the more that we have to give. Okay? We’re limited in what we can do at present. Okay?
You know, understand that it motivates us to become more and more of all that we can be. You know, in cultivating compassion, it’s necessary to constantly confront the fact of suffering. Suffering is not I mean, compassion is not is an uncomfortable feeling. We have to confront suffering in other people’s lives. Even in our own life, we’d rather not deal with that.
Only want happiness here. We don’t want to look at suffering. In great compassion, have to confront the fact of the universal reality of suffering. You know, there’s suffering in the world. There’s pain out there.
So for most of us, compassion is most easily aroused when we are presented with extreme gross suffering. You know, when you turn on the evening news, for example, and you see some starving little baby, you know, at its mother’s shrunken breast, you know, its distended stomach, its sunken cheeks, the bald head, the wide eyes. Unless we have become completely desensitized, we feel something when we see that. We might feel annoyance, we might feel guilt, we might feel fear, but probably amongst all those various feelings that touch a vision, a sight, arouses for us, is compassion. Amongst all those various feelings, I wish that that little something, that little creature, not suffer.
It’s probably that there amongst all these other feelings. So these are you know, fear and revulsion and annoyance and guilt, these are all uncomfortable feelings we’d rather not deal with, we’d rather not we’d rather avoid. It’s called experiential avoidance. Our normal reaction is to distract ourselves from them, or to simply numb ourselves, or return the channel into something better. But cultivating compassion, we must we have to constantly stay with our uncomfortable feelings, that uncomfortableness of compassion.
And we have to keep our hearts open as much as possible. We have to confront others’ suffering and feel what it must mean for them to suffer. What kind of choice are we now going to make in the face of that suffering? You know, I often talk about the idea of choice. Whether to close down and deny our hearts or whether to feel and therefore respond.
And there’s a choice. Actually, there’s no intelligent choice, but nonetheless there’s a choice. And we do this with ourselves. We avoid our own uncomfortable areas of personal events, inner experiences. We move on.
We distract ourselves. We numb ourselves. We desensitize ourselves. And we lose the repertoire of our emotional life. Our emotional repertoire begins narrow and narrow, and we feel almost nothing.
You know, if you can if you can visualize this this little emaciated child, you know, at its mother’s breast and and, you know, the staring expressionly expressionlessly out at you. And you put your, you know, you put your your your finger in the and you let them grab hold of your finger, you know? You know, allowing the feelings of caring and tenderness, and also the pain to you know, we stay with that. We’re open to that. We accept that.
That’s part of life. It’s an important part of life. You know, allow what’s happening to that little child to affect you, to have some kind of meaning for you, to to to this to, you know, allow that what’s happening for that child to penetrate your heart. So in the end, this child doesn’t want to suffer. Just, you know, it it matters.
She doesn’t want to die. So compassion responds. There’s some kind of response of the heart. It it would be wonderful if you weren’t suffering. May you not suffer.
I’m going to do something. Okay. Maybe, you know, we can’t we can’t we can’t alleviate the poverty, the starving, the famines of the world. We can’t do that. But you could do something in response to that feeling in your heart, you know, if it’s if it’s real, if it’s real.
It requires some kind of response, some kind of action to translate it into something. Maybe Maybe it’s only sending a few dollars in the mail to Red Cross or whatever. That’s fine. But taking doing something. When that is directed, that having to do something, that heartfelt response which you can no longer deny, you can no longer crowd out, distract yourself from, numb yourself from.
When that’s directed toward all sentient beings, all suffering, then it becomes surpassing resolve. This is the sixth of the seven cause and effect instructions. So surpassing resolve is the heart’s heroic image that we’re talking about. This is beyond the pale of the norms of our society. No question about that.
Who wants to be normal? What does that hold for us? It’s not very attractive alternative, is it? Surpassing resolve is the heart’s heroic response to the suffering of the world. There is suffering in the world and I am determined to bring it to an end in whatever way I care.
The The fact is, while we are cultivating love and compassion, wisdom and all the other insights that lead to enlightenment, we can be helping others continuously. First of all, merely by living a simple life with a heart dedicated to overcoming self-cherishing, we automatically benefit others. And secondly, each stage of spiritual development, from the first to the last, has its own power and ability. Depending on which level we have reached, we can help others to that extent. To be realistic, we should help others to the limit of our present capacity.
The thought that we cannot do anything until we are enlightened is in fact egotistic and ignorant and reflects the basic misunderstanding of what spiritual training is all about. This misunderstanding is related to an attitude that we have had throughout our lives. At school, for instance, we thought, I must study these boring subjects now so that eventually I can pass my examinations, receive my degree, get a good job, make lots of money, and then I will be happy. All this emphasis on the future when I have enough money, when I own my own home, when I am retired is easily transformed into our spiritual practice, when I have finished practicing, when I am enlightened. But to think in this way is quite deluded.
This dream fantasy is of an unreal future, makes our present actions unrealistic as well. It is important to understand that true practice is something we do from moment to moment, from moment to moment, from day to day. We do whatever we can, with whatever wisdom we have, and dedicate it all to the benefit of others. We just live our lives simply to the best of our ability. This in itself will be an enormous benefit to others.
We don’t need to wait until we are Buddhists before we can begin to act. So whoever we are, we can do something. We can assume some responsibility for others. It’s just that the level of that responsibility is limited to our ability to respond. So the heartfelt commitment to take responsibility for all sentient beings and their suffering naturally leads us to resolve to go beyond our present limits.
This is the power of altruism, the power of compassion. The more we are, the more we can do, the more we will have to give, the more that we will in fact be able to respond in some kind of practical measure, in a very practical way. We have to become something more than what we are now, not for our own egotistical ends, but for all All my mothers. We have to go beyond our present limits so as to be able to respond to the needs of others and this in the most meaningful ways with the best possible outcomes. That’s what a Buddha does, the most meaningful ways with the best possible outcomes.
And a Buddha is not omnipotent. They cannot simply wave their hand across our brow and say, May your suffering be ended. They would have done that a long time ago if they could have. But what a Buddha can do is to help ourselves, to help others in the most meaningful ways with the best possible outcomes, given the karmic circumstance and the limits that these place upon what we are able to do, they can bring about the optimum outcomes in that kind of situation, given those circumstances. So with the resolve, it arises from the depths of our hearts, the all consuming aspiration for the sake of all sentient beings.
I must become a Buddha. I have to become a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being, skilled in all the various liberative techniques and fearless in applying them so that I can unerringly show others the way to be to do the same. So when this aspiration to become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings arises again and again and again, spontaneously, without any effort, just upon seeing another person, I must attain Buddha for that person, we have awakened our hearts. We have become a child of the Buddha. This is the seventh.
This is the final outcome of the seven cause and effect instruction. There is no more virtuous mind than bodhicitta, the awakened heart. There is no more powerful mind than bodhicitta. There is no more joyous mind than bodhicitta. To accomplish the purpose of all other living beings, there is nothing superior to bodhicitta.
The awakened mind is the unsurpassable way accumulate merit. To purify obstacles, bodhicitta is supreme. For protection from interference as bodhicitta is supreme, it is the unique and all encompassing method. Every ordinary and super mundane power can be attained through bodhicitta. Thus, it is absolutely precious.
That’s the so, yeah, I’m sorry I kept you very late. That’s the first of these two meditative traditions for developing an awakened heart. So next week we’ll briefly go through, review the second of these meditative traditions, equalizing and exchanging self for others. So we’ve created a great deal of merit together, positive positive potential, and we can dedicate that. May all beings everywhere, plagued by the 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 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 quickly be freed from their ailments. Whatever diseases there are in the world, may they never occur again. May the frightened cease to be afraid, and those bound be freed. May the powerless find power, and may people think of benefiting each other. For as long as space remains, for as long as sentient beings remain, until then may I too remain to dispel the miseries of the world.
Through these skillful actions, may I quickly become an awakened spiritual master and lead each and every living being to that awakened realm. May the supreme jewel of 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 until the end of cyclic existence. Thank you.
If you’d like to get a cup of tea, we’ll have a discussion. Otherwise, good night. Thank you. Sorry to keep you so late.