Three Principle Aspects of the Path 2008-2009 — 2009-04-06

Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.

About this talk. In this nearly two-and-a-half-hour closing session of a two-year teaching series, Ven Jampa Gendun speeds through the entire framework of Tsongkhapa’s Three Principal Aspects of the Path as a condensed review. After a guided body-scan meditation and refuge recitation, he covers the will to awaken through the preciousness of human life, a nine-round death meditation, the eight worldly concerns, karma’s four general principles, the four powers for purifying negative actions, and the three types of suffering. He then surveys the two classic methods for developing the awakened heart: the sevenfold cause-and-effect precept with its mother-kindness meditations, and the equalizing-and-exchange tradition including Tonglen, before briefly addressing wisdom of emptiness as the third aspect. A student question about coping with a difficult mother relationship prompts a candid practical digression. The session closes with Śāntideva’s dedication prayer.

File metadata (for organising)

File: 38a 3PA 2009 04 06.mp3

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Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun

Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 2008-2009 (Ven Jampa Gendun)

Date: 2009-04-06

Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide

Duration: 158.2 minutes

Words: ~15,231

How is everybody? Good. Good. Good. Good.

Everybody have a good time on Saturday night? Yeah. Yeah. It’s nice. Yeah.

Did you? I thought it was great. I had a nice time. Enjoyed the pizza. Oh, it really Speeches were short, which was nice.

Yeah. So we’re we’re going to cover a lot of ground tonight. So beginning with adjusting our motivation, the inner focus of our life is Buddha. We have this little Buddha inside of ourselves that we have to begin to pay more and more attention to. Sometimes it’s hard to discriminate the voices that are inside ourselves, which is wisdom, love, delusion.

So we have to pay close attention. Simply that in itself is not sufficient. We have to actually develop and find ways of expressing our own Buddha nature in more significant ways, in more practical ways. Have to implement the means to make that Buddha a greater part of our waking reality. That’s the Dharma.

We try to, you know, within this social context of those who assist us in this process, and try again and again to raise the level of our motivation, the why behind, why it is that we’re doing what it is that we’re trying to set about doing, how we define a good life, begin to include a greater number of others, but beginning in some realistic practical fashion by developing the wish even if to altruistically with as little selfishness as with little self reward as we can. Just being there for somebody else because it’s right. It satisfies our inner Buddha, if you like. So if you like, we generally adjust our motivation and we formalize this by reciting the refuge. So if you’d like to read along, you’re 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 time 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 in time 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 of happiness and the causes of happiness. May all sentient beings be free from suffering and the cause 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. As I said, I’m going to try.

I don’t know how successful we’ll be. I’m not usually very good at this, as you all know by now, in terms of time management. Try to do it. This is our last night together, so I’d like to just do a quick review of the three principal aspects of the path. So we’re kind of condensing things a bit, so we’ll do a short meditation on mindfulness of the breath.

Okay? So just take in a comfortable, firm posture. And we’ll begin with just the process of getting in touch with our body, relaxing the body. Bring your awareness to the crown of your head, the scalp, Feeling the wrinkles in your brow smoothing out. The pressure in and around your eyes diminishing.

Muscles of the face softening, relaxing. Jaws relaxed. Bringing your awareness to the back of your neck and perhaps turning your head to each side a few times. Just very gently loosening, stretching the muscles at the back of the neck. We carry a lot of tension there.

Relaxing the muscles of the throat. Bring your awareness to your upper back and shoulders. Perhaps rotating your shoulders a few times. Just lifting them up toward your ears and just allow them to drop comfortably to the sides. And with that feeling some kind of burden or weight that you have perhaps been unknowingly carrying around in your back over the course of the day, moving down through your body into the ground.

Some kind of relief from the burdens of the day. Bring your awareness all the way down to your hands. Your hands are soft and loose. Relax in your lower arms and your upper arms. Your chest is at ease.

Relaxing throughout the heart area and the lungs, and the central region of the back. Stomach. Releasing the tension that we oftentimes hold in our stomach muscles, just allowing your belly to go soft throughout the abdominal cavity. And keeping your back straight, your trunk erect, relax your lower back muscles. Buttocks.

Throughout your upper legs. Your lower legs. And your feet soft, loose. And bringing your awareness to the entirety of your body and roughly scanning through the body from the top downward. And as you did do so, noticing any any areas of tightness or tension, any possible areas of discomfort.

And taking an intentional breath and breathing in and down to that area of tension wherever it might be in your body. And imagine as if you were breathing out from that area of tension wherever it might be upward and out. And as you do so, feeling the tension diminish. Breathing in and down to the area of tightness, wherever it might be in your body, and imagining that you’re breathing out from that area of tightness. And as you do so, feeling the tightness loosen.

Breathing into the areas of tension and tightness, breathing out from those areas. If there’s an area of discomfort, don’t avoid that area, don’t struggle against it or resist it. Breathing down into that area surrounding it like a mother cradling her child, surrounding that hurt with the kindness of your breath. And breathing out from that area, feeling that area soft and allowing, accepting. It’s okay if it’s there.

Just soothing that area, just allowing it to be. Breathing into the areas of tension and tightness of discomfort, breathing out from those areas. The body becoming relaxed, at ease. You can imagine a feeling of physical well-being pervading your entire body. It’s a nice place to be in your body.

There’s no place to go, nothing that needs to be done. There’s nobody to please. You can give yourself a break and simply be. Be your body at ease, at rest, experiencing whatever is there in the body. Just be there with your body.

Staying with the body, comfortable, at ease. And practicing the breath exercise, breathing in comfortably, normally breathing out, extending the exhalation. Very gently forcing all the air out of the lungs. Again, breathing in comfortably, normally allowing the lungs to feel naturally, again extending the exhalation. And then bring your mind to the breath.

Wherever the sensation associated with the natural breath is most clear and obvious, focus in your attention on just that. Sensation of the natural breath. Bring your mind back to the breath. Get in touch with your body, perhaps the pressure of your buttocks on the cushion on the floor. Get in touch with the sounds around us.

Sounds around us. And slowly become aware of your surroundings, taking your time. So we have a special guest tonight. Carrie, Carrie Lee is back with us. This is the last night of this series of teachings, which has been going on for what seems like it’s been about over two years now, isn’t it?

Wow. Something like that. And so I just thought we’d condense it all into what do we have? About an hour and fifteen an hour and a half? So we’re just going to go briefly.

Just some of the hits, of the highlights, some of the points. Just kind of to jog our memory and plant some seeds. The Three Principal Aspects of the Path. It’s by the fourteenth century yogi scholar, Tsongkhapa. So all of the image which is in the Buddha’s lap, that’s an image of Tsongkhapa, and these images along the top of the side wall and the back wall, those are all depicting episodes in the life of Tsongkhapa.

Within Tibetan Buddhism there are four main lineages or traditions. There is Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, and that lineage, which is it traces itself back to Tsongkhapa, which is called the Gelugpa tradition, which is the main tradition that we follow here. These individuals have made such a major contribution to the development of particular approaches to practice, even though the principles remain the same. The way in which they were able to skillfully transmit them to their students was such that they were seen as a founder or the initiator of a particular lineage. We’re just going to go through it very quickly.

Over the course of our discussion, if you have anything that you’d like to bring up or share or questions, by all means, you’re invited to do so. Homage to all the foremost lamas. So, you know, the so this is quite traditional in in in general that the Tibetan text of any length would begin with paying homage or respect to the teacher, but this extends to all teachers, not to both immediate and lineage teachers, which has its connection and transmission all the way back to the historical Buddha, Śākyamūni Buddha. Homage to the foremost holy Lama. So, Lama is the basis of the path.

Know, path is that which is where we’re at now, where we want to get to, and the means of traverse that path is implementing the means, seeing the truth of things, and that which assists us in that process is our Lama. But Lama can be interpreted in various ways. There is the outer Lama, our physical embodiment of our teacher and so forth. We have to understand that the role of the Lama is or we could say just the Master or a spiritual teacher, our Guru, if you like is not to transmit happiness or peace of mind or even wisdom. The function of the teacher is to help us to believe in ourselves, that we can traverse this path, that we can change for the better.

And to help us develop the inspiration to work toward that end, to encourage us, and to give us the actual tools, the means, the methods that we can work with in bringing about the kinds of changes that we want. And importantly, to embody or to model the kind of teachings, the possibilities. That’s why it’s so difficult for us to really be inspired these days. We have so few models in our everyday life. Our teachers are very important in that way, that these aren’t just dry words that were composed about fourteen hundred, five hundred years ago, over five hundred years ago.

That the people are actually living them. They actually have gained the experience which these words are pointing towards. But also the Lama here can point to not only the outer Lama but also our inner Lama, our own Buddha nature. The starting point of the path is to relate positively both with the clouds and the sun which is obscured by those clouds. You know, when we first start off and we begin to become aware and we begin to look toward our own mind, sometimes the first thing that is most apparent to ourselves is our own confusion, our own pain.

And we have to deal with that. That’s that’s the That’s meaty, that’s the juicy stuff we have to work with. You know, sometimes, know, always Buddha and the enlightened beings are oftentimes depicted sitting on a lotus. And a lotus has different meanings and different contexts, but one meaning, it represents the awakened state. But a lotus has its root in the mud, the messy stuff of life.

And that’s what we become awakened with respect to. We can’t avoid the messy stuff. We can’t just focus upon enlightenment. It becomes abstract, disconnected from our practical experience of our everyday life. We can’t avoid it.

So, and not avoid it, we begin to recognize not only the clouds, our confusion, pain, but sometimes the clouds are temporarily in abeyance, you know, that they move on and brilliance of the sun. There’s some real wisdom and love and compassion there. There’s some real caring and intelligence, our own Buddha nature. So it’s as important to positively work to relate with the mud, the confusion and the pain, as it is the lotus, the Buddha inside each of ourselves. Homage to all the foremost holy lamas.

So we have the words foremost holy lamas. So these set out the three scopes or three capacities of practitioners. Foremost denotes a person of what’s called lesser scope or lesser capacity. So this individual and this this is speaking rather traditionally, but I think it’s worthwhile to talk in this way that someone who is aspiring to only achieve a higher rebirth in the future. That’s the limited perspective.

That’s what they’re centered on. Want to rebirth with a good physical form, with sufficient wealth, with a long life, all the favorable goodies of life, favorable conditions of life. That’s where they’re at. And okay, that’s fine. That’s called the being of a lesser scope.

And that’s what they’re inspired to work toward. They have this particular perspective on what successful life might look like. So they have to work with meditations on understanding or appreciating the rarity and preciousness of their human life, the fragility of our human rebirth, the natures of the lower realms, and they become inspired. And the workings of karma. You know, if they want to achieve that status in the future, then they’re going to have to create the causes.

That is to say, types of actions, the karma which will bring about that type of result. So that’s what they’re interested in. But maybe we can begin to open up our minds and have a greater vision of what a a successful life might look like. So this is holy. This is the being of middling scope or a middling capacity.

So this individual comes to understand that within this system of cyclic existence, there’s no satisfaction that can be found. There’s nothing worth having or being within the confines of the system. They want to step outside of the system. That is, they want to achieve liberation from cyclic existence. But that’s their perspective.

But moreover, they’re doing it for their own self. You know, they seek individual liberation, which is fine. Is there a Buddha? I wouldn’t necessarily I don’t think there’s a one to one correspondence. I think there are many individuals, I think.

Well, the Theravāda tradition in Burma, for example. And there are also I met some Masters in Thailand and so forth who I think express their compassion and caring and dedication to others that far surpasses, you know, what we pay lip service to here in our tradition. So anyway, but this individual, no question they have love and compassion, but the focus of their practice is on ending their own suffering. Fair enough. And so they have to, in terms of their practice, they have to become aware of impermanence and subtle suffering even in higher rebirths.

And it’s not sufficient simply to gain another human rebirth in the future, which would be the aim of the person of lesser capacity. Situation which is conditioned by karma and afflictive emotions is by its very nature dissatisfactory. So they want to see, they want to be liberated. Liberated from what? From an approach to living of life which is under the control of karma and afflictive emotions.

And that’s their focus of their practice. The foremost holy, lamas. So a lama denotes a person of great capacity. This individual is aspiring toward Buddhahood. So this is over and above liberation from cyclic existence.

We want to embody the optimum mode of being, our fullest capacity, not only for ourselves, and that we’re not forgetting our own welfare, but we understand our own welfare will be achieved along the way in becoming a becoming a Buddha, what? For the sake of others. The more I am, the more I can be there for others. The more I am, the more I have to give to others. So I want to become a Buddha for the sake of others.

We can’t become a Buddha for the sake of ourselves. It doesn’t work that way. We have to be aware that all sentient beings are exactly the same as ourselves, that they too want to be happy, that they too don’t want to suffer, and moreover they’re suffering. And so we generate an awakened heart, wishing to become the best possible person we can for the sake of benefiting not only ourselves, but also them. And we go on to generate an awakened mind, the understanding of emptiness.

I will explain as best I can. So I’m going to go a little bit more quickly. Usually I’m new to all the details, don’t I? I think you guys are perfected patience, actually. Maybe I’ve accomplished something in my time.

I will explain as best I can the essential meaning of the conqueror’s teachings, the path praised by his noble children, the fortunate, seeking liberation. I will explain as best I can. Dzong ga pa is expressing his humility. Really don’t know all that much, but I’m going to share with you what I have to come to understand. And he’s setting out what are called the Three Principal Aspects of the path.

The essential meaning of the conqueror’s teachings is the first principal aspect of the path, and this is the will to awaken. That’s my jargon, okay? Generally, Generally it’s termed renunciation or the determination to be free. Lots of possibilities. Essentially, as a means of bringing about the kinds of changes that we’re aspiring to, we have to want to change.

And it has to be something more than idle speculation or curiosity or intellectual exercise. It has to be almost felt as a necessity. Necessity is the mother of invention, isn’t it? If we have to change, we will. If we don’t, we probably won’t.

There is a degree of resistance to change, and we have to be aware of that. With change always comes a certain fear. The unknown is frightening. And we can’t know all the details of the kinds of changes that we’re wanting to bring about. To demand to know them before you involve yourself, you give yourself over to the process, is to ensure that you aren’t going to change.

You’re going to be assured that nothing will ever change. There’s a compulsion to maintain the status quo. It may not mean much, but it’s home. I feel pretty things are predictable. Comfortable.

Comfortable. I have my comfort zone all worked out here. And I think that’s, you know, we have to be aware of that. So we have to want to change. And this is first aspect of the three principal aspects of the path, the determination to change or the will to awaken.

The path praised by his noble children. So this sets out the second principal aspect of the path. And the term I use is awakened heart. And this is bodhicitta, sometimes translated as the mind of enlightenment. So we’re going to bring about change, but what are the directions of our change?

What kind of changes are we actually aspiring to bring about? We’re trying to change our hearts and our minds, essentially, you know, to to realize our capacity in terms of the affective or emotional aspect of our being, and that with respect to our cognitive, our rational mode of our being. We’re trying to actualize our fullest capacity in those two areas. You know, we have two aspects to our being, modes of being in this world. We have our private aspect to ourselves, that aspect of ourselves which is our own inner lived experience, which is inaccessible to others.

You don’t know my experience. Experience. It’s my private, you know, life. I want that experience to be bliss, peace, whatever, you know, whatever way you want to get it. That’s what I rely.

However it finds expression, that’s essentially the quality of that experience that I’m seeking. But there’s another aspect to ourselves, and that is the outer dimension of our being, which is that aspect of ourselves which exists in relationship to the world about us, the social dimension. We are social beings. We live in this world with others. And even if we were to run away to the Himalayas, that would be our way of relating with the world.

We can’t avoid it. We are always, in some way, embodying a way of relating to the world. So the way that we embody the maximum the optimum way of being in this world is called love. It is not a romantic notion. It is simply the best way that we can be in this world as a social being is in terms of love.

And this is fully embodied in the awakening of our heart. So we experience the fulfillment of our inner dimension of our being through the awakened mind, the wisdom, understanding, emptiness. And we embody the fullness of our social dimensions of our being through the development of love and compassion or, in its fullest capacity, the awakened heart. The awakened heart is the altruistic aspiration to achieve full awakening for the sake of all sentient beings. Tsongkhapa sets out the three principal aspects of the path.

Okay? Now he’s going to go through each of them, how to actually go about developing them. Remember, this is fourteen verses long. He wrote three texts, what they call the genre of lam rim or the graduated path to enlightenment. They’re encyclopedic.

This was written as a letter to his disciple, something that he could recite each day memory, just to remind him of these points. Then he begins his explanation of the three principal aspects of the path. He set them out, and now he’s beginning with the first of the three, the awakened, the will to awaken. Without real renunciation, there is no way to end your struggle for pleasure sought in the seas of conditioned existence. And addiction to such existence utterly enslaves you.

Thus, at the outset, seek the will to awaken. So without really, you know, we really we have to become almost sick and tired of being sick and tired. And if you get sick and tired of being sick and tired, you’ll find a way to get well. You can begin to draw upon the natural resources of your own mind as it has to become a necessity. I just don’t want to continue in this way any longer.

It’s not working, acknowledging that, if only to yourself. But it’s not as if we’re basket cases. We’re probably the healthiest people in our society, which doesn’t say much for our society. Anyway, think one useful thing, the twelve step program in Alcoholics Anonymous, it’s one of the most successful of all self help programs in history. And one of the foundations of it the the acknowledgment, I’m not okay.

Things aren’t okay. I’m not okay and you’re not okay, but that’s okay. The situation is workable, you know. I’m kind of coming from that place rather than some kind of pretense as you might like to appear to others or as you might like to even appear to yourself. I’m okay.

How are you? I’m okay. I’m good. Maybe that’s the social nicety, but it doesn’t work in terms of our spiritual development bringing about the kinds of changes we want for ourselves. So we have to, you know otherwise we are addicts.

We’re all addicts in one way or another. We’re addicted to the status quo, if nothing else, keeping things very much as they are, Even though we play lip service to wanting to change. How do we bring about the kinds of changes we want to make? Tsongkhapa in the fourth verse goes on to say, Freedoms and richnesses are hard to find, and life does not last long, keep this always in mind. Keeping this always in mind will alter the priorities you give to this life.

So we have to begin to change our priorities. You know, there’s an intimate relationship, connection between fact and value and their relation to action. We have to recognize the fact that there are options open to us. You know, we may not have a million dollars, we may not be tremendously talented and so forth, but we have all that we need to bring about the kinds of changes in our life to be happy. We have that.

That’s a fact, and we have to value that fact. And if you value that fact, you will appreciate it, and it will move you to act. If you don’t recognize, if you depreciate, you know, it’s like what would happen if you went blind? And it’s a terrible thing even to think about, you know. But you would think, Oh, I didn’t appreciate my eyes why it happened.

I took them for granted. Oh, if I only had my eyes for another day, I’d just like to look around in the world and see the colors and shapes, you know, look the face of my child or whatever it might be, just one more time. And it’s when you we take things for granted and we don’t appreciate them and things go by, you know, unaware and unknown, unappreciated. So we have to begin to appreciate our life, the freedoms and richnesses that we all have. And so we all have the freedom to practice, to bring about the kinds of changes.

Where freedom means freedom is there’s an absence to obstacles. You know, what would happen if we were beggars on the streets of Calcutta or if we were living in Baghdad, you know, just today three bombs went off, you know? Or if you were in if you were starving in if you were in Darfur, Darfur, you know, in a displacement camp, in a refugee camp. Now what can you do in these kinds of situations? You’re just trying to eke out enough food for that day to feed yourself and your family.

There’s no time to think about, you know, going to Buddha house and talking having a luxury and to talk about these things that we do. The mind, it’s not in the mind the mind can’t open up to other other alternate other possibilities. It’s not it’s not in it’s not an option either physically. Sorry to interrupt you. Are you saying that the power of gratitude is firing up will fire up the will use of it?

Once you begin to appreciate what we have, then there’s value in it. And in a value in it, you will be moved to make use of it. You, you know, it’s not always going to be there. Just yeah? It’s like, it’s simply counting your blessings, focusing on what you do pay attention to.

Isn’t it also the awareness that I didn’t do it myself, that I’ve been very fortunate in others? That’s such a yeah, yeah, for sure. That And as I’ve been given, so should I give back all the blessings that I’ve been receiving? Yeah, that would be yeah. Here we’re working with motivation first to, you want to change.

What you say is quite true, Betsy. And I would say that this comes in the area of developing an awakened heart, appreciating the kindness of others. Yeah? So, which what you say is what I think is right, to give back what you know, I want to return the cuddle. Okay, so we’re free.

You know, we’re talking about freedoms. Okay? Just appreciate, what would happen if you were intellectually handicapped and challenged in some way? What happened if you were psychotic? If you were undergoing debilitating chemotherapy or if you were actively addicted to drugs or to alcohol.

Your family actively tried to prevent you from attending teachings or reading books on whatever, you know, you found would be of use to yourself, you know, if you had no one spiritual friends to support you, you know. We’re we’re this we are this is looking at it from a negative point of view. We’re free of all that. Okay? But that’s what’s meant by freedom.

But we can look at it from the positive point of view, that is, the richnesses. You know, we are human beings, and we take that for granted. We don’t even think about it. But it’s not something to be taken for We have intelligent minds. We have kind hearts, you know.

We have relatively healthy bodies. Have countless opportunities to pursue our creative and intellectual interests. We we have a high standard of living. We have all our material needs easily, easily, easily met. And we can we met with teachers.

We met with teachings. And the point is that it’s all there to appreciate that fact so we don’t allow it to go to waste, that we simply don’t take it for granted. We need to be aware of that fact and value it so that we make use of it. Because, why? Life does not last long.

If it was always going to be there, okay, we could take our time. But there is a certain degree of urgency involved, though I wouldn’t want you to become uptight. A relaxed urgency, okay? Go on. What is it?

It Zen Oh, snail. Climb out. What’s that mountain? Fuji Fuji. Fuji, climb Mount Fuji, but slowly, slowly.

Make haste slowly. Something. It’s as if your hair is on fire. Okay. Let us say, you know, life does not long.

We’re all going to die. This is the significance of contemplating and becoming mindful of death is to ensure that we don’t waste our lives while we still have it, that we stop postponing what it is that we really want, that we don’t live one of those, you know, until more favorable conditions come along, that we lead to kind of a substitute life, a kind of compromised life, if you like. That we aren’t one of those cowards who dies many times before their death. You know, like the lives of impotency and banality and hypocrisy and inauthenticity. You know, kind of, you know, a life.

Yeah. Yeah. Kind of, you know, where life becomes a hollow series of events. One life becomes a hollow series of events, falling one after another. A poor imitation of what life could be.

So it’s a call to to do something. And we’re not always going to have this opportunity. And that’s I’m sorry, but that seems to be the reality that we have to deal with. So the purpose of life under death is not to allow us to waste this precious human life, this one wild precious life that we all have. You know, to, you know, out of laziness or procrastination, out of fear, you know.

You know, we Help us to keep our priorities clear. What is, I guess, importantly, to help us to demand of ourselves to clarify what is important, what is my priority in life. For me, it is each of us are alone in our death, and that denotes how very much alone we are in our life, in the sense of what it is that is important for us, uniquely fulfilling, meaningful to ourselves. This is really a huge asking of ourselves, you know, to try to come to understand why where is my bliss? What is sacred?

What has meaning for myself as a very unique self actualizing individual? You know, not to what I’ve been taught, not what I’ve been told. I you know, not what you know, where is my you know, kind of making clear to yourself your own priorities and living them out as best we can. You know, not to allow our life to be lost in what I call the eight worldly concerns, eight worldly dharmas. Know, these are the preoccupations with the Gain, loss, fortunes.

The pursuit of pleasure, the avoidance of pain, the preoccupation with the pursuit of gain, the avoidance of loss, fame, notoriety, and praise, and criticism. You know, if that’s your life, what are your criteria on how you’re going to lead your life? What are your measures of a successful life? If they continually involve the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain at all costs, nothing will change. If that’s your criteria of how you’re going to conduct your life, you can be assured and be assured of more of the same in your life.

Things are simply going to repeat endlessly. Nothing is really going to change substantially, only the outward appearances. So, you know, it’s like the eight worldly concerns are like the rules of how to be a model prisoner in cyclic existence. They aren’t really worth our part. Not skillful priorities on how you’re going to lead your life.

The possible way we could what we could make of our life. So have to become death cuts through a lot of that, a lot of the bullshit, you know, a lot of pretense. And in the face of death, you know, there was a woman on the radio, was terminally ill, she was near her death, and the interviewer said, What is it that you regret most about in your life? She said that I never thought about death till now. And it’s So there’s a method of we can bring about this realization of death.

It’s called the nine-round death meditation. So there are three roots. Each has three supporting reasons. For example, the death is inevitable. That’s the root.

And then it’s supported by three reasons: that everyone has to die, your lifespan is continually decreasing, and even as we sit here now, we’re we’re that much closer to the time of our death. And that moreover, any anything that, you know, the body is composed of, you know, changing causes of condition. It’s not this solid, tough, you know, kryptonite body that we sometimes think of ourselves, as it were. So death is inevitable. From that we develop some kind of determination to begin to use our life wisely and mindfully and meaningfully with purpose.

And then the second root is the uncertainty of the time of death. Death is definite, but we don’t know when. And how do we bring that home? The fact is that human life expectancy is uncertain. The fact is, people die at any age.

They die in the womb. Fetuses, they die at birth, they die at two. We don’t like to talk about these things, but it’s reality, isn’t it? Young children, teenagers, young adults, middle aged adults, people in their forties and fifties and sixties. Whatever age you are, people have died at that age.

Can talk to an insurance salesman. They’ll give you the statistical probabilities and they’ll make you a bet at what age you’re going to die. Just because we haven’t reached the average age, there’s no certainty that we’re going to live to the average. There to be people who die before the average as well. That’s why it’s average.

So we don’t know. We don’t know. There’s no certainty. And there are many causes of death, and the human body is extremely fragile. So all all of this lends itself to some kind of not only to make use of our life, but some kind of urgency involved in bringing about the kinds of changes.

We don’t know how long we’re going to have to bring about those kinds of changes. And then finally, the fact is that at the time of our death, what is going to be a benefit to ourselves? You know, even those who love us a great deal, who really want to sincerely help us, you know, they dig their fingernails into you, they try to hold you back. They can’t hold your mind back. They can’t stop you.

They can’t and they can’t go with you. It’s sad, but it seems to be the case. And, you know, all the things that we have spent a lifetime gathering together, all these goodies, material things, you know? You can’t even take one CD with you. I’m sorry.

And then even this body. You put nice lotions on, perfume, give it vitamins, good food, organic, you You go out of your way to treat it well. The moment after your death there’s no different between your body and a slab of meat in a butcher’s shop window. There’s no difference. So to use our life wisely with meaning.

If you keep this in mind, this will begin to alter the priorities you get through this life. And that’s what this is all about, isn’t Where are you going to expend your resources, your time, your energy, your intelligence? Thinking again and again about the unvarying relation between actions and their effects and suffering of cyclic existence will alter the priorities you give to future lives. So thinking again and again about the unvarying relationship between action and effect, this involves reflecting karma, our actions as causes and the effects of those causes. karma means action.

It’s a Sanskrit word. It’s situated in the Buddhist understanding of the natural law of cause and effect, which operates throughout the universe. It’s like, you know, flowers come from seeds, fire comes from wood, mountains are worn down by rain. You know, this is simply the the action of causes, bringing about predictable, inevitable types of results. In the case of karma, it we we are talking about intention as a cause.

Our experiences are products. They are result. Every result has a cause. Intentional actions act as the cause of our ultimately to our all our varied experiences that we’re going through. There is therefore, there is a it involves intention involves an agent.

There is an agent who has an intention which brings about actions, which brings about a predictable result. Creating actions, there’s a reaction. We ourselves, as the agent of that action, will experience particular result. So, you know, when we talk about karma, we’re talking about in terms of an agent with intentions, not the natural law of cause and effect which is occurring in the natural world. You know, karma is a big subject, isn’t it?

Lots of details, you know. But I’m just going to talk about what are called the four general principles of karma. To reinforce the basic notions about what karma is all about. The first general principle is the certainty of karma. Happiness and unhappiness are invariably the respective results of positive and negative karma.

Okay? There’s no moral judgment. There’s no God looking over the process. It is simply the playing out of a causal mechanism. We have certain experiences which are desirable.

We call those happiness. Okay? We have certain experiences which are innately undesirable. We call those suffering. Okay?

That’s what we’re talking about. We’re trying to make this relevant to our actual experience. We have certain types of experiences which we would like to prolong and repeat. Those types of experiences we call happiness. Okay?

There are certain types of experiences we have which we would like to discontinue immediately and we would not like to repeat in the future. We call those unhappiness or suffering. So that’s all we mean by that. Those types of experiences have as their ultimate cause, and if we trace them back, an action, an intention of the mind, of the agent who undergoes those experiences. We classify those actions.

This isn’t rocket science. I mean, some of this gets into rocket science, but what I mean is, our minds are conditioned. Our minds aren’t blank slates. Our minds are continually being conditioned by how we think, what we say, what we do. You know, you had a traumatic incident when you were a child, your present life experiences are being filtered through that by the past influences of that residue, which is the way in which our minds are conditioned, are in some way influencing how you’re interpreting your present experience, your present situation.

In a traumatic experience it’s usually in negative way. It may or may not be. So our minds are always being conditioned. We’re conditioned. And they they that conditioning influences on our present experience.

What happened to us when we’re young influences what we experience now. This is the play, this is how karma can be, you know, a way in which we can begin to get a handle on what we mean by karma. Now, when we talk about positive actions, you know, other virtue, merit, all these there’s no moral judgment being made. No one is saying that you should be good boys and girls. Be good, don’t do bad.

Create positive actions, don’t create negative actions. If it didn’t matter what you experienced in the future, then you could do anything you like. It’s up to you, it doesn’t matter. But it does matter to you what you experience. You want happy experiences.

There’s a consistent relationship between what we call happy experiences and their types, in certain category of actions. We simply call those positive actions, healthy actions, skillful actions, virtue if you like, you know, whatever term works for you. There’s just a consistency of relationship between those types of actions and those types of results. This consistency of cause and effect throughout nature. When you plant an apple seed, don’t get pear tree, you don’t get cucumbers.

You get something which is consistent in type with regard to that cause. And it’s predictable. Likewise, there is a certain category of actions which brings about a consistently corresponding type of result in terms of experience. We want happy experiences, those categories which bring about those causes, those types of actions we call positive actions. We don’t want suffering, that kind of experience, those types of causes as actions which bring about that we call negative actions.

So there’s this all we’re saying when we talk about the certainty of karma is that there’s consistency of relationship between cause and effect, actions and the results in terms of experience. That’s all. The second quality of the general principles of karma is the magnification of karma. And this is, you know, it’s hard to get a handle on this one. This becomes rocket science.

Essentially what it’s saying, that even karma increases even from insignificant causes, highly magnified results or experiences can come about. It’s for both positive and negative. Okay? I don’t know, of the traditional examples that they use is, you plant an oak seed, you know, an oak seed is, you know, something like that, and you get this huge oak tree. You know, the one I use is the butterfly effect, you know.

In meteorology, they talk about the fact that a butterfly flapping its wings in France can precipitate precipitate a tornado in the United States a month later. There’s this augmentation over time. Anyway, that’s a hard basket. The third principle is if an action is not performed, its result will not be experienced. Okay.

Everything is a product. Anything that’s a product. This table is a product. This building is a product. I am a product.

My experience is a product. All products have a cause. We don’t have the cause, we won’t experience the result. Okay? If there’s something that you want to experience love, intelligence, wisdom, university degree, being rich, you have to create the causes.

If there’s something you don’t want to experience, then stop creating the causes. Okay. Okay, easy one. Okay. I mean, yeah.

So the fourth general principle of karma is actions that are done are not dissipated. And this is simply the fact that when we commit an action, it simply is not finished with that action. And just as we were talking about previously, our minds are continually being conditioned by what we think, what we say, what we do. There’s some residue. Quite often we call these karmic seeds.

A seed has the idea of potency. Just like an actual seed, like a flower seed. Has some kind of genetic material, which essentially is information, isn’t it? When that information meets with proper activating conditions, soil and water, that information begins to translate itself. It begins to express itself.

It begins to draw certain nutrients out of the soil, leave others behind, and configure those nutrients in a particular configuration. A plant, a sprout begins to grow. Information, that information begins to express itself in a very, very substantial, you know, material way. We have lots of, all these potencies in our mind that when improper conditions are met with, they’re going to be activated. Certain impulses of the mind to think in a particular way, to interpret, to pay attention to all these possibilities are going to the way our mind operates, are going to find expression.

These karmic potencies are going to find expression. These karmic seeds aren’t kind of lost through, you know, the take in rebirth. We carry the evolutionary history encoded consciousness. And this goes on from rebirth to rebirth to rebirth, and the stuff we put in our mind. What is it?

Was the fifth Dalai Lama that said, What is written in your text can all be lost with the workings of one single drop of water. What is written in your mind is there for eternity. What were you going to say? What about repentance and attempts to correct Yeah, we can talk about that. Okay.

Yeah, so talking about karma in this way, you know, we’re talking about karma represents probabilities. It’s not predestination. Yeah? Given these sets of circumstances, can project certain probabilities in the future. Okay.

What can we do about Addressing? About the negative actions that we’ve created in the past? I don’t know about you, but I know I’ve created a few negative actions here and there. Quite a few. So what can we do?

There’s a practice we can do, and we’ll just talk about it very quickly. It’s called applying the Four Powers. It is said that through a sincere and genuine application of these four powers repeatedly over time, there is no karmic seed which cannot be completely eradicated from the mind stream. We can reduce its potency, we can ameliorate the effects, and ultimately remove it from the mind. So there’s nothing, nothing whatsoever which cannot be undone, you know, through application of these four powers.

And I’ll just go through them and just, you know, mention the words. And you can look into them in the future, which would be a wise thing to do. So the first is what I call the power of repudiation. And this is sometimes termed the power of regret. You know, repudiate means, Wow, I don’t want anything to do with that.

You know, somebody makes a statement, I don’t you don’t identify yourself with that. You repeat. It’s developing a reasoned and deeply felt sense of regret toward the action. I added one and one and it made three. I made it, you know, and it had terrible consequences.

The emphasis is on the action, not on the person. We’re not calling ourselves into question. The focus is upon, out of confusion, out of anger, out of attachment, whatever. I made a mistake. Added one and one and three.

I hurt someone and I’m going to experience suffering in the future. I don’t want to suffer. I’m sorry I hurt that person. Develop it. It has to be genuine.

It can’t be lip service. This is the most important of these four powers. Without genuine regret there’s no purification. And it’s not magical. It is our mind which created the karma.

It is only our mind which can remove it. So it’s a matter of developing a genuine, healthy sense of regret. I added one and one to make three, I made a mistake. I wish I could do it over, but I can’t. I wish it had never happened.

Something like that. The second is the power of reliance. We can create a negative action with respect to two objects overall. One is Buddha’s and the other is everybody else but Buddha’s. So when we create a negative action with respect to that means we’ve taken a vow, we’ve made a promise, you know, and we’ve broken our vow or a promise.

You know, we’ve lost the plot, we’ve gotten off track. Okay? So how do you get back on track? Refocus. You enter yourself on Buddha.

You take refuge in Buddhadharma and Sangha. That’s the way you get yourself back on track, having broken a vow or a promise or commitment of some sort. The other is toward sentient beings. We harm sentient beings. That’s not what we would like our life to be about.

Our life is about helping others, not harming others. How do we get back on track? What it is that we really want for ourselves in terms of our priorities. We develop compassion, love, with the awakened heart toward them. Rather than the wish to harm them, we develop a strong wish, I want to help you.

That same person we hurt, we hurt. So rely it’s like when you fall down on the ground, you use that same ground to pick yourself back up. So here we rely upon the very objects toward which we’ve fallen down, whether it be the Buddha in terms of having broken a vow or commitment, or whether it be sentient beings by harming them, we rely upon them to get back on track. We go for refuge at the Buddha Dharma Sangha, and we develop a loving compassion in the awakened heart. That’s the power of reliance.

Power of what? Reliance. Oh, reliance. Reliance. The third power is the power of restraint.

So there are many different effects of karma. One of the effects of karma is habit. We have a tendency to simply repeat the same actions again and again and again. We perpetuate the same types of intentions and ways of acting and so forth. This power of restraint, we realistically appraise what we can do, what we say, I’m not going to do X, whatever it was, I’m not going to intentionally kill for the next.

And it has to be something realistic that we could, with mindfulness, we can practically follow through with. If you said, I’m not going to lie for the rest of my life, you know, that might be well intentioned, but practically it’s kind of worthless. If you said, I’m not to lie for the next hour, then you could really watch your mind for an hour. Really watch your speech. Maybe you go to bed, take a nap or something.

Joking. No, you really could. You could watch Because we lie, we’re not even aware of it. Lying is a noise, the big ones. Sometimes it’s just a gesture or a pretense and so forth.

So you could really be mindful. And this interrupts that habit pattern in the case of lying, that aspect of karma, which is simply repeating the same type of action again and again. So that’s the power of restraint. We intervene in that habit pattern. And the fourth power is the power of applying the antidote.

And there is a list of traditional antidotes. For example, there’s a disclosure to the thirty five Buddhas, which involves making prostrations and recitation of the names of the thirty five Buddhas. Recitation of the perfection of wisdom sutras, for example the Heart Sūtra, which is written there. Recitation of the Hundred Syllable Mantra of Vajrasattva, recitation of Manipadmiyam, the mantra of Janri zi. But in fact, there’s a list of traditional, very powerful antidotes.

Any skillful action, any positive action, virtuous action that we do consciously, as if it were a counterbalance to that previous negative action that we did, going out of your way to commit something positive in the context of these four powers, which can act as a counterbalance. So we do something right as a counterbalance of what we did wrong, essentially. Some positive action deliberately done within the context of these four powers. So there is no action. There’s nothing that we have done which cannot be the effect can be lessened or it cannot or to the extent that it can be completely eliminated and we won’t have to experience the effect at all.

Okay, so that’s thinking again about the unvarying relation between actions and their effects and the suffering, oh, sufferings. Okay, suffering is just like the existence. Big, big, big, big subject. When we talked about suffering, we talked about there are lots of different ways of classifying suffering. Buddhism is really into classifying suffering.

And sometimes people say, Ah, Buddhism. All they do is talk about suffering. Why don’t you get a life? Sometimes it sounds like pessimistic, but in fact Buddhism is tremendously optimistic. But there’s a thing called experiential avoidance.

We talked about at the very beginning you avoid uncomfortable feelings, uncomfortable situations, uncomfortable thoughts. And you can be and that you can be assured that nothing is ever going to change if if you practice this kind of experiential avoidance. You know, actually experiencing what’s happening and acknowledging it and being mindful of it, as it were. So, know, Buddha, the very first, you know, if we want to change, we have to be willing to embody how we actually feel, what’s actually going on, and allow ourselves to be mindful of our actual lived experience. And then our natural intelligence can be brought to bear quite naturally.

You know, you’re in a chair, the moment you become aware that your position in that chair is uncomfortable, you naturally, spontaneously, you shift your position. If you cultivated an unawareness, an experiential unawareness, then you would never be able to change. Looking at suffering, there are many different classifications. I think the one that we looked at the most especially were the three types of suffering: the suffering of suffering, the suffering of change, and the suffering of pervasive conditionality. And we can look at these most readily.

It’s a good analogy, I think. Example to keep in mind is suppose you had a wound, okay, an open wound, and that wound were being irritated in some way. Maybe somebody bumped into it or some irritating substance got on your wound. That sharp, clear, pointed pain, that’s what we call the suffering of suffering. Even animals recognize this level of suffering.

Mental and physical pain. Okay? But what happens if you have this wound and you put some nice salve on it, or you run nice, cool, clean water over it, that experience of temporary relief, which we normally or usually identify as pleasure, is the suffering of change. So the suffering of suffering is what we normally think of as suffering. The suffering of change is what we normally think of as pleasure.

All pleasure is an example of the suffering of change. It’s like, you it’s like you go walking in the mountains, you know, up in the hills and it feels good, you know. It’s fresh air and the sun shining, beautiful trees, and it’s really nice to hear you walking, walking. It feels good. And after some time, maybe an hour, an hour and a half, getting a bit tired, and in front of me, said, I think I’ll sit down.

And then your legs get sore. Get tired. Sit down. Wow. That feels good.

You know? And feel pleasure. You know? And and and but is it is that pleasure in the nature of pleasure? If we’re in the nature of the pleasure, as long as you indulge in the causes which bring about that pleasure, you should continue to experience pleasure.

If we’re in the actual nature of pleasure. You sit and you sit and you sit and you sit. Well, you get a bit uncomfortable, you know. You you know, when your butt gets a bit sore and it’s getting a bit cool in the shade. I think maybe I’ll maybe I’ll I’ll get up again.

Good walk. You get up again. Oh, that feels good. Start walking again. Is walking in the nature of pleasure?

If it was, as long as you walked, you should experience pleasure. Okay. So the point is that all whatever pleasure that we may experience from whatever reading a good book, delicious food, sex if you seek to prolong that pleasure, it inevitably turn to pain. If it were in the nature of pleasure, as long as you indulge in that causes of that pleasure, as long as you kept reading that book, you should continue to experience pleasure. But you can’t.

Your eyes get sore, don’t you? When you’re really into a good book and it’s getting late and you’re sleeping and your eyes start, Oh, I want to read, want to keep reading, but you can’t. The same is not true with pain. The longer that you indulge in the suffering, as long as you indulge in the causes of suffering, that suffering will indefinitely continue. It can even get worse.

So what we recognize as pleasure is in fact a temporary relief another type it’s a change from another type of pain. We’ve changed the level of of suffering and we identify it temporarily as happiness, as pleasure. What they’re saying is, it’s not all that we could experience. And we’re not saying it’s not happiness, it’s just not in the nature of happiness. It’s not reliable, lasting happiness.

We’re trying to orientate the mind toward something more than chapatis. That’s another thing. What we call happiness is simply the diminishment or the cessation of a previous deprivation, a previous tension. You know, some kind of relief is perceived as happiness. It’s not all that happiness could be.

What Buddhism in asking, he said, Let’s hold out for the real thing. Let’s not be satisfied with what is, in fact, a low grade of suffering. Some lasting, reliable happiness. Try to orientate our mind toward that. And the suffering of conditionality, this will alter the priorities you give to future lives.

You know, okay, be reborn as a God and have it made for eons and eons, but that’s not going to always be there. That’s not all that life could be. I want to hold up for something better. That’s my priority. Trying to adjust your priorities, aren’t you?

Suffering of suffering, suffering of change, suffering of conditionality. This is simply having a wound. It’s neither undergoing pain nor is it being soothed, nor is it we aren’t going toward happiness. It’s our experiences when we’re neither experiencing pleasure or pain, neutral feelings. They are the suffering of pervasive conditionality.

What we call this is simply what it means to be an ordinary human being, what it means to be the human condition. There’s always an underlying struggle, an underlying anxiety. It’s like we can never really relax. Relax. You know, the picture, image that comes up in my mind is like, you know, you’re in this deep water and you’ve got to keep treading.

Because there’s this fear: if relax, I’m going to sink, and it’s all going to be over. I’ll become non existent. We always have to be defending and confirming ourselves in one way or another. It’s an unending struggle to be somebody doing something, we can never relax out of the fear of not being, which is, you know, that’s about as deep as you can go in terms of fears. But we experience that as neutral.

It’s so ongoing. We’re so accustomed to it that it’s what we take for granted as being normal, neutral, neither pleasure nor unpleasure. It’s it’s the default mode. Mhmm. This is it’s simply this underlying, you know, anxiety, fear.

It’s never gone it’s it’s never not there. We’ve never experienced a moment when it wasn’t. Not. So we call it neutral. Okay, that’s the suffering of cyclic existence.

If you begin to get in touch with that, you alter the priorities you give to future lives. Meditating in this way, when your thoughts are turned night and day toward liberation, and not even for a moment do you entertain the wish for the splendors of cyclic existence, then you have given birth to the will to awaken. Okay? So that’s roughly very, very roughly, very speeding through this like a speeding bullet. We’ve all developed the will to awaken, right?

We really want to change. Okay. What kind of changes are we going make in our life? But even such a will, if it is 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 the supreme heart, the supreme awakened heart.

So this sets out the second of the three principal aspects of the path, the awakened heart, essentially development of love and compassion, to the extent where it’s defined as the altruistic aspiration to achieve Buddhahood for the sake of all others. You know, but maybe we can bring it down to some practical level for ourselves. I’d like to read this quote by the Dalai Lama where he says oh no, a quote in As the Dalai Lama 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, a bodhicitta so bodhicitta is the Sanskrit word for the awakened heart is like a huge selfish attitude. When you dedicate yourself to others with loving kindness, you get back far more happiness than you could have ever experienced otherwise.

Ordinarily, we do ordinarily, we get so little happiness and it is easily lost. So if we want to be as happy as possible, the only thing to do is to dedicate your yourself wholeheartedly to the welfare of others. So I just I I’d like to just read a few two more quotes. I mean, don’t yeah. I just because I think they’re quite nice in setting up the rationale why why it’s worthwhile to aspire to develop such an attitude.

It’s based upon our own experience, for example. So often we make such a fuss of insignificant events in our life that we turn minor difficulties into major problems. As we develop the universal view of bodhicitta, bodhicitta is the awakened heart, 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 the complete freedom that comes from the full spiritual fulfillment. Experiences like this are encouraging because they demonstrate so convincingly the practical day to day value of training and transforming our mind.

Selfish people are unhappy people. I’m not saying that you have to go out and build an orphanage or whatever it is, but just begin to reduce the force of selfishness and begin to become aware that there are others about us who aren’t as fortunate as ourselves. And it’s not that we are to it’s not so much that we’re trying to figure out what to do, But just to open our hearts and just be with that. And then what we are to do will take care of itself. We will respond skillfully.

For when the power of imparting joy is equal to the will, the human soul requires nor their heaven. So, there are two so, how are we going to develop an awakened heart? You know, one thing to talk about, and another thing to actually develop this attitude. So there are two meditative traditions for developing an awakened heart, which we’ve gone through. There’s the sevenfold cause and effect precept, and equalize and exchange itself for others.

And so there are these two meditative traditions, and, you know, we can make use of both of them. And just to go through the words of these two traditions, the sevenfold cause and effect precept has a lineage from Śākyamūni Buddha down to Maitreya, down to Asaṇga, Atisha, and down to our present day teachers. And here there are seven there are six causes and one result. It’s called the sevenfold cause and effect precept. But it has its foundation equanimity.

So equanimity means that we we don’t fixate on the categories of friends, enemy, and strangers. That’s not to say that friends, enemy, and strangers don’t exist, but we don’t automatically react to them with attachment, hostility, and indifference. We’re trying to develop an even minded attitude toward these three categorizations. We categorize everybody quite instinctively into one of these three categories: approach, avoidance and indifference in one way or another. And so we were trying not to react to these appearances in the same way that we have in terms of developing attachment, wanting to help our friends, harm our enemies and couldn’t care less about strangers, something like that.

So this is the foundation. This is like the psychological foundation of an even mindedness, like preparing the field. And then we go on with the first of the six causes. And this particular tradition requires some degree of confidence in the existence of past and future lives. The second tradition doesn’t.

The first of six causes is recognizing all sentient beings as your mother. That over, you know, literally, not figuratively. That over, you know, the countless rebirths, I’ve been reborn countless, countless times. And those times when I was born from a womb, I was born from a mother. And there is not one individual who I can point to and say, This person has not been my mother in my past life time.

Literally. We’re using we’re using the the archetype of mother as the most powerful expression of unconditioned love. So that’s what we’re calling upon that and all its associations to begin to transfer that to all living beings. Recognizing all sentient beings as one’s mother, then remember their kindness. Yeah?

It’s not simply that they were our mothers, but they showed us immense kindness in the past. Here, the feeling of being unconditionally loved. We you can’t earn love. There’s nothing we did to to to justify it. We don’t we didn’t have to pretend.

We didn’t have to perform. It was showered upon us just because we existed. Even after all that pain of labor, you know, the nine months of pregnancy and all the discomfort and the restrictions that that involved, and the pains of labor and the danger to the life of the mother. It’s all an instant that we’re born. It’s all forgotten as if it didn’t happen.

And she takes us tenderly, brings her to her breast. We don’t feel that there’s no differentiation between ourselves and our mother. She is our world, she is our universe, you know, she sustains us, she nourishes us. And then this goes on from the moment we were conceived, that she became aware that she was pregnant. This concern, her mind, being diverted, directed toward our welfare.

We didn’t do anything to deserve any of this. And over the years of caring, cleaning us up, feeding us again, you know, we can’t give anything back. But nothing needs to be given back. It’s unconditional love. It’s just given freely from her side.

So you begin to awaken something, break down this cynicism, this defensiveness, and get in touch with these primordial feelings of what that’s like. So it has to move our hearts. Remembering kindness of our mothers. Developing a wish to repay their kindness. This is what Betsy mentioned.

Know, wanting to return the cuddle, that gratitude. I’ve had all this kindness shown to me. I’d like to give something back. Developing a wish to repay the kindness. And then the fourth is called appealing love.

This is quite often, I think, not translated correctly. Sometimes it’s called affectionate love. It means is appealing love — people look beautiful to us. They look appealing to us. We love them.

We pay attention to them. They attract us. They look very beautiful in our eyes. That’s what I call it appealing love. You know, we begin to look beyond this self centeredness, our self serving world vision that we have, that we usually are engulfed in.

Can I ask a question about that? We were talking before about the mother archetype. Archetype. And and it makes me think of two things. The first is that, I guess, I’m realizing that I’m attached to this life in a way I might sort of cling to one in out breath in a series of meditations.

Yeah. And the second thing it makes me think is that if if one’s experience of one’s mother in this life is wholly negative. Yeah. What do you do with that? Yeah.

So I mean, I can just repeat what some of the teachers would say. Mean, some of the teachers would say, You need a good beating, but no, what she said quite frankly does happen. Some mothers aren’t able to care for their child well. First of all, I think I would revisit, you know, our memories aren’t photographic. And remember the times when your very life depended upon her caring for you, that you weren’t even aware, that you weren’t conscious?

Mean, things went wrong at some point in your relationship, or you feel that now. But there was a time when you wouldn’t have survived without her. And you can remember those times, and how it felt to be nursing at her breasts. You know, try you know, just exploring these feelings and maybe opening yourself up to to relooking at this relationship. You know, as we said, the mother archetype is we we place this huge burden, which no no real human being could ever hope to to live up to upon upon our mother.

And it’s no fragile human being could ever ever live up to what we expected at some time our mother to be. And so in in our in in our disappointment, sometimes we feel resentful in various ways. But it’s not to say that there are some mothers who actually abuse their children. Okay. So in that case, you go to another primary caregiver.

Maybe it was your father, maybe it was an uncle. Maybe, you know, it was some find somebody who you can use as a model to to to to some of these feelings. Mhmm. Or you focus on your mother’s suffering because that’s invariably what led to the Yeah. You’re trying to understand how she came to be out of the situation involved, but you may not be able to use her as an as an object of of what unconditional love felt like.

Maybe you never you you’re unable to you you’re not you don’t you don’t don’t you can give up your resentment. Know? Yes. But you can accept that what she did was the very best she could do with what she was struggling with. Yeah.

That’s that’s the case. But you may have to And the fact that I didn’t die. And the fact that you didn’t die. Because there was some unconditional love happening even if I didn’t see it at the time. Yeah.

You could have left me on the street corner. There’s always that option. That’s true. So appealing love. You know, we begin to this begins to evolve quite naturally with these other previous meditations that have been done well.

We’re just kind of attracted to people. They look very pleasant in our eyes, look very appealing to us. We feel drawn to them and close them. Then the fifth cause is great compassion. It involves using our intelligence, our abilities, all our resources, and our experience in helping to alleviate their suffering.

So love is concerned with happiness. And you to return the cuddle, you want people to be happy. Compassion looks at suffering. You don’t want them to suffer. You want to alleviate their suffering.

Great compassion is universal. It’s directed toward all sentient beings, the suffering of all that lives, all others. And it has it has different different levels. Know, just you can develop just a friendly thought. And this is good to do in meditation, just working.

You know, just a friendly thought. Wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have this problem? You can develop that quite it’s not too difficult unless you really have some resentment toward the person. You can begin to develop that level of caring compassion toward most people. Wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have a problem?

It’s just a friendly, caring, you know, getting involved. And then you try to strengthen it a little bit. May you not suffer. There you are. You are taking a stand.

You are in some kind of position. You are making it clear what it is that you want. The other is just kind of a friendly thought. Here you say, I don’t want you to suffer. And then we try once we can develop that, we do this with respect to a friend, enemy, and stranger.

You know, we do it with, know, first beginning with loved ones, then moving on to those who are acquaintances, then strangers, and then nationalities, Australians, Americans, Canadians, Chinese, Koreans, and then different religions, Muslims, Jews, Christians, working in all kinds of categories, different groups of people. It would be nice if you didn’t suffer. May you not suffer? Then we really get involved. I’m going to do something.

I’m going to work with you in helping you to be free of your suffering. You’re really going to get involved in this person’s life. This is the first part of the sixth cause, which is called exceptional resolve. It’s when you actually begin to take responsibility. That’s when you really this is the culmination of compassion.

I’ve got to do something. You’re moved to actually act. And then this works its way into the sixth cause, which is exceptional resolve. Why? If we look around, you know, what can I do?

I can’t even help myself. You know, how am I going to help all sentient beings to be free of suffering and find happiness? I can’t. I can’t even help myself to be free of suffering. And then we look at, well, who can?

What kind of situation, what kind of person can actually do that? You know, it’s only somebody has really fulfilled their capabilities in terms of the rational, in terms of what I was talking before about the fullest capacity of what a human being is capable of has brought that to fulfillment. That, you know, that’s the if anybody, you know, that’s kind of the optimum way of being. If I really want to this resolve to be something more than lip service. Listen, the more I am, the more I have to give.

I have to be all that I can be, not just for myself, but also for you. What I’m going to do, I’m doing for you. This is what empowers us to become a Buddha. I have to become a Buddha for you. I can’t know, there’s no other way.

I have you know, if I’m going to really do what I really want to do, I have to develop the skills, the, you know, the the wisdom, the power, the strength of a Buddha to be a maximum benefit. For the sake of all sentient beings, I must become a Buddha. When that arises spontaneously, again and again, just upon seeing a sentient being, I have to become a Buddha for you. A genuine feeling arises in your heart. I have to become a Buddha for this person, for this animal, for this insect.

Then you develop the seventh of the sevenfold cause and effect precept, the final result, the awakened heart. That’s the first tradition, the sevenfold cause and effect instruction. Then the other is the equalizing and exchange of self for others. This has its lineage from Śākyamūni Buddha to Mañjuśrī to Śāntideva, down to Atisha, and down to our present teachers. So here I’m just going to mention the terms because we’re almost running out of time.

This equalizing and exchange of self for others has five parts beginning with equalizing self with others, reflecting upon the disadvantages of self centeredness is the second. The third is reflecting upon the advantages of other centeredness is the third. The fourth is the actual exchange of self for others. And then fifth is taking and giving. Equalizing self and others.

Essentially most. There’s detailed way of meditating this. Essentially most, what we want to understand is everybody is equally the same in wanting to be happy and not wanting to suffer. What’s so bloody special about me that I spend all my time, energy, and resources on making this one individual happy and neglecting others. Everybody.

Now do we have superficial differences amongst us? Differences of, you know, gender differences, intelligence, economic, physical. If you scrape away those superficial differences, we’re all very much alike. Everybody in this room and everybody outside this room wants to be happy, doesn’t want to suffer equally. This is one of those unawarenesses that we cultivate in order to make use of others, to make, you know, make others into objects of our manipulation.

You know, if you that we reduce feeling beings to unfeeling things in order to make use of them. It’s difficult to kill somebody. It’s difficult to make use of somebody if you’re keeping the mind simultaneously that this is the feeling being who wants pleasant feelings, doesn’t want unpleasant feeling. It’s difficult to to have, you know, to relate with people in that. So we have to cultivate an insensitivity, an an awareness of this basic fact of of what we all commonly share.

This is trying to recover that awareness. Disadvantages of self centeredness. Looking at our actual lived experience and seeing that we can trace back most of most all of our disappointments and frustrations and anxieties to to the fact that we’re, you know, we’re so we this tremendous preoccupation with this I, Me mind. You know, have this we built this iron fence around and are trying to protect ourselves and keeping everyone else out. And in doing so, we live in a prison, a prison of our own making.

Disadvantages. Let’s see. Disadvantages. Then the advantages of other centeredness. We have to ask ourselves, is it working?

Simply enough. This is me first, I’m number one, center of the universe approach to the living of our life. Does it actually deliver the goods? Does it work? Looking, looking, you know.

If works, okay, fine. Keep it up. You know, our loneliness, all our conflict, our defensiveness, our jealousy, our fears, our feelings of being unloved and unable to love, feeling that, you know, that we, you know, everyone and everything are just so many objects to be manipulated and used like a similar item in one way or another, exploited. They all stem from our self centeredness, our total preoccupation with ourselves. There’s no space in our lives where there’s no communication, there’s no possibility of real intimacy, no way of touching others or being touched by others.

We lived alone in fear, basically. Then there’s the, you know, then looking at the advantages of other centers. You know, looking and again, we look to our own experience. What are some of the moments when you felt life was most meaningful, fulfilled? And not just looking for those times.

Quite often, more than others, it’s in the context of some self forgetfulness. We’re not even thinking of ourselves at those moments. And quite often it involves, you know, when you’re there for somebody else, when you really are able to bring happiness to someone that you love. What a fulfilled fulfillment. What joy when you see a smile on your child’s face or something like that.

When you see, you know, you’ve alleviated somebody’s pain. Something really touches you at the at the depth of your heart. Feel some wholeness in your heart. Life is complete in that moment, in some way. The advantages of other centeredness.

The fourth was the actual exchange of self for others. And so, we aren’t taking know, I don’t trade places as you and you trade places as me. What we exchange is the focus of our concern. Than placing complete emphasis on ourselves, what it is that we cherish now, we transfer that cherishing to others. We develop an other centeredness, become sensitive to the needs of others, and others become important to ourselves.

And then finally, the practice of taking and giving. There is Tibetan. Some of you might be familiar with the Tibetan practice of Tonglen. And this is a meditative practice where, you know, it’s like, you know, like when people soldiers in the military, when they have military exercises. You know, they they put black stuff on their face and and they’re running around with their guns, and they they explosives are going off, and smoke bombs are going off, and they’re screaming and jumping around in the dirt, getting having lots of good having fun.

It’s all done so that when they actually go into battle, you know, when they when they when they the real thing, then they aren’t overwhelmed by by the situation, all this the intensity of the of the of the battle, the sounds and the smells. They They familiarize their mind with what is actually going to occur. Likewise, we do this in meditation. Imaginatively, not really, imaginatively take upon we work through through these previous four, understanding that this person we imagine someone, beginning with someone that you love, you feel close to. And we begin by understanding that this person wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer.

So we’ve worked this, haven’t we? We’ve done our homework. There’s the equality of self in others. And we say, this person doesn’t want to suffer, just like me. But they’re suffering.

We remember the advantages of other centeredness. You know? How many of our most fulfilled moments in our life experiences come about when we set aside our own preoccupation, when we’re there for somebody else. We remember our meditation on the actual exchange of self for others, where we exchange the cherishing of self for cherishing of others. So we decide.

We imagine we take upon ourselves that person’s suffering. And there’s various visualizations, for example, taking on the form of thick black smoke, and remembering the disadvantage of self centeredness. We visualize our self centeredness in the aspect of it. Like, example, the image that comes up is like a marble, a solid marble egg at our heart, you know, in the center of our chest. This this is what’s caused you all your difficulties, all your frustrations, you know, you’re never, you know, feeling of unloved, loneliness, misery.

This, this, this. And you’re gonna use this person’s suffering. The exact thing it doesn’t want is somebody else’s suffering. It doesn’t even want its own suffering, alone others suffering. You’re going to take other sufferings voluntarily, and you’re going to place it upon your own self centeredness.

You take that other person’s suffering and form this thick black smoke, it comes up through your nostrils and down and begins to eat away at the black egg of self centeredness at your heart, like acid. Again and again taking on to this suffering. It’s a play. You’re doing this in imagination. But that familiarity, just like military exercises, begins to create the context where the the begins to develop in the context where you actually are you aren’t so uptight about getting near people’s suffering.

You know, you’re willing to involve yourself when people are having difficulties. You don’t shy away so much. You don’t get lost in your own self preoccupation when you’re able to remain present when people are suffering about you, when there’s some difficulty, because you worked with this in your laboratory of meditation. Like facing fear. Facing your fear.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So it doesn’t throw you as much. Don’t you don’t yeah.

And then, okay, so then this person is not suffering. You took but they’re not happy. You know they want to be happy. They’re just like you. You know the you thought about the advantages of other-centeredness.

The greatest moments of happiness come about through other-centeredness. So anyway, the upshot is that, say, Well, I’m going to do something. I’m going to help you. The way I’m going to help you in this present moment is by transforming. I’m going to give it all away.

You know, the thing I’ve always helped my whole life has been nothing but a struggle to hold on to my territory, you know, my body, my possessions, you know. All it’s caused me is anxiety and stress. I’m going to give it all away. I’m going give it to you to make you happy. So imagine transforming your body, all your roots of virtue, your positive actions that you’ve created, all your possessions, you know, my laptop, my most prized possession, I’m going to transform it into this brilliant white light, which begins to form at your heart.

Know, accustoming the mind to letting go, giving up. That’s all. Meditation means to familiarize, to accustom. So we’re experimenting. And this white light comes up through the nostrils and as it approaches them, it transforms into whatever counterpart of their previous suffering.

Whatever it was, maybe they had some sickness, a healthy body. Maybe they were lonely, a loving partner. Maybe they were going through a financial crisis. I don’t know how you solved that. Let’s see.

A of money. Whatever. They win a lotto or something like that. Whatever it takes. And you see a smile.

And then you share empathetically with them the joy. I made somebody I love happy. So you positively reinforce this giving. You delight in that. And then you say, Well, okay, after my meditation’s finished, you look around, Well, everybody’s still suffering.

Know, this was just military exercise. You know, the war really hasn’t I really haven’t engaged in earnest. And I’ve got to do something, in fact, to make things different. I’ve got to become a Buddha. But this all leads to that for the sake of all sentient beings.

So that’s the two meditative traditions for developing an awakened heart. Then we go on to develop an awakened mind. Awakening your heart is not enough. We can have the best of intentions, and those are tremendously powerful and valuable, they aren’t really going to solve the problems. You need wisdom.

Otherwise we’re much like the blind leading the blind, aren’t we? Even with the best of intentions. Like two people standing in quicksand trying to help each other out. The more they struggle, the faster each of them sinks. Mean, love is, you know, there’s no question it’s something very valuable in and of itself, but it is not sufficient to get what it is that we want.

You need wisdom. And here we’re talking about the wisdom, understanding, emptiness, the awakened mind. And that’s the aspect that we just finished. And we’re finished with the three principal aspects. So thank you very much.

You. Okay, We created a lot of positive energy together. I’m sorry I kept you so late. I apologize. So over, you know, over these numbers of years and even this evening, we’ve had some we’ve had a good hearted intention in doing what we’ve done.

And we’ve created some positive energy and we can give that some kind of direction. You know, we can dedicate it for a chocolate cake if we like, if that’s the kind of positive result you want in the future. Okay. That’s okay. But maybe we can have a greater vision of where we would like that energy to go.

That’s up to you. Part of that vision is in terms of set out by Śāntideva in his dedication prayer. Male 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 creature suffer, commit evil, or fall ill. May no one be afraid or belittled with a mind, be weighed down by depression.

May the blind see forms and the deaf hear sounds. May those whose bodies are worn with toil be restored on finding repose. May the naked find clothing, the hungry find food. May the thirsty find water and delicious drink. May the poor find wealth, those weak with sorrow find joy.

May the forlorn find hope, constant happiness and prosperity. May there be timely rains and prosperity. May there be timely rains and bountiful harvests, the 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 powers 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, remain until the end of cyclic existence. Thank you. I think we’re going to have a cup of tea and a piece of cake. If you’d like to go out and get a cup of tea and bring it back.

Otherwise, thank you very much for your kindness and listening to my confusion over all these years.