Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The analogy that opens this 44.5-minute talk is striking: being angry at someone for harming you is like being angry at space for letting smoke arise within it — the person no more chose their anger than space chooses its contents. Ven Jampa Gendun works through Śāntideva’s reasoning step by step, extending the familiar stick analogy: we refuse to blame the stick because it acts under the hand’s control; by the same logic, the person acts under anger’s control, so it is anger itself — not the person — that deserves our attention. He grounds this in an extended discussion of karma, drawing on Dalai Lama quotes to show how motivation, action, and result function as natural law rather than theological imposition. Along the way he introduces a meditation approach for dissolving pain into bare sensation, and makes a recurring practical point: tolerance is not passive submission, and decisive action against harm remains appropriate — what is rejected is anger as a motivation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 22 Tce 1991 04 17.mp3
UUID: 6f6c88af-9389-4843-b6a1-a91a197f5f77
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Tolerance (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1991-04-17
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.5 minutes
Words: ~5,481
To become angry at an individual because within their mind a specific pattern of desire to harm has arisen would be the same as getting angry at space because it has allowed smoke to arise within it. Now this is mind, and various causes and conditions aggregate circumstances. In his mind, a pattern of desire to harm arises. A reactive pattern. There’s space.
Certain causes and conditions aggregate. Within this space, smoke arises. No matter how much that smoke irritates your eyes, which it probably would, it makes no sense to get angry at the space. It makes no sense to get angry at that person because that person did not choose that conditions, those circumstances aggregate causes come together and within their mind anger to arise. That space did not make that choice, and now they did the person, their other power, their factors beyond their control.
When specific causes and conditions aggregate, a result arises. This is one of the slogans of Buddhism: Buddha’s dependent arising. in dependence upon this, this arises. When this is present, this this that will arise. When this is not present, that will not arise.
It sounds very simple minded, but it has a very profound and far reaching effect. That permeates all of Buddhism. As long as that person is dominated by that anger, as long as they are controlled by anger. Does that make sense? I do.
They are under the control of that anger. We say they. They are just a mental imputation upon their mind and body. I say I am sitting on the throne. Why?
Because my body is sitting on my throne. Whatever my body is doing, I can say I am doing. Jampa is doing. My mind is happy. Therefore, I can say I am happy.
Whatever my state of mind has arisen, I can say, I am experiencing. That is my state. I am happy. Because happiness exists within my mind. Whatever the state of my body, whatever the state of my mind, I can say, I.
I can because I’m imputed on the basis of my body and mind. That’s all. There’s no I which is controlling the show. There’s no agent behind it all. There are simply states of mind, states of physical being arising.
in dependence upon that, I impute I, I designate I. If there’s anger in the mind, I am angry. I am in an I we can make the statement, I am under the control of anger. I and anger, same thing. The state of the I is anger.
How can the I, which is merely imputed to the aggregates, control that anger? When the cause and the condition are such, anger arises. Whatever that state of mind is, that person is experiencing that state. We can say that person is angry. It’s not as if that I, that self, who we had any control, any choice, any volition.
It’s not as if they’re independent of that anger, autonomous, freely choosing whether to become angry or not. There’s no there was no I bef there was no You know, we all are conditioned. And just as when we I mentioned this use this analogy of post-hypnotics. Under post-hypnotics, is when we make a post-hypnotic suggestion. And then, when we react as if we were in a trance.
When specific cues are met with, when someone or something pushes our button, when a pattern is re stimulated, is reactivated by a specific objective condition, a state arises, An action ensues. Just like the example last week of a man stamping his foot in response to a post-hypnotic suggestion and the snapping of the fingers. So go on with Śāntideva’s text. Śāntideva is continuing this analysis of situations in terms of other powerness, in terms of control, in terms of conditioning. He goes on to say in his text, Completely ignoring the stick, Instead, I get angry with the person who wields it.
But since he, in turn, is provoked by hatred, I should really be angry with that hatred. Suppose someone picks up a stick and commences to beat you. Know, shouldn’t we get angry at that person? It’s quite justified to get angry at that person. And some other time somebody who’s been studying dharma, a clever fellow comes along and says, No, no, no, no.
Don’t get angry at him. Get angry with a stick. After all, the stick is what is the immediate cause of your pain. So it’s the stick that’s causing you the pain, isn’t it? That’s what’s hitting you on the head.
Why get angry at the person, get angry at the stick? It’s the immediate cause of the pain. And we would, you know, we would probably answer, the stick didn’t hurt me on purpose. It didn’t hurt me by its own choice. It didn’t hurt me under its own power.
Without the, you know, without the man who wielded the stick, it had no power to harm me at all. It’s the man who is in control of the stick. And therefore, as the man, I should get angry at because he is in control of the stick. Sounds sensible? Okay.
If this way of viewing the situation stops one from getting angry at the stick, then we should extend that same way of thinking to the man as well. So we don’t get angry at the stick because we say the stick is not hitting me under its own power, it’s under the control of the man, And therefore, I’m not going get angry at the stick, I’m going to get angry at the controller, that’s the man. The man is also being manipulated by the power of his desire to harm. And exactly the same way the stick is being manipulated by the power of the hand of the man. They’re both being controlled by other factors than themselves.
And just as the stick is under the control of the man, the man is under the control of his anger. And if we’re not going to get angry at the stick for being under the control of something else, then why get angry at the man? Because he too is under control of something else, the anger which has arisen in his mind. So it becomes inappropriate. Just as it’s inappropriate to get angry at the stick, it becomes inappropriate to get angry at the man by the same logic because they are both being controlled by something other than themselves.
You know, if we’re going to get angry at anything, we should get angry at anger, which is the root source of our pain. Anger in the man’s mind which is directing the harmful intention, which is directing the man, which is directing his hand, which is directing the stick, which is causing his pain. So, you know, a person is not their pattern. We can accept the person and reject their patterns. But we oftentimes get the two very much confused.
The person and their patterns, the person and their various states of mind. In the course of our discussion of tolerance, it has to be kept in mind that we aren’t suggesting that you passively, passively let yourself be beaten. That you have no right to defend yourself. To prevent yourself from being harmed. You know sometimes it’s necessary to oppose what another person may do.
It may be necessary to act in a very decisive manner, you know, to cut through people’s mistaken and erratic ways of thinking, ways of acting. But what is being suggested is that anger is self destructive. It’s a self destructive reaction to harm and it is un skillful and inappropriate as a motivation to solve the problem, as a motivation to respond to difficult situations. You know, tolerance on the other hand is a constructive state, affords us the opportunity to think well, to think clearly, to act skillfully in resolving this situation. This is more appropriate, more skillful, more effective, more constructive way of coping with problematic situations as opposed to the destructive, ineffective, inappropriate quality of anger.
So it’s just there’s no suggestion that we it’s not idiot compassion. It’s not dumb-like patience where you simply hold back your hatred and your anger. You allow yourself to be used, to be manipulated. There’s There’s no spiritual value to allowing yourself to be an object to be used. He said.
So then Śāntideva begins the discussion of the third area of concern of the cultivation of the tolerance of non retaliation, contemplating one’s own faults. Contemplating one’s own thoughts. And it begins with, Previously I too must have caused similar harm to someone else. Hence it is right that I who have injured others should be hurt in return. Previously I hurt others, therefore it’s quite right that I be harmed in return.
You know, to make use of this method of non retaliation requires a strong conviction in the law of cause and effect and in the law of karma. That the law of action and reaction. And this karma is a very you know, karma simply means action. It is a very deep and complicated subject. There’s many different levels that I think it takes time to build up a sense of karma.
Many different levels that we can begin to look at it on. One beginning level, one way to begin to look at it, I am quoting from the Dalai Lama. For instance, if I have an angry feeling, this would serve as a motivating force that would lead to harsh attitude, harsh speech and harsh physical gestures. Since the anger that serves as the motivating factor is a defilement or afflictive emotion, the physical and verbal actions done through the motivating force are negative karma, negative actions. Through them the atmosphere immediately changes into one of tension.
Right away, I might not feel the effects of those actions, perhaps even feeling that I have gained a victory over someone, even shouting, I have won. However, later, I will feel very sorry and ashamed, deep down experiencing a guilty conscience. Similarly, those around me will immediately lose their tranquility and peace. These are painful results of actions impelled by bad motivation. This is the law of karma: motivation, action, result.
Conversely, a good, open, sincere motivation such as compassion with a deep respect for others impels verbal and physical actions that immediately create a peaceful, harmonious, enjoyable atmosphere. Due to that, I feel happy and calm, enjoying that atmosphere. And others around me also enjoy the same. Therefore, bad motivation creates problems, suffering, and pain, Whereas good motivation creates happiness and peacefulness, something good. This is the general explanation.
On a deeper level, right at the time of an action, predisposing potencies are instilled in the consciousness. The performance of an action establishes a predisposing potency in the mind that in the future will serve as a causal condition for one’s experiencing a good or a bad effect. You know, beginning on that sense of, on the level of simply creating an environment of hostility, creating an environment in which there is a sense of tension, There is an inability for the minds in such an environment to experience peace. There is no joy within those motivated by anger and it’s difficult for anyone in that environment to experience a sense of joy, of well-being. This arising out of a negative motivation.
And It was quite a long There’s another quote by the Dalai Lama where he begins to talk about Someone asked him the question, How do we gain a conviction in karma? Does it function only if we believe in it? Perhaps I’ll paraphrase it or just skip over parts of it. His Holiness’s answer to this question about gaining conviction in karma. I think that there are two ways.
First, Buddhists don’t accept a creator. If you accept a creator as fully compassionate, all knowing and omniscient and omnipotent, then that creator is ultimate reality, ultimate truth. A creator is something independent. From the Buddhist viewpoint, this presents some logical contradictions. So a creator isn’t easy to accept.
There is no almighty creator. At the same time we have to accept that things are changing all the time, so we have to find out the causes and conditions for that. From that perspective comes the discussion of karma. This is one way I think. Another way is this: even our food, clothes, shelter and daily life experiences depend upon causes and conditions, mainly the actions of sentient beings, those who have mind and experience.
Their daily experiences happen due to their own actions, which they did with certain motivations. Due to the various motivations, different actions come and bring their results. That’s our daily experience. The events of tomorrow depend a great deal on today’s actions. In other words, some of today’s actions may produce results immediately.
Some actions will bring their results after ten days, or one hundred days, or one thousand days. This is the usual way things function. karma means action. For example, due to my verbal, physical, and mental actions during the audience, through all three, certain results immediately come. Also, due to today’s actions, some results may develop after some time, in some cases after a few years.
That’s the way, that’s the law of karma of action. Since Buddhists accept the continuity of mind, we believe in many lives, infinite lives. Therefore, some results from today’s actions may happen after ten thousand years or one hundred thousand years in different lives. This level of karma is one presentation we can talk about and think about. On another, more complicated or deeper level, we have to accept universal natural laws.
Take these plants for example. Of course, due to certain causes and conditions they arose. The plants themselves do not have consciousness. We do not believe that they are sentient beings. However, that plant happened due to karma, due to action.
karma is created by someone who has motivation, who has experience, and who acts. The seed grew into the plant, but I don’t think there is any karmic connection between the seed and the plant. At the same time, we have to accept that the whole universe arose due to sentient beings’ karma. Therefore, the whole universe or planet happened because there are sentient beings who will utilize that planet. Take the example of a building.
There are human beings who will use that construction. That person planned and began to build it. At that time the person who planned or constructed that building didn’t necessarily live there, but because of that person the construction happened. Similarly, when the planet formed there were no sentient beings on it, but there were definitely sentient beings who would take birth on that particular planet. Due to their karma that planet happened, this is our belief.
From the Buddhist point of view, karma is a natural process. It doesn’t depend upon whether or not one believes in it. Whether one accepts this natural process or not, it is there. You know, all things whatsoever are dependent upon causes and conditions. They do not arise from no cause nor do they arise haphazardly, but in dependence upon very specific variables.
Our happiness, our suffering, all our various experiences are things. They are mental events. They arise dependent upon causes and conditions. They do not arise from no cause nor do they arise haphazardly, but on the contrary, in dependence upon discernible specific variables. The main cause of all our various experiences our mental states, are our various types of beliefs, our assumptions, our ideas, our premises, all the various conditioning factors which make us who we are.
The sum total of all the influences which have conditioned our present state of mind, which are conditioning our present state of mind. Everything is a dependent arising. Everything is conditioned. It is continually being conditioned. It exists in interdependence.
Nothing is self powered existing within itself under its own control. All our various experiences are dependent upon the summation of all of our beliefs, ideas, our evolutionary history which have influenced us to the extent that they are presently conditioning our mind. There are various constructive and destructive factors which are presently conditioning our mind and therefore creating the type of experience which we now undergo, the type of reality which we can see, the various feelings which arise, all the various reactive patterns which are activated. All these various processes, these structures are all arising out of the conditioning factors within our mind. The summation of all these factors, everything that we are, constitutes, determines what we presently experience.
Other people and other things. So this is the main cause of all our experiences. The point is that all of these conditioning factors within our own mind are the main cause of what we do and do not experience, the nature of our reality. Other people and other things are the cooperative condition. Everything, all products require two types of causes.
One is the substantial cause and the other is a cooperative condition or cooperative cause. Nothing arises without the combination of these two types of causes. If we take a simple example like a flower, the substantial cause of a flower is the seed. The cooperative condition is the earth, the water, air, sunshine. Without these two aggregating, coming together, no plant arises.
Everything whatsoever requires these two types of causes, substantial cause and cooperative conditioning or cooperative cause. When the conditioning factors which are the substantial cause within the mind come in contact with cooperative conditions, for example a person, an object, then experience arises. A state of mind, a feeling. A feeling for example of pleasure, pain, neutral feeling. The very fact the very fact that we conceive of someone as harming us is a product of these conditioning factors within our mind.
The way that we are organizing the data, the constructs that we are continually creating out of trying to make sense out of our world. The very fact that we conceive of this person is not that this person is inherently harming us. There’s no such thing as an inherent harmer. There’s no such thing as an inherent enemy. It is simply a view which is relative.
Relative and it arises in dependence upon the conditioning factors within our own mind. How we are trying to make sense of this chaos of sense data which is constantly pouring in upon our minds. We try to create a situational patterning, trying to make sense. Use templates. We use our beliefs, our ideas.
We give significance to certain types of data and out of this we view, we make constructs in certain ways. This person is threatening, is harming. Out of that we react with anger. The very fact that this person appears to us to be harming is a product of our conditioning. To a Buddha, the Buddha has no enemies.
Doesn’t have that particular type of view, that conditioning factor whereby he can conceive of anybody. That’s not part of his reality. Our habitual reactive patterning by means of which we try to make sense out of our world. And this is what we’re working with, our habitual way of patterning the world, our reactive patterns. So all of these various constructs that we create which make up our world and the way we experience the world arise in dependence upon conditioning factors within our own mind.
This is a natural process. If we can see that the harm brought to us by others has a natural outcome of having harmed others in the past, why if we don’t go beneath a superficial level, the very fact that this person is seen as harming me and what they’re doing is interfering with my happiness, frustrating my desires, is not inherent in that situation. It is simply a particular perspective that we’ve taken, a particular significance and meaning that we have given to this particular situation. It’s not inherent in that situation. We can see that what we mean by karma here is the habitual way of constructing a particular set of sense data, particular way of making sense of this particular type of situation.
This is our karma. Our karma is these compulsive reactive patterns, the way we continually consistently view a particular situation. It is a compulsive pattern, a consistent way of organizing a situation. This is our karma operating. That this person is my enemy, that this person is harming, that this experience is painful is due to my karma because it’s the way I’m constructing that particular reality, my habitual way of organizing the situation.
I can change that karma. The same exact situation can happen, and I can see this person as my best friend, being kind to me, my spiritual teacher. You know, a person who cultivates the karma of seeing all sentient beings as one’s mother, having raised you in kindness again and again, everyone they see, everyone they meet, they like. They view it as a sense of relatedness. They immediately a sense of joy.
This is their karma. They have cultivated this way of viewing. This is their karma that they have developed. And this, I think, is one significance that we can make use of karma here. In this world, hate never yet dispelled hate.
Only love dispels hate. This is the law, ancient and inexhaustible. It’s not as if you know, we have to work within certain, within the natural processes. We call them laws, ways of seeing the way things relate with one another because in a consistent fashion. It’s not as if Buddhism is somehow imposing a fabrication upon natural upon what is out there.
It is trying to describe as best it can, and one of these descriptions of these natural processes is called karma, the law of cause and effect. If we throw a brick up in the air and we don’t move, we cannot be surprised if that brick doesn’t come down and hit us on top of the head. It is obeying a natural law, the law of gravity. No one as if made up that law. But some individual at some point sitting beneath some tree and an apple hit him on the head was able to see, had an insight into a natural process which had been occurring, which had been going on since the beginning of this time, but which simply hadn’t been recognized, hadn’t been given a name, and hadn’t been analyzed.
And the Buddha saw that there was this natural process operating, the way that we are continually recreating our realities, and the way that this way of creating predisposes us to different experiences of suffering and happiness. And he began to say, If this is our situation, then we best operate in harmony with it rather than acting in such a way which could at best only cause us great grief, that things aren’t going the way we want them to, or having a sense of emptiness, a sense of powerlessness over these natural processes. You know, there’s no use in getting angry about the brick which is thrown up in the air and comes back down in your head. The best thing to do is move out of the way or don’t throw bricks. It seems as if this may be a natural process within our particular universe, the way it’s presently constructed, what we call the law of cause and effect.
If you bring the harm to someone else, then eventually that harm is going to come back to you. It’s not just as in the case of the brick being thrown up in the air. It’s not as if it’s a theological argument. It’s not as if it’s some kind of moral necessity. It’s simply a dispassionate operation of natural processes.
Śāntideva goes on. I’ll go on for just a moment. Okay? What are you? I’ll just come on.
It’s but I just will face this argument. Śāntideva goes on. His his weapon and my body this guy has been hit by a stick. Somebody is hitting you with a stick. His weapon and my body are both causes for the pain.
So we are trying to reframe the situation, look at it in new lights, give it new significance, new types of meaning. His weapon and my body are both causes for the pain. He grasps the weapon and I grasp the body. So with whom should I be angry? As we just mentioned, a resultant experience requires both a substantial cause and a cooperative condition.
The main cause of the feeling of pain is one’s past actions. In bringing about the substantial cause of the pain of being hit on the head with that stick is one’s past action. One is conceiving. Before pain, it’s a sensation. One organized sensation as pain.
Certain types of sensations one wishes to be separated from and that we now conceive of as pain. So before conception of pain, it’s mere sensation. We can do this in meditation if you are willing to. If you have pain in your knee, for example, and it hurts, there’s simply a vagueness, a vague area of pain. But if you’re willing to penetrate with your awareness, you will come down to a level of pure sensation.
The pain will dissolve. Generally, it is the moving away, the avoidance, which is concomitant with the experience of pain. If we’re willing to go in and approach, if you’re able to maintain that level of awareness without being overcome by this habitual reactive pattern to move away from what is conceived of as painful. And you simply come to sensation, bare sensation. Before pain, is only sensation.
So the fact that we experience this sensation of being hit on the head with a stick as pain is you are karmically predisposed to the way that you’re going to set up that sensation. You’re going to conceive it as pain. You’re karmically predisposed to react in that manner. That’s your karma. But this experience requires, as we just said, this is a substantial cause of the pain, but it requires a variety of cooperative conditions.
In this situation, one of the cooperative conditions is the stick which was grasped by the person, but also the this body which was grasped by you. If there was no stick which was grasped by the person, this experience would not arise. If there was no body grasped by you, this experience would not arise. So both you get angry at him for grasping the stick, but then why don’t you get angry at yourself for grasping your body? That’s the point that’s being made here.
They’re both cooperative conditions for this experience of pain to arise. If neither one of them were present, the experience would not arise. We wouldn’t have the necessary cooperative condition and there would be no pain. But you would simply get angry at him for grasping the stick, you don’t get angry at yourself for taking on such a type of embodiment. It goes on.
Blinded by craving, it is I who have acquired this painful human form, which, like a sore, cannot bear to be touched. Towards whom should I be angry when it is hurt? So the type of embodiment that we now possess is an appropriate expression of our past actions motivated by ignorance. You did not choose this body. You were forced to assume this body under the influence of karma and afflictive emotions.
He picked up the stick. He didn’t choose he was forced to pick up that stick under the influence of karma and afflictive emotions, the afflictive emotion of his own anger, our afflictive emotion of craving. We were forced into this position, as if without choice. No one chooses that this situation arose. Both of you were forced into it.
Each of you are playing out like a part, a role in drama. And you have been given your unknowingly, you’ve memorized your part very well. You know, who is to blame? Who are we to get angry at in such a situation when we’re both being forced into playing our parts without our choice, without any freedom, without any control? Although we childish people do not want to suffer, we are greedy for the causes of suffering.
So why are we resentful to others when this harm is no fault but our own? One of the main characteristics of the childish, the immature, is their utter inability to delay goal gratification. I have a short quote. Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live.
You know, desire and anger are these low level orders of self correction. And they demand one of their qualities is the quality of demanding immediate gratification of whatever it is they’re aiming at, whatever is the object of our desire, whatever is the object of a anger. And the stronger the anger, the stronger the desire, the more impulsive the act to achieve that goal. The more important people lose their head. Yeah?
You know, they and they and they what they say, in the heat of the moment, in the heat of the emotion, people will do anything. They’re completely out of control. We say that. He went berserk. He was completely out of control.
We become such a situation where we’re reduced to like a kicking, screaming child who demands his sweet immediately and is furious at anything or anyone who he sees frustrating his desires. He conceives of in that situation, the child conceives of others as actually harming him. They’re preventing him from getting what he wants. And that sense of furiousness, that sense of all that suffering that a child experiences, that the child should experience, is coming from nothing other than factors within their own mind. Nothing outside of their own mind.
That’s quite it’s quite heartrending, I think. There are great miseries in the world, for example, that the Kurds are undergoing, are forced, as it were, to undergo physical difficulties, difficulties, completely out of their control. And how many people are experiencing tremendous pain simply within their own mind? You know what I mean? Simply out of out of control factors within their own mind.
It’s very sad. It’s more than sad. It’s almost painful to see that people living in very materially sufficient conditions. As if it would appear superficial, they have everything that they could want to lead a reasonably comfortable life. Yet the factors within their own mind.
Give them no peace. Make life hell for them. Nothing outside of their own mind quite often, especially for Western, I think. Factors within our own mind creating the causes for one’s own suffering. But we blame other people, like in this childish baby.
So it’s I’m almost finished. Just like the Śāntideva goes on. It’s just like the protectors of hell in the forest of razor sharp leaves. It is the product of our very own actions. To what then should we direct our anger?
You know, of the descriptions of the hell realms, some of the trees have very nice fruit up there, and people climb the tree, get up there. And then the bark becomes razor sharp, sticking upwards, and you can’t get down. There are razor sharp leaves and there are these forests, and it’s a pretty nasty place. To what then should we direct our anger? So the translator of this text that we’re looking at in his preface, He says that the author uses the concept of hell must likewise be seen in the light of conditionality and emptiness.
For no matter how real a hellish state may seem to those undergoing it, it comes into being solely on account of self destructive elements within one’s own psyche. In the fifth chapter of his book, Śāntideva asks, Who intentionally forged the weapons in hell? Who constructed the burning iron floors? The Buddha taught that all such things arise from an evil mind. Śāntideva is not saying that hell is simply a hallucination which can be dismissed as not really existing.
Hell is just as real or just as illusory as our present human realm that we are experiencing right now. But just as all the various experiences of hell arise dependent upon destructive factors within our own mind, all of our experiences.