Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. When someone gets angry at you, Śāntideva asks, haven’t you provoked their anger — and aren’t you therefore responsible for the negative karma they’re accumulating on your behalf? In this 45-minute commentary, Ven Jampa Gendun develops this counterintuitive karmic reframing as the centerpiece of Śāntideva’s third area of tolerance: refraining from retaliation. He first recaps the earlier two areas — enduring difficulty with equanimity, and replacing unskillful reactions like hatred with more skillful dharma — then moves verse by verse through Śāntideva’s debate format, systematically dismantling justifications for anger: harm to the body, damaged reputation, threatened livelihood. A Gandhi-and-cobra story illustrates the stakes. The session closes with Q&A on distinguishing distress from anger and whether tolerance rules out self-defense.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 24 Tce 1991 04 24.mp3
UUID: 8f3e4f65-1fc4-42f6-8e36-8f5b41a69c79
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Tolerance (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1991-04-24
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.0 minutes
Words: ~5,310
Accepting our humanity with all its its fears, with all its fragility is the way we can begin to break out of our self consuming agony of a hell being, this projected self destructive factors within our own mind, this approach of the hell being. And we we can begin to have mercy on upon ourselves. We can cease doing violence to ourselves. You know, accepting our fears, our flaws, our fragility. We can begin to we can cease this violence and we become gentle with ourselves.
We can begin to practice patience with ourselves. You know, ultimately, we cannot avoid accepting ourselves. You know, we are like us we are our own truth. Self expression is hindered whenever there is a slackening in paying off our debt to one’s inner truth. Ugliness appears.
There is joylessness. But the soul’s manifestation is joyful. That is why it can accept sorrow. It can accept death. When through fear or diffidence or idleness, one avoids sorrowful, the sorrowful path, one deprives one of self, oneself of joy.
So to be a human being is to suffer. If, you know, if we avoid sorrows, the sorrows of being human, we were I’m still going to suffer. But that suffering is never going to end. If we accept legitimate suffering, then that suffering can lead us out of suffering. And in doing so, know, if we don’t accept the suffering, then we’re going to deprive ourselves of the opportunity of being fully human, of the possibilities of growth, you know, the joy of of well-being.
You know, in a way we’re all we’re all doing the best we can if you consider our conditioning. So though we can begin to again and again set our direction and create the causes for change, but for the moment we have to accept, Be patient with ourselves and be gentle with ourselves, knowing that we’re can change. Though now it might be raining, the next moment the sun may be shining. And even the rain is quite necessary in order for the, you know, along the path, these little flowers. And know, how can we hope for flowers without rain?
You know, how can we hope for well-being without difficulty? So talking about Śāntideva. Śāntideva in presenting the his discussion of tolerance and the way of cultivating it outlines three areas of concern in the development of tolerance. And we’ve discussed these first two and we’re discussing the third. The first is very much of what I have just been discussing.
The first area of concern of tolerance and the development of tolerance is learning to endure difficulties and suffering with a sense of satisfaction and acceptance. Yeah? And we don’t get distressed and we don’t get angry either at ourselves or others. The second area of concern is consistently viewing problematic situations from a higher order of self-correction. That is the dharma.
The dharma is the mind is trying to the mind is in pain. The mind is disturbed and it’s trying to eliminate the disturbance from the mind. It uses various mechanisms, various techniques, some of which are highly unskillful, but still it’s the best thing it knows. Hatred, attachment are coping mechanisms of mind in order to deal with pain it’s experiencing. The second area of developing tolerance concerns itself with beginning to see that these are unskillful coping mechanisms and beginning to use more skillful, higher orders of self correction which we call dharma.
More skillful techniques, more beginning to avail ourselves of our basic sanity, our wisdom. Hatred in a way is an expression of wisdom, expression of sanity. It’s an expression of the mind trying to heal itself, trying to remove the suffering from itself. It’s not the full expression of the full potential of a coping mechanism, of the ability of the mind. That’s all.
If it didn’t have this ability, it would destroy itself. It would you know, if if if if an organism doesn’t have the ability to heal itself, it will die. It will destroy itself. It will be destroyed. And somehow it’s able it’s been able to cope but not very well.
So we’re trying to cope a little bit better, learn more skillful ways of mind in order to heal ourselves, to deal with problems, to deal with suffering and pain. The third area. So the second area, try to always look to a more skillful, a higher order of self correction than the one we’ve been working on at present, dealing the way we deal with problematic situations. And the third is refraining from retaliation. And this we cultivate in three different ways.
First, reflecting upon the with the intention upon the methods of developing compassion. Using the object, the distressed the object which would normally bring us distressed as a means to develop compassion, even ourselves. Having compassion for oneself, for example, rather than becoming distressed with oneself and getting angry at oneself. The second method is overcoming the causes of anger. And the third is the one that we’re going to continue tonight if I get to it.
When undesirable situations arise, contemplating our own faults. Contemplating our own faults. So we’re going to I’m gonna quote from the actual text by Śāntideva. I’m going to go through a number of verses and explain each one of them briefly. So quoting from Śāntideva.
Incited by our own deeds, people come to cause us harm. But if as a result they should fall into hell, would we not be responsible for their destruction? in dependence upon them, we can cultivate tolerance and thus purify our evils. Yet in dependence upon us, they will suffer in hell for a very long time. When it is we who cause harm to them and they who benefit us, why deluded mind do you turn everything around and become incensed with anger?
So here, Śāntideva is trying to reframe the situation in terms of who is harming You know, when you get when you get when somebody gets angry at you, you know, you provoke their anger. Okay? This is a different way of looking at the same situation. It may sound very foreign, but it’s a possibility, a way of reframing, relooking a different viewpoint at the same situation as before. Someone gets angry at you, and you provoked their anger.
If you hadn’t been there, this person wouldn’t have gotten angry. The harm that we experience is and we’ve discussed this is a result of our karma, the law of action and reaction, that we’ve created a negative action in the past. And as a result of that, we are now being harmed by this person. So the harm that we are experiencing, we have created that main cause ourselves. Now if if if we can learn to endure that difficulty with a sense of acceptance and satisfaction, then this situation can become a source of personal strength, a source of growth.
So Śāntideva is saying, okay. But that person is becoming angry at me. Actually, that person if I wasn’t there, that person wouldn’t become angry and therefore wouldn’t be creating a great deal of negative karma, wouldn’t be involved in a great deal of destructive actions. Out of that destructive action they’re creating, they’re going to have to suffer in the future as a product of that negative action. So in one sense, this person is benefiting me.
You know? That they’re helping they’re helping me to practice, to develop personal strength. They’re helping me to grow, to cultivate tolerance, to work out my negative karma which I created in the past. Here, they’re really doing all these wonderful things for me, and I’m only causing them harm. They’re going to suffer because of what I’m what benefit I’m getting.
Now who’s really hurting hurting who? Here I am getting all this great benefit, and this person is getting all the harm. And yet I get angry at this person. That’s not fair. How can I do that?
You know, once Mahatma Gandhi in his autobiography, he was sitting in a room with a number of other people, and a cobra slid across his lap. And no one moved in the room because, you know, they were they were afraid if someone moved, the cobra might bite Gandhi. And slowly, the cobra just kinda slithered away and went out of the room. Everyone everyone jumped, what were you thinking of? You know, why that cobra was slivering over you?
What was going through your mind? And Gandhi said, I was praying that that cobra would not bite me. Why? Because I knew if it bit me, you’d probably kill it, and I didn’t want to be the cause of its dying. Śāntideva goes on.
If we respond with the nobility of heart, we will not proceed to hell. But although we will thus be protecting ourselves, what will become of them? So here, there is somewhat a discussion of karma, actions and results. Because we are the object of another person’s anger, and this person has gotten angry with us, we are the object of their anger, Aren’t we creating a negative action? You know, they’re creating a great deal of negativity by becoming angry at us.
Well, if we’re the object of their anger, aren’t we involved in the negativity? Aren’t we supporting the negativity? Aren’t we creating negative karma ourselves? But Śāntideva goes on. You know, he asks questions and then answers his own questions.
We had no intention of harming this person, That we, in fact, are trying to practice tolerance, is a very positive state of mind. So there’s no negativity with respect to us. Well, if but on the other hand, this person is benefiting us a great deal, helping us to practice tolerance, helping us to work out our negative karma from the past, helping us develop personal strength, helping us to grow. Well then, isn’t their becoming angry is benefiting us? And therefore, aren’t they creating kind of positive karma, positive action by getting angry, helping us in this way?
This, again, Śāntideva goes on to answer, is not true because, in fact, they have a harmful intention. And it’s the intention which determines the quality of the action. And therefore, though they may they have no intention to benefit us, so it’s only from our side that benefit is being developed and not from their side. Śāntideva goes on, And if we return the harm, that will not protect them either. It will only damage the integrity of our conduct and therefore destroy practice.
So, you know, there is a question. This is like a debate beginning to develop between Śāntideva and some imagined adversary. And since, wow, this is a really great practice. This person gets angry at me and I get to practice in all these different ways. I get to develop this personal strength, work out my negative karma, cultivate tolerance, develop myself, grow.
Well, why shouldn’t I return the favor to this person? Why not get angry at them and let them practice tolerance? You know, work out their negative karma. So this this is what the argument is essentially saying. But this doesn’t work either.
Because if you were to do that, then your then your love your your would if you were to actually become angry, I mean, actually develop anger, then your your love would be weakened, your your tolerance would lessen. And there’s no guarantee that this person is going to practice tolerance towards you. As a matter of fact, they’re probably more than likely simply going to get more angry at you. So it was a nice try, though. Then Śāntideva goes on.
The mind is not physical, hence no one can destroy it. But since it is strongly attached to the body, the body can be inflicted with pain. Now if disrespect, insults and bad tidings do not hurt my body, why mind do you get angry? So this adversary that Śāntideva is arguing with, he argues that is good he is trying to prove that there are some good reasons to get angry, that you can justify certain types of anger. And so he is presenting these different possibilities, these different cases, hypothetical situations.
So it’s justified to become angry and retaliate when somebody harms my body. Okay, they can’t hurt my mind. My mind isn’t physical. They can’t destroy it. But they can destroy my body and this is my body.
My mind clings to this body. Therefore, if somebody hurts this body, then it is reasonable for me get angry at them and retaliate. But Śāntideva again refutes this, goes on to answer. You know, if you’re going to reason in that way, then you should be consistent. If you say, okay, it’s why if someone insults you, shows you disrespect, they don’t hurt your body.
You know, someone calls you a bad name, someone calls you stupid, hey, stupid. That doesn’t hurt your body, but still you get angry. And if you’re going to be consistent in saying that they can’t destroy my mind, but they can hurt my body, If that’s justifying anger, then there’s no reason to get angry if they simply say words at you because that doesn’t hurt your body, still you get angry. Śāntideva goes on. Although others may dislike me, their ill will cannot devour me either in this or another life.
So why am I averse to it? So, again, the adversary is arguing. He agrees that disrespect and insults cannot harm the mind directly. You know, someone says, hey, stupid. You’re really ugly.
It doesn’t you know, the the words, the the air the movement of the air molecules, whatever, the words, the sounds, they they can’t harm our mind directly, not as if, you know, someone cuts us. But but it it’s indicative that they don’t like me. They don’t like me, and that’s what hurts me. Not their words, but the feeling they don’t like me. Therefore, I I have a right to get angry at them because they don’t like me.
This is what upsets me. You know, we’re talking about why you become distressed. I’m distressed because this person doesn’t like me, because he said these nasty things about me. Śāntideva goes on to refute this, talking about this. You know, if we just simply extending the above argument to to the present situation that, you know, whether the liking or disliking of others that others may have for us is not under our control.
It’s their likeness or dislikeness has no absolute power over our well-being. Whether someone likes us or dislikes us, can that really harm us? There’s a quote by Carlos Castaneda, Don Juan. Books by Carlos Castaneda. Dan Juan is the Yaqui Indian, a man of knowledge, talking to Carlos Castaneda.
You’re too concerned with liking people or with being liked yourself, he said. A man of knowledge likes, that’s all. He likes whatever or whoever he wants. But he uses his controlled folly to be unconcerned about it. The opposite of what you are doing now.
To like people or to be liked by people is not all one can do as a man. Here being liked or disliked is spoken of in terms of self centeredness, of self centered motivation. In seeking to work with other people, to help other people in the sense of other concern motivation, other centered motivation, it’s highly effective to be liked in your ability to your potential to help others. So simply so it’s being liked is quite helpful. But simply from our own self centered motivation, Being liked, they are more it can’t harm us or help us.
Śāntideva goes on, perhaps I do not want it because it will interfere with my prosperity, but I will have to learn, leave my wealth behind. Only my evils will stubbornly remain. So it would be better for me to die today instead of living out my years in a self destructive manner. For even if I should live long, an agonizing death will surely await me. So the adversary goes on.
You know, if others dislike me and I get a bad reputation, then I won’t achieve all the status that I want to achieve. I won’t be able to get all the various good things that I want if others don’t like me, I have a bad reputation. Śāntideva answers this argument by the adversary. You know, your anger and retali somehow the adversary is trying to justify that it’s proper to get angry if someone doesn’t like me, that someone’s putting me down, ruining my reputation because that way I won’t be able to achieve the ends that I want. I won’t be able to achieve the power, the status.
I won’t be able to get to all the things that I want. Therefore, it’s right that I become angry. It’s right that I retaliate against them, that I become hostile, aggressive toward them. Śāntideva answers this. You know, your anger and retaliation will create more obstacles to the achievement of your ends than it will help.
You know, people people who are are tolerant are are usually liked by others. You know, one of the, you know, the the relationship between causes and results, Tolerance in terms of tolerance is a cause to have a beautiful body. Tolerance is the main cause for having a beautiful body. You know, people who get very angry and they get their face gets all twisted up and they get contorted. And the opposite of someone who practices tolerance, where their mind their face remains quite at ease, uncontorted, composed.
So there’s kind of similarity between this cause and the result, that a beautiful body is a result of tolerance. And whether you like it or not, people who are beautiful get more of what they want in life. And that’s the way it is. And the the people are tolerant. People, you know, people are tolerant.
They they people like to work with them. They’re cooperative, and they’ll get more. Tolerant people will get more in the end. Than those who act out of a sense of hostility, aggressiveness. People gladly help them, want to work with them in conjunction with them.
Śāntideva goes on. You know, no matter all of you know, let’s say out of all of this anger, all of this retaliation, aggression, hostility, you get what you want. But still, it’s going to be all we have to left behind when you die. You can’t take any any of it with you. The only thing which is going to accompany you are the the negative karma which you’ve created in the course of getting all that you wanted, you know, through your anger.
There is You know, if I if I were to live my life in a self destructive manner in harming others in order to get what I want, it would be bit much it would be better off. I mean, this is a difficult view Perspective, if I were simply to live a life which is dedicated to my own aggrandizement at the expense of others in the course of gaining what it is and whatever it is I want to lay everyone and everything at the altar of my own ego, if I simply engage in harming others and aggression and hostility, from point of view, you would be better off if you died young. Much better rather than create all of this negativity because everything that you gathered together is going to be left behind. And the only thing you’re going to take with you is all that negativity that you’ve created out of leading such a type of life. Whether you have a long life or a short life, you’re going to have to die.
And if you’re going to lead a self destructive life, it is better that you have a short one. Śāntideva goes on, Imagine that one person wakes up from a dream in which he experienced a hundred years of happiness, and another wakes up from one in which he experienced only a brief moment of happiness. For both of these people, their happiness will never return. Likewise, at the moment of death, it is just the same for one who has a long life and one who dies young. Although you may acquire a great deal of wealth and enjoy it for a long time, finally you must go forth destitute and empty handed as though you have been robbed of everything by a thief.
You know, whether whether our lives are a hundred years of happiness or but a moment of happiness at the time of our death is is just a memory. That happiness will never return. And all that we have gathered together with all our great efforts is all going to have to be left behind. But the actions that we’ve created during the course of our life are imprinted on our minds for eternity. This is what is going to carry on, the way in which we have conducted our life.
You know, things will come to, and we have a sense that things will not come to us. A sense of insufficiency is as if we have to go out there and drag them back into our territory. That we have to do violence to others, aggression upon others in order to get what we want. There’s a feeling there’s a there’s a lack of feeling that a feeling that of the benevolence of the universe, that things will take care of us, that we have if we have created the causes, then we need not to worry about the effects, things that then nothing more needs to be added. And this idea of accepting and creating causes and direction and then allowing this process to unfold in its own natural way, it doesn’t require our intervention, our supervision.
Śāntideva goes on. It could be argued that were one’s life prosperous, one would be able to eradicate evil and accumulate goodness. But would not goodness be erased and evil increase if one aggressively had to pursue prosperity? What would be the value of such an evil existence if thereby one only succeeded in destroying that for which that for whose purpose one lived? So now the adversary is arguing that as a means to justify anger, that he’s saying that the means justify the end.
I want to lead a religious life. I want to lead whatever. And I need leisure. I need material supports in order to be able to to carry on such a type of practice, a way of life. Therefore, you know you know, I need I need all the prosperities of life in order to to gain what I want.
So, you know, Śāntideva points out that, you know, this process of achieving a prosperous life. You know, I don’t know. Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist who died in, I think, about nineteen seventy one. He set up a pyramid of hierarchy of needs. And on this basis, the lower level needs have to be fulfilled before we can work on the higher levels of needs.
And down here are all the physical necessities, food, clothing, shelter. Then there’s social necessities and psychological necessities. Up here at the peak, this pyramid is spiritual actualization, self actualization. And without all these more fundamental needs being met, we cannot we don’t have the leisure. We don’t have the opportunity.
We the potential to be able to operate and to fulfill these more higher types of needs. So it sounds legitimate. I have to have all the good things of life in order if I am going to develop myself to grow. Śāntideva points out that in the process of achieving all these necessities of life, this prosperity which this person thinks in order to support this process of developing oneself, if one did so aggressive, in an aggressive manner, you know, causing harm to others along the way, then this would be a self defeating way of acting. Though you be able to deceive yourself in rationalizing that what you are doing was right, that somehow the means justify the end.
In fact, you would not be benefiting yourself nor others. And in fact, you would probably be doing the exact opposite. We can’t that’s why there’s never been a holy war committed in the name of Buddhism. We simply cannot you can’t harm others as a means to spiritual ends. It’s self defeating.
So likewise, even though you may have great spiritual aspirations, want to develop yourself. If in the process of gaining the necessary physical basis, you do it by wrong livelihood, you do it harming others, by aggression, by hostility. Then you’re only defeating your own purpose, working against yourself. You know, by this is kind of a indirect. This occurred to me while I was thinking about this.
Once living in India, I visited a couple, a western couple, and I went in their their little flat and the the woman was she was crying. I said, what’s wrong? And she said, oh, boyfriend got upset with me because he said I was disturbing his meditation. And the irony of it was he was meditating on love and compassion. It’s like, I should tell you this.
This is what remember Jay keeps telling me to tell you. There’s a it was a it’s a it’s a Tibetan story. There’s there’s a man walking through a small village in Tibet, and he’s carrying a big trunk load of tea on his back. And he’s yelling out as he walks. He says, I will give this trunk load of tea to anyone who’s practicing tolerance.
Anyone who’s cultivating tolerance, I will give this trunk load of tea. And the crowds are beginning to gather, and and no one says anything. Finally, one man says, I’m I’m give it to me. It’s mine. I’m practicing tolerance.
Is it your practicing tolerance? Well, then eat shit. And the guy, what do you what do you mean by that? And he goes, you are practicing tolerance. That’s what somebody told me.
It’s not my fault. And it’s like, you know, a couple went during this the Gulf War, these violent peace demonstrations. That doesn’t make sense. Anyway. Maybe if you have a few comments, maybe maybe we’ll stop there.
Anybody have a any comments or some ideas you’d like to share? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
You have every right to defend yourself, to guard your possessions. By tolerance we mean that the unskillfulness of getting angry in that situation. You could call the police, fine, but don’t get angry. It’s not necessary or skillful to become angry at the person. You you have every right to defend yourself and defend others and keep your property.
That’s not That would be foolish. Yeah? But the idea is not to become distressed and thereby become angry. That’s all. Get I’m sure you I think it was blah, you said.
Then you won’t get then you won’t get distressed. And I thought, oh, no. Hang on. There’s there are lots of times when you sort of you accept what’s happening, but it’s but it’s really uncomfortable. What what is distress on the anger?
Is distress No. No. I mean I mean accepting it at a at a very deep level. But yeah. Okay.
You know, it’s a heap of shit, and this is rotten and that’s happened and it feels absolutely ghastly. But that’s what that’s what life is. And, you know, sort of keeping on going, but it still strikes me that that’s a distress. You know? It’s like I mean, I don’t know.
Where’s the sweetness and light? So, you know, it’s sort of wandering through and saying, okay. So someone just scratched my Mercedes somewhat without getting distressed about it. I’m I’m just just wondering what is distress is distress specifically getting angry, hating? Mean, those are all Distress is the cause of hate of anger.
On the basis of distress, it’s the main cause of anger. Okay. So tolerance is to remain undistressed. So tolerance is seeing everything through rose colored glasses. No.
I don’t know about rose, but you reframe it in such a such a reframe it in a in a a way which is consistent with the actual facts Yeah. And which does which enables the mind not to be distraught. It’s not you know, you’re not trying to say black is white. That’s stupid. But you’re trying to but in reality, doesn’t have to be viewed in one particular way.
There are many possibilities. And we can reframe a situation which is consistent with the facts in such a way that we remain undistressed. So feeling that stuff might be the pits might not necessarily be what Shantide would call distress. Is distress thought or feeling? Distress.
Feeling. It’s a feeling. Mind is we’re using a non technical sense here. And if we were to become a little more technical, there are within the area of consciousness there are six primary consciousnesses and fifty one secondary ones. And so six eye, ear, nose, tongue, body mental consciousnesses plus fifty one secondaries.
For example, anger, love, spite, jealousy, ignorance, mindfulness, awareness. These are all mental factors. So there’s this group of fifty one plus six. And so many of them are thought consciousnesses, discursive thinking, emotions. Mean, a skillful action.
I well, that would depend. The idea is not to become angry. You know, you want to defend yourself. You don’t want to be hurt. That’s quite legitimate, reasonable.
You might, you know, call I don’t know what the situation is. Run away. That’s good. Yeah. Yeah.
There we go. Talk to talk to personality. Whatever you can do. Was just curious if there was a a level that you should not be tolerant anymore and you should actually be angry back in self defense. That’s what is trying to get across that he he’s going many, as many cases as possible where it’s never skillfulness anger is never skillful.
Skillful. It’s it’s never justified in the in in the normal situations. Anger is is never a skillful way to deal with the situation. It is always destructive. Yeah.
Was it his anger that got him fed or it his screaming? So the baby first gets distressed and then he gets angry. So I don’t know if it was the anger that got him fed or not, but it was the screaming. Someone responded to the screaming. Yeah.
I I often feel that if if anger makes you blind, and then you sort of you lose complete touch with what’s happening, and then you become really dumb, and you don’t make the right decision. And and instead of picking motive because anger is not on. It’s just a matter of being sharp and and direct. And and, I mean, I’m confronting to sometimes my wife’s got terrible anger that she needs to express and but she feels angry at the fact that she’s being angry. So she’s trying to justify her anger and it’s an endless process.
So I end up telling her, it’s fine. Just be angry. But be angry with a lot of, you know, skill and just let it out. And it’s just so gradually, the anger is being forgotten. It’s replaced by tremendous amount of skillfulness to just do the right thing.
And after a while, is just not on anymore and it just disappears.