Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 44-minute talk, Ven Jampa Gendun opens with a story about a child named Tu who refused apple juice because of its pulp, then drank it gladly once it had settled clear — using that image to frame what follows: the mind becoming naturally transparent when left to rest. He leads a structured loving-kindness meditation, expanding the wish for happiness from oneself to a loved one, a neutral person, a difficult person, and eventually all living beings. He then examines the gap between wishing others well and actually having the capacity to help, grounding that reflection in refuge and the aspiration to awaken for others’ benefit. The second half turns to tolerance: distress as the root cause of anger, the value of seeing anger’s destructive effects through personal experience rather than doctrine, and a practical method for reframing difficult situations more skillfully.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 25 Tce 1991 05 01.mp3
UUID: 0c381743-f940-4ce5-93f4-e62091493b45
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Tolerance (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1991-05-01
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.5 minutes
Words: ~3,983
Today three children, two girls and a little boy, came from the village to play with Tenzin. The four of them ran off to play on the hillside behind our house and were gone for about an hour when they returned to ask for something to drink. I took the last bottle of homemade apple juice and gave them each a full glass, serving Tu last. Since her juice was from the bottom of the bottle, it had some pulp in it. When she noticed the particles, she pouted and refused to drink it.
So the four children went back to their games on the hillside, and Tu had not drunk anything. Half an hour later, while I was meditating in my room, I heard her calling. Tu wanted to get herself a glass of cold water, but even on tiptoes she couldn’t reach the faucet. I reminded her of the glass of juice on the table and asked her to drink that first. Turning to look at it, she saw that the pulp had settled and the juice looked clear and delicious.
She went to the table and took the glass with both hands. After drinking half of it, she put it down and asked, Is this a different glass, Uncle Monk? A common term for Vietnamese children to use when addressing an older monk. No, I answered, it’s the same one as before. It sat quietly for a bit and now it’s clear and delicious.
Tu looked at the glass again. It really is good. Was it meditating like you uncle Monk? I laughed and patted her on her head. Let’s say that I imitate the apple juice when I sit.
That is closer to the truth. So if we can just visualize ourselves with a glass of apple juice and just let our ourselves settle and become clear and delicious. So taking a a comfortable, firm posture. And we just have to there’s no pretense, nothing fabricated, simply returning to our natural nature, our own true nature. So just for the next five minutes, there’s no place to go, nothing to do.
Whatever worries or plans that need to be dealt with, they’ll still be there waiting for you. But we’re going to create some space and time for ourselves to give ourselves a chance to become clear, to rest our body and mind. So become first aware of the body, any tensions, any tightness, knots, and direct your awareness to those areas. And consciously begin to soothe those areas with warmth and with relaxation. Feel them softening.
And the tension, the tightness begin to flow out and down into the ground. Actually, feel a sensation of it relaxing, something moving out and down from those areas. And this muscle becomes soft, tightness becomes relaxed, the body becoming comfortable and loose. Then bring your focus of attention gently to the breath. All the various physical sensations associated with the breathing process.
Just the natural easy flow of the breath. Maybe take a few deep sighs and releasing all the tension that you’ve built up over the course of the day. It’s good to rest. Nothing to do. But lay your mind gently upon the breath.
Gently bring your mind back to the breath. Soft body, gentle breath, quiet mind. Gently bring your mind back. We’re going to do a loving kindness meditation together. Begin by thinking of some of your difficulties, some of your problems, and the fact that you want to be happy.
Some of your troubles. Whatever you may have done in the past, the various mistakes you may have created, you can simply regret them and begin again. You can become anything that you want to be. Or however you may conceive of yourself, whatever identity you may hold to, you can change. But for this present moment, we want to make friends with ourselves, all the various parts of ourselves, even perhaps those parts we don’t like very much.
And be gentle with ourselves and wish ourselves well. So direct some kind, caring feelings, thoughts towards yourself. Wish yourself all the good things of life, all the things that you’ve ever wanted, whatever they might be. Treat yourself well. May I be happy.
May I grow. Wish yourself well. Be kind to yourself. And then think of someone of the same sex that you love, that you care a great deal about. And imagine that person in front of you.
If you can’t see them, doesn’t matter. Just imagine that that person is there. And remember all the good times that you’ve shared together, the various kindnesses that this person has shown you. And begin to to radiate out, to direct the feelings of wishing of happiness, of well-being to this person which naturally arise when you think of them in this way. I wish that they might be happy that they not suffer.
Wish them all the good things of life, all that they might desire. Wish them well. Now imagine someone you neither like nor dislike. Someone you have no particular relationship with, a feeling of indifference. Imagine that person in front of you.
And we want to try to go beneath the superficial appearances that we usually judge people by, whether they’re beautiful unattractive, whether they’re male or female, rich or poor, educated, uneducated. And try to see the essence of that person. Try to see that there’s someone there who wants to be happy, who doesn’t want to suffer just like yourself. Exactly the same as yourself. And wish them happiness just as you would for yourself since basically you’re exactly alike.
They want to be happy just as much as you. Wish them that happiness just as you would for yourself. And think of someone who you have some problems with, someone who disturbs your mind, you don’t like. Imagine the person in front of you. This person wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer just like yourself.
And perhaps their method of finding their happiness, solving their problems has come in conflict with your methods. It’s just the conflict of self interest. You’ve hurt others either intentionally or unintentionally in the past to find the happiness that you were looking for. Perhaps this person has done the same to you. So just for the present moment, set aside your hurt, your grudge, your anger, and try to see someone very much like yourself, someone who is doing the best they can to get some happiness out of life, oftentimes being very confused about how to go about it and making many mistakes along the way and wish them happiness just as you wish for yourself.
Forgive them just as you have to forgive yourself and wish them well. Then imagine these four people together, yourself and these three others. And try to see that from the point of view of wanting happiness and not wanting to suffer, there’s no difference. But though they may appear to you very different, you may have different feelings for each one of them. Deep down they’re all exactly alike.
They’re all equal. They all want to be happy. None of them want to suffer. And without any feelings of bias, radiate out the wish of well-being to all four equally. And all the people in this room, people trying to take responsibility for their lives to grow, wish everyone in the room success that they find whatever it is they’re looking for, peace, love, happiness, realization, whatever it might take to make them happy.
Wish that they had this. Radiate our wish of well-being to everyone in the room. And all the people in Fullerton, people watching television, their meals, eating, sleeping, Everything that they do, everything that they say, they say and do because they hope it’s going to bring them happiness. They hope it’s going to solve their problems. Radiate out a wish of well-being to everyone in Adelaide touching all of these various people, whatever they might be doing.
Extending out further, radiating out this wish to all of Adelaide, all the people in their cars and buses, on the streets, and offices and shops and their homes. Extending out further and further, radiating out this wish to all of South Australia, all the people, animals, and insects. Further and further, Alice Springs, Perth, Darwin, Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Hobart, the entire country. New Zealand. The entire southern hemisphere, Engulfing the entire world in your heart, all the people, black, white, red, yellow, all the animals, all the insects, everything that lives on the earth is touched by a wish that they’d be happy, but they not suffer.
And radiating out in all the directions of space. Without any limits, without any limitation. Until finally, without any boundaries, without any center, pervading all of space, may all things be happy. May all things be happy. All things be happy, and we have to look to see as to whether we have the ability to make all things happy.
There’s step from the actual sincere wish that others be happy, that they not suffer, which is called exceptional resolve, or courageous resolve, where one actually takes responsibility to bring this about in fact, to transform what is simply a wish into a reality, into an actuality. And obviously this if we’re going to be realistic about trying to take what is simply a wish to transform it into a reality, we have to examine as to whether we have such a capability. Upon analysis and looking at our our present ability, we find that we presently don’t have the capacity to free one person, even ourselves, from our difficulties, from our problems to find complete happiness, let alone all sentient beings. Though it’s a noble wish, it’s necessary that we try to transform that wish into a reality. And this, therefore, it becomes necessary to develop ourselves, our abilities.
And the way this is brought about is as Khensur Rinpoche talks about in adjusting our motivation in his teachings, that we have to begin to eliminate all our various faults, all our various negative patterns, all our various neuroses, and begin to develop all our excellent qualities. The person who has done that we call a Buddha, a person who has awakened to their potential, who has the veils, the obstructions to their complete perfect development, developing the abilities, the skills, the means whereby to be of optimum benefit. It’s referred to as an optimum mode of being in the sense that one has fulfilled one’s own welfare and one is in the optimum state to be able to benefit others. So it’s the fulfillment of the human potential. And the going for refuge is a realignment of our allegiance to factors of growth which will ultimately lead to that state.
Actively participating in our evolution as opposed to passively allowing the the simple reoccurrence of our egocentric patterns, types of you know, the the types of patterns which are based upon the two basic premises of our existence, our hopes and fears. You know, passively leading our life in accordance with hopes and fears as opposed to choosing actively with full awareness to grow, acting to implement constructive factors within our life, constructive ways of being in our lives. It’s a creative way of being as opposed to a reactive way of being. And then raising the level of our motivation such that there becomes a shift in the sense that this growth is taking the emphasis of concern is for others as opposed to ourselves. And whatever we do within that state motivated out of that intention is going to lead us along the path.
It’s going to be it’s going to help us solve our problems and it enables help us to actualize our ability and actually help us to bring to reality our aspirations to help ourselves and help others. Then we’re really in a really a very real way of solving our problems and not simply complicating our lives by further supporting our ego structures and strengthening them, simply indulging in our neuroses. So this active choice of liberating factors as opposed to the passive allowing our life to be led under the passive influence of hope and fear, the two basic premises of an ego-orientated existence. So in order to do this, we go for refuge to Buddha. That is the actualization of our own potential.
The word Buddha. Buddha means to wake, we wake up. And we this becomes the central focus of our life, growth, that we begin this reorientation process from seeing our happiness with outside ourselves to seeing the happiness within ourselves. This process of the necessity to grow, to develop healthy states of mind, to transform our unskillful attitudes to more skillful productive attitudes. And we do this by means of the dharma, the various techniques, the methods, the truth, the realizations, whatever raises the level of our consciousness.
And this is done within the social context of a spiritual community as a means of support, guidance, encouragement, inspiration, example, teaching. The social atmosphere in which mental health takes place. And then finally the orientation is with emphasis on concern for others, to realize awakening so that you can help others to be awake. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest assembly. From the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving and the other perfections, may I attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings.
I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly. From the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving and the other perfections, may I attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, the highest assembly. When the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving any other perfections, may I attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. We’re looking at distress.
Distress as the main cause for the development of anger. The mind which remains undisturbed, which remains undistressed in normally problematic situations is tolerance. So this tolerance, this undistressed mind arises first, And this is true for working with all whatever afflictive emotions, whatever neurosis that we may have. Beginning to see the disadvantages of these these afflictive emotions, these neuroses. One has to there was always a tendency to maintain the status quo.
There is a sense of inertia that we have to overcome. That things we will keep repeating very much the same patterns as which have proceeded unless we see that it is in our own self best interest and see it very deeply that it’s necessary to change. You know, many many people exist within the same patterns which have been installed during the course of their early life, throughout their entire life. And Buddhism would say that this installation of these various patterns, these modes of reaction in with respect to distress were installed from beginning of this time, have been there in various forms and various strengths from numberless past lives. But even if we look at the course of our present lives, many of our ways of reacting are simply patterns which were installed in our youth.
And they’re quite difficult to first become aware of, and secondly to become to overcome. Mean anger isn’t it’s pretty it may be difficult difficult to see levels of anger. I was it was interesting in one evening in Khensur Rinpoche’s talk. They were talking about anger as to whether it was there might be occasions when it should be developed. And it was interesting that he did suggest that there may be times when we’re not aware of our anger, when it may be of use to promote anger if it’s already there so that one becomes aware of it.
You know, the anger can be at such a subtle level or repressed or suppressed that though the anger is surreptitiously influencing our behavior, but consciously because of our lack of awareness, we aren’t aware of what is the root motivation, what is the factor which is influencing that our behavior at that present time. So there may be times when it might be useful to begin to to promote whatever that factor is, whatever that motivation is. And it it may be, at times, anger so that one can become apparent to one that one is under the influence of anger. This is what is operating in these particular types of situations. When these types of situations occur, some kind of reactive pattern is set up.
And your motivation, even if one is unaware of it, may in fact be anger. So becoming aware. But then and as we’ve discussed and it’s becoming more apparent, and I’m a little bit surprised, but I guess I shouldn’t be. I went to a high school this week and talking to some matric students about anger. And the subject of anger came up.
And during the course of our our discussion, it became apparent that many of them thought anger was quite an appropriate emotion to have as among their repertoire of possible emotions. That it served a useful function. It was part of life. That one if one didn’t have anger, one would be, like, dead. You know?
So why go beyond anger? There’s no necessity, obviously. If you if it’s if it seems desirable, maybe it’s it’s difficult to motivate. So if you know, I don’t think, you know, you don’t have to believe in anything. Buddhism doesn’t ask you to believe in anything.
It doesn’t even ask you to believe in Buddhism. The Buddha wasn’t a Buddhist, so there’s no reason that you have to be. But Buddhism does ask you to experiment. But more than that, to check up, to quit making assumptions, to become aware, you know, to wake up is what a Buddha is. Somebody has to become aware And to see if anger is problematic.
Is in your in your own self best interest or is it actually in your own bringing about your own is it counterproductive in your life? Then then from that, you can you will act out of your wisdom. You won’t have to coerce yourself out of a sense of should. Buddhism says I should not be angry. My mommy said I shouldn’t be angry.
Whatever. But you out of your own sense of you’ve seen for yourself. So one has to begin to see for oneself and within one’s own experience the destructive quality of anger. If in fact it is destructive, and I won’t even lay that one on you. I don’t know.
You check up. But I think it is. For my life it was. Still is. All its various faults, all its various disadvantages both directly and indirectly.
That, you know, directly well, we’ve gone through this, but essentially, an angry person is an unhappy person. They make the people around them unhappy. It’s difficult to trust. It’s difficult to trust yourself. It’s difficult to trust others and others trust you.
It’s difficult to break out of our sense of isolation. There’s no deep communication. There’s no going out to another and having another participate in your life. There’s just these two or however many skin-encapsulated egos the ego is kind of rubbing up against each other once in a while and finding some kind of solace in that. But not only is there this immediate disadvantage in these various faults, but it is destructive with respect to our own ultimate potential and the development of our qualities of love and compassion, which are the heart of spirituality.
This conventional mind of awakening, of going beyond our exaggerated self concern, our self centeredness, which is one of the two very basic roots of all our problems. This exaggerated self concern, our inability to love anyone but ourselves at best, if if in fact we do love ourselves which is also questionable probably. But again, also destroy all the the constructive actions that we have developed. By constructive actions, skillful karma, the way that our mind is able to organize our reality such that we experience it as pleasurable. This is a useful way of looking at skillful karma.
That we have developed a tendency to organize our reality, this data, this world around us, our reality, in such a way that we are able to experience it positively. It enhances our existence. It gives us a sense of well-being. Our reality is a benevolent reality. We experience pleasure out of it.
Everything becomes a source of happiness for us. This is the consequence of what we call constructive actions. That’s all. That’s you know, these are constructive actions because they lead to these constructive results. That’s the only there’s no moral judgment being made.
Counter to that, our hatred, our aggression, our hostility destroys our ability, our tendency to be able to organize our world in that particular manner. Hateful person sees more and more things that need to be hated. The world becomes simply a world of aggression, and from his side, the need to defend. And then the more that one hates, the more that needs to be hated until the entire environment is aggression, is hostile. One becomes fire.
One’s entire environment becomes fire, And one is as if a hell being. Ultimately, that’s kind of the extreme of hatred or the results of hatred. That kind of tendency of mind to develop such a reality. And we’re continually recreating our reality. So, you know, the yeah.
So the first step is to see the destructive quality of anger or whatever the afflictive emotion, whether it’s attachment, jealousy, spite, miserliness, eighty-four thousand afflictive emotions. It’s to see within your own experience their destructive quality, their disadvantages, their faults, if in fact they are, to the degree that you you know, this in and of itself will help to lessen their their force in your life, their influence. To the degree that you see the disadvantages of something, your mind, due to your own basic sanity, will naturally, you don’t have to coerce yourself, begin to flow in the direction away from that which you have seen very deeply as being disadvantageous to your life. We aren’t stupid. We aren’t going to continue to do that which we’ve seen deeply as being disadvantageous.
You know, that’s kind of common sense if we present the facts to ourselves in a a a clear manner with awareness. Then having made that step, then we can begin to overcome the inertia, the the tendency to repeat the same patterns. So then secondly we can begin to develop, we can begin to skillfully reframe problematic situations to begin to react to them in a more skillful manner. And it begins to this seems that negative quality of these afflictive emotions sort of creates a dynamic state, a more fluid state. There’s a possibility for change to take place.
There’s it’s sort of like there’s more of a flux. The patterns aren’t aren’t nearly so rigid because there’s some energy available to us for change. Alternative patterns can be more easily generated, more skillful, and acted upon. So seeing the necessity to change the destructive quality of these particular patterns, anger, spite, whatever, attachment, and then beginning to develop reframe situations, developing more skillful ways of relating. So these same types in this case, these problematic situations would normally induce distress and thereby distress causing us to become angry.