Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using Śāntideva’s image of children weeping over collapsed sandcastles, Ven Jampa Gendun unpacks how craving praise generates jealousy and jealousy generates anger, in this 45-minute commentary on the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. He opens by grounding the topic in samsaric psychology — the perpetual treadmill of expecting something better — then traces Śāntideva’s argument that rejoicing in others’ happiness is often self-referential, and that those who deflate our pride are actually helping us grow. Spiritual materialism gets a pointed mention: meditators who abandon food and clothing yet secretly dream of fame. A Q&A covers healthy versus afflictive pride, the legitimacy of needing affirmation, humor as a coping mechanism, and Śāntideva’s terse verse on worry — if nothing can be done, why worry; if something can be done, why worry? For practitioners working through Śāntideva’s patience chapter.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 28 Tce 1991 05 01.mp3
UUID: 748f815d-89fc-48a0-8839-ccaf5281d401
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Tolerance (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1991-05-01
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.1 minutes
Words: ~4,669
There’s always something better down the road. We hope. We expect something better down the road, and we never we never fully accept that this is all there is. This is perpetual struggle for something better to come along. And even in that struggle, because of our fears, we only can and gaining that something better, we can we only we are bound by variations on past patterns out of fear of of an open, fluid way of relating to situations.
So in in other words, we are are habitually stuck in dissatisfaction. In other words, our expectations for something better in the future prevents us from finding any complete satisfaction in the present. And and our our fear prevents us from learning how to give up our expectations. And the idea of nirvana, of going beyond sorrow, is to give up the struggle that there’s anything more than what we have now. It’s like a huge sigh of relief.
Our life you know, if you think about it, we’re always we’re on a treadmill trying for something all the time. We’re we’re not quite sure what it is, but but we expect something to come along. And though it never comes, we never stop to stop to analyze. And our life is there’s a certain disappointment which permeates our life because yesterday, which was the tomorrow or the day before, didn’t quite deliver the goods that we had expected, that we had hoped for. And our fear prevents us from learning that this may be all there is.
And then maybe we reach a point where you think, this is all there is. There’s nothing more to expect. And then maybe you can rest and relax. I don’t know. We live in this perpetual state of tension and anxiety, distress.
So to practice Dharma means to step out of our expectations and fears, to give up the struggle, to go beyond ego and find this peace, which has always been there, which is uncreated, unconditioned. So this peace is this that’s beyond sorrow, this this freedom from these disturbing patterns, which are born out of the struggle. In in you know, getting back to Śāntideva and talking about anger. Śāntideva is discussing the drawbacks of expectations of praise and fame as a means to deal with the distress of jealousy. So, you know, we we have expectations of praise and fame.
When those expectations are met, we’re distressed. We become jealous. When others, instead of ourselves, receive praise and fame. Out of this distress, we develop anger. And the whole intention is directed toward the removing of the main cause out of which develops our anger, our hatred, our hostility, and our aggression.
So the actual text. If in order to become famous you spend everything you have or even get yourself killed, then what good will those syllables of praise? Who can enjoy them once you are dead? Just as children cry out in despair when their sandcastles collapse, likewise my mind becomes like a child whenever praise and fame decline. You know, if out of our expectations for praise and fame we lose everything or even get ourselves killed, then what what use is that praise and fame at that in such a situation?
You know, once we are dead, and all whatever praise and fame we may have had is of no value to us, it’s useless. It makes no difference. Now what good are our desires and our attachments, our expectations and our fears if they only bring us to this, you know, to this distress. You know, how, you know, how many people have we known who who were praised one day and ridiculed the next? You know how many famous people lead miserable, wretched lives?
And your children cry out in rage when when their sand castles are washed away or when their toys are lost, and we’re we’re very much the same. You know, the — the reason they cry out is because they’ve lost their perspective. This was central to their focus of their life. Their their happiness depended upon this one thing. Without this, they couldn’t be happy, the sand castle, this toy.
And we we narrow down our focus, likewise. And we revert to our our childish patterns, you know, losing our our perspective, our sight of what is truly of worthwhile, what is truly valuable. And we cry when, you know, our toys of praise and fame are lost. Śāntideva goes on, since evanescent sounds have no intelligence, it is impossible that they could think of praising me. The mere words, you know, the vibrations of air molecules have no intention to praise you.
You know, they don’t have any intelligence. They are just the physical phenomena of the world. Śāntideva again goes on, But could I not consider fame to be a source of happiness insofar as others would be pleased with me? So others would be pleased with me, therefore I should consider it you know, this is an adversary as speaking to Śāntideva. And if others are pleased with me, isn’t this a form of happiness?
And Śāntideva answers, Yet what benefit can I derive from others being pleased even with myself or someone else? That pleasure is theirs alone. I cannot share even the smallest part of it. And then the adversary answers back. But isn’t it right to be pleased at another’s pleasure?
You know, haven’t we haven’t he’s talking to Śāntideva. Haven’t you just said that we should rejoice in other people’s happiness? So why shouldn’t I rejoice in other people’s happiness in their being praised? And Śāntideva answers, if I am truly made happy by their happiness, then this would have to be so in every other case as well. Then how could I ever be unhappy about another being pleased with someone else?
You know, if you’re really made happy whenever another person is happy, then you should you should this should be true no matter who that person might be. But in fact, this isn’t the case. You know, when when somebody is, for example, when somebody is pleased with your enemy, this makes your enemy happy. You don’t rejoice in their happiness. You’re you’re you’re on the contrary, you you don’t like it.
You become unhappy when your enemy is praised and made happy. You know, if if you really rejoice in the happiness of this you know, when we talk about rejoicing in the happiness of others, we only naturally rejoice in the happiness of those of the happiness of others to whom we’re attached. Why? Because it somehow enhances our existence, our life, And the focus is on what their happiness is going to bring to my happiness, my life. The focus is self referential.
One isn’t sympathetically rejoicing in their happiness, but what their happiness means in my terms. Interpreting it what value is it in there for me. In this sense we’re mistaking rejoicing, we’re simply for the happiness that we derive because somehow our existence is enhanced. You know the center of focus is still ourselves and our own happiness, not their happiness. Śāntideva goes on, hence to gloat over the fact that I am being praised is ridiculous, it is nothing but childish behavior.
You know it’s said that that the childish have three main concerns from the point of view of Tibetan spiritual practice. That of a child has three main concerns: food, clothing and reputation. There’s a quotation which takes up these three concerns. Sages, holy men, great meditation great meditators of the past, even we can say a majority of them have been able to live without great food, keeping themselves alive on one of those mystical practices where all you eat is some tiny pills or the essence of a flower, and then been able to live without great clothes too. They sit in deep retreat wearing tattered robes covered with dirt, they glue their backs to the wall of a cave and they seal the only entrance, but in the bottom of their hearts they still crave fame, the big name, and they dream that all the local people outside are talking about what a holy master meditator they are.
The great Nāgārjuna too has said, All the spiritual practices you’ve done has turned into some ambition for eminence in this life. This then turns into what we call the origin of saṃsāra, a cause for more of the cycle. It increases in you your feeling of pride and jealousy, dislike for some things and longing for others, then what you thought were spiritual practice actually takes you to the three lower realms, it’s no different than if you had gone there by doing some bad deeds, and spiritual materialism I guess. Anyway, Śāntideva goes on, Such things as praise distract me, they undermine my disillusion with saṃsāra. So Śāntideva is trying to help us to reframe situations where others are being praised, where we might normally develop jealousy, thereby develop distress, and thereby develop anger.
So he’s trying to help us to see the disadvantages of praise. Such things as praise distract me. They undermine my delusions with saṃsāra. They make me envious of those with noble qualities. They destroy all the sense of well-being.
Therefore those around me who put an end to my being praised are surely engaged in protecting me from falling into evil destiny. I who am seeking liberation do not need to be bound by wealth and honor. So how can I be angry toward those who free me from such bondage? Essentially, Śāntideva is saying that those who help in destroying my own pride are helping me to grow. Those who help me to destroy my own pride are helping me to grow.
Normally an untrained mind, our normal mind would not appreciate that fact because we don’t see the disadvantage perhaps of pride in itself. The reframing of a previously distressful situation for praise and fame, one wanted praise and fame, and you become distressed when it wasn’t given to you, you become upset when someone interferes with your being praised, with your fame. You see them as obstacles to your happiness. But such situations of being praised, such situations where you’re made famous can become sources of pride, and was necessary to see the disadvantages of pride. If seeing that, then we can begin to see this person who destroys the possibility for you developing pride as as having done you a favor.
So we, you know, looking at pride. Do you have any questions?
Any comments? So, you know, we’re trying to moving through a different a few different afflictive emotions and seeing how they can hopefully begin to work with them and reframe these situations where we no longer are developed distress and therefore anger. And then, you know, talked a lot about rejoicing as an antidote to jealousy and how to reframe situations such that we’re no longer jealous but in fact perhaps we can rejoice it. And the advantages of that rejoicing and disadvantages of jealousy. And the same is true of pride.
And we’re going to discuss what we mean by pride and the two types of pride. And there are many types of pride. I think there are are seven types of afflicted pride. But just in general, is healthy pride and unhealthy pride. You know, it’s good to have feelings of self worth.
You know, people talk about taking pride in oneself. There’s a certain even in Tibetan, there’s as as well as the Western usage of the term. It has positive and negative connotations. So we’re not going to say that you shouldn’t have self esteem or feelings of self worth. But what perhaps what is the difference between afflictive pride and nonafflictive healthy pride?
Anybody have a comment? Something they’d like to share? Questions? Yeah. I you know, there’s it’s a hard slog.
I think we must come to that. I think there has to be in a realistic course of one’s practice there has to come to some degrees of healthy disappointment and disillusionment. There’s nothing magical about what we’re doing. It’s learning skills, developing understanding. It’s a slow process.
And this is not to discourage you, but I think it’s good to be realistic, and that many people, in my experience, have great expectations, one of the, you know, expectations, And they’re quite often not met, and therefore, they rather than perhaps taking a more realistic and mature view, they simply move on, and they maintain their their their unrealistic approach to dealing with their problems, and their problems remain unsolved completely. So that’s one thing. Now that’s sort of sort of putting what I’m gonna say in context. The second is that I think there are two ways that we what you have said. One of them is that we should consider is that you a problem has arisen.
Okay? The first thing that we overlook is that many problems have not arisen. Yeah? We forget about how many problems that we have solved. Is to say, we we didn’t their situations, experiences are no longer problematic for us.
They just go by without our things which were difficult for us before are no longer seen as difficult or slightly difficult. That is to say, there has been some training, some new view which we are perhaps are unconscious of. Some attitudes have been developed to such that many problems simply no longer are arising. And we we tend to dismiss that fact fact that we have grown, that we have developed ourselves. And so, okay, now there is a situation which has which has not has not been met by our previous development, our repertoire of skills, such that we we become conscious.
There’s some tension. There’s some difficulty has in fact arisen. So this in a way is not I know sometimes people get discouraged. They say, I still have this this problem still arise. And in a way, it’s like, you know, like, once the what are the old expression?
Once the horse is out of the barn, it’s there’s no use in closing the door. That okay. So maybe maybe there’s nothing that you can do about this problem as far as in a in a sense that the pain, the disappointment, the dissatisfaction. But you but you can it can help you to one, it can help you to act as a motivating force to to develop yourself more. You know, I don’t want to go through this pain again.
Maybe there’s nothing maybe maybe we’re just going to have to accept that situation. I don’t know. You know, we’ve been talking very general. Nothing maybe nothing can be done. But if I develop myself, then perhaps this same situation will never arise again.
So maybe I have to accept this situation, but maybe I can transform it into, a learning situation, a situation of growth. Maybe I have to take that pain, But at least some good can come out of it rather than all the pain that we’ve experienced in past and nothing good has come out of it. Only the same pain coming up again and again and again. Maybe if I learn it from this situation, if I’m motivated to develop myself, then I won’t have to go through this same pain again. But maybe I’m going to have to accept this situation.
And this situation is impermanent. It’s not going to last forever, you know, no matter what horrible states might arise. And then think about, you know, we we revert back to very childish emotional patterns. We don’t we lose our perspective. It is as if this is going to go on forever.
This sounds like absurd to our rational thinking mind, but emotionally, it’s the quality that we’re bringing to these things, and it causes a great deal of distress. It compounds our problem, you know, that this is that this state, this situation, that this this pain is going to last forever. It’s not. Neither your pain nor your happiness is going to is permanent. It’s going to pass.
This too shall pass. So at least we can we may have to accept. And again, we were talking in generalities. If we use more specific, maybe we can deal with it in a more specific way. But you may have to accept that this someone dies.
There’s nothing you can do about it. It’s painful. Yeah? Yeah. Non action.
I think learning from the situation is not non action. Apathy. No, I mean to in a sense that one could be motivated to you know what, I saw a book. I don’t know. Oh, there was an interview about a woman who’s she said, I what did she say?
I learned how to not get not get mixed up with bad men. You know? Like, she developed the discrimination between what was a good man and a bad man, and and and she she decided to give up bad men. She didn’t you know, as a source of suffering for her, that she became a little more discriminating, a little more aware, she learned from her past mistakes, and though and she might have to endure some lonely moments and not having any man around because good men might not be available at that particular time. She she chose, she learned, and therefore, she’s not gonna repeat her past mistake, and she chose to associate with good men.
So she wasn’t apathetic, you know. It it involved her she learned from her past mistakes. She became more discriminating, more aware of what of the of the nature of the the dynamics of the of her relationships and and the suffering involved, and she changed. I don’t know. If she remained apathetic, well, I don’t know.
You know, I I’m a nothing. I’m a good a bad man’s better than no man or something. That would be apathetic. I mean, I don’t know. Oh, I think you should.
I think we really need to be affirmed, don’t we? That’s why yeah. As long as it doesn’t yeah. As long as what? As When it when either you develop attachment to that phrase such that when it’s turned off, suffer, and or when you develop pride in the sense of becoming inflated about what qualities you do have.
When there’s a disequilibrium, when you become unbalanced out of that praise, when it throws you out of your center. But we need we need to we really have to I I mean, we really need some affirmation by others, don’t we? No. I mean, I mean, half half of Śāntideva’s book is praising Bodhisattvas. And I’m sure that, you know, why if it was detrimental then then why would he why why would it it doesn’t faze the bodhisattvas.
The praise. Yeah. If it serves as if your distress one is no longer there. And if someone interferes, if, you know, if it’s then it can serve as a cause for anger. Can we make that distinction that this I mean, you do a good job, you know, you really you you mowed the lawn.
You did a nice job. And your and your husband comes out and said, you did a good job. Appreciate it. You really did a good job. Wow.
It’s very appreciated, firm. That’s quite nice. That’s It develops positive associations. It’s probably quite necessary. I mean, we have to have no.
Okay. Maybe we can even go on to say, we have to have we have have healthy egos before we can go beyond our ego. We have to be somebody before we can be nobody. It’s okay. And if you’re continually having to prop up your self image all the time, there’s no opportunity to learn, to relate with others, to communicate.
You’re just continually preoccupied with how am I doing? Am I doing okay? So maybe you have to begin to feel okay about yourself, and then you can begin to forget about yourself once you feel okay about yourself. So there might be some, you know, there might be some some temporal phase in there where we need praise. I mean, did do a good job.
Isn’t it? No. He’s not putting you on. But if he didn’t say the next time I’m not doing I don’t know. How would you react?
What’s the difference between a healthy well, we we talk about healthy needs and and unhealthy needs, don’t we? I mean, there are needs, I think. And I there are there are black holes of needs which can never be filled. Yeah. You know?
So better not to deal with that. You know, you can set those aside. I think we have healthy needs. I think it’s healthy to have those have those needs met. I don’t think it’s that.
Oh, I I I I think I think we I mean, I’m I’m speaking in general that we really need to concern ourselves with affirming other people. We should make this very important way of relating. We need this very much. We’re always we’re whether we’re aware of a network, constantly cutting down people, undermining you. Oh, and then that’s something else.
Don’t think that is. Yeah. I mean, if the — I mean, if the person no longer — if you if you if you lose the weight of their words then, of course, then it becomes meaningless, chatter like a parrot praising you. And, of course, that’s not what we’re talking about. But, I mean, if there’s some, you know, if there’s a sense that the other person feels that the sincerity and it’s valid and you’re you’re a significant person in their life or your praise is significant, you’re being stroked, you know, certain, then I think it’s really worth I think it’s really necessary.
I know they talk about Australia as being where the poppy cutters. What do you call that? Tall poppy. Dog poppy. They cut down.
That’s really a very sad situation. I know it’s a lot of lot of humor. What passes for humor is is very suddenly undercuts people. It’s at the expense of their their sense of well-being. And I think it’s rather insidious some of it, what goes on.
I mean, all It may so many people might not be phased externally, you know, they carry on very very plastically as if not affected, but there’s something there’s a certain something which is being undermined through feelings of self worth and safety and whatever. I don’t know. What do you guys think? Patronize patronize patronize. I should — I I don’t mean to oppress children.
But what what child likes to have — used to adopt your culture? Oh, no. I think, like, I think, like, Christ said, become like unto a child. Become like a child instead of becoming childish. So the the the the child is I mean, ideally is is a has all the the associated with the qualities of spontaneity, exuberance, zeal, innocence, fascination, captivation.
And I like I’ve never seen my one of my little godsons. Just staring there are all these little bugs flying around this fluorescent light, And he’s just captivated. He sat there for hours just staring at these bugs. Like insects flying in. This quality, I we we have to sort of recapture, don’t we?
And the mystery, the awe, the awe of it all, the wonderment, things like that. I think that is a very positive childlike quote. Intuition. I don’t know. Mean, it’s a difficult word, isn’t it?
That word intuition. Do not. I would I would be really speculating. That’s what I’m enjoying anyway. I mean, I think there is there is an there is the the intuition.
There is a knowing beyond words. Yeah? Where one is not and I mean it may be that simply the cues, the information which one is processing are below the threshold of awareness. When we come up with an intuitive answer or knowledge as opposed to inference where we think very logically, rational, you know. Socrates was a man, all men are mortal.
Socrates is mortal. As opposed to that intuition. What do you think? Yeah. Rational is Rational is I think more language and logic, reason.
And I think intuitive is more is more direct way of knowing. Is there a benefit to using humor in, say, bad situations to get over bad situations, or is that an unskillful mechanism to use? I don’t know. I have to a lot of people use humor as a defense mechanism, not to to avoid feeling. So I don’t know what kind of situations you might have in mind.
Well, just say someone in your family died and they try and look at the lightest side of things. Yeah. It’s not light. It’s it’s very tragic, isn’t it? Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, lot of people, yeah. At least a lot of men do that. You know, they crack a joke because they can’t handle it. What about the benefit of laughing, for the sake of laughing?
There any benefit in that? Laughter is one of the best medicines. I think laughter, yeah, there’s certain psychological systems where they see laughter as a discharge of catharsis, so it’s very healthy to discharge emotional distress. So laughter used not to avoid the situation would be skillful. Yeah.
It might be a way of expressing the like, some people cry. Some people get rage, outraged. Some people laugh. Some people start jumping around. So it might be that way of expressing your distress, discharging it.
It might be very healthy, But it also could be used as a as a means to avoiding feeling what you’re actually feeling. I mean, you tell jokes purposely in that way. I mean, the laughter is not but if you tell the joke would be a way of avoiding friends. What are you gonna do when this problem comes up? What am I gonna do?
Yeah. So I think it takes a a develop a repertoire of ways of dealing with problems. I mean, in a sense, whatever, you know, like, develop a context, a a whole whole bag full of tricks. And that’s your I’d like to think that it’s not permanent. It’s not like That’s sick.
Nothing death. So that’s one way. That’s impermanent. Yeah? Yeah.
That’s right. Inevitable, isn’t it? Yeah. What’s your usual way? You have a usual way of dealing with difficulties?
Sometimes, you know, I think maybe you have to get a feeling. Sometimes there’s not enough information. The time is not right, you know, to deal with that problem. I think, you know, I think you get this this sense. Now it’s not the proper time.
There are occasions when no. I’ll do it. Then but anyway, in general, there’s a verse by Śāntideva, Engaging in the Bodhisattva Deeds in which he said, if there’s nothing you can do about the problem, then why worry? If there’s something you can do about the problem, then why worry? So that’s that’s pretty good.
Sun shining? Put it in some kind of perspective. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah.
It’s always if you can explain your scope, is that so immediately. Yeah. That’s what Lama Yeshe used to say. The minute one of the the advantages of of compassion, for example, a more universal attitude is the moment you become aware of other problems, and you you kind of put your your problem in its proper perspective. Immediately, there’s some kind of release from the from the burden.
You know? We when we my problem, my problem, my problem. And even the littles, why you think becomes, you know, like a microscope. It becomes you.