Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The story of a beggar who offered a handful of dirt to the Buddha and was reborn as King Ashoka illustrates how dramatically karma can multiply — one of four modes Ven Jampa Gendun outlines in this 46-minute talk before turning to purification. He walks through the four opponent powers: regret framed not as guilt but as the clear-eyed dread of someone who has eaten poisoned food and can see what is coming; reliance on the Three Jewels or renewing one’s vow to benefit all beings; antidotes such as Vajrasattva mantra, prostrations, and meditation on emptiness; and realistic determination to break habitual patterns. The second half distinguishes mindfulness from awareness using the image of carrying a water bowl at sword-point, then closes with the nature of genuine love and two classical lineages for developing the mind of enlightenment.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 09 WtWNN 1987 09 01.mp3
UUID: 7e08ae50-19dd-4954-a9b6-4e6b5ee2e5bf
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: What the world needs now (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1987-09-01
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.1 minutes
Words: ~5,951
That the the infallibility, the similarity in type between cause and effect, both in the external world and and between actions and their ethical consequences. That’s the first distinct mode of karma. The second is that karmas are highly augmentative. Sorry? Augmentative.
Augmentative, that means increasing. Karmas are highly augmentative. This simply means that the result can be greatly increased, like a nuclear chain reaction. One atom hitting another atom and the end result can be this huge atomic explosion. Likewise, the results of actions can be greatly increasing or augmentative.
There’s the story about there was a little beggar boy during the time of a Śākyamūni Buddha. He saw Śākyamūni Buddha walking down the road, and he developed a great admiration, great reverence for the Buddha. He felt he wanted to make some type of offering, but he was poor, he didn’t have any money, he had nothing whatsoever to offer. But he felt his tremendous urge to show his respect for the Buddha, to give him something. So he picked up a handful of dust and he held it up.
Thought to himself, If only this was a handful of gold dust, how I would want to offer it to the Buddha. And he offered this handful of dust to the Buddha, this simple dirt to the Buddha. And the karmic consequence of this, of offering this handful of dirt to the Buddha, was that he was born King Ashoka, the richest king of ancient India. So is this So So So that’s the second distinct mode of karma, that actions are highly augmentative. And the third is the results of uncommitted karma are not experienced.
The results of uncommitted actions are not experienced. So we can go through all the various virtuous actions and say, all this virtuous action will have this specific effect. This virtuous action will have this specific effect. If you want that effect, you better do this action. If you don’t want this particular effect, then don’t do that action.
We can go through this. There’s a list here by protecting life, you know, virtuous action of saving life, protecting life, then we ourselves have long life. So if you want a long life, you protect, you know, save life, protect life. If you want to be rich, be generous. This this idea.
If you want to have a loyal, faithful mate, then give up sexual misconduct. Things like that. So this is the thing about we will not experience the effect if we don’t commit the action. If you want a specific effect, then you better commit the action. If you don’t want the effect, then don’t commit the action, which is its cause.
The fourth is karmas committed are not dissipated or that is wasted. They’re not dissipated or wasted. No matter how long the time may lapse between actually committing the action and doing the process of taking rebirth. All these various karmic seeds are not lost in the shuffle, in the coming and going. They don’t dry up and blow away.
They’re always going to be there. When they meet the specific condition, will definitely ripen. It’s like, for example, the seeds. Within the pyramids of Egypt, found wheat seeds, which had been buried with the pharaohs, the kings. Some of these seeds are probably five thousand years old.
By putting them in some soil, added in the water, they sprouted. They maintained their potential to produce even after five thousand years. Likewise, these karmic seeds, their potential to produce their various effects are not somehow lost over any period of time. This is the fourth mode of karma. They’re not dissipated.
Actions are not committed or not dissipated. The seeds always remain viable. Okay. The important we should know about karma. We get to get a feel about it, that it’s logical, that it’s rational, As I said, it’s difficult to see the connection between the cause and the effect.
It’s difficult to see the relationship. If we look to the outside world, the external world, the law of cause and effect, we can see an analogous situation. There, we have a great deal of faith, belief in this infallibility between the relationship between cause and effect. There’s no reason why we can’t begin to apply this to our various actions of body and speech and mind, that they also have ethical consequences. I want to talk about the practice of purification.
Because we have this great storehouse of negative karma within us now, there’s no doubt. All this potential is there. Now what can we do about it? We talk about the fact of purifying. We can talk about purification on various levels.
One level is the sense of guilt we have over having committed a negative action, that we hurt somebody, that we did something wrong. Maybe sexual misconduct, hurts a lot of people quite often. Killing, whatever, you feel a sense of guilt, it’s a heaviness of mind. We have to try to purify even this level, this psychological level, let alone the ethical consequences of suffering and happiness, of the suffering quality of our actions. We can begin to purify our guilt and guilt feelings.
Within the Theravadan tradition, they say that you can purify half of the consequences of a negative action. Within the tradition of the great vehicle, they say that any action, no matter how hideous, how bad, how terrible, can be completely purified applying what are called the four counteracting agents or the four powers. Any action can be completely purified. It can be completely neutralized. It’s like taking a seed and burning it so that it has no life in it left.
Its potential is lost. It’s like charred. You know when they do these fire approaches, they throw all these seeds in there. These seeds, they’re like charred and even though even if they’re not burnt, if you planted that seed, the charred seed in the earth, put water on it, it will never sprout. The life force has been lost.
Likewise, by through applying the four antidotes, we can destroy the potential for that calmer to ripen. This is an important part of our practice, the practice of purification. We can talk about it also from the point of view of obstructions, that all these various karmas act as obstructions to realizations. Much of our difficulty in It’s difficult to talk about. It’s very is quite it’s extremely the Buddha said, if you think about it, you go crazy.
It’s extremely complicated and extremely profound. It’s too profound for me. Even the attitudes we bring with us to a teaching, for example, which are a ripening, an effect of our patterns of behavior or the karma. These can act as a hindrance to understanding what the teacher is saying, can’t they? Some people it’s quite obvious.
They’re completely closed to whatever is being said. I’ve heard teachings when I first came in contact with the Dharma on emptiness. I said, So what? I couldn’t appreciate what was being said. My mind had obstacles or hindrances, purely from an attitudinal point of view and from these karmic seeds, from wanting to reject these, not wanting to accept it.
For example, people get a little bit uptight if we start talking about many things about the dharma. Talk about emptiness. What are the consequences? They start thinking about losing their attachments, the objects of their attachments. There’s some fear that arises.
The fear of the ego becomes threatened, for example. These are all consequences of our ripening of various karmas, negative karmas, which act as hindrances and obstructions to actually coming to an understanding about what is being said. Obviously, many intelligent people, they listen to a teaching of the Dharma and they walk away and say, So what? They’re extremely intelligent people. They have karmic obstructions.
We would say they have karmic obstructions. I would say they have karmic obstructions. They would say, This is just foolish nonsense, even what you’re saying about myself. You’re the one with the problems, not me. Are many levels that we can purify from the point of view of our guilt, from the point of view of the ethical consequences, suffering of our karma, and from the point of view of removing the hindrances, obstacles to understanding, to realization, to our path.
So we apply the four opponent powers, the four counteracting agents. The first one is power of regret. We can regret for many reasons. We can regret for the wrong reasons and the right reasons. Some people actually regret when they do something generous.
They give away something and later on they say, Oh, I wish I hadn’t given it, I got carried away and I gave more money than I meant to give. Now look, don’t have money to go to the movie, whatever. This is regret for the wrong reason, isn’t it? Regretting. Regret for wrong reasoning, wrong regret, inverted regret, if you like.
Inverted regret. We can regret from one level, merely from the point of view, I hurt somebody. I feel badly. I wouldn’t want anybody to hurt me like that. I hurt this person by sexual misconduct or or to have harmful intentions or bad harsh speech.
You regret because you hurt somebody. Simple regret. I didn’t mean, I’m sorry I did that. We want to get you to a more deeper level, the level of karma. The way we can begin to look at this type of regret is through an example.
Three people, they go into a restaurant and they share the same meal together, same bowls, they’re all eating the exact same food. And they walk out of the restaurant, and the minute you’re walking out of the restaurant, one of them falls over dead. And the second one, he starts rolling on the ground in agony, holding his stomach. And the third, he has no pain whatsoever yet, but he’s looking. He says, Why are He’s getting a little bit worried.
Begins to understand that the reason this one died and the reason this one’s rolling on the ground in pain is because of that meal we just ate. I ate the exact same food as they did. Though he is not in any pain whatsoever at that moment, though he’s not physically disturbed in any way, he develops a great deal of regret for having eaten that food because he knows what’s coming. He can see what’s coming. This is the type of regret that we should try to develop.
Even though we’re not undergoing any of the negative consequences, suffering of the various negative actions that we’ve accumulated in the past, we’re not hurting in any way, but we know what’s coming. Therefore, we regret with a very reasoned intelligence type of regret. There’s no guilt in this whatsoever. There’s no, Wow, I’m a terrible person. That’s an ego trip.
There’s no intelligence whatsoever involved in that. It’s simply, We know that I committed a negative action. It’s going to have a negative karmic consequence. I’m going to suffer. I wish I hadn’t done it.
There’s no guilt. There’s no self punishment. I’m such a lousy person. I’m a bad person. This is the sense of regret.
This is the most important out of these four counteracting agents, developing sincere real regret in view of the karma consequences which you’re going to realize when this negative karma meets the correct conditions. Second is called the power of reliance. Power of reliance. We create non virtue in dependence upon two objects, with respect to either the Three Jewels in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, or sentient beings. Those the three objects.
Those are the two objects with respect to which we create negative actions. Just like when we fall down on the ground, we use that same ground to pick ourselves back up with. Having committed a negative action, we use the object that is either the Three Jewels or sentient beings to pick ourselves back up. In the case of the Three Jewels, for example, you take vows, precepts, you break your precepts, You break your smile or whatever, your words of honor. This is committing actions against the Three Jewels.
You’ve made certain pledges, promises in front of the refuge objects. I abstain from killing. Whatever vows you might have taken, pledges, words of honor, you take them before representations of the Three Jewels. If you break those, then you’re committing a negative action against the Three Jewels. So we use the power of reliance.
We committed an action against the Three Jewels. We fell down before the Three Jewels. We use the Three Jewels to pick us back up here. That is, we take refuge in the Three Jewels again. Taking refuge, we redirect ourselves to the goal that we have set before ourselves.
Actually, what you’re doing is you’ve fallen away from your goal. Ultimately, this goal is Buddhahood. We take vows, we take precepts within the Mahāyāna context in order to attain Buddhahood. If you break those vows, words of honor, then you’re falling away from your goal. You’ve turned your back from your goal of achieving Buddhahood.
So in order to correct that, we apply the refuge, that is, recommitting ourselves within your own mind formally to that goal of Buddhahood. Again, this we do by taking refuge, taking refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. In reliance upon the Buddha Dharma and Sangha, we commit ourselves to the goal. This is the power of reliance with respect to the Three Jewels. We also commit negative actions quite obviously with respect to sentient beings, just generally hurting others, killing others, all the various non virtuous actions that we commit.
Within the great vehicle context, by hurting others, obviously we are going against our valid goal, that is to help all sentient beings. You can’t hurt sentient beings and help sentient beings at the same time. You’ve turned your back to benefiting all sentient beings by committing non virtues. So again, we must recommit ourselves to our goal of benefiting all sentient beings. We do this by depending upon all sentient beings, by generating the mind of enlightenment again, generating love and compassion for sentient beings, recommitting yourself to working for all sentient beings.
So on the very object that we’ve fallen down upon, we rely on that object to pick ourselves back up with. This is the power of reliance, taking refuge in either the Buddhadharma and the Sangha, the Three Jewels, or generating the bodhicitta, the mind of enlightenment. The third is the power of antidote. Specifically directing some sort of action as an antidote to this negative action that you have committed. Traditionally, are a traditional list of specific antidotes.
There’s recitation of Vajrasattva, mantras, which is specifically related with purification practices, reciting sutras, scriptures, prostrations. One of the most powerful amongst the antidotes is meditating on emptiness. It’s said to be the most powerful. Confession before the thirty five Buddhas, for example. All these various types of specific antidotes for these negative actions that were committed.
In general, can have the intention of any type of positive action that we commit serving as an antidote to these negative actions that we’ve recollected before. I involve myself in this specific positive action as an antidote within your own mind, as an antidote to this particular negative action which I committed previously. So that’s the power of antidote. The fourth is the power of determination. karma has three types of effects.
There’s the fruition effect, the effect which is similar to the cause from the point of view of function, and the effect which is similar to the cause from the point of view of experience. So the functional aspect is the cause, the effect which is similar to the cause from the point of view of function is we have a repetitive pattern of committing the same negative action again and again. If you committed negative actions in a past life, you will enjoy committing. For example, if you were inclined to kill in a past life, in this life you will have a tendency to engage in occupations. You would like to kill.
You may become a butcher. You may go in the army. This is this functional This is this effect which is similar to the cause functionally. The cause is killing. The effect is something similar to it.
Functionally, we involve ourselves killing more and more. In order to break this pattern, we make a determination, I’m not going to do this anymore. You must be honest with yourself. If you say, I’m not going to lie for the rest of my life, that’s nonsense, isn’t it? You can say, I’m not going to lie for the next ten minutes before you go to bed.
You know? That makes something realistic, sincere, that you’re actually going to try to follow through with mindfulness and awareness. You know? I’m not going to commit this negative action again for such and such amount of time and really develop the mindfulness and awareness not to do it. That’s the power of determination, to cut through the habitual patterns that we’ve created, the negative patterns.
That’s what I wanted to lead up to most. It’s the necessity to engage in some sort of purification practice. It’s said for beginners, but for anyone actually, any practitioner, we should be mainly concerned with creating merit and purifying negative karma. This should be the main thrust of our practice. But I know many highly realized masters who would do prostrations every day of their life, do confession.
They’re constantly purifying themselves. It’s not just for beginners, but it should be an important part of our practice. I talked a lot. Are you tired? Would you would you like to Should we take a break now?
Okay, let’s take a break. Let’s dedicate the nurturing listening and talking about the Dharma. Mindfulness, before we discuss it, had three factors. The factor of that must be familiar with the object of which we’re going to be mindful of, It has a function of non distraction and non forgetfulness from the object. Mindfulness acts as a vehicle to bring information to a particular situation.
Awareness knows the situation and mindfulness brings some sort of information to that situation. For example, if it’s dark and we’re walking down some steps at a friend’s house and he says, Watch that third step. One of the steps is very weak, be careful. So as we are very aware of the situation, we’re walking down the steps very slowly, feeling our way down each step, pressing very slowly down on the step to see if it’s going to hold our weight, and maybe it’s wooden steps. Mindfulness is constantly bringing some information to this situation of walking down the steps, that one of the steps is weak.
Likewise, when we meditate on death, for example, the Buddha said that among all the various types of mindfulness, mindfulness of death is supreme. It acts as a motivating force to help us overcome laziness. If we have meditated on death, especially the uncertainty of the time of death, then when we see that we’re lazy, awareness knows the situation, that we’re lazy, and then the mindfulness can bring certain information that is, Maybe we can die tomorrow. This acts as a motivating, energizing force to overcome laziness. There’s an analogy that’s used in describing the function between mindfulness and awareness.
Usually the two terms are confused. They are used synonymously but actually had their separate functions. If you were walking down a road, a rocky dirt road, and there was someone behind you with a sword, He placed a bowl of water on your head and he said, If you spill one drop of that water, I’m going to cut your head off. He’s walking slowly behind you. Of course, you’re going to be extremely careful, aren’t you?
This care that you would take would take two forms. One of them would be that you would have to watch where you’re going. You would have to know the situation of the road. If there was a hole in the road, you’d have to step around it. If there was a rock, you’d have to step over it.
You’d have to really take care, know the situation that you’re in. But if that were merely what you were doing, if you weren’t mindful, then even though you knew the situation that you were aware, in this particular example, when you came to a rock, perhaps you would just jump over it. You knew there was a rock there, you were aware of the rock. You weren’t mindful though, you just jumped over it or you just jumped down into the hole and back out. You forgot that you had this bowl of water on your head.
So awareness knows the situation, but mindfulness says, Ah, remember there is a bowl of water on your head. Remembering that, you adjust your behavior, the way you approach the situation in accordance with that mindfulness. It brings a certain information to the situation. Therefore, when you come to a rock, you know it through awareness, you’re mindful of this bowl of water in your head and you adjust your behavior accordingly. You step very carefully over the rock.
You step very carefully around the hole. So awareness and mindfulness are working together. They complement each other. One of them knows the situation and mindfulness awareness knows the situation, mindfulness brings some information to that situation so we can act in accordance with some pre described manner which is skillful. In breathing meditation, we’re developing both mindfulness and awareness.
Mindfulness is what holds the mind to the object, recollecting it, holding it. Awareness knows whether the mind is actually strayed from the object or not. It’s an excellent method in itself for developing both the faculties of mindfulness and awareness. The Buddha said that those who do not have mindfulness are spiritually dead. There is no way that we can practice.
And that’s why we’re continually bringing information to our various daily activities of our life. You’re going to meet a friend who you have problems with, you have to be mindful of your past past occasions when you met and perhaps you became angry and you regretted that anger. Remembering that, keeping that in mind, when you go to meet this person, your behavior will be adjusted accordingly because of your mindfulness. You are not going to allow You are going to be more aware that anger is arising, and mindfulness is going to bring information that anger has not been a very skillful response in the path, and it’s going to suppress your anger. So if you know you are going to enter into a difficult situation, have to talk to someone you usually have problems with, just recollecting the fact that you have problems with this person taking care.
And then the factor of mindfulness and awareness can play a part in your daily activities in this way. So let’s sit in comfortable, firm posture and meditate mindfulness of breathing. And then we’ll also recycle the refuge. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme assembly, I go for refuge. Until enlightenment, by my merit from giving and other perfections. May we reach Buddhahood so as to benefit beings.
To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme assembly, I go for refuge. Until enlightenment, by my merit from giving and other perfections, may I reach Buddhahood so as to benefit beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma and the supreme assembly, I go for refuge. Until enlightenment, by my merit from giving and other perfections, may I reach Buddhahood so as to benefit beings. Go for refuge to the Buddha.
Our own capacity to solve our problems, our own wisdom and clarity within our own mind. When the situations are such, our problems are such that we don’t see a way out, that they appear to be a thick dark cloud, these problems, as we’ve been becoming aware of, are merely imputed, merely conception. The basis of these big dark clouds that seem permanent and aren’t going to go away and that we’re completely enveloped in are smaller problems. We impute these huge massive problems onto very minute problems. These act as the basis of imputation of great problems.
So if we begin to simply analyze, break up this cloud into smaller clouds, smaller difficulties, then things become workable. We don’t have this feeling of being overwhelmed. Don’t have this feeling that this situation can’t be handled. This is the exercise in using our own wisdom, using our own sanity, bringing clarity to the situation, going for refuge to our own ability. The methods that we use in bringing clarity to ourselves, developing our wisdom, the Dharma, the actual means to realize the final solution of our problems.
We do this in the context of a spiritual community, that is, others like ourselves who are similarly aspiring to go beyond the bounds of their own egos and to solve their problems once and for all, who act as examples for us, inspire us, encourage us, and share in our confusion. The hard part is to do this within the context of doing it for others. Why should we do it for others? We say, by the merit I create by whatever giving or listening to talks on the dharma or giving talks on the dharma, may I achieve enlightenment for the sake of others? May I solve my problem for the sake of others?
Why should I solve my problem for the sake of others? Why can’t I solve my problem just for myself? There has to be some bridge. We can’t just keep repeating the same words, we have to actually see the necessity, why I should, why I want to develop this type of motivation for achieving my goals? We talk about development of love and compassion.
Compassion is said to be the seed of all the great qualities of the Buddha. There are three main qualities: that is the wisdom, the mind of enlightenment and compassion. Amongst these three, it says compassion is the root of all the excellent qualities of a Buddha. In his text, Engaging in the Middle Way by Candrakīrti, He does not praise Buddhas, he does not praise bodhisattvas. He praises compassion since it is the cause, the root, the seed of all the excellent qualities.
It is the source of all Buddhas and bodhisattvas. We talk about love and compassion. Love is something which real love. We talk about love from many different points of view. It’s a very misused word, isn’t it?
All the rock and roll songs usually think about love. We say, I love Colonel Sanders fried chicken. And we say, I love my country. I love to go I love to watch footy on the television. Well, in these cases, we probably mean we like.
I like Colonel Sanders Fried Chicken. I like to watch footy. I like them. So at least a minimal type of love that we can talk about is the love of wishing happiness for others. This simple friendliness, a congenial quality of may you be happy.
This type of love. It’s it has a quality of not referring back to itself. The ego is always trying to cling to situations, trying to fix relationships to stabilize itself. Fixing relationships, clinging to situations, then communication and openness to others becomes impossible, becomes superficial. We can’t have any openness as long as there’s some fixed way of relating.
As long as there’s this self referencing, trying to fix our own position, maintaining some identity, image within a relationship, there can’t be any real love. That is a non self-referencing. We’re always referring back to myself. The reason why do I want to love? We have to question that.
Usually it’s because we want to be loved, isn’t it? If I love him, if I love her, she’s going to love me in return. He’s going to love me in return. There’s always a referring back to oneself. This isn’t altruism.
This isn’t the open type of love that we’re talking about here, is it? The type of love which is seeking to gain something. The love here is something which is going out to others. It’s identifying with someone else. It’s like the type of love that we talk about, which is directed by preconceptions of what other people should be doing, what other people really need.
We have all various types of preconceptions. I’m going to help natives in Africa. I’m going put shorts on all the black people in Africa. It’s kind of a missionary type of way of going about helping others. It’s not seeing what they really need, what is going to be beneficial for them.
Lama Yeshe was here the last month, last few weeks, and we were talking about how do we really develop People say, oh, I love humanity, but it’s people I can’t stand. If you can say, love humanity, again and again, but if you don’t start somewhere with the person sitting over there, over there, and over there, then it makes no sense, does it? Just to keep repeating the words, humanity is just purely an abstract idea. We have to begin with one person and say, how can I help this person? Is there any way I can benefit this person?
Can I do anything for this one person? We talk about taking responsibilities for all sentient beings. Can we really take responsibility for even one other person? Do we have that power? We don’t even have that power, do we?
To take responsibility for the happiness of one person. Let alone all sentient beings? We probably don’t even have the power or the ability to take responsibility for our own happiness, let alone someone else. If we talk about what perhaps is real love, a type of centerlessness, an undifferentiating quality of going out to others and meeting their needs, seeing their needs, what are actually their needs, and opening to the pain and suffering, the wants, the hopes of others. It has to go beyond the exterior of the other person.
Generally, when we meet someone, when we relate with someone, we relate to forms. We see forms, the external qualities, male, female, all the various characteristics of the external qualities. We get some impression from that, but we to penetrate deeper and try to see the person inside, to see the interior of the person. When we come to this, we begin to understand that there’s really not much difference between us, is there? Ultimately, basically, all our differences are very superficial, just like the waves on the ocean, but deep down we’re all very much the same.
Basically, there’s no difference. Ultimately, there’s no difference. Ultimately, there’s no difference whatsoever between us. There’s just a being who wants to be happy. It’s necessary to see both the exterior and interior of a person, and try to deal with them on both levels, try to see both the exterior qualities, what they need as individuals uniquely, and what they need the universal quality of wanting happiness and not wanting to suffer.
Then we can say that what I’m doing, I’m doing for the benefit of all, since within interior quality, in our deepest most being, there’s a being who suffers. Whether this being is called I or you, ultimately, there’s no difference, is there? There is just this suffering being that wants happiness. We’ve led up to the meditation on the development of love and compassion, mind of enlightenment. We went through the four preliminaries, the preliminary of beginning to appreciate this chance we have to change, realizing that it’s impermanent, that it’s definite, that we’re going to die, but it’s not certain when we’re going to die.
The only thing which can help us at the moment of death is the extent that we have developed our mind. Analyzing our actual situation, our experience is suffering in its various types, the dissatisfactoriness of pain, the dissatisfactoriness of change, and that of pervasive conditioned dissatisfactoriness. Then we see that the cause of our difficulties, the source of our problems our unskillful karmas, and all these are brought about as the root ignorance. So we develop a determination to change. We see the problems that exist within these rigid unskillful habit patterns that we’re involved in based upon ignorance, based upon ego, clinging to a type of fixed self, relating that way, trying to, again and again, resecure our relationships to others in a very fixed pattern, seeking happiness where in fact in sources of suffering.
It’s not that the world, there’s anything wrong with the world, there’s nothing wrong with the various objects, but we have a feeling that merely by manipulating the various objects around us and the people around us and our relationships that we can attain the happiness that we want. If we maintain this, if we persist in this, we’re going to continue to suffer, because this is not in accordance with reality. We have a feeling of trying to hold onto the objects of pleasure as if they were permanent, that are unchanging. This is the feeling we have. You may not think this rationally, but this is the feeling.
This is how we actually, in our daily lives, operate. Our relationships, the various objects of pleasure that we come in contact with, we deal with them as if they were permanently pleasurable. When they change, which is in their very nature, we suffer. If we continue to cling to people, to relationships, to things as if they were permanently pleasurable, because it’s not in accordance with reality, we’re going to continue to suffer. Relate with things as if we had an inherently existent I, independently partless self existent self with a permanent fixed identity, and other objects have an inherent self which we can somehow take hold of and incorporate within our own ego.
Since this is not in fact the way reality exists, if we continue to wait reality in this manner, we’re going to continue to suffer. We develop a determination to change. We call this renunciation, determination to end our suffering. Simply by redirecting our attention away from myself to others, it becomes compassion. First we have this feeling, I don’t want to suffer anymore.
I want to end this suffering. I want to separate myself from suffering. It will redirect us toward others, and it’s compassion. I want to remove the suffering of others. I don’t want others to suffer anymore.
In this development of loving, compassion, and ultimately the mind of enlightenment, the mind which seeks perfect, complete, unsurpassed enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings, there are two traditions. There’s the tradition of the meditation method of the sevenfold cause and effect instruction. This was a tradition which has a lineage from Śākyamūni Buddha to Maitreya to Asaṇga and finally to Atisha. Then there’s the second tradition, our lineage, which is the equalizing and exchanging self for other. This has the lineage from Śākyamūni Buddha again to Mañjuśrī, then to Śāntideva, and again finally to Atisha, and down to us, to present day.
There’s these two methods or two techniques of meditation to develop the mind of enlightenment.