Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 62-minute session from a 1984 introductory Buddhism course, Ven Wendy Finster develops the Buddhist framework for cultivating love and compassion. She begins by reviewing the foundations of Buddhist practice—mindfulness of breath, recognition of suffering, and the nature of delusion—before turning to the core topic: why developing altruistic love and compassion requires first understanding our own pain. She walks through the eight traditional forms of suffering: birth, aging, sickness, death, separation from loved ones, encountering disagreeable conditions, not obtaining what we desire, and the general suffering of having a body driven by delusion and karma. She then explains equanimity as the essential prerequisite—recognizing that all beings equally wish to be happy and to avoid suffering—before moving to the distinction between self-centered love and impartial, unconditional love that extends to all beings without exception. She concludes with an introduction to the Buddhist concept of beginningless mind and rebirth as a means of deepening felt connection to all beings. The teaching is pitched at newcomers to Buddhism and balances conceptual clarity with practical meditation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: Tape 2 .mp3
UUID: 9a72ecd4-4eab-4f47-87e0-b475a0b41a69
Teacher: Ven Wendy Finster
Collection: Intro to Buddhism 1984 – 5 tapes missing (Ven Wendy Finster)
Date: 1984 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 62.2 minutes
Words: ~5,631
So looking at the mind, developing mindfulness, the meditation that we’ve just done, should actually start to give us some insight into how the mind functions. By turning our attention or our mind in upon itself. Without doing this, it’s impossible to intellectually alone understand the functioning of the mind. So, gradually, it should enable us to develop some insight into the nature of thought, the nature of feelings, the nature of impulse and willpower, different functioning aspects of the mind which we all experience, but I think quite often we’re not aware of how these things arise in our experience, so we have no control, and uncontrollably we have thoughts, feelings, images, which perhaps we would rather not have, particularly when we find ourselves acting out negative thoughts, for instance of anger or irritation. So the first point at trying to understand how the mind is functioning has to be to examine the mind, because it’s the mind that does the understanding of who I am and how I exist.
So these mindfulness meditations are actually quite simple in one sense, because we have the breath always with us. It’s not as though we have to conjure up something to focus the mind upon. The breath is always with us while we’re existing, so it’s not something that we have to strive very hard to find. And it also means that it’s something we can practice at any time in the day if we decide while we’re waiting for a bus to turn our mind onto the breath, to just start to discipline the mind, develop concentration of mind, develop the ability to turn the mind to whatever one wants to focus upon at will, instead of us uncontrollably being the servant of the mind, dragging us wherever it goes. So the mindfulness meditations, although they are simple in one sense, they also become extremely profound in later stages of meditation.
It’s developing the ability from moment to moment to be continuously and spontaneously aware of one’s own mind and one’s own body. Being very strikingly, very strongly aware, penetratingly aware of what’s happening within one’s own mind body aggregation. So just mention very briefly what we talked about last session talked about the starting point of Buddhism, and that being the recognition of dissatisfaction, of suffering, or pain, varying levels of dissatisfaction. And without that recognition, there’s no starting point, there’s no reason to study or practice Buddhism. So the recognition of dissatisfaction and the inkling or the intuition that within my own mind I have greater potential than what I’m at present tapping or using.
So somehow recognising one’s own ability is not really being fully utilised, that there must be more to my present existence than eating, sleeping, working, making money, enjoying material objects, and personal relationships. And looking at the deeper question of understanding how I exist, who I am, what is the basis of my being, what is this existence or this life about. So these are some of the starting points for looking at Buddhist study. And that the very word Buddhism or Buddhist implies a looking within, looking internally, for reality rather than externally. So it means an inner being.
One looks within to find reality rather than externally. We looked at the cause of suffering dissatisfaction as being uncontrolled delusion and karma, and we talked about the way I view myself and I conceive of myself as being distorted, and upon that distorted base arises all the other delusions or misconceptions about my existence and about my subjective existence and the objective existence that I see. Uncontrolled delusion and karma, or action and result. And then that the potentiality to actually cut the continuity of the delusion and the uncontrolled action reaction happening. The state of mind which is pure and has always been pure, but is covered by distorted conceptions, emotions, but which is not actually mixed with the covering.
And we talked about the example of a piece of glass or a mirror with some mud smeared across it, and how the delusions are not one with the nature of the pure mind. They are distortions of mind which have no basis in reality. But because we’re hooked into believing in them, they perpetuate. And the state of enlightenment or liberation is meaning liberation from these distortions of mind, attaining a total oneness with the purity of mind, which has the qualities of omniscience, understanding all existence, all seeing, compassion, and all embracing compassion and love for all beings caught up in their own cycle of delusion and karma, or some you may have heard the word saṃsāra or suffering, and the skill and power to be able to help others release themselves from this state of deluded suffering or dissatisfaction. And recognising that that ability lies within all beings equally, that potential, that pure mind, or the Buddha nature.
But it rests with each of us individually as to how much work we do to actually uncover it and to experience within our own mental sphere this state of purity and oneness with all existence. And then we talked a little about some of the methods which are used in Buddhism to help the individual who wishes to work with their own mind go from a deluded state of being to the enlightened state or liberated state. And that these can be all summarized in three: the higher training of moral conduct or ethical action, which is necessary before one can have perfect concentration. The higher training of concentration, or meditative stability of mind, is the precondition for the higher training of wisdom, because without the tranquility of mind it’s impossible to turn the sharp, inquiring nature of the mind onto itself to investigate its own nature, which is the higher training of wisdom, and ultimately the understanding of how the mind exists and how I exist as an individual. And this wisdom is called selflessness, or in the Sanskrit word, sunyata.
We also talked a little about Śākyamūni Buddha, the historical Buddha, and we looked a little bit at the purposes of Buddhist practice, going through from the development of temporary happiness to the development of ultimate happiness, a happiness which doesn’t change, which has no up and down, but which is continuous, unchanging, or eternal. And that in Mahāyāna Buddhism is attained through the development also of love and compassion for all beings. So I thought tonight to talk a little bit about the development of love and compassion. And the actual increase or development of love and compassion within our own mind mind stream has to come upon a basis of recognition and renunciation of our own suffering. Without solidly contemplating upon our own dissatisfaction, our own suffering, our own problems, we don’t develop the wish to do anything about them, but also we don’t develop the ability to empathise with others and understand also that anyone who’s got a mind and a body experiences sufferings.
We’re all equal. We may be very individually different, but we are all equal in the fact that we have a human form and a mind inhabiting it. And given that, we are all equally subject to the sufferings or problems associated with the human form, and the mind, an uncontrolled mind or a deluded mind, inhabiting it. So if we don’t recognize and spend some time contemplating on our own feelings of discomfort or suffering or dissatisfaction, whatever you want to call it, We really don’t develop strongly the love and compassion which wants to help others be released from their suffering and their pain. And from a Buddhist perspective, the definition of love is that aspect of the mind which finds it unbearable that others or that is wishing others to have happiness.
And the compassion is the wish for others to be relieved from their suffering, finding others’ suffering unbearable and wishing to relieve that, wishing that those beings, anyone who is suffering, any kind of suffering, from the smallest mosquito bite to the deepest anguish of pain or the mental anguish, the mental suffering, which can sometimes quite often be far greater than physical suffering. So there’s the suffering of birth, and unless we have a very developed mind, it’s difficult for us to recall the moment of our birth. But if you’ve had the experience of giving birth or if you’ve had the experience of watching someone give birth, a child doesn’t come out laughing. The baby goes through through quite a lot of suffering. So the life starts that way.
Then there’s the suffering of aging, of the body losing its ability, the different senses of the body no longer giving pleasure, taste, touch, losing their clarity, hearing going, eyesight going, memory going, confusion arising. Something that if we all live to become aged physically, we’ll probably all experience So the decaying nature of the body, the process of aging, is suffering. Then there’s sickness, when the elements in the body are in disharmony, causing all kinds of physical problems and illness. And the experience of illness is something which is very difficult to bear. If we haven’t done any work in disciplining, controlling the mind, developing the mind prior to experiencing illness at the time of being ill, it’s impossible to have a calm mind.
So the experience of illness, sickness, again, suffering. And at the end of life, we all have something in common. We’re going to leave this body. It’s called death. And although intellectually, each of us will say yes I know I’m going to die I haven’t met anyone who hasn’t who’s managed to live like five hundred years, still alive, hasn’t died, has been able to transcend this death.
The physical form, the nature of the form is to decay. And in fact, from a Buddhist perspective, old age starts from the first moment after conception, because it’s from that time that we start going towards death. It might seem a bit revolutionary, but from a Buddhist perspective the length of life is determined from previous causes prior to one’s conception. The energy propelling one into this life, into this birth, was created prior to the birth. So at moment of conception, the first moment after conception, is when the aging process is starting, because it’s from that time that the unravelling of the energy, the development of the form, and the decay of the form there’s no point where you say that the body is now developing.
Stop. Now the body is decaying. The process is continuous. So we’re all going to die and the experience of leaving the physical form, leaving the body behind, As well as prior to the actual separation, there’s fear. We have fear anyway.
If you’ve ever experienced a near miss in a car accident, or thought you’ve had a terminal disease, or any number of events which can happen in our daily life almost falling off a cliff. I don’t know. What whatever it is. But that fear which arises at the moment, just a split second, we allow it to come into the mind that, yes, my body is perishable. Perishable.
I could have died. That some kind of fear, some kind of panic. Even intellectually we know we’re going to die if we have that, if we have that emotional reaction, we haven’t dealt with death. We haven’t dealt with our own death. If we haven’t understood, dealt with our own mortality and our own experience of the body and of having to leave the body, I think it’s impossible to really experience life to the full, because it’s the shadow all the time of death, which is the other side of life.
But that’s another topic. So while we are very attached to this physical form, because this is what we know, this is all we can remember. The death process can be extremely difficult, painful, because of much fear, not understanding what’s happening, fear of leaving for something unknown, leaving the known, which is this is what we know. So if the mind leaves this physical form, anywhere else is going to be unknown, and fear can arise. The fear can produce all kinds of hellish visualizations, images, experiences.
We don’t even have to be dying for us to have experienced that kind of fear, hallucinations, unreasonable beliefs arising. So the time of death, unless we have some development of accumulation of positive energy, of merit, or whatever you want to call it, of virtue that we’ve developed during our life at the time of death can be extremely frightening, it can be very painful and suffering for the mind leaving. And of course, there’s always the physical condition of death. So whether it’s whatever it is, we’re going to die of something. So some are more pleasant than others.
Some are more suffering than others. The condition of death. Whatever it is that we’re the body’s actually gonna stop functioning because of. So then we have the suffering of separating away from those we love, The result of any coming together is separating away. So being separated from those that we love or those we’re attached to can happen at any time in our life.
It can happen because of the death of someone we love, or it can happen because of some kind of psychological disagreement, or it can happen simply because of geographical necessities. So the suffering of actually being separated away from those we are attached to, or those that we are that our loved ones is suffering. It’s painful. Also, the separating away from attached objects. If someone if a thief comes to your house, each one of us here in this room will have a particular special attached object, which if the thief took, mind would really lot of pain.
Someone, it might be their new car smashed up, stolen. Someone else, it might be I don’t know. Some kind of treasured object that one becomes extremely attached to. It can be broken, can be stolen, can be lost. So just in everyday life these situations cause much pain and suffering and similarly encountering undesired objects someone that we can’t stand coming to visit us.
Having to work with someone It produces some kind of pain in the mind if you find some kind of aversion. So having to encounter disagreeable objects. It can even be the weather. Some people can get extremely upset and suffer very much because of having to encounter extremely hot or extremely cold weather. Or it might be any other kind of object.
It might be a thorn in the foot One has encountered an extremely disagreeable object, particularly if you don’t pull it out and it gets infected. So we all have this experience, too, to recognise, contemplate on, and develop a firm sense of renunciation to get rid of the source of this suffering, of this pain. And then there’s the suffering of not being able to obtain what we desire to obtain, yearning after something, spending so much time effort money whatever deciding this is what I want this is what I desire I must have it if I’ve got it once I’ve got it I’ll be happy I really will kind of convince ourselves so that we keep the energy going stronger. So either not being able to obtain that desired object causes much suffering, or obtaining it and finding out that it didn’t bring any satisfaction anyway. That’s also suffering.
And then the general suffering of this physical form of the body created by delusion and karma, this very existence of this form providing the basis for all these other sufferings. Without this, no way the other sufferings that we’ve just talked about to arise. So these kinds of experiences are something we can all understand because we all have had these experiences to some degree or other. And so to all beings, there’s no differentiation between ourselves, between myself and others, from this point of view. The only difference is that when I suffer, I feel that I’m the only one suffering.
Everyone else is fine. My suffering is the only thing that’s it becomes so important that one often can’t even see what’s happening to others around. And one forgets that all beings suffer in the same way. We might not be able to see it. But if we reflect upon it, can understand that, yes, they also have similar experiences simply because of this mind uncontrolled mind contemplating on this suffering is not to create depression.
The purpose of contemplating on these experiences is to produce within oneself a realistic aversion to allowing this state of affairs to continue. So in a way it’s to persuade oneself that one actually must put effort into developing the opponent, the wisdom, the energy which is going to oppose the continuation of such suffering, deluded uncontrolled mind continuing. So without this kind of contemplation we don’t find that energy. We distracted into all kinds of different events in the outside world. And it’s only when we come upon our own suffering we think, Ah, I’m suffering.
But we didn’t do anything while we weren’t suffering to work with developing the mind to prevent that kind of experience from occurring. So we’ve got to do something to convince ourselves realistically, to put some energy, make some effort, to do something about the state of our uncontrolled mind and body while we have the chance. Because while we are in the midst of suffering, it’s impossible to try and do something new, habituate the mind to something new, handle the mind, prevent the mind from going crazy with the pain or the suffering. And the other reason for contemplating on suffering is, as I said before, to develop some kind of empathy, some kind of ability to recognise a shared experience that all others have. I’m not the only one.
And it starts to open the heart, open the mind, to really want to develop the wisdom and the skill to help remove others’ suffering from them. Because just in the same way as my suffering is unbearable to me, so is their suffering unbearable to them, equally as unbearable so we develop start to develop the will to actually wish want to take others suffering from them, to give them happiness. So if by this contemplation you become morbid and depressed, you are using this contemplation in the wrong way. So also there are a number of different meditations on death, and the awareness of death in the Buddhist tradition. And again the same thing: if one becomes morbid or depressed in those meditations or those contemplations, then one is doing it in the wrong way.
The purpose is to be realistic, to bring some realism into our experience of our self, as well as to use this contemplation to provide energy, to do something about it. They’re the two purposes. In Buddhism, there’s a differentiation made between usually two types you may hear people say Hīnayāna which means small vehicle Mahāyāna which means great vehicle Unfortunately, many people assume that Hīnayāna is a tradition which is synonymous with the Theravadin tradition or the Buddhist tradition in some of the southern Asian countries, like Burma, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand. And that Mahāyāna is the tradition of the northern Asian countries such as Tibet, China, prior to the revolution, Japan, Korea, and these places. So this misconception is simply that they’ve been labelled that way.
The Tibetan tradition is called the Mahāyāna tradition because it concentrates on the development of love and compassion for others, and the wish to attain enlightenment solely for the purpose of helping others, forgetting about oneself. However, in the Theravadan tradition they also have teachings of the development of love and compassion. And in actual fact, what Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna are talking about is talking about an attitude of mind. Whether one is working for one’s own self liberation, or whether one is working for liberation in order to help others. So one is a self centered motivation: I am fed up with my own suffering.
I know that there’s a path to be released from, to be liberated from suffering, so I am going to attain liberation for my own self peace, my own peace of mind. That is the attitude of a Hīnayāna practitioner. And the attitude of a Mahāyāna practitioner is one who is working to attain the highest state of liberation, enlightenment, in order that one has the wisdom, the skill, the compassion and the love necessary to really be able to help take other suffering from them and give them happiness, to help them also attain enlightenment. So the only purpose for one’s practice, if one’s a Mahāyāna practitioner, is because by attaining the higher states one has automatically the ability to help others more greatly. So one’s motivation for developing higher realisations of developing in the path to enlightenment is for the purpose of others.
So it’s an attitude of mind, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the school or the philosophy, or the color of the robes that the teacher might be wearing And it’s a progression which all practitioners need to go through. First of all, we start off at a level of recognising our own suffering and wanting to put an end to it, after we can recognise that there is an end to it possible. There are techniques to use, and so one sets about to start to develop one’s own mind. And so it’s a progressive step from that basis then to opening one’s heart and one’s mind to the awareness of others and to making one’s practice become beneficial for others, the motivation to do it for others rather than for oneself. So then one progresses from the Hīnayāna level of motive for one’s practice to the Mahāyāna level.
So everyone starts really on a hinayana level of attitude, or a selfish level of attitude, and gradually progresses through to a more altruistic motive for doing one’s own self development. So in the Tibetan tradition of Buddhism, it’s called Mahāyāna because there are many teachings and much strong emphasis on the development of love and compassion as being the motive for one’s individual practice, rather than one becoming sort of like a cocoon, very self centred and smug in one’s own development, one’s own development of peace of mind, of tranquillity of mind, forget about everyone else that kind of attitude. So in order to generalise our own experience of suffering to that of others, to being able to really feel others’ suffering as unbearable as our own, to broaden our mind, to totally open our mind, we have to start off with the development of what we call equanimity, an equal state of mind. And it’s just like before you build a house, it’s necessary to have an even ground to put the foundations. In the same way, it’s impossible to develop altruistic love and compassion, the love wishing all beings without exception.
So all beings I’m also a being, so I’m included in all beings. I don’t have to say I and all beings. Wishing all beings to be happy and wishing all beings to be released from suffering, from the minutest suffering to the most gross. So the way to develop an equal state of mind or equanimity is to think on what level we’re all the same. Every being existent is the same in that they don’t wish to suffer.
They wish to avoid all suffering, and they wish to attain happiness. They wish to experience happiness. There is not one single difference between any being on that level. We are all equal. That’s also talking about both mental pain, physical pain.
No one wishes to experience any kind of suffering. So we have love we do have the energy, the love which wishes those close to us to be happy and to actually put that wish into action we do things to help them be happy. We do have that. But what we lack is the ability to do it to all others. We select out a few of those close to us and we help them.
So it’s a partial love. And sometimes it also it’s a love which is a love that says I will love you, I will help you if and there’s some condition if you will love me back or if you will whatever and that kind of love really isn’t love because that’s self centered, that actually is looking after number one first and then by the way, you’re helping me so I’ll help you so that kind of attachment really, because that sort of feeling or that kind of wish for that person is only a condition that they help me. So if that person actually turned around to me and got angry with me or did something negative to me that I didn’t like, then that kind of attachment or that kind of so called love would cut. You say I’m not going to have anything more to do with that person, I’m not going to help them, they deserve whatever they get Something like that, you know, we say. That actually is not love.
We sometimes call it love. But if we are truly trying to help someone else to be happy but only on condition that we get what we want back from them then we have to question really what is that? Some kind of self centeredness So the difference in what we’re trying to develop in Buddhist understanding of love is that one develops an altruistic love, in other words one wishes to help others be happy regardless of what happens to oneself. So it’s not a kind of political bargaining: I will do this if I get this back. The other thing that differentiates it from limited love or worldly love is that we encompass all beings.
It’s not limited to just a few that I know or just a few that I like, or just a few that I’m related to or close to my own family. It becomes an impartial, unlimited love on the basis that we recognise in the same way that I and all others are equal wishing to be happy. So one starts to develop, to open one’s heart to encompass all beings and help them to be happy. At least to start to develop the wish to be able to do that. So the same thing with compassion: developing the wish to relieve all beings of their suffering, whatever their suffering is.
So actually a limitless wish. Not just this person, this person, this person, but actually all beings. I don’t want any being to suffer. I would like to remove the suffering from all beings without exception. Even the people I don’t like.
I’d like to remove their suffering too because they equally, they don’t want to suffer. If they had choice, they wouldn’t suffer. So developing an impartial, a selfless, so selfless in the sense that it’s not self centered, it’s not self concerned. One is developing this pure altruistic love wishing others to be happy, experience happiness, and developing the pure altruistic compassion which without judging, limiting all beings wishing them to be released from all suffering. So it’s selfless, because it doesn’t relate to one’s own self center, what one gets for oneself.
So the way we start to develop this is through understanding on what level we’re all the same, developing a sense of relatedness to all beings. We’re all equal from this point of view. So if only we can start thinking as soon as we start judging, I’ll help this person. I won’t help that person. Or I wish that person got their just desserts.
They deserve to suffer. So starting to understand that from that level, a very basic level, we’re all the same. And there’s no reason, there is no reason why I should differentiate. Not one single reason why I should differentiate. Helping some and not helping others.
So this is the way we start to train the mind, start to train the thought, and to develop the wish, because it starts on that level, to start actually to, within one’s own mind, encompass all beings instead of discriminating this, that, that, like this according to one’s own self self conception and the other avenue which helps us to start to encompass all beings, to broaden our perspective, is to have some understanding, some feeling at least, for the Buddhist conception of rebirth, of the continuity of many lives, which is a very difficult one. Some people find it fits very easily, they have no question, it’s very easy to accept, something clicks. For others it seems kind of irrational, difficult to prove, difficult to accept. So in order to get some understanding of the relatedness of all beings, The easiest way is to look upon one’s own mind and to develop the understanding of one’s own mind stream being continuous. So when you contemplate on your own mind stream you actually start seeing from moment to moment to moment, thought moment to thought moment to thought moment a continuation of energy of mental energy mind stream.
And recognizing the continuity of this in the same way as, let’s say, a stream of water, a river, or a small stream is continuous. But if you happen to put your foot in to one part of that stream as it’s flowing, that place where you put your foot, there’s always the stream flowing, but it’s changing. There’s never a time when there’s no stream there. The stream is flowing, but the actual river’s changing. The part the stream that’s touching the foot is always moving, changing.
So it’s similar with the mind stream, continuous flow of mental energy. One thought moment is preceded by another thought moment, and back and back and back it goes. And recognizing and coming to some kind of understanding of this continuity of mindstream, mind, can give one some kind of feeling for the possibility of previous existence and future existence of mind. So recognizing, if one follows that logic, one’s own mindstream is being continuous, even one is not consciously aware while one’s sleeping, for instance, but nonetheless the mind stream is still continuous, there’s no break in it, as we have with dreams, etc. And actually with the development of higher meditative states of mind and ability of mind, one can actually remain aware throughout one’s sleep continuously.
But anyway, the continuity of the mind flowing. So then we can go back and back and back. Each thought moment is preceded by another. So the thought moment after birth is preceded by the thought moment prior to birth. And again going back further, the thought moment after conception is preceded by thought moment prior to conception, which was another existence because it wasn’t this one, was it, prior to conception?
From a Buddhist perspective, when the sperm and the egg come together I think I mentioned this last time at the time of conception the mind enters the union of the sperm and the ovum. And at that time the fetus starts. If the mind does not enter the union of the ovum, the sperm, then there will be no fetus. That’s from the Buddhist perspective anyway So, to start to get some feeling for the relatedness, the way we are all interconnected with all beings, we have to start to question, investigate, the notion of many existences, many bodies, the same way another way of thinking, the same ways I’ve taken I find myself now, I find no disputing it. I have this body.
I find myself in this body. Each morning, same happens. Sometimes you can really, if you’ve investigated, you can wake up and be surprised. Oh, here I am again. That my experience is I I’m I’m using this form.
So, some way or other, I came to inhabit this form, use it. So since I’ve done it once, then it’s logically possible that it could be done again. So or so could have been done before. That’s just another way of thinking that can sometimes help to get some kind of feeling for the possibility of past and future existences. So the mind has a beginningless nature.
One cannot point to a beginning of the mind. And it travels throughout many existences taking different forms, and with each existence one has parents and one has relatives. So if one tries to extend this kind of way of thinking, one actually, through countless existences, is related to all other beings, to infinite number of existences. It’s just that we don’t recognize because we are fooled by the form. We don’t recognize who was our mother previous life or who was our father in our previous life.
We don’t recognize them because they’ve changed form. We’ve changed form difficult so contemplating on some of these issues is the start to develop some kind of feeling of sharing and of relatedness to all beings. And although it’s not essential to believe in past and future lives, nonetheless it can be helpful in opening the mind and starting to be more aware of the way that we are related to all beings in some way we’re not islands at all So I think tonight our time’s up. Perhaps I’ll leave you with that provocative subject, and we’ll continue on next week. Thank you.