Gampopa's Ten Ways to True Self Kindness

The Ten Things Wherein One Does Good for Oneself from A Precious Garland of the Supreme Path, interwoven with practical commentary from Mark van den Enden's Bringing Mind Into View.

In this episode, the hosts will deeply explore the ten actions that represent a true kindness to oneself, freeing the mind from samsaric entanglement. They will unpack the profound benefits of:

Abandoning worldly conventions and human attachments to practice the pure Dharma.
Leaving behind worldly life to follow a lineage guru or sublime personage.
Giving up distractions to devote oneself to learning, reflection, and meditation.
Embracing solitude rather than remaining enmeshed with village people and neighbors.
Cutting the ties of sense pleasures and remaining stable in nonattachment.
Being content with the bare necessities and simplicity, without craving luxuries.
Keeping steadfast resolve and not surrendering one's independence to the influence of others.
Pursuing the lasting happiness of enlightenment (cultivating bodhicitta) without regard for the temporary pleasures of this life.
Giving up clinging to things as being real and bringing emptiness into your experience.
Guarding your actions of body, speech, and mind to exert yourself in gathering the two accumulations.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You know, when we hear the phrase um be kind to yourself today, it almost always implies this very specific kind of, I guess, consumer transaction.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Oh, totally, like buying something.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Yeah, exactly. It's this cultural expectation of indulgence. Like it's a reward for just surviving the week. So you have a stressful time at work, so you, you know, run a hot bubble bath or pour an extensive glass of wine or impulsively buy that gadget you've been eyeing online. We treat the concept of self-kindness as an acquisition.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Right. It's I mean, it is entirely based on adding a layer of comfort to an otherwise really abrasive life.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

We are essentially uh purchasing temporary anesthesia to just sort of soothe the friction of our daily routines.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Aaron Powell Well, today in our deep dive, we're stepping into the world of 12th century Tibetan Buddhist teachings. And suddenly that whole framework is just turned completely upside down.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Completely inverted.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Yeah, we're looking at a text from the 12th century master Lord Gampopa, specifically a section known as the Ten Self-Accomplished Great Kindnesses, or, you know, simply put, the 10 ways you actually do yourself a true kindness.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

And this is such a fascinating list.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

It really is. And to ground this for you today, we're reading Gampopa's primary source text, which is called A Precious Garland of the Supreme Path, alongside the commentary in this great modern book called Bringing Mind into View by Mark Vandenenden.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Which is an excellent pairing, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

It is. But I have to say, looking at Gampopa's first few ideas of self-kindness, it well, it feels like a direct attack on modern life.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

I mean, point one is abandoning worldly conventions and practicing pure dharma. Point five is cutting ties to sense pleasures, and point six is just contentment with bare necessities.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Right, which sounds so foreign to us because it's a radical inversion of what we're taught. Mark van denden points out in his commentary that worldly life focuses relentlessly on accumulation, dominance, and you know, immediate gratification.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

He actually calls it a shallow farce, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:00

He does, yeah. Because if you are trying to accumulate goods, overcome your rivals, and constantly manage your reputation just to please worldly people, you're well, you're playing a game designed to never end. Pure Dharma in this context means dedicating yourself to the ultimate truth of awakening rather than just the temporary management of your worldly status.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Okay. But I'm struggling a bit right out of the gate here. Because I mean, giving up sense pleasures and being content with just the bare necessities, that doesn't sound like a kindness to me.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

It sounds kind of awful, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Yeah, it sounds like punishment and it sounds like making yourself miserable just for the sake of being pious. Yeah. How does giving up the things that, you know, bring us joy actually benefit us?

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Aaron Powell Well, we have to look at the psychological mechanics of what we call joy in a worldly sense. Mark Van Denden clarifies that freedom from attachment doesn't mean you physically cannot like eat a good meal or own a one coat. It's about the mental exhaustion of ownership. Think of it like being a museum curator.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Oh, I like that.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Yeah. So in worldly life, we spend decades collecting these fragile artifacts, right? Our reputation, our wealth, our carefully curated aesthetic, our luxury items. But once you have a museum full of priceless fragile things, you have to spend 24 hours a day guarding it.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Wow. Yeah. You're constantly terrified of thieves or public criticism or just natural decay.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Exactly. Every new addition to the museum requires more security cameras and more insurance policies.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Because the more you have, the more you stand to lose.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Precisely. You become a prisoner to the maintenance of your own life. So Impopa is saying that locking the doors of that museum and just walking away isn't a punishment.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

It's relief.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Yes. It is the profound relief of dropping this massive, invisible weight. When you understand the impermanence of these things, that, you know, everything decays, reputations fluctuate, objects break, you see the total futility of aggressively guarding them.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Aaron Powell, you stop handing the remote control of your nervous system over to external, unpredictable circumstances. And it's it's kind of like being on a treadmill that keeps speeding up. Stepping off looks crazy to everyone else who's still running, but it's the ultimate kindness to your exhausted legs.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

That's a great way to put it. The text actually quotes the great master Atisha, who says the best way of life is one that doesn't fit with worldly ways. Worldly convention values power and the uh the illusion of security. But true security comes from a mind that remains stable regardless of what resources are present.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

That brings up a huge logistical problem, though.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

How so?

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Well, if you close down the museum and you step off the treadmill and you stop chasing wealth and status and sensory overload, you create a massive vacuum. The hustle takes up so much of our mental bandwidth.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

It does. It takes up almost all of it.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Right. So if you aren't doing that, what fills the void? Gampopa argues that you have to aggressively curate your environment next.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Which is point two, three, and four.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Exactly. He says you do yourself a kindness by leaving behind worldly life, which, wow, includes family and friends, abandoning your neighbors, and living in solitude to devote yourself to learning, reflection, and meditation.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Because nature abhors a vacuum, and the human mind is really no different. If you don't intentionally fill that new space with practices that cultivate clarity, your old habits will just rush right back in.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

You can't heal a sick mind in the exact same environment that made it sick.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

I need distance.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

But I really have to push back on this on behalf of, well, anyone listening who has a family or people who depend on them.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

It's a tough pill to swallow.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

It is. Telling someone to literally leave behind their family and friends sounds incredibly cold. It sounds selfish, honestly. How can a philosophy that is supposedly about ultimate compassion tell you to abandon your loved ones?

SPEAKER_01 5:47

It is arguably the most challenging part of the text for a modern reader, but we really need to look at how worldly relationships function on a mechanical level.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Okay, unpack that for me.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Well, Mark Vanenden emphasizes that we are constantly distracted by what he calls the noise of society and conditioned arisings. Think about what happens when you get together with a group of close friends to vent about a problem.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Like complaining about a boss or something.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Yeah, exactly. You complain about someone who wronged you and your friends out of loyalty, validate your anger. They tell you that you have every right to be furious.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Which feels great in the moment. I mean, it feels like support.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

It feels good, sure. But mechanically, what is happening? They are actively reinforcing your ego and your anger. They are participating in a mutual feedback loop of validation.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Oh, so you're just enabling each other's delusions.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Exactly. It's like having two microphones too close to the same speaker. It creates an acoustic feedback loop that just gets louder and more distorted. Gampopa is referring to this as the endless cycle of samsaric existence, that exhausting repetitive loop of chasing validation, reacting to friction, and reinforcing our own biases.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

So stepping away isn't about not loving them, it's about breaking that acoustic feedback loop so you can actually hear yourself think.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Yes, that's it. It's not driven by anger or hatred. In fact, another section of Gampopa's work explicitly states that abandoning sentient beings out of hatred is a terrible waste. The physical distance, whether it's, you know, retreating to a literal mountain or maybe just setting massive boundaries with your social circle, it's about gaining perspective.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Aaron Ross Powell Because if you stay in that distorted noise, trading gossip and anxieties, you have nothing of actual value to offer those friends anyway.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Aaron Ross Powell Right. You're just another panicked person in the room. Which makes the next step in Gampopa's text make a lot more sense. He says you should follow a holy person or a lineage guru instead of your worldly peers.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Point two.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Yes. Because a lineage guru provides an unbroken flow of awakened view. To use our microphone analogy, they're a perfectly calibrated tuning fork.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Oh, I see. Their frequency isn't altered by your personal drama or your ego.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Exactly. They aren't going to validate your anger just to make you feel better. They're going to reflect the truth of your own mind back to you. So you do yourself and ultimately your family a kindness by retreating into solitude, dropping your endless distractions, and reflecting until your mind is actually strong enough to offer real stable compassion rather than just, you know, shared anxiety.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Okay, so we've stripped away the worldly hustle, we've muted the group chats, we've broken the feedback loops, and we found some level of solitude to reflect.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

But changing your zip code or turning off your phone doesn't automatically change your brain.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

No, it definitely doesn't.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

So Gampopa moves on to the inner architecture required to sustain this. In point seven, he says you do yourself a kindness by keeping steadfast resolve, not surrendering your independence to others. It's crucial. And then point eight, he says you need to cultivate bodhicitta. I don't make sure I'm pronouncing that right. Bodhicitta.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

You are bodhicitta. With the ch like in church.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Okay, great. But I am struggling to understand how these two ideas coexist.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

How do you mean?

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Well, Gampopa says we need fierce independence and resolve, which sounds highly individualistic. Yeah. But then he says we need bodhicitta, which, as I understand it, means pursuing enlightenment entirely for the benefit of other people. How is giving up my own ultimate goal to save everyone else a kindness to myself?

SPEAKER_01 9:21

It's the central paradox of the entire path. As Mark van denden breaks it down in his commentary, the self, or there our obsessive fixation on our own importance, our own desires, and our own comfort is the actual origin of our pain.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

All that anxiety about guarding the museum we talked about earlier.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Exactly. That is the burden of the self. So the ultimate secret to happiness is entirely counterintuitive to a worldly mind. It is exchanging self for others.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

But if I'm constantly putting everyone else first, aren't I just becoming a martyr? Because that sounds exhausting.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Well, not if you have that fierce independence Gampopa mentions in point seven.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

The steadfast resolve is what keeps you from falling back into the trap of seeking external validation. You aren't helping people so they will thank you, or so society will view you as a saint.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

Because that would just be rebuilding the ego's museum with slightly more spiritual artifacts.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

That is exactly what it would be.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Oh wow. Okay, so point seven, the independence, is like having an internal compass that always points true north, so you aren't blown around by the weather of other people's opinions.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

And point eight, bodhicitta, is realizing that true north isn't a destination just for you, but a rescue mission for everyone else. It protects your motivation.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

It does. Because if your motivation is just to make yourself feel peaceful, you are building a house of cards. The second meditation gets boring or the solitude gets lonely, the house collapses, and you just go back to your old habits. Right. But bodhicitta, the desire to achieve perfect, complete enlightenment specifically to free all beings from suffering is like pouring a solid concrete foundation.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Because the weight of the task actually makes you immovable. You are bearing the weight of that structural load, not for your own glory, but because the rest of the building depends on your stability.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

That is a very apt way to look at it. You become an instrument for others' liberation, and in the process, you completely bypass the fragile, needy ego that is always getting bruised by the world.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

So it's a kindness because it destroys the mechanism that causes your suffering in the first place.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Precisely. Which leads us into what is easily the most difficult mind-bending part of this entire framework. Points nine and ten.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Yeah, Gampopa says to truly execute this rescue mission for yourself and others, you have to fundamentally change how you perceive existence itself.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

This is where it gets deep.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

It really does. He says you do yourself a kindness by abandoning your fixation on the reality of things to cultivate emptiness. And then you guard your actions of body, speech, and mind to unify the two accumulations.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

Right, the accumulation of wisdom and the accumulation of merit.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Yeah, but let's start with point nine. Yeah. Because this is where the philosophical theory has to translate into minute-by-minute action.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

And the concept of emptiness is um, well, perhaps the most misunderstood element of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Oh, without a doubt.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Because to a modern ear, the word emptiness sounds completely nihilistic. It sounds like a dark, depressing void. For a lot of people, hearing that reality is empty is like, well, if my lace is empty, if my relationships are empty, why should I care about anything? It just sounds like an excuse to be totally apathetic.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

That is exactly the hurdle Mark Van Denenden anticipates in bringing mind into view. He is extremely careful to clarify that emptiness absolutely does not mean nothingness. It does not mean things don't exist or that nothing matters.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

So what does it actually mean?

SPEAKER_01 12:44

It means seeing that all phenomena, your thoughts, your physical possessions, your body, your sense of self-lack, inherent, independent, permanent existence. They exist, but they exist dependently.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Meaning they change.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

Exactly. They are constantly changing based on causes and conditions. Mark Vine Endon notes that they are like a dream or a magical illusion. They appear vividly, you experience them fully, but if you look for a solid, permanent, unchanging core within them, you will never find it.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

I'm trying to grasp how realizing everything is like an illusion is a kindness, though.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Because it targets the root of fear. Let's go back to a worldly example. Let's say you buy a brand new, expensive car.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Okay, I love new cars.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Right. You might experience a thrill, but almost immediately you experience anxiety. You are terrified of the first scratch, you park it far away from other cars at the grocery store, you stress about the weather, you are suffering because you have fixated on the car as a permanent solid source of your identity and happiness.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

And a scratch threatens that reality.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

But if you perceive the car through the lens of emptiness, you recognize its impermanence from the moment you buy it. You know it is a temporary collection of metal and plastic that will eventually rust and break down.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

So when the inevitable scratch happens, you aren't emotionally devastated.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Right. You don't have to defend your ego because you never mistook the car for a permanent reality in the first place. Mark von denenden actually quotes an analogy used by teachers like Dogchin Ponloprin Poche.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Oh, I've read some of Dogkin Ponloprin Poche's work. It's great.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

It is. And the analogy is that realizing emptiness allows your mind to become like a spacious, cloudless sky.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

And the clouds are just our thoughts and emotions passing through.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Exactly. In our normal state, we think we are the thunderstorm. We get completely lost in the weather of our own anger or anxiety. Realizing emptiness is remembering that you are actually the sky. The thunderstorm is happening, it is visible, but it cannot stain or destroy the sky itself. It simply passes through.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

That sounds incredibly freeing. If I know I am the sky, I don't have to panic every time it rains.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

But Gumpopa doesn't just leave it at emptiness, right? He follows it immediately with point 10: the final kindness, guarding the actions of your body, speech, and mind to unify the two accumulations, wisdom and merit. Why is that pairing so crucial?

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Because there is a very real danger in misunderstanding emptiness. If you think, oh, everything is an illusion, so nothing matters, you might act recklessly. You might become cold, aloof, or even cruel, thinking that pain isn't real.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

But you still exist in the relative world where actions have very real consequences for other people who don't yet understand emptiness.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Right. They are still suffering from the thunderstorm. So you practice this final kindness by unifying wisdom, which is that deep, skylike understanding of emptiness with merit. And merit refers to ethical conduct, radical generosity, patience, and act of compassion. Mark Van and Eenden calls these the two wings of a bird needed for awakening.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Because you can't fly with just one.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Impossible. If you only have wisdom, you become detached and useless to others. If you only have merit-like, if you are just trying to do good deeds all the time without understanding emptiness, you will eventually burn out. You will remain exhausted and trapped in the cycle of worldly stress because you still think every victory and defeat is completely permanently real.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

I feel like this is um it's very similar to lucid dreaming.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Oh, so more about that.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Well, in a regular dream, if a monster starts chasing you, you are utterly terrified. Your heart races, you panic because you fixate on the reality of the monster. But in a lucid dream, you suddenly realize wait, this is just a projection of my own mind. That realization is the wisdom of emptiness.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

And what happens to the fear?

SPEAKER_00 16:34

The fear just vanishes. You don't necessarily have to kill the monster. You just stop running in terror because you know it lacks inherent existence. But where the merit comes in is if there are other people in that dream with you. And they aren't lucid. They are still screaming and running from the monster.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

That is a brilliant way to conceptualize it.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Thanks. So unifying wisdom and merit means you don't just wake yourself up and leave them to suffer. You use your lucidity, your lack of fear, to walk right past the monster, grab their hands, and help them navigate the nightmare. You act with perfect kindness, but with zero heavy attachment to the drama because you know the nature of the dream.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

And doing both simultaneously is the ultimate kindness. You are participating in the world fully with boundless compassion, but you are completely unburdened by the heavy worldly metrics of success and failure. You are actually free.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

When we pull all the way back and look at this entire operating manual Gumpopa has laid out, it completely shatters our modern bubble bath version of self-care.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

It really does.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

True kindness to yourself is not a temporary escape from a stressful life. It is the systematic dismantling of the things that cause the stress in the first place. It is dropping the exhausting hustle for accumulation. It is having the courage to break the social feedback loops that keep you stagnant.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

It is standing firm in your resolve, dedicating your life to others through bodhicitta, and fundamentally recognizing the empty, fluid nature of reality so you can navigate it without fear.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

It is a complete re-engineering of how you interact with existence. And, you know, for everyone listening, it is vital to recognize that this path is not a weekend retreat.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

No, definitely not.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

The text suggests this takes a lifetime or many lifetimes to perfect. You aren't going to master the realization of emptiness by tomorrow morning. Unfortunately. Right? But every single time you notice your mind grasping for validation, every time you choose long-term wisdom over a short-term reaction, you are enacting a profound kindness toward yourself.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

You are slowly taking down the walls of the museum.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

You are. And to leave you with one final provocative thought today, drawn from Mark van denenden's commentary in bringing mine into view, we have to consider the fundamental nature of the mind itself. We have talked a lot today about what to abandon and what to cultivate. But Mark Vanden points out a profound truth about what we call the natural mind.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Which is what? Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Well, we spend so much of our energy trying to acquire things to feel better. We try to acquire peace, we try to acquire happiness, we try to force ourselves into a state of relaxation. But beneath all the worldly noise, beneath the anxiety, and beneath the endless storytelling of the ego, your natural mind is already primordially clear, blissful, and aware.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Really?

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Yes. It has been there the entire time, completely unstained by your stress.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

So we've been running around trying to buy a sense of peace that we literally already possess.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Exactly. What if the absolute greatest kindness you could possibly do for yourself right now isn't adding anything new to your life? What if it simply requires pausing, letting go of the exhausting storyline you've been maintaining, and finally noticing the spacious brilliance that has been sitting inside you all along?

SPEAKER_00 19:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

No effort, no acquisition, just recognition.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

You don't need to earn your own peace. You just have to stop looking away from it. Take that thought with you today and see how it completely changes the way you treat yourself.