The Gift of Resting in the View

An Edited Excerpt from Oral Teachings Given by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, June 2020

I have been teaching on The Seven Mirrors of Dzogchen, a text by Drenpa Namkha, who lived in the eighth century. He was one of the great masters present at the moment of a great transition in the history of Tibet when a new religion was coming in and the old religious tradition was having difficulty surviving. During some of the conflicts of the time, he was trying to preserve many of these teachings. As a result, later on these teachings became more available.

The essence of The Seven Mirrors teachings is not so different from other teachings such as The Twenty-One Nails, The Six Essential Points from the Zhang Zhung Nyen Gyüd, The Six Lamps, The Four Wheels, and so on. Every teaching, every doctrine, centers around the core principles of view, meditation and conduct. What defines each of these teachings are their different means of instruction, different approaches to awareness, different forms of discipline and their slightly different practices, all of which are taught in order to accomplish the same view.

No matter what the cycle, all of the dzogchen teachings are trying to establish a grounding in the boundless view. No matter how they do it, no matter what kind of meditation is taught, no matter what approach it is, in the end it is a grounding in the same view. That is the main point here. Clearly The Seven Mirrors has beautiful teachings and messages to do the same thing. And we have been going deeply into practices of the nine breathings and tsa lung, as well as practices dealing with the dissolution of the inner subjective ego and the dissolution of our body in order to experience the view more directly, more deeply.

The body is one of our main places of attachment due to our pain identity, which on the surface is manifesting many blockages and pain and sicknesses, enough so that worry becomes the samsaric story of life. When that story has been running, then even when it is ready to leave, we don't want it to leave. It becomes a big source of attachment. And that big source of attachment in some way is what is preventing our connecting with this boundless view.

What does view mean in relation to your perception of yourself? Although you are always looking outward, chasing outward, and acting outward, the truth is that where you are looking, and how you're looking, and what you are chasing, what you are running away from, and what experiences you are avoiding, and what experiences you are longing for – these all have to do with your perception of self. In fact, all of the experiences of your life have to do with how you see yourself.

Let’s say it this way: the view that is being established in your practice is one of complete openness to yourself even though you have many different experiences. You may at times feel that you are father, or mother, or doctor, or lawyer, or you feel that you are man or woman. Whatever you feel, you can have so many identities, and that's completely okay. But you must not get stuck with one identity, that's not okay, no matter how good that identity is. You can feel anything, but you really don't want to feel any one thing too strongly. Why? Because anytime that you feel one thing too strongly, then that identity will become the issue of your conflict and the source of your suffering.

Throughout history you can see that. Look around you now and you'll see that. Look at yourself and you can see that, you can feel that. If you are identifying too much as a mother or as a father, then clearly you will have issues with the children. You are not only a mother or father, you're not only a teacher, you're not only a husband or wife. You're more than that.

In other words, you are even better than your identities, greater than them. You are potentiality! Not only potentiality, you are infinite potentiality. What does that mean? Infinite potentiality means that you will be able to be joyful when you are sad as well as when you are joyful; you will be able to be grateful when you have nothing as well as when you have everything; you will feel rich when you have a lot of money and you will feel rich when you have nothing. You'll feel every enlightened quality without needing any particular condition in your life for it to manifest.

When you are feeling very open and not getting stuck with one identity, then that is the right approach to the view. It is not the ultimate view, but it is the right approach toward the view. Meditation, then, is when you are able to experience that directly. And the best meditation is: I am no one. I am no one. Ahhh. I'm no one. It's quite liberating. How many feel that it's liberating? How many people feel a little bit uncomfortable or a little bit scared? Try saying it again: I am no one. Meditation comes when we really investigate and feel into the view: I am no one. Wow, so I don't have to protect so much? I don't have to defend so much? I don't have to work so hard? Ahhhh, I am no one. The meditation is when you feel this sense of freedom because of being no one. Ahhhh. [Rinpoche exhales]

This expression of Ahhh, that's the sound of your meditation, freeing, relaxing, releasing, clearing, resting . . . Ahhh. Effortless. That's meditation – when you are aware that you are no one. When you are aware that for every label you have put on yourself, you are not that. When you realize that, when you are aware of that, that is the meditation.

When you look at yourself and see that I am no one, I am not this pain identity related with specific experiences, I am not that, then it immediately frees you up, and you feel a lot of space there, you feel a lot of awareness there. When you feel a lot of space, it is the experience of view, and when you feel a lot of awareness, you are having an experience of meditation. In that experience of space and awareness, what do you see? You experience the potentiality. You experience anything there. Anything. I can be anyone. I can do anything. I can feel anything.

Over the last four or five years I have been engaged in writing some poems in Tibetan just for fun and creativity. Most of the time it's deeply connected with the teachings and what I have learned from my teachers, my lineage, my practices and my experience of how these teachings are manifesting in my life, how they are experienced in everyday life, socially speaking. These are the things that I've expressed in poems.

Not long ago I wrote a poem, “Who Am I?” It was written in Tibetan and also was translated into English. It's a poem about who I am. And basically, I am no one – just remembering that I am no one. Even if we might think that we are someone special, someone very important, not getting into that trip and simply remembering that I am no one. Recognizing that being no one is the greatest gift that you can have.

[Marcy Vaughn reads the poem “Who Am I?” to the group.] 

Now let's just reflect and rest deeply in this poem, realizing that there is more of a sense of who you are by being no one. Recognize that your power lies in being no one, not in trying to be someone or in trying to hold on to someone; that is not the source of power. Many of your sufferings and pains arise by your grasping onto being someone. The ability to let go of being someone is your freedom from the suffering of that grasping mind.

In the name of love, we try to demand of someone to become someone else. We lose loved ones not knowing who they are and, instead, ask them to be someone they are not. We lose them. We lose ourselves in not knowing who we are. We lose ourselves in trying to be someone, all the while not knowing who we are. So just for a moment try to recognize that our strength is who we are, not what we are trying to become.

Our great relationship with others arises in our knowing who they are, not who they should become. Our richness is in what we have, not what we are longing for. Recognizing what we have is where our wealth is, not in longing for what we don't have.

Our joy is in engaging with what is present in our life, not in our getting lost in missing something, That's not the source of joy. As we pray in Guru Yoga all the time, please help me, bless me in the most important thing: to know who I am. The moment that I know who I am, it will answer all of the unanswered question of my life. Bless me to recognize that I am no one. Bless me to recognize all of the power in being no one. Bless me to recognize the potentiality of being no one, the potentiality of being able to be anyone or anything.

Let's listen to the SA LE Ö mantra and just feel the power in being no one. The creativity is there in your being able to be anyone. When you are no one, then what can you be afraid of? When you are no one, then what is there to lose? When you are no one, what is there to protect? Feel the power in being no one, feel the creativity in potentiality; just feel that as you listen to the SA LE Ö mantra.

This sense of letting go is sometimes painful, probably because sometime somebody told you, You are no one. Even you yourself have had the feeling that you are no one. And maybe that was painful because of our upbringing. If we had had a different upbringing, it could actually be a great joy if somebody were to tell you that you are no one.

Obviously, sometimes we have a little negative relationship with this idea of being no one. What I am trying to do here is change your view. In our retreat on The Seven Mirrors, we've been talking so much about the view, and meditating so much on view, because we are trying to change the view. Changing the view involves not trying to grasp onto who you think you are, and not trying to be who you are not, and not being so protective of something that you have nothing to do with, not investing energy so much. That is what the teaching is trying to say.

Instead, feel joy. It's so heart opening, it's so liberating, it's such a blessing to have even a glimpse of this sense that I am no one. Truly try to feel joy. Grasping onto who you think you are has not produced joy; protecting who you think you are has not given you joy. Nor has it given other people joy or given them freedom.

So at least try a new thing now! If joyfulness cannot arise from who you think you are, then try feeling joy in not being that! I guarantee you that you'll be much happier being free from who you think you are, which, as you have clearly witnessed over so many years, has produced suffering. I clearly guarantee that that will be a day of your liberation, a day of your joy – the greatest gift that you can ever get in your life. Not only the greatest gift that you can get in your life, it will be the greatest gift that you will be able to give to others in your life, those who are seeking something from you.

There are so many people in life who are asking for something from you. They've been asking for love that you've not been able to give. They've been asking for acknowledgment that you've not been able to give. They've been asking for respect that you've not been able to give. They've been asking for freedom that you've not been able to give. They've been asking for space that you've not been able to give. They've been asking for silence that you've not been able to give.

Why are you not able to give these qualities? It's because, honestly, you're not feeling these qualities much in yourself, either. However, that's not the logic that you use in telling people. You do not say to them, “Sorry I cannot give you joy because I am not feeling it myself.” Rather, you tell them, “I am feeling so much joy in my life, but I don't want to give it to you. You don't deserve joy from me, love from me.” You may say that, but that's not the truth. The reason you are not able to give joy is that you're not feeling joy. You are not able to give love because you are not feeling love enough in yourself. And the root of all that is that you are trying to be someone you are not. When you are free from that, then it is the greatest gift to yourself and for others. It's a liberation, it's a joy. In short, what I'm really trying to say here is very simple: being no one is a great source of joy, individually and collectively.

That's what the poem is about. I am no one. And because of that, because of the power of that, because of the blessing of that, then whomever you want me to be, I can be that. That's the way that I can be a good friend to you; the only way that I can be a good resource to you; the only way that I can be a healer to you; the only way that I can be a guide to you, by my being no one. My strength is in being no one, because it gives me the opportunity to be anyone. I can be anyone for you.

Also if you're no one, then you can have more fun in life. If you're no one, then you can enjoy simply being a good tourist throughout all your life, seeing everything freshly. My prayers are there, and my blessings are there for you to be able to live so much more fully in your life as a good tourist, and to be able to gain so much power to fully let go of who you think you are and to gain this inner freedom and be able to be anyone. So enjoy that freedom in your ability to be anyone. Enjoy that. And enjoy being free from the suffering of trying to be someone.