Gaining an Unshakable Trust in One's Basic Nature

An Excerpt from Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's Webcast Series on The Healing Power of Breath

It's not uncommon these days to hear people express feelings of helplessness in what they are experiencing as an uncertain world. I know many of us are probably feeling similar things, such as feeling doubtful and not feeling safe as our sense of certainty is shaken by all of the political situations, the fighting and the ongoing instability within the country and around the world.

Let's look at what we can do in the face of this uncertainty, and the anger and fears that arise in us. First of all try not to act from that fear and anger. Rather, try and act as much as possible from the spaciousness and awareness that is your nature. When you are open, you can see more clearly what to do and, just as importantly, what not to do.

What you try to do is to be aware of the fear and that uncertainty as a thought, as a feeling, as an emotion. Then be aware of the stillness in your body, be aware of the silence in your speech, and be aware of the spaciousness of your mind. Feeling that stillness, silence and spaciousness deeply enough, then you'll feel a deeper connection to yourself, your eternal self, and not your pain. When you feel a deeper connection to that openness, that awareness in you, then from that open awareness, you look at your fear, your anger, your feeling of uncertainty, and you accommodate that, you host that, you give a spacious, luminous warm hug to your fear, your anger. And when you do that, then gradually you will feel the anger and the fear is dissolving by itself.

Once you feel its cessation then what you feel is openness, you feel awareness, you feel warmth, and that is who you are. As I'm speaking, I hope you are having glimpses of experiences of feeling that space, feeling that awareness, feeling that warmth. The union of that space and awareness is the eternal body. You are that eternal body. Indestructible. Changeless. Feel that certainty in this sacred space. That will help you to overcome, to transcend, to liberate the uncertainty that you are experiencing at this particular time in the world.

That is what I would recommend, and of course I know there are many people who are activists who would say, I don't want to just sit in that space and awareness and warmth, I want to do something! For sure, whatever it is that you feel is right to do, then you should do it, just as long as you are not coming at it from a sense of pure fear and pure anger. Whenever you are feeling pure anger and pure fear, then take care to address that and self-reflect through these practices. Then instead you will be taking action from a much more open place, a place of awareness and compassion and kindness, That is a strength, an unshakable strength. And it is the place where you will find much more certainty in doing what you're doing and what you plan to do. It is the place where you will be of much more benefit to yourself and to society.

That unshakable strength manifests out of the space of one's nature. That space exists not simply as empty, but rather as empty of the pain identity, and as the presence of full self. The word empty seems kind of a negative word, but instead think of it as empty of that pain identity, empty of that anger, empty of that fear. So the space is not simply empty, that space is a perfected space. That space is perfected with love, perfected with confidence, perfected with hope, perfected with all 10 prajnaparamitas. So not only does that space exist, but it is a space of perfection. That is why in the dzogchen teaching we talk about great perfection, dzogchen. Dzogpachenpo literally means great perfection or great completeness. Completeness means that all the enlightened qualities are perfected there; all the prajnaparamitas are completed there.

So not only does that emptiness exist, but it exists with fullness. And whenever we are aware, whenever we are connecting with that emptiness or that space (I prefer more to use the word space in the dzogchen teachings, rather than the word empty) then we are accessing all of our potentiality; that's where we discover all of our qualities. When you are not able to be fully conscious of and have access to that space, then you're not accessing the potentiality and the qualities, and as a result you don't feel the liveliness, you don't feel energized.

Uncertainty can manifest in many ways, even as an irrational fear toward being successful in your life. To overcome the fear of success, the practice is always the same. You go deeper into the stillness, deeper into the silence and deeper into that spaciousness, in your body, in your speech and in your mind. Once you feel a deep enough connection to yourself and you feel a deep enough openness and awareness, then through that openness and awareness, you look at this fear directly.

That's very important. Many times we notice fear, but we don't know what to do with that fear. However, the fear clearly knows what to do with you! It destroys you. It becomes an obstacle for you. It becomes a blockage to your success. Usually we are not able to see fear from the right space, the right awareness. In order to overcome and liberate and transcend that fear, we need to see it from the right space and from the right awareness. The moment you see it from that space and awareness, you will immediately feel a shift and a change in that fear. For example, you will now be able to sit with that fear, you will be able to smile at that fear, you will be able to laugh at the fear, you will be able to have an open conversation with your fear, you will be able to teach your fear, guide your fear.

Or you will even be able to not care at all and have a very neutral experience. When what would have otherwise been a trigger arises, it will now be easy to engage with. The fear instantly liberates. We say self-liberation; the fear liberates by itself without you doing anything. By seeing clearly from that space and awareness, I see the truth, and it clears all of my projections instantly, and at that very moment the fear is gone. At that very moment I have found the connection back to myself.

In these times of feeling kind of shaken, given the whole world situation right now, it could be the case that fear arises even amidst something good that's beginning to happen to you. It may be because, as the saying goes, one is more comfortable with a familiar hell than with an unfamiliar heaven. In that way, you might have fears arise regarding the good things coming into your life, because those things are a little bit unfamiliar to you compared to your familiar pain and conditions that you've been living with for a while. So although those conditions are painful and not fun, you may still like to be sitting there, stuck there, rather than entering the unfamiliar space of infinite possibility.

If that's the case, have a little bit more sense of trust toward yourself, toward that sacred space; and a little more trust to that inner awareness, that inner light; and a little more sense of trust to that inner warmth. With those trusts, you take a little step forward into that unknown world, that world of infinite possibility, into that beautiful perfected world of dynamic energy. That is what I would recommend.

View more on the CyberSangha website teaching series The Healing Power of Your Breath