May bodhicitta, precious and sublime, arise where it has not yet come to be. Where it has arisen may it never fail, but grow and flourish more and more.
Unbroken lineages of wisdom traditions are rare in these times, and Kongtrul Rinpoche descends from a pure lineage of the Dzogpa Chenpo Longchen Nyingtik tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.
We have two main study and practice centers in America: Phuntsok Choling in Colorado and Pema Osel in Vermont. Rinpoche teaches the core MSB programs at these two centers. In addition, MSB has several city centers or groups around the world where people gather for group meditation and study, and to listen to the LINK teachings together.
Browse to any of the calendars to find out more about the teaching schedules of Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, Dungse Jampal Norbu, or Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel. View the upcoming events at Phuntsok Choling, Pema Osel, or find out who is giving the next LINK talk.
MSB is a part of the Longchen Nyingtik and Khyen-Kong-Chok-Sum lineages. (Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye, and Terton Chokgyur Lingpa, collectively known as Khyen-Kong-Chok-Sum, were the heart of the Rimé, or nonsectarian, movement, which did so much to preserve and harmonize all schools of Tibetan Buddhism in the nineteenth century.)
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Personal Link teaching #221 was given on 4/9/06.
FEELING SHAKY AND LOSING SELF-CONFIDENCE Today I will speak about how to relate to a shaky state of mind. Many people, despite their good nature and good qualities, feel haunted by negative energy. One of my friends said she feels shaky deep inside her core. When people feel this way, they lose self-confidence, which in turn intensifies the shaky feeling. This can turn into something much more intense than your usual anxiety. You can feel so vulnerable that you fear you may lose your mind.
Experienced meditators may be able to meet this state of mind with equanimity. They can see the causes and conditions that brought it about and have a sense of humor. The very charge of the shaky mind can challenge them to be more awake. But people who can’t relate to their mind in this way can become quite disturbed. With some, their hands get numb, their legs don’t hold up, they have memory loss. This extreme anxiety, loss of self-confidence, and caving in to weakness feels like the rug is being pulled out from under you. But though this can feel very difficult, we have to remember that it is merely a state of mind. It takes more than this to lose one’s mind.
FAITH, SURRENDER AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The remedy for this state of mind begins with faith—in the Three Jewels, in the Three Roots, in the Dharma protectors, and even in the goodness of the world and of sentient beings. This core faith can melt the ice-like feeling in the heart that comes with the shaky mind.
Having faith is a choice. When you feel raw and confused, you can swim in icy water forever, allowing yourself to turn into petrified wood and eventually rock. Or you can choose to preserve your tender heart. Instead of remaining stuck in the anxiety your mind has created, you can choose to warm your heart with faith, which penetrates your confusion. When you experience faith in this way you will immediately feel a certain relief, like a light shining through the darkness.
Having faith in the Three Jewels, Three Roots, the Dharma protectors, or the goodness of the world is equivalent to having faith in the goodness and potential power of your own mind. In the beginning faith is focused on an outside object, but this is actually a way to condition you to relate with the certain existence in the universe that is much more beyond, than your ordinary small mind.
Realizing this is very humbling. You realize that people with faith are not stupid, theistic, or simple-minded, and that faith is not beneath you but is actually a show of strength. This faith is part of your own mind—it shows the strength of your own mind. When you are stuck in confusion, you need to find a rope that you can hang onto, which will pull you out. The only rope is your own faith. People who realize this have no arrogance. They know that when the shit hits the fan they have something to hold onto. This rope will help them overcome every small or big experience of life, and eventually to get out of the suffering of samsara completely.
Faith then has to lead to surrender. To surrender is also a choice that you make continually. You entrust yourself to the Three Jewels, the Three Roots, the Dharma protectors, the goodness of the world and you let things unfold. You leave it for the outcome to just be. This is really intelligent. But if you want the outcome to be “good,” you are not surrendering. You are defining good based on your confusion. This can make you feel even weaker in your shaky state. On the other hand, accepting the outcome as good even though it might not fit your usual definition, helps you feel stronger. And in the end, thanks to the Three Jewels, the Three Roots, and the protectors, even if you don’t get what you initially wanted, you will realize that the outcome truly is good. So again it comes down to a choice. Do you want to accept or not accept? Do you want to feel strong or weak?
When you acknowledge that faith and surrender are practices of strength rather than weakness, you can feel confident that you are employing the best remedies for a shaky, raw, deeply anxious mind. The masters of this lineage have all acknowledged this, and if you examine your mind honestly, you will acknowledge it as well. Then you will find there is nothing to fear. Even if you have just met the Three Jewels and don’t fully understand the words in the prayers, you have nothing to fear. You understand how it all works in general, and thus your practice comes alive.
PAIN AS A WAY TO WORK WITH THE EGO We are all afraid of pain. But what is pain? Pain is a lack of acceptance. You may want a massage to hurt because you believe that it’s working deeply and releasing toxins. But if you experience a similar sensation from falling down or being hit with a stick, you will reject it as pain. The same is true with emotional pain. Sometimes we go to the movies to experience sadness, fear, or anxiety. We want to feel the emotions we are watching on the screen. We admire actors like Robert DeNiro or Al Pacino who can really cry as if they have a broken heart. But when we face our own emotional pain we want to reject it.
We experience pain as a result of our attitude and not so much due to the sensation itself. The sensation can’t be intrinsically painful, because otherwise everyone would experience it as pain at all times. Of course, the ego is the one that accepts or rejects the pain. When the ego accepts pain it can become pleasure. When the ego doesn’t want pain it can lead to more pain.
When this becomes clear to you, the sensation of pain is no longer the thing you have to fear. What you really have to be concerned about is the ego that blocks your experience, the picky, choosy ego that is behind all your attachments and aversions, that is spoiled to the core. You don’t have to fear this ego, but you do have to be intelligent about it. You have to acknowledge that this self will always preoccupy you unless you have faith and surrender. There’s no other chance to get away from the dominance of the ego.
If you sincerely and continually surrender, over time you can undermine the ego and its power. The self becomes weaker and weaker until your heart and your brain open up and unfold. You no longer experience the blackness in your brain and the icy, closed-off feeling in your heart. It helps to remember that all the great enlightened teachers—all of whom are brilliant, sharp masters of logic and reasoning—have also relied on this method of faith, surrender, and acknowledgement. Since you are their disciple, you can rest your mind in that. Rest your mind and try to see that the pain you feel is merely the ego rejecting something. Don’t give it power. Seek liberation from it. As Nagarjuna said: “What is samsara? Samsara is a thought. What is nirvana? Freedom from that thought.”
These words are simple, but the meaning is profound and not always fully understood. Every day you have billions of thoughts, not all of which are disturbing and cause problems. “Thought,” in this context, is belief in the intrinsic nature of the self and the intrinsic nature of phenomena. This type of thought is what causes confusion and binds us to samsara.
The nirvana that is beyond thought is the nature itself. When you are able to free yourself from thought and surrender in the ultimate nature, this ultimate nature is the Buddha, the Dharma, and the sangha. It is the guru, the yidam, the dakini, and the Dharma protectors. Everything arises from this ultimate nature. Though your mind is still in the process of waking up, this ultimate nature is your own mind, not someone else’s mind. And once you awaken, the ground, path, and fruition are all in your own mind.
FAITH LEADS US TO THE DHARMAKAYA I hope that you can cultivate more faith and devotion—what we call mögü in Tibetan. For myself, to develop complete mögü, without the smallest hole, is the same as completing my entire path. This is because mögü is the relative practice that brings about absolute realization. When you’re in the relative mind, you cherish mögü to sustain you. As it brings you to absolute realization, you discover there’s nothing to cherish more deeply than mögü itself. Mögü leads to the absolute, where there is no dualism, no samsara or nirvana, and no sentient or enlightened beings. All is one enlightened mind.
Even if you don’t have time to sit down and do a deep meditation, you can still see whatever you’re doing as an expression of mögü. If the clock is ticking, which it always is, you can give meaning to the passage of time by practicing mögü. And if you are fortunate enough to have a little more time to sit and let go of all your busyness, you could simply rest in the nature. The mögü has prepared you to realize the absolute. All of the words and blessings of the teacher have ripened, so you can rest easily in the absolute.
Mögü and the absolute practice of the intrinsic awareness are the fundamental things that can make one’s life meaningful. If you don’t take advantage of this time and instead are always thinking about doing retreat or finding time to have a deep meditation session, when is that time going to come? And even if it does come, you will probably find other things to keep you busy because your mögü has not ripened. You’ll be wandering, lost in your thoughts.
If there were no mögü, no faith, no surrendering, no acknowledgement, then your glimpse of realization could not be transformed into the dharmakaya. Yes, maybe you had tremendous merit from previous lifetimes, so you were able to glimpse your own enlightened mind and your teacher has confirmed that this is your enlightened mind. But without continual practice of mögü, there is no chance for this glimpse to become the display of dharmakaya and transcend ignorance and confusion.
Just before he died, Sakya Pandita put his hand on his nephew and said, “All the buddhas of the three times cherish the practice of guru yoga. Never be separated from the practice of guru yoga.” That’s how he passed away, seeing the glimpse completely manifest as the dharmakaya and transcend all ignorance, neurosis, and confusion. Without mögü there would have been no other way.
When your mind gets very badly shaken, badly banged, and turns against you, it’s easy to think that the rest of the world is very sane. You may think that the minds of people who are doing well with Dharma practice are different from yours, or that your mind totally lacks bodhicitta or tathagatagarbha. This is not true. It is an immature view that comes from not seeing the whole picture very clearly.
I think many people in the sangha are doing very well and could be good examples for those who are struggling. It is very helpful for people to learn from one another instead of waiting for an interview with me that they think will change everything. It’s very difficult to change in this way. Change has to come about through consistently relating with everyday life, our environment, the people around us, and everything that supports our practice.
All of this is easy to say and hard to do, but making a little progress is very good. The last time we were in India, Tai Situ Rinpoche said one thing that really struck me. He said if he progresses one percent of the way to enlightenment in this life, he would be very happy because this means it will take only a hundred lifetimes to become completely enlightened. A hundred lifetimes is better than infinite lifetimes.
So focus on what you are doing well. Be content rather than hungry and discontent. The more you feel content, the more you will feel a greater joy to do more. And then, maybe by doing more, you can progress more than one percent in this lifetime. Maybe within one lifetime everything we have talked about will come true.