Student and Teacher

Together on the Path

As students on the Tibetan Bön Buddhist path, we offer our teachers a range of questions from the simple to the complex. Here is a dzogchen question from oral teachings given by Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche at the 2000 Summer Retreat at Serenity Ridge.

Student: Thought obscures rigpa. If you are a very experienced practitioner, can you integrate thought with rigpa?

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche: Yes. Let's put it this way. If you are an advanced practitioner, you will be able to integrate, but that does not mean a fully enlightened being has thought. Let's take an example of an individual who at first is unable to be together with someone, then is not bothered by it, then is able to be together, and then likes to be together. First you say, “I don't like a person.” That person is an enemy, an obstacle or disturbance for you so you cannot be in the same place as that person. So you work on it and can accept the presence of that person in a big room with a lot of people. That means you are coming closer. Then the room can become smaller with fewer people in it, and then it comes to the point where you don't mind that person's presence. Then you kind of miss the presence of that person. And then it comes to the place where you really want that person to be there.

The person is the same, you are still you, but the relationship has been changing. This is about your development as a practitioner – how you are able to be with your emotions and limits and dualities and experiences. “I'm feeling not very good today and that is fine.” The one who is able to say, “no big deal,” is getting better. What happens is the more it becomes a support for you, the less it disturbs you; the less it disturbs you, the less it leaves karmic imprints, and the freer you become from your experiences. You have experiences and they are gone, in contrast to previous times when the experience stays there.

You can think this way: the whole world is there to help you and make you happy and support you. If you see in that way, everybody seems as if they are helping you. It is a pleasant experience. Some days are like that: you don't know why, but it seems everybody likes you. You go for coffee; it seems like everybody you meet likes you. Everybody seems like an ornament. Other days, even the people who are supposed to like you hate you; they don't care about you; they are not paying any attention to you. And the other people you encounter are of course not paying attention to you.