Student and Teacher

Together on the Path

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche responds to a student's question about whether applying effort can help one find one's inner refuge. This excerpt is from a 12-part, self-paced course on Nourishing Your Inner Being from the Cybersangha website archive.

Student: When I try to come back home to find the inner refuge, should I try to force myself or let it naturally come?

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche: Let's think of it this way. Every day, all of us go out; we go to work; we travel; we do whatever we are doing, and at the end of the day, we come back home. We can be gone one day, two days, a month, but in the end, we all need to come back home. We all know what that feels like, a certain place to come back to where we are home.

In the same way, in these practices, no matter how much you are suffering, no matter how much you are disconnected, no matter how much you are lost, at some point you've got to come back home. You have to come back to the source. You have to realize how much you are disconnected, how much you have lost, and you have to come back to the source and realize the healing power of coming back home.

So this concept of coming back home is very important. And to answer the question of whether one should force it or not: No, absolutely not, no one should force it. While it's very easy to say don't force it we all do force it at times. For example, when I'm guiding meditation, probably many of you are trying really hard. And some of you are trying just a little. And some of you are not trying at all, rather upon just hearing the voice, hearing the guided meditation, you are able to enter right away into that state. So, it depends on each individual. But the general concept is not to force it at all.

In the teachings it says: meditating without the meditator is the great meditation. What does that mean? That means that if there is a sense of a self separate from the meditation, then that's duality. And further, if there is a sense of self who is suffering or putting so much effort, painful effort, to be aware, or painfully trying to be joyful, or painfully trying to be happy, or effortfully trying to rest, then obviously with that effort you can not rest, and with pain you can not feel joy. So, allow the pain. Let go the pain, and then the joy will arise. Allow the effort, be aware of the effort, then let go the effort, and then the rest will arise.

In the end, what I will say is, try not to force. Whenever you see that you are forcing and you are aware of it, then it will help you to naturally relax. But if not, then the breath is a very good way to help one relax and just let go.