Coming to Rest in the Awareness Underlying All of Our Stories and Identities

An Excerpt from Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's Teachings in Mexico, March 2023

It's good to know that this notion of wisdom that I've been speaking of so much does not conflict with any other traditions. That's because wisdom is only one, whether it's your wisdom, my wisdom or our wisdom. And a very simple way of saying what wisdom is would be: self-realization, self-awareness, knowing yourself. Okay, so what does knowing yourself mean?

Over time, I have been sharing so many of my reflections on Facebook that you might be saying to yourself, he's talking about the same thing in so many different ways. Yes I am. And clearly it's not because there are so many wisdoms, but rather it's because there are so many pains. All the reflections I've shared anchor this wisdom in different examples of the pains that we're familiar with. Yet, throughout all of these, the wisdom is the same.

I think that every human being, and probably even every sentient being, is on one single journey, which is searching for yourself. It's very interesting. No matter what your age group, you are still looking for yourself. However, it seems like that label is strongly applied to teenagers, as if teenagers are the only ones struggling for their identities. As if they have not found it, but the rest of the population has. That's not true. They may be more aggressive about it. And they are at the beginning of their search, so there is so much more energy and so much more confusion, along with so many more changes in their body and their mind and emotions and hormones, everything!

And as we get older, it may appear like we are tired of searching for ourselves, yet we are still looking. And many times in our lives, we've thought we've found it, but then we come to realize that none of these conclusions were right. Yet, even though all of our previous attempts at searching have failed to truly find ourself, we still keep going about our searches in the same way, and in the same places, and with the same stories. It's endless.

So, you need to get a little bit more committed on this journey of knowing yourself. You have to become very brave in order to search for this. Because it requires you to identify that everything that you have thought was you, is not you. Doing this will lead you to not continuing to search in the same way and in the same places that you've been searching up till now. You see, if you're interested in knowing yourself, then you have to begin somewhere, and this is the way to begin. You have to be detached from the identity that you have used in the past to identify yourself. And that detachment needs to progress healthfully in more and more ways as your strength allows you. Because there are so many ways that you can come to know yourself.

Looking around yourself and simply observing, have you noticed that every single person you know, particularly those that you know very closely, are all looking for happiness? And you'll notice too that everyone's labels for what brings them happiness are positioned in so many different places. Have you noticed that? And for some it could be food, or it could be alcohol, for some it could be a drug, or for others it could be sugar. And if you look at yourself and your happiness, you can see that you, too, have placed a happiness label on something. And once you have labeled any one thing this way, then naturally it would be hard to eliminate it, wouldn't it? If you have identified something as a happiness, then every time that you seek for happiness, you'd naturally pursue it by way of that thing which you've put the happiness label on. And when that cycle becomes extreme or very unhealthy, then it's called an addiction. It is not uncommon for it to be toward alcohol maybe, or a drug and things like that, but it can even be toward things like one's work, too.

I've noticed for myself that I love to hang out in cafes to work. And every time I go to the cafe, I order a coffee. Yet, I've known that I really don't need coffee. And nowadays I don't even want coffee, except maybe one cup in the morning, but that's it. The reason for my always ordering coffee at the cafe is partly a lack of awareness and partly the habit of, Okay you're in a cafe. What do you want in the cafe? Okay, coffee. I have a choice to order something else, but I identify that place as a coffee place, so that identification is subconsciously impacting me to say coffee. What do you want? Coffee. So in situations like this, it's clear that you have to change your habit, reminding yourself that you have a choice, and you instead can just order a water.

Now, if we look at ourselves, and I want everybody to look, what does it mean, knowing yourself. Lately, I have been giving one example, and that example involves diapers. Okay, no one here is a baby, right? Is anyone a baby? No. If there are no babies here, then that also means that everyone's free of any baby diapers. Or, do you still keep your old baby diaper with you now for sentimental reasons? No? Then there's no doubt that we are not holding on to any diapers anymore. However, maybe one day when we've gotten old enough, like maybe 85 or 90 years old, we may once again need a diaper. But nevertheless, are you that elderly diapered person, now? Definitely not.

It's clear then that you are not that diapered baby, nor are you a diapered elderly person. In the same way though, right now in your life, how can you say that you are clearly this person who you are identifying with at present? How can you say that? And why would you even be interested in that kind of questioning? Because actually, the identity that you have now is the source of your suffering. You're obviously not carrying your baby diapers anymore, but you have carried with you up till now a lot of the emotions of that baby, the wounds and traumas.

So whoever this is that you identify yourself as right now, this is not you. The key, though, is to first simply contemplate on that a little bit. If you look, you can see that every moment in your life up to now, you've been very serious about something, whatever that happens to be at the time. You've been saying repeatedly, I am very serious about this. I am very serious about that. I am very serious about whatever it is. I am, I am, I am, I, I, I.

So, who is this I that seems very serious? This I is not the diapered baby, nor is this I that diapered elderly person. But if you observe, you'll see that presently there is something, an identity, that's here right now that is also not the I, such that when you happen to finally get to the stage of having an elderly-person diaper, and then you look back on this time in your life, you'll see, Oh my god, that was not me. Why did I have a lot of problems with that? You'll look back on it in that way.

So each time you have to be aware of that, be conscious of that. What's necessary in this process is the idea of saying goodbye to the past. Goodbye to that baby, and to all of the diapers that baby used. Do you want to suffer about those diapers now? Do you want to suffer the other stories about your past, now? Okay so you may say, definitely not the diapers, but some of the other stories? Yes, there are some stories that I'm presently holding onto.

Okay, but now you have to say goodbye to all of the stories as equally as you say goodbye to those diapers. No matter how much you think that those other stories are important, the truth is that all of those stories are no more special than the story of your diapers. Imagine if you had been saving each one of those diapers all in one room. Well, if you're saving each one of those stories in your heart, it's the same thing. Just imagine! It's too much. So you say to yourself, Yes, I can say goodbye to all of the diapers, along with all of their contents [laughter]. And equally, I can say goodbye to all of the other stories too.

In letting go, you clear the past. Goodbye. Goodbye. And it's okay that it feels hard to say goodbye to some of the stories, that's normal. But definitely don't give yourself an award for being able to hold onto this or that story for forty-five years up until now! [laughter] Would you give a gold medal to someone who was able to hold onto all of those diapers till now? No. So, goodbye! Which also means to simply find peace with it all. Just look back in the past and see: That was not me. That was not me. I'm interested to know myself. And that's not me there, that is some experience that I've had. I don't want to be so serious about it that I'm holding onto it. So goodbye. I'm so happy that I can say goodbye, that I'm allowed to say goodbye, that I'm able to say goodbye, and that I'm able to have peace with my past.

So you see, that's not you. It's clear, isn't it? What is here in this moment? Or in every given moment? All the gifts are in this present moment: you are alive; you're breathing; you're seeing; you're hearing. This ability to embrace life fully in the present moment! If you are able to be in this present moment, then you have some access to this wisdom. Remember in the teachings it says, don't follow the past, don't chase the future, don't change the present, and then if you stay with that long enough, then at some point you're there.