Living One's Life in the Play of Present Awareness

An Excerpt from Teachings Given by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche in Germany, 2024

In this morning's meditation on the three refuges, we were speaking of a presence of awareness in stillness, and a presence of awareness in silence, and a presence of awareness in spaciousness. Very often our tendency is not to see what is present, and instead become stuck on what is missing. It's very important to recognize this.

Take for example the simple experiences of silence. There are many possibilities for the experience of silence, from very miserable to very joyful, from very slow to very fast, and from very low energy to very high energy. There is a joy in silence, and a joy in life. And the presence of joy in life, the presence of joy in silence, is what we need to discover. Our finding genuine movement in the stillness is a joy. And finding your true voice in the silence, or finding a power of your speech in that silence are a joy. And finding amazing, unimaginable creative imagination in the space in your heart is a joy. These are examples of a joy that arises naturally from the source. That is a different joy than the joys that come from conditioned experiences.

For instance, let's look at the idea of being alone.You may say, I enjoy so much being by myself and being alone. The question arises though, are you genuinely happy when being by yourself? Is that an original experience of joy, or do you just hate people? [laughter] Or, do you not have a friend? That's different. Having a genuine sense of joy of your being alone would mean that you are feeling complete by being yourself. And you don't need so many substitutes for that joy coming in the form of other people saying, for instance, that you're great, or having somebody saying that your strong, or having somebody saying I love you, or somebody saying, if you need something, I'm here. If we do need those substitutes, then for sure we need other people around us. However, if you don't need any of those things to feel good, because you are good, and you are realizing that goodness in you, then that is awakening something inside! That is a different joy. Make sure that you recognize the distinction there, and please don't confuse the two and mistake one for the other.

If at any given moment that you catch yourself or someone else not feeling very happy, it's likely because we are focusing on something that is missing, something that is lacking, something that is wrong, rather than focusing on, and feeling excited about, the potentiality in the moment. Feelings of unhappiness will arise when someone's focus is narrowed down to one single thing or group of things that is missing in their life, and in doing so, they overlook all of the resources that they have, and all of the support that they have, and all of the love that they have. If so, then that one thing that seems lacking can end up being their sole focus for the next ten hours, say, or all day and night.

So, you can see that it is one's focus that has to be changed in order to change the mood, and change the feeling, and find the joy. In order to change the focus, you have to recognize what you are doing. Does that make sense? In the dzogchen teaching, being present, and being aware, is the key. And this is important for realizing in our own personal life how often the pain identity is focusing on what is missing; focusing on what our weakness is, what our condition is, rather than on what our potential is. Why are we so stuck on focusing on what is absent and identifying with pain? Because that's the job of pain identity. For instance, sometimes people may say me to me, oh I'm not able to go on your walk this morning. My response is, alright but realize that the less that you walk at this point in your life, then the less you will be walking in the future. So don't go that route. I am suggesting that if you find that it's harder to walk now than it has been before, then find a support and walk more than you are doing right now. And that goes for sleeping more, and eating less, okay? And clearly, it's best to start doing it while you still can do it, and when you still have the ability to do it.

But I want to repeat a very important point that I've said before. My emphasis is not on just living forever; nor is it only about simply improving our sleep, nor about simply improving our nutritional health. Rather, it's about our awareness of our sub-personalities and those things needing to change inside of us. So how do you determine whether a particular behavior of yours needs changing? By simply asking the question, is it harmful? That's the line that's not to be crossed. When you're harming yourself, then you're crossing that line. When you're harming someone else, then you're crossing that line. When you're harming the community, then you're crossing that line. Whenever you see that you're engaging in any of that kind of behavior, then recognize it with the awareness that, no, I do not want to harm myself or someone else- I need to change. And be aware, too, that you have the ability to change it. If you're finding it hard to change, then you have to figure it out. It's only some little behavior that needs to be changed. It's as simple as that, but nevertheless it's important because it's harming yourself or others. So find the ability to change that.

Let's say that due to my health, I find out that I have only one more year to live. It's okay. As far as I'm concerned, I will completely embrace that. That's my time! And my ability to embrace my mortality fully will be helped along by my developing the ability to change some of these personalities within me. If I can sleep well, then I can die well. If I can have control over my food, then I can have control over my peacefulness of death. That's what I'm talking about. I hope you understand that I'm not promoting anyone's simply becoming obsessed with nutrition, or with sleep or with exercise. However, those are just fun places to work, that's all.

And I'm not saying that the work is easy. But, I will say that it's not as difficult as you think it is. I hear some of you say, it's difficult for me. I suggest that you just edit out the word difficult, and instead say, I'm doing my best, and I will get there. Simply change the language. Take the word difficult out and leave it open, and the universe will work toward you and help you. You see, the universe does not need your help to make something good for you. However, you can make it difficult for the universe to help you. Don't do that, just leave an opening for the possibility.

Many of you who know me, know that over all of these years my principal message is always the same, but what has been changing are the ways that I've been delivering it to you. So, one thing is clear: what I'm trying to teach, I am very much working on myself. I do not claim that there is one single answer. And I absolutely do not claim that I know what that is. It's a continuous journey to explore that infinite possibility. If you've heard me teaching over the last thirty years, then I hope that you get some glimpse of that experience. It's a continuous exploration. We're talking about the same thing again and again every year, but it's never boring. That's because there is a life to it! That makes a difference. Unlike some other things, which after just a few times of speaking about them can become boring. [laughter]

So, in short, plan to live long. Regardless of your condition. Focus on changing your behavior first. Joyfully work on it. Together. And when the moment of death comes, be the most happy person dying. Because that's also part of the plan. Living long does not exclude the part of the death. Living long absolutely embraces the part of mortality. That's the healthy way to approach living long, isn't it?