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We can let ourselves be nothing
Jeffrey
Veteran
in Meditation
Another excerpt from Buddhism Connect which is a free e-mailing of student and teacher in the awakened heart sangha of Lama Shenpen Hookham. Free.
I found this excerpt to be a profound reminder of how we are not improving ourselves, rather we are letting go of falsity and existing in the simple space of awareness. We can calm down. We can let it be freaky sometimes.
I found this excerpt to be a profound reminder of how we are not improving ourselves, rather we are letting go of falsity and existing in the simple space of awareness. We can calm down. We can let it be freaky sometimes.
Summary: The qualities of our true being bubble up when we trust our experience and stop trying to fix it. This is scary but we don't need to let that scary feeling run our lives. It is fine to be nothing.
Student:
How do I perfect my ego, given that wanting to be perfect comes from ego in the first place?
Lama Shenpen:
There is no idea in Buddhism such as perfecting the ego. There is the idea that we have Buddha Nature - which means the essential nature of all our experience is openness clarity and sensitivity. We can discover that is the nature of our experience at any moment and we can learn to trust that and by trusting it we let go of ego-clinging - we let go of clinging to what is actually false and brings us suffering.
By letting go like that the qualities of our true being bubble up spontaneously without us having to do anything. So there is no big project at self-improvement - of polishing our ego so that we produce a better brighter version of ourselves. It
feels quite the opposite.
It feels like we are just becoming more simple open and honest - and strangely by that process all sorts of wonderful
qualities seem to just well up in spite of ourselves!
Student:
I am afraid that if I aligned with my heart wish some dreadful thing will happen as a result.
Lama Shenpen:
Yes there is always that creepy feeling isn’t there? There is always that creepy feeling that if we opened up and were completely honest somehow it would turn out to be terrible - maybe we would find that we weren’t anything - we were simply - well - its too dreadful to even think of!!!!
I advise you to turn towards that creepy feeling and challenge it. Don’t let it run your life. It is nothing but a creepy feeling - a fear of having nothing to cling on to. The good news is that actually you don’t need anything to cling on to and that the discovery of openness although at first alarming - is in fact only good news.
It’s wonderful news. It’s fine to be nothing.
It’s absolutely fine - letting yourself be nothing is just another way of saying letting go of clinging. All the good qualities will bubble up by themselves if you can dare to be nothing, and if you are desperate enough you will dare!
1
Comments
whereas
Jeffrey's "nothing" is it's extinction.
Everybody wants to be a somebody
Nobody knows how to be a nobody
If ever there is a 'somebody'
Who knows how to be a nobody
Then that nobody is a real somebody.
If you ever want to be a nobody
Then follow that somebody
Who already is a 'nobody'
Later, let go of everybody
Even that somebody
Who already is a nobody
Eventually, you will be a real nobody.
Rev Acara Suvanno Maha Thero
1921-11 March 2007