WITNESSING THE ECSTATIC DISSOLUTION OF SELF

Anam Thubten Rinpoche

May 29, 2005

There is almost a contest of racing toward that idealized spiritual destination, and in the same way we tend to look up to those who may appear to be basically meeting our standards of what spiritual realization is. You see? It seems that we have this lifetime’s very deep-seated tendency to try to construct the ego’s identity one way or another. It is very subtle and it’s sneaky. We are not that aware or conscious of how ego is sometimes able to basically use us again; this slavery, this ignorant slavery, in order to construct ego’s indestructible castle of identities.

This means that the pure awareness we’re often speaking about is not really a state of where we feel, “Oh, now I know the truth! Now I have ownership of the truth. Now I know who I am actually!” It’s about not finding even one speck of identity that we can call, “Oh, this is who I am.” Instead it is losing all our identities--it’s almost like being left in no-man’s land. So what happens then, when we end up empty-handed without having any identity or any illusion that we can hold onto as who we are, without any place where we can look for refuge? Then what happens to us? This is very good to think about if that has happened to us. Maybe it has never happened to us. But first we have to come to the conclusion that true realization is not really about realizing who I am. It seems there is this prevailing notion among many spiritual seekers that the ultimate goal of the journey is to come to some kind of absolute realization of who we are. We want to know who we are, and we want to realize our true nature. But when we really get to the place where we no longer have any concepts, no longer have any fears, no longer have any doubts, then we come to the realization that we are not anybody. We are no one. We are nothing actually!

This is quite an interesting concept that I’m talking about right now, about getting to a place where there’s not even one single thing about which we can say, “This is who I am.” Buddha-nature is not another state, Buddha-nature is not some kind of divine identity that we can hold onto and nobody can take it away from us. It is not like that. Buddha-nature is a state of our consciousness where all those identifications can end completely. We can call it Buddha-nature, or luminous awareness. It is the place where we are no longer operating our lives from any egoistic viewpoint or framework of our mind or our identification. But as long as we are still under this seductive influence of the ego which is believing that I’m ‘somebody, we continue to find ways to solidify this existence and then just keep constructing all these layers of indestructible castles or ways of defending this flimsy existence of ego. When this happens, we always suffer and we never find true liberation.

So now we have to be very clear, 100% clear, without having any chance to be deceived again, without allowing one’s self to perpetuate the same trends. We have to be 100% clear about what we are up to. We’re up to the spiritual realization that is really about letting go of all our identities, all images, and all self-images completely, even if your ego tells you, “Well, you cannot do that, and if you do that the world is going to come to an end.” You see? Ego will always tell you that you can let go of almost everything, but you should keep at least one last identity so you won’t get lost in this gigantic universe. You won’t be confused, or at least you won’t be anything, just in case this whole idea of eradication of identity goes wrong. It is like insurance in case this thing is not going to work out because there’s no proof that this is going to work out. We haven’t done it before and we don’t know what is going to happen.

When you learn how to swim, the swimming instructor will tell you that you have to just relax, you have to let go of all fear. But there’s a part of you that kind of believes that you have to let go of all your fear and resistance, but in your mind somewhere you’re holding your fist tight or you’re biting your lip. There’s part of you still that believes that, “If I don’t completely let go of my fear and resistance, if I just hold on to at least one tiny itty-bitty resistance just in case what he is saying is not going to work out, at least I would be safe,” which is not the case, right? The more you bite your lip, the more you try to make yourself stronger and put up resistance, the more you end up sinking into the water! What you really need to do is just relax completely, letting go of every form of resistance, no longer biting your lip and no longer holding this tight fist. Just relax and throw yourself into that swimming pool or into that ocean with complete trust and fearless awareness and then you’ll be fine. You’ll be completely fine.

So that’s what I’m asking all of us to do. The assignment is very simple after all. The question is, “Can we really let go of all of our identities?” This is a question that you have to keep asking yourself each and every moment. When you’re meditating and when you are not meditating, when you are driving the car, or when you are at teachings, or when you are putting gas into your tank, you have to always maintain this inquiry, this awareness that, “Am I being crazy enough to let go of all my identities without holding anything back?” Because this also can be very subtle and tricky, it requires a very sharp, keen and ruthless awareness. On one hand, we may feel, “Oh, I’m doing this extraordinary, exotic spiritual practice, maybe Dzogchen or Mahamudra, and eradicating my entire ego.” But at the same time, there’s a part of you really racing and running toward gaining realization as still another form of identity, of divine identity, and not being able to really let go of all your false images and attachments to all your self-images.

So this notion of “I am” should go away completely from our consciousness. It’s an intruder, after all, to the space of consciousness. This is not about realizing ‘I am’. This is about realizing ‘I am not’. “I am not Buddha; I am not ego or any of those false images. I’m not even my name, I’m not even my body, I’m not anything, basically. I’m not this ego who is really quite scared by the thought of even considering the possibility of giving up all identities.” You know, a part of us is really afraid right now when we begin to initiate this radical process of letting go, and that part is not who we are. It’s fear and insecurity. You see, sometimes when I’ve been giving all these talks, perhaps you have an immediate realization or inspiration, “Wow, this one really knows what he’s talking about, so let me try this. Whatever he’s saying sounds absolutely logical, let me do the dirty work.” And then the moment, in which we try to get rid of all the identifications, there’s fear, right? There’s fear. Do we wonder whether this is really going to work out? “What is going to happen if I completely let go of all my identities? Am I going to have any sense of security that I can hold onto?”

So now there’s fear. What happened is that unconsciously, without any awareness, we already identified with ourselves. Even that fear becomes the last stronghold of ego. And now what we’re really speaking about is even transcending that fear and realizing that fear is not who we are, so there’s no longer anybody who is saying, “Well, this is hard work. This is going to hurt me.” Nobody is shouting or squirming any longer. And in that moment when we just realize that fear is not who we are, then there’s immediate awakening, immediate realization. And that is the true realization we’re talking about. Then all our suffering goes away too.

I always joke that ego is like the Mafia, the heartless Mafia. And fear, insecurity, hatred and jealousy are like the henchmen who are working for ego day and night. So you really can’t get rid of the henchmen unless you get rid of the ego, the Mafia. You see? So you can try to get rid of jealousy, hatred and insecurity. You can try to get rid of all of them. As a matter of fact, our life is pretty much consumed by working really hard to transcend all these internal obscurations. Those who are on the spiritual path have been dedicating quite a huge portion of their lives practicing meditation, going to teachings, and so forth, trying to transcend all obscurations, trying to transcend the fact that they’re unhappy, the fact that they’re imperfect, the fact that they have all these spiritual as well as psychological problems – sadness, confusion and excruciating anguish. They are trying to achieve this through analysis and through doing all sorts of different methods. But obviously it’s not working, right? In my case, it’s not working. So then what would I do? Should I keep doing the same things over and over again? If so, I would be fooling myself if I kept doing the same things without results.

I think what happens along the way is finally when we realize that nothing is working out, and all the things we have done have not completely uprooted our confusion or our inner samsara, then finally we have the tendency to say, “I give up on seeking the liberation. For all I know, it’s some kind of psychological solace, that’s all I know now.” Then of course, doing practice and going to teachings gives us some kind of psychological solace. Then we say, “Hallelujah, this is what I need, this is all I deserve. Liberation is not for me. It’s for somebody else who’s much more brilliant than me.” You see? You may say, “Well, I used to be very well and brilliant. I used to care about liberation and awakening, but not anymore because I just couldn’t get it. I tried everything to get this so-called total awakening. I tried using my principles, including terma (sacred) principles, my freedom and my intelligence. It’s still not working so finally I decided to be satisfied with having this periodic psychological solace.” Right? And that kind of solace happens easily. It’s not really that difficult to approach, just kind of beautiful, you know, when we go to pujas or do some meditation, or burn incense when we meditate, and just play some kind of nice fantasy in our heads over and over again, such as, “I’m doing the right thing, I’m hanging around the right kind of people, my teacher is so far the best teacher, my sect is so far the most sublime sect,” and so forth. So, “I’m doing the right thing.”

It’s fantasy, right? We just keep playing that tape again and again, you see. Again and again. And it gives us comfort, obviously. We need to ask ourselves the question; “Do we really want to have complete awakening?” That solace, that spiritual, psychological solace, is not total awakening because it is impermanent and transient, and we know that it doesn’t last a long time. When we are forced to confront personal challenges, total awakening isn’t there. That psychological solace is not really liberating us completely. It goes away, it disappears and then we often discover ourselves as being in the middle of an internal hell, being beset by confusion, jealousy, hatred, judgment, dualism and so forth.

Now what we really want to do is to have this complete, absolute, almost crazy, mad, passionate yearning for the liberation more than anything else. And be ready to sacrifice that cherished psychological solace on behalf of the great awakening, because what the truth tells you to the end is ‘I will give you the liberation if that’s what you want, I will give you the awakening right now if that’s what you want. As a matter of fact, I’ve been knocking on your door from time immemorial, and you’re the one who’s pretending you didn’t hear me calling. I would give it, but I just won’t give it to you for free.’ That’s what truth is telling us, really! ‘I won’t give it for free and you have to give up something.’ You might think, “Of course! Yeah! How about if I give you a check? Do you need a check? I will write a check.” We don’t have any problem with doing that. Truth would say, ‘No, I don’t need any checks.’ We might say, “How about if I give you a $10,000 check,” you know? Truth will tell you, ‘No, that’s not what I’m asking.’ Then we might say, “How about if I give you my house?” Truth will tell you, ‘No, that’s not what I’m asking from you.’ “Then, how about giving my freedom?” Truth says, ‘No, that’s not what I’m asking from you.’ “How about giving my intelligence?” ‘No, that’s not what I’m asking from you.’ And it drives you crazy, because now you are running out of things on the list of what you can offer, and now to get liberation will not be possible. You see? You are so exasperated and you sigh and say to truth, “So what the hell do you want? What do you want? How about giving my absolute submission to you?” And truth says ‘That’s the last thing I want from you!’

So then you finally ask, “Truth, tell me, what you want?” And truth would say, ‘I want your psychological solace. That’s all you’re holding onto. It is your fantasy about the awakening, the enlightenment, the truth, and the idea of divine that you’ve been building. I want to take that solace away from you. And it’s going to hurt for a while, but it’s going to be all right.’ And once you accept that ultimate sacrifice, everything is going to be fine. At such a moment then, ego disappears. The Mafia disappears into nothingness, into emptiness, along with the vicious and wicked henchmen called hatred, jealousy, confusion and delusion. All of them disappear silently, without leaving even one single trace behind.

This process doesn’t necessarily have to be painful. I think sometimes that the way I present teachings can be a little bit dramatic, over-dramatic, sometimes. It doesn’t have to be a very dramatic, painful or impossible procedure. The assignment I’m speaking about right now is this whole work of letting go of all your identities, all of your images that you are attached to as who you are. It doesn’t have to be a very painful process at all. It can be very blissful actually. And that is what the path of the Dakini or Supreme Source is all about. It’s not about going through unnecessary pain, unnecessary austerity or hardships in the course of letting go of all your fears, all your egoistic identities in a single moment. This process can be done blissfully, ecstatically.

This process doesn’t have to be this dramatic, you know. I know that sometimes I talk almost as if I was reading Shakespeare, very dramatically. ‘Sacrifice your blood on behalf of finding awakening!’ It ends up that part of you may cry actually. You are disturbed in some sense, you know. But it can be very ecstatic. It can be very fun. It can be truly liberating. It doesn’t have to be difficult at all. That’s what I’m really trying to say today.

Sometimes even considering the possibility of letting go of all of your identities can be very liberating and blissful by itself. Of course I think once you reach that awareness, the bliss that comes out of realizing the emptiness will be truly amazing. The great teachers have spoken about this. It never can be expressed in words and it never can be measured, because it’s the ultimate, the supreme bliss. It’s the bliss of all bliss.

And it can be very beautiful when ego begins to dissolve because you realize that now you’re witnessing that you are finally dropping a huge burden, a rock or boulder that you’ve been carrying along through many lifetimes. Finally you see it just slowly sliding from your shoulders and dropping to the ground and melting away, and there is the sense of freedom and joy when that happens. And you realize that you didn’t have to carry that boulder on your shoulders at all in the first place. There’s a tremendous sense of freedom and joy, just watching that process of ego beginning to dissolve into the Great Sunyata, emptiness. And at the same time, you will be witnessing that your fear, your anger and your hatred, all of them, begin to dissolve into nothingness. The emergence of awareness, compassion and love begin to shine in your consciousness as if you’re watching a movie, as if you’re watching a sunset or as if you’re watching a very beautiful dance.

We always want to know basically what the reward is of transcending all our identities. Since we are very reward and goal-oriented creatures, we all want to know what I can get if I try to transcend all my identities. Where is the reward? There actually is a reward, and that is to finally realize that the suffering has never been existent in your life. The problems have never been existent in your life, and you would be awakened to this ever-excellent all-perfect reality. Suddenly, the moment you transcend your egoistic identity and realize the non-existence of all your suffering and the non-existence of all your problems, it is as if you have been living in paradise, the land of bliss, eternally.

That’s what we realize when the ego disappears suddenly because the ego is very much the foundation and support of all these 84,000 kleshas. And if we just try to transcend each of those 84,000 kleshas or 84,000 mental defilements, it’s like we are trying to avert a poisonous tree by cutting a little bit from the leaves and a little bit from the branches. It grows back again. So the only way you can completely eradicate that poisonous tree is to uproot it and take it away from its root. In the same way by many of the approaches we have been applying much of the time, we are really trying just to fix the problems, a problem here and there, trying to work with our anger, trying to work with our confusion and trying to work with our depression, or whatever. We are trying to work with this and that but never really get to this deeper place in our consciousness where we can really attack all this existence of ego, which is very ephemeral and flimsy.

Ego’s existence is very flimsy because it’s fictitious, it’s unreal and it easily falls apart. It’s not like you have an assignment to destroy, for example, a wall, which can be difficult because it’s real, right? But the existence of ego in your consciousness is unreal, fictitious and flimsy. So when you’re ready, you don’t even ‘destroy’ anything. That’s a mistaken concept, the whole idea that you have to destroy. If you don’t build the ego, it destroys itself on its own. It’s like a fantasy. And imagine that you have been having a really negative fantasy that keeps playing over and over in your consciousness, and what do you do? Well, finally you realize this fantasy is really destroying your life. It is eating your consciousness, so you need to destroy the fantasy. If you try to destroy that fantasy, it gets stronger and stronger. All we need to do is just quit building and solidifying that fantasy. And that fantasy disappears on its own, naturally and spontaneously, because it does not have any true concrete existence in itself. In the same way, the ego does not have any solid concrete existence of its own. It’s always ready to self-destroy at any moment, but somehow we are actually providing a lot of energy and resources to maintain the mechanism, you know. It’s very expensive, too, and costs quite a lot. It costs freedom, peace, joy, and awakening. But somehow we feel that this is what we do because we believe this is who we are. “I am the ego. I am the self.” So we end up really dedicating a huge amount of resources into maintaining that existence.

It’s like having an old beat-up car. When you have an old beat-up car, somehow you associate with a lot of memories. Imagine you can afford a really nice car but you have this old car, and somehow a lot of memories have been created in that car. You see? Maybe you found your first love in that car. We just don’t want to get rid of that car, right? It becomes some kind of a personal memory monument. But it will be quite expensive because you will have to spend lots of money to repair and renovate the car. The old car keeps breaking down constantly, but you feel that you have to somehow fix it, and you have to drive only that car because it’s your personal fantasy. And in the same way, ego becomes like this, a personal fantasy that is already falling apart from a long time ago, from time immemorial. It’s flimsy. But we all feel that, “Oh, I really have to work hard, I have to dedicate all this energy, all this unnecessary sacrifice to maintain it, because I believe it truly is a part of me and that this is who I am.

So it will be very amazing if any of us can try to just be without really having a sense of ‘I’ or ‘me’. We say, “Am I going to survive?” “Am I educated or not?” “Does the world revolve around me or not?” “Do I have any place in this world or not?” You see? There is this habit of playing this self-indulgent tape in our consciousness. It would be very nice to create a gap instead, where we just experience the being without this constant need of identification with some kind of form of identity. Even the idea of spiritual realization can be very subtle, the last basis of the ego strategy, if you are trying to catch some specific realization of who you are rather than deconstructing your ego. And then see how you feel? Just let yourself feel what it is like when you live fully 100% without this constant compulsive need to identify yourself with a thing, or a thought, or an idea or an illusion in your consciousness. What is that like, the flavor of just being? Simply allow yourself to feel that you’re alive, that you’re inhaling, and the air comes through your nostrils and fills up your body, and then goes away, and comes again and goes away. It is a very strange phenomenon, after all, even by itself. What is that like? How is the flavor of just being in that gap where finally you rested from maintaining and repairing this piece of old car-like ego? This can be very beautiful and ecstatic too, especially watching the process. Ego kind of disappears slowly, you know. It’s like you have this imagination of a demon that is always chasing after you, constantly annoying or bothering you and never lets you sleep. It is completely and always chasing you. This demon or monster has flames, and finally you shout and the demon starts shrinking slowly and it’s shadow is beginning to shrink slowly. Then you begin to see that light is everywhere and that can be very beautiful, very ecstatic.

Once you know how to work this ecstatic process, this ecstatic dissolution of self, then you have made contact with the eternal feast or celebration, the eternal celebration of bliss and awareness. Ego is always going to be there, which is good, because every time ego appears, you can initiate the process internally and that awareness, the ceremony of awareness, the witnessing of that ecstatic dissolution of the self is always fun! It’s always ecstatic – it’s the greatest celebration you can have, the greatest party you can have. I think that’s why many of the Mahasiddhas speak about being completely ‘blissed-out’ each and every moment. It is not because they are always taking hashish in India! Instead, they are constantly witnessing this beautiful divine dissolution, this ecstatic dissolution of the ego, and being charmed and forgetting all their problems of life. Their consciousness is completely taken over by witnessing this beautiful, ecstatic dissolution of ego. And that can happen all the time. So you see life can be very fun if you allow yourself to just initiate that hidden eternal ceremony of witnessing the ecstatic dissolution of the ego. Then life can be a great journey in a way that you never have to face any phenomenon of problems from that moment on. Suffering can be completely ended, exhausted.

The question I’m asking right now is, “Do you really believe this, this truth?” In order to believe it, you basically have to try it, whether it works out or not. At least you have to try it once, if not many times and at least you have to try witnessing the ecstatic dissolution of self. You have to at least try one time going through that process of really living in the moment, a spacious moment where you’re no longer spending all these unnecessary funds constructing ego. You’re simply just enjoying that, being that, and seeing what it is like. And truthfully, if you’re completely residing in that realm of awareness where ego is no longer involved, then you realize what the truth is, you realize what the Dharmakaya is and you realize what awakening is, right at that moment.