Bringing the Magic of Allowing to Life

An Excerpt from Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's Winter 2021 Retreat

We begin the new year with good vibrations, good energy, a sense of good connectedness and maybe one simple word, allowing. [Rinpoche smiles] Sometimes regarding meditation we say, don't try to have the experience, rather allow the experience. In the same way, don't try to be something, just allow yourself to be yourself, whoever you are. There's more strength, more potentiality, more power in allowing from the source than in effortfully trying, isn't there? The trying itself has been the whole issue all along. It's behind all of the exhaustions of body, speech and mind that we have been looking at.

If you were to say, I allow myself to breathe only when I give myself the command to breathe, and otherwise I won't breathe, then you would die. But if instead you say, I allow myself to breathe, then you will be breathing naturally. You will be doing things and breathing; you will be talking and you will be breathing; you will be thinking and you will be breathing; you will be sleeping and you'll be breathing. You'll be breathing all of the time. And you will be benefiting from the breath regardless of whether or not you make a comment about it. In a similar fashion, I think that in life you should try to allow more things rather than controlling them. That's what I'm saying. For sure, at least have the direction that you're headed in life be more towards the allowing of things.

Consider these dual aspects of our life, our weakness and our strength; or our pain and our pleasure; or what we can't do and what we can. It's clear that presently in all of these areas, we don't allow. We may at times feel, I'm okay, and I'm pretty happy about what I do and the way that I live. And that is a nice feeling. But at the same time, if we bring a little bit more awareness and attention there, we see how many times friends may have asked and invited us to do something good, some fun thing. Inviting us to come out of our box. And how often have we said, No, no, I admire your doing that wonderful thing yourself, but I don't want to do it. Think about the list of things that others do that you admire, but that you don't do. You don't take the new step, enter the new situation or the new place. So with many wonderful friends' invitations, we respond with doubt and are suspicious. We don't trust ourselves. We love our box. We don't allow; rather, we are resisting all the time.

So think about it, it's a new year. We can say, I won't be doing everything that you are inviting me to do, but I am open now. I'm open to changing some patterns. I'm open to doing some new things. And it looks like it's not so effortful to participate in some things, either. So a minimum of change will result in a maximum enrichment of life. Often, more energy and time is used up in resisting what is happening, what is around us, what we're exposed to. So let's open up and invite and allow new joys.

We count on our intelligence to make better decisions in life, yet even people who think they are smart and are making some good decisions, still are making decisions based on their bias. So allowing, right? Simply saying, I'm open. Even if in a given situation you might have some small preference, you can still say, Well, I'm open. Try it sometime, just for the fun of it just to see how you feel! If someone asks, what kind of tea would you like? You can say, Well, I'm open! What kind of coffee would you like? Well, ummm . . . I'm open! Sugar or no sugar? Well, I'm open!

Do you see? I'm not saying to never use your awareness in choosing. But what I am saying is to recognize this rigidity that you have about things in your life. And see when you are not allowing your life to fully embrace what life has to offer, due to your idea and ideology and your sense of right and wrong. It's a good idea to better your friendship with your demons, not just the dakinis! That transforms the demon into a god. Then you will have a better relationship to your joy; then the pain becomes a joy! So rather than living in a totally individuated, separated world and not being aware at all, instead allow this richness of life, and trust that when something is happening, there's a purpose, a reason to why it's happening that is beyond one's grasp. Have some sense of respecting and trying to learn from the experience, and of being curious about what it is that it is teaching us here.

With that allowing, then life changes! Life changes so fast. Clearly if you think about all the enlightened beings, they would never resist giving you wisdom if it's theirs to give. An enlightened being would not say, Well I want to give you the wisdom, but I don't like your behavior. So, I am only going to give you this much wisdom this year, then I want you to suffer for a year, and then I will give you some more wisdom next year. They will not limit all they are capable of giving you with some kind of bias; they will not do that. And I don't think the universe does that, either. Every given moment, the universe is giving you everything you need. And the universe is also taking away a lot of things that you don't need. So have this sense of allowing of the gifts of life to manifest. And be a little more aware of whenever we control, whenever we block, whenever we reject, whenever we close. Just the simple things, you know? So allow things in life. Embrace things in life. See every piece of it as having some meaning in that moment in your life, having some message for you. Regardless of whether you like it or not, it has some message for you. And try to see, what is the universe trying to teach me today?

So allow all the joys of life that have been waiting for you to let them in. Imagine the lines of joys that have been forming, all of them waiting and wanting to come into your life while you have been saying to them, Not now! In the future. Not at this time, not in this situation. Just imagine that you are saying to them, now you all are free to enter! Picture them lined up like a long queue of passengers waiting at the gate of an airport for their plane to finally open its door. And at last the airline, which up until now was controlled by fear, flings open its door and announces, Traveling is now FREE! All the joys can come in now! And then they come in and your life is filled with joy!

Don't forget to allow the pain, as well, the pain you have been fighting. You are so exhausted from having tried all of this time to close the door on that pain. You're drained so much from that. And you didn't realize that the pain is already here on your side of the door that you are trying so hard to shut. You see, actually, the pain will not exhaust you so much, especially when you're sensing the pain is a positive sign. It's a good sign that it's releasing, it's clearing it's moving, it's leaving. If you are aware of that, then what you do is accommodate. Sometimes it's just a little thing that you have to allow and not force. So now you are saying, allow! And all the pains are allowed. The pains know how to process themselves so well when you don't create extra ones that are not needed in your life.

Generally in our lives we do not simply allow the things that are there; instead, we pressure them. We pressure love, we pressure acknowledgment, we pressure others, we pressure ourselves. We pressure ourselves to be happy, we pressure ourselves to not be in pain. We don't allow. It's so much more exhausting to control a problem, pains, challenges. But if you allow them, they dissolve. So this is in some way the very unique, really great insight of dzogchen meditation. It says to allow it. When you allow it, it doesn't stay in its form for too long.

Recognize the many things that we have controlled over these past two years. And particularly where we've been controlling our pain, or controlling someone, or controlling some situation. See clearly those times in the last two years where pain needed to come out, where the body needed to breathe, where the space needed to be open, where a new possibility needed to be allowed, where the new growth needed to be encouraged, and yet we controlled them; we didn't allow them. When we don't allow the pain, then the pain gets worse, the conflict gets worse, the struggle gets worse, and we get more exhausted. Then at some point it will all come out in a full-blown way, and at that point it may be very hard to handle.

With regard to your own pain, when you feel it, then simply allow it and recognize you're feeling it. Welcome yourself to feel it. Be there when you're feeling it. Stay connected when you're feeling it. And it will go so fast, it will heal so fast, because you are experiencing it with awareness. Allow your pain equally as much as you are trying to bring the joy or find the joy. You see, joy can never be there when you have a bad relationship to the pain. When you have a good relationship with the pain, then that is a joy. A good relation to the problem is a solution. A good relation to the obstacle is your growth. A good relationship to your weakness is your source of strength. It's true! If you look around, you can see that.

So for this new year just think this way a bit, I allow. I am going to allow. That could mean so many things. For instance, I will not really, really push in an artificial way to try to reconnect with my brother, sister, father, my children with whom I have been disconnected. Rather, I will allow them to connect to me. I will not ask for connection. Don't ask for love. Allow the connection to happen, and love to happen. Don't ask for it, don't try, don't try too hard. Don't demand, don't fight. Do nothing. Give space and allow.

When you do that even the pain will say, Thank you so much. I've been with you all of this time, and I've been trying to breathe all of this time, I'm trying to express. I have no interest in being with you, I only wanted to pass through you and be free. Your pains are not there to be with you, they're there to process and become free from you. Thoughts are like that, emotions are like that, and pains are like that. Allow them.

Even regarding pain in the body that's hurting you, how often do you hear, I hate this pain. You can see the resistance toward that physical pain or exhaustion, versus allowing and embracing it, having peace with it. When you do allow it, then right away, even, you can feel that the energy of that pain and emotion is healing. That is called the power of awareness of openness. Allowing it. Of course, if you observe clearly, all of human experience, when we allow it, is not that harmful. When we resist it, when we control it, when we suppress it, it's much harder and more difficult.

So allowing is a beautiful practice of dzogchen, and it is a beautiful practice of new beginning. May you bring this sense of allowing more into life, and particularly to the internal experiences of thoughts and emotions and physical pains and sickness; it's such a powerful way of relating to those internally. We know that it changes the relationship, and we know that the process of healing will be faster. We know that it opens you up to a totally new dimension. Life opens to a new dimension. So allow. Allow all of the joy and happiness and potentiality of this new year of 2022. I hope you are feeling that.