Student and Teacher

Together on the Path

Asked whether fear arises in the dissolution of one's ego, Tenzin Rinpoche responds during a Facebook Live webcast in February 2017, archived on the CyberSangha website.

Student: Does the ego experience fear in the process of dissolving the ego?

Rinpoche: Yes, absolutely. You feel fear when the ego is dissolving, because your ego, this wrong sense of I, this false sense of I, the only sense of I that you are familiar with, is coming to an end, it's dying, it's dissolving. And because the ego is what you identify with as yourself, then absolutely you are going to be afraid of its dissolving.

But the truth is that you are not losing yourself.

And what would be the medicine for feeling that fear?

Your ego is not you. You can lose your ego but you will not lose yourself. Your pain is not you. You can have pain, but it is not you. The moment you realize, the moment you are able to see, to experience, to observe your pain without identifying with it, then in that very moment, the pain, the fear, the conflict, they all begin to shift and transform because of the power of realization. So this is obviously very important.