A Year to Truly Live: Going Beyond Our Limitations

I recently went to a 3-day retreat with a Buddhist teacher named Tenzin Wangyal who was giving teachings on Dzogchen, which has been my primary pathway of spiritual study for the last 20 years. In the past, Tibetan masters kept Dzogchen as a secret and high vehicle for spiritual growth and it was only in the last several decades that teachers like Tenzin Wangyal have come to teach it more openly. I had eagerly anticipated the teachings as I had read several of his books, and I was imagining that he would start the retreat with a deep introduction to the nature of mind.

His first talk was simple and to the point and it surprised me not because it wasn’t profound but rather because I had forgotten the importance of this critical perspective. Tenzin Wangyal began by gently reminding us of a topic we were already familiar with as Buddhists, yet it easily slips from our daily view.

He spoke of ‘impermanence’ — that all of life is in a constant state of change, including our mind, body and even soul. We can witness it all around us, and even within us — the people we know who have died this year, and those who had severe illness or loss.

Realizing the truth of impermanence means that we wake up with it, go throughout our day with it and go to sleep each night with it. Why should we do this? Because as this wise teacher pointed out that our “suffering isn’t deep enough or our wisdom strong enough to really break the patterns of the ego.”

The altered ego isn’t necessarily an enemy but it keeps our identity and our life in a cage. This cage is built out of our concepts of what ‘I am’ and what ‘I am not’ and ‘what life is’ and ‘what life is not.’ And this identity will determine what you believe is possible in your life: the level of happiness, joy and prosperity that you believe you deserve or can attain.

Connecting to the reality of impermanence brings us to the theme of ‘a year to truly live.’ What if you lived each day of this next year as though there was no cage? No limitations to joy, to love, to giving, to receiving, and to being in the flow of life itself.

My own spiritual teacher, Namkhai Norbu, often said that the point of a spiritual pathway was to get out of our cage. It wasn’t to decorate our cage with pretty Buddhist pictures and sayings (or whatever belief system you have) and simply stay comfortable in our limitations. It was to get out of all cages, forever.

Getting out of all cages means waking up — waking up to the truth that your cage is self-built. Society didn’t build it, though you might have borrowed the cage from society’s beliefs. We have a plethora of different beliefs here that you can borrow from and try on to see which cage you like (smile).

If you were to wake up to this truth — that the world isn’t holding you in your cage — it is only your false beliefs and emotional connection to these beliefs that are keeping you from stepping out of the cage.

What if you truly woke up to this truth, then how would you show up differently? How would you show up each day for yourself? Would you tell yourself the full truth about your life and not deny anything?

And if you began showing up without deceit — that is, being honest about what you really feel, and letting go of grudges, emotional pain and worn-out beliefs which only keep your cage intact — then how might you feel when this stagnant energy is finally released?

And if in showing up more fully, you allowed yourself to love without condition, and with great compassion — starting with yourself — how would that allow you to make more space for the truth of love itself.

If you truly lived life without this cage, then how free, creative and loving could you become?

Perhaps it is beyond what you know now and as the Christian monk David Stendl-Rast said “our imagination can only know what we have experienced so far. A life beyond our imagination is knowing that there is ‘an unimaginable surprise’ available for us!”

If we are to truly live in this next year, what if we made a commitment to light a flame for this ‘unimaginable life’ and let go of our limited cage so we can wake up, show up and love up. And to make a commitment to live as though death were imminent and each day a gift from the divine.