(141 MB)
In this intimate conversation, Lama Lena talks about how and why we suffer when we experience impermanence, especially the impermanence of a loved one’s life. She notes that impermanence itself is not the culprit, since impermanence also allows for all good things: growth, learning, achievement, and hope. Rather, it is our attachment to things that are by nature impermanent that makes us suffer.
This attachment arises from “ma rigpa“, which is usually translated as “ignorance”, but can more accurately be described as an obscuration that keeps us from seeing our true nature. As Lama Lena points out, this state of ma rigpa is not an ignorance that requires intellectual learning, but instead, is like having a smudge on your glasses that keeps you from seeing reality as it is. Ma rigpa is the confusion that creates aversion and attraction in each moment of our lives, all the while, causing us grief, anxiety, and fear.
While attachment brings us despair, it is also important not to swing to the other extreme of rejection and denial, where we push away our personality, our thoughts, and our feelings. Instead, we learn to relax our obsession with our personality, our thoughts, and our feelings and transcend their limitations.
The true remedy for this obsessive quality – and ultimately, the remedy for grief – is to see our true nature as it is. To help us do that, Lama Lena invites us to relax the chronically tight aperture of our attention and guides us through a Dzogchen pointing out meditation.
The talk ends with a helpful Q&A about daily practice and clarifies techniques.
This talk was given at Downtown London Yoga , in London, Ontario, on August 1, 2018. Thank you to Annette B and Jangchub Zangmo for making this audio recording possible!
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