Do I Really Want It?

“The spiritual journey can be very tricky. It can start with great power, energy, intellect, skepticism, and inquisitiveness. Nonetheless, it can ultimately result in nothing more than a kind of religion based completely on blind faith. That is the principal danger for Buddhist practitioners. It is easy to fall into this trap without really noticing it. We think we are being very skeptical and inquisitive. Then suddenly we find ourselves in a totally blind tradition of religious dogma. We find ourselves in the midst of a great darkness—still walking, but not knowing where we are going.

There is a tremendous need to reflect again and again on the nature of our spiritual path. What is our purpose in being here? What is the basic motivation that brought us to this path? Is it a genuine interest in awakening, in enlightenment, in freedom? Or do we have other reasons? Every now and then we have to remind ourselves of our purpose and motivation. We have to go back to the most basic questions: Do I really want to attain enlightenment? Am I really willing to achieve that? It is not a question of how difficult it is or how long it takes to become enlightened. The question is, Do I really want to wake up from this dream?..

When we understand that suffering is the real truth of samsaric existence, we develop a genuine feeling of revulsion, which leads to renunciation. Seeing this reality becomes the primary motivation for us to connect with the pure Dharma, the genuine path. Revulsion and renunciation are similar. Revulsion is the state of feeling disgust with the suffering of samsara. Renunciation is simply seeing samsaric suffering clearly and wanting to be free from such suffering, wanting to achieve ultimate happiness and peace.

Such an understanding of samsara leads us onto the path of liberation. We could say that developing renunciation helps us to start the engine of our vehicle so that we can navigate on the road and find a suitable exit from suffering. We do not want to take just any exit. We do not want to get off at an exit that leads to the local bar, or at one that leads to a Himalayan cave. Simply being physically present in a Himalayan cave will not help, because we inevitably bring our whole samsaric mind with us. Instead, when we develop true revulsion, we can renounce our habitual tendencies, the deeply ingrained, subtle habits of mind that are ignorant, disturbing, and harmful to our mental well-being. When we develop a genuine understanding of suffering, renunciation, and the selfless nature of ego, we can properly enter the path of Mahayana.

The Mahayana, which is known as the “greater vehicle,” is associated with the second and third cycles of the Buddha’s teachings. These cycles contain the Prajnaparamita sutras, or the sutras on transcendental knowledge, and the teachings on buddha nature. At this point, we are saying that we are working not only for our own benefit but for the benefit of all living beings. However, if we cannot work with our own ego-clinging, how can we work with genuine compassion for the benefit of others? We will be pretending. It will be as if we are making ourselves a great T-shirt that says “Bodhisattva” or “Mahayanist,” but it will not mean anything. We will simply be wearing a T-shirt displaying a label that says “Bodhisattva” or “I Am Compassionate. I Work for You Guys.”

It is only when we have properly understood the Hinayana notion of suffering and the view of selflessness that it becomes possible to generate genuine loving-kindness and compassion. When we have directly recognized our own suffering and its causes, we can easily understand that other beings are also suffering in samsara, just like us. With this understanding, compassion is not very difficult to develop. It requires only a slight shift in our motivation, a slight shift in our point of reference, from a self-centered view to the view of caring for all sentient beings. We shift from being concerned solely with our own welfare to having concern for the welfare of all living beings around us. Therefore, when we truly enter the Mahayana path, we become genuine practitioners of compassion, practicing our whole path for the benefit of others. Our concern for the happiness and welfare of all beings surpasses our concern for our own happiness.

This kind of motivation is called bodhichitta, which is translated as “the heart of enlightenment.” The heart of enlightenment has two aspects: relative and ultimate. Relative bodhichitta is the desire to achieve enlightenment in order to benefit all living beings. We want to bring all sentient beings into the state of buddhahood. Ultimate bodhichitta is the realization of emptiness combined with compassion. Emptiness, or shunyata in Sanskrit, refers to the true nature of all phenomena. That nature is devoid of true, inherent, and independent existence and is beyond all levels of conceptual elaboration. This genuine understanding of shunyata is not limited to knowing the emptiness of self, but also includes knowing the selfless nature of the whole universe. Thus, the Mahayana path leads us one step further than the Hinayana path. It leads us to the development of genuine compassion and love and to a deeper understanding of emptiness. Once we have established the fundamental groundwork of the Hinayana and Mahayana paths, we can enter the path of Vajrayana.

The goal of Vajrayana practice, which is the realization of complete freedom, is not different from the goal of any other Buddhist path. However, the approach of this yana is quite distinct. In Vajrayana practice, we are not aiming toward attaining enlightenment. Rather, enlightenment is seen as existing in every state of being. There is a basic sense of the continuity of enlightened mind that is like the thread that runs through a string of prayer beads. This thread runs through beads of all different sizes and forms. In a similar way, the continuity of the enlightened heart is present in every state of mind and in every situation of samsara. In the Vajrayana, we do not see enlightenment as our final goal because it is here already. It is present in every state of mind: in every state of confusion as well as in every state of clarity and wisdom.

From the Vajrayana point of view, whenever we are fully experiencing the chaos of samsara and of our emotions, we are experiencing complete enlightenment, or full awakening. It does not matter how we label these experiences. There is a basic sharpness in our emotions that awakens us by itself. No outer method or remedy is required to wake us up. The basic sharpness and basic space of experience awaken us to the reality of enlightenment.

From a conventional point of view, the Vajrayana view is a little bit insane. For example, it does not see any difference between being awake and being asleep. The very experience of sleep is awake. Sleep is nothing but dense clarity. The very experience of emotions is the very experience of enlightenment. Essentially, the Vajrayana approach toward our whole environment and our emotions is to see them as our guru. What is the function of a guru? A guru wakes us up from the sleep of samsara. What is the function of emotions? They wake us up as well. Therefore, Vajrayana practitioners see opportunities for awakening in the nature of all experiences, all emotions, and all environments. There is no awakening outside these very experiences. What we variously call buddhahood, enlightenment, or buddha mind is present in this very moment…”

~ Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Wild Awakening: The Heart of Mahamudra and Dzogchen
The founder and president of Nalandabodhi, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, is a widely celebrated Buddhist teacher and an advocate of American and Western Buddhism. A lover of music, art and popular culture, Rinpoche is a tech-savvy poet, photographer, and visual artist. He brings the essence of the Buddha’s message to modern audiences with humor and practicality. He is also the founder of Nitartha International, a non-profit educational corporation dedicated to preserving the contemplative literature of East Asia.