Q&A + Meditation Recording N.3
A reader's question on fulfilling our potential + beautiful devotional practice
Question:
I apologize in advance if this is too long. I live with a constant anguish (not sure if this is the right word) that revolves around the fact that I don’t know if I’m living at my fullest potential. Sometimes I have a feeling life is slipping through my fingers.
In one of your recent letters you said we don’t walk alone, I wonder how I can connect with a bigger, broader perspective to relieve a bit of this existential anxiety. Thank you so much for all your work. It has been of so much value for me!
*Note: if you have a question/letter you'd want to share, you can send it to me anonymously here.
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Thank you for sharing. I’m very sure we can all find a part of us in your words, in one way or another.
Perhaps you’ve touched on one of our biggest challenges in life. To acknowledge, face and accept that we are, in fact, incomplete beings. To expect we are always complete or fulfilled, it’s an illusion we want to believe about ourselves.
Feelings of incompleteness, unfulfillment, dissatisfaction are, ironically, pointing us to where we want to put our desire, to where we want to go but feel we can’t or don’t deserve it. All of these feelings, though uncomfortable, bring us news about our potential and ask us how and when we are going to act on them. While raising a loud critical internal voice and the feelings of being inadequate, behind, of measuring and comparing ourselves. All of this, of course, can create some internal conflict that is both challenging to feel and sustain throughout our lives.
One of the aspects that I personally found most healing in understanding more deeply the Buddhist Psychology and Buddha’s texts lies exactly on two points: 1. The acknowledgement that we as human beings are bound to suffer (not only the big sufferings but this kind of subtle, pervasive suffering you are describing). 2. The permission to get curious about it, lean into it and ultimately change our relationship with it. This is the teaching of the 4 noble truths. The most foundational and early teachings of the Buddha. The first truth is Suffering. Life is painful. The 2nd noble truth is our suffering is caused by a sense of craving (we can understand it as wishing for more pleasant experiences and holding on to them, rejecting our current experience or not fully tapping into the reality of it).
These teachings are affirming to us. If you are suffering (in any way, big or small) and if this suffering is rooted in grasping, rejecting, repressing (which often is), there’s nothing wrong with you, this is part of our human nature. Freud called this our common unhappiness. It might sound very straightforward or obvious, however we spend so much time, energy, and breath in not wanting to feel this dissatisfaction or in your example this angst. It’s this dance of avoidance, escapism, rejection is what we call RESISTANCE and this is the exact point where we want to get more curious and know there’s something here wishing to be expressed and felt.
In other words, how is this dance around angst serving you? Are you holding on to the angst as a way to resist the fear of not living up to your full potential? Is the acknowledgement that we are always in construction something difficult for you to accept and integrate?
When we fully allow ourselves to feel the angst, we can then move to face what’s underneath. To face where this desire to fulfill our potential is pointing to and honor it. To reframe what living at our fullest potential really means for each of us. When we resist, in a very subconscious way, we’re avoiding getting to the center of the issue. For any number of reasons that is particular to each of us but it’s a way to protect us from a greater pain.
I’m not aware of your context, your upbringing, cultural/social/racial/gender aspects you’re inserted in, but assuming you are a person “surviving” in this century, I can imagine that these factors also play a big role in this angst. Let’s say it’s not a conducive environment for us to feel at ease, in fact, the opposite. It constantly puts us in a state of inadequacy and lack. As always, I like to remind myself and people the context is very important to our internal experience.
I find that for this theme, the Tibetan Buddhist devotional practice of working with mentors, ancestors, lineage is particularly important. To help us feel seen and supported while moving through these big emotions and they can serve as a way to begin to soften this resistance and help us zoom in a bit to what is that we are avoiding and rejecting or scared to experience and achieve.
After your practice, you might want to continue to explore these inquiries:
When I feel fully supported, seen and loved, what shifts in me to be able to imagine my potential being fulfilled?
When I think about all these things I want to accomplish, what is really my own desire and what is a projection of the world?
When I accept I’m never going to be fully complete, how can I sustain my shortcomings and still be able to live wholeheartedly?
What are the things, people, experiences that put me in contact with a feeling of fullness, integrity, wholeness?
With love,
Mariana
MEDITATION RECORDING
A few instructions:
This meditation is based on Lama Rod’s 7 homecomings practice
Find yourself in a quiet place
Sit as you feel most comfortable, you can either use a couch, bed, chair or the ground. Find a posture that helps you stay awake but relaxed
Eyes can be fully closed or you can have your gaze pointed on a point near you on the ground
Take your time to transition back into your tasks
