The True Source of Healing: How the Ancient Tibetan Practice of Soul Retrieval Can Transform and Enrich Your Life by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

Cultivating a genuine sense of regret is not the same as feeling guilt.  Guilt is actually a block to transformation, but remorse can shift something deep within us and lead to positive action. 

Simply be still, silent, and open enough to allow positive qualities to emerge naturally.

You can access the first inner refuge, unbounded sacred space, through the stillness of your body.

Access to the second inner refuge, infinite awareness, is through the silence of your speech.  Here, infinite refers to the limitless possibilities of each moment.

What separates us from peace is our smart ego, with its endless judgments, opinions, and advice.

Any time you identify with a sense of "I"--- "I feel something"; "I have lost something"; "I am lost" --- you are identifying with the wrong person.  You are identifying with the ego, with your pain body, not with your true nature.

Through any external appearance -- any form, event, or relationship --- you can either become separate from yourself or connect with the richness of the inner refuge.

Often we project our distress onto people around us, particularly those we are closest to, thinking that it is their behavior and not our own discontent that is the source of our unhappiness.

Retrieving your soul starts with finding a deeper connection within.  From there, a deeper connection with others is possible.

The true medicine for loneliness is the connection with the inner refuge.  It's about feeling at home with yourself.

Changing our familiar habitual responses can seem difficult at first.  One common excuse is I don’t have the time.  I am constantly hearing this mantra from Westerners. They think a lack of time is a reasonable excuse, but it really makes no sense, especially when it comes to nourishing one's inner being.

The True Source of Healing: How the Ancient Tibetan Practice of Soul Retrieval Can Transform and Enrich Your Life by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

PART ONE

A traditional Tibetan view is that illness can be linked to soul loss.

Spontaneity, creativity, ease, and playfulness are qualities of our natural state of being.

The mind that is in pain cannot think its way out of its pain.

How can we access higher awareness?  By taking what I call the three precious pills -- stillness, silence, and spaciousness -- which connect us to the inner refuge.

If we recall our negative emotions or other painful experiences and host them without judging, criticizing, rejecting, or grasping them, we engage the process of healing.  By hosting, I mean allowing the pain to freely arise, abide, and dissolve.

Begin by looking at four areas: personal alone time, family life, work life, and your connection to nature.  In any of these areas, are you lacking a sense of stability, comfort, inspiration, flexibility, or openness?  Notice any feelings of discomfort, sadness, exhaustion, or disconnection.

Do you feel at home within yourself? One way to reflect on this is to notice how often you need to be distracted.

How do you feel when you are by yourself? Do you feel comfortable, connected, and renewed in the stillness, silence, and spaciousness? Or do you feel restless or listless?

Soul retrieval has everything to do with discovering the space within, and then retrieving one or more of the five elemental essences that you lack and nourishing yourself from this source.

People with too little of the earth element may have trouble completing what they begin.

When the water element is not balanced, you may feel ill at ease.

When the water element is balanced in you, you are comfortable in your body and in your environment, comfortable at work and with your family.  You are fluid, able to respond with ease to changing circumstances. 

The fire element brings an enthusiastic joy that is mentally wakeful and physically blissful.

When the fire element is blocked, you experience a lack of energy ,inspiration, and vitality.  Your life can seem like a plodding routine.

When the air element within you is well balanced, you can readily transform negative mind states into positive ones.

Earth supports the ability to connect with our thoughts, feelings, and emotions; with the people we care about; and with the work we do. 

When air is not balanced, you feel stuck.

If the space element is balanced in you, whatever arises in your life can be accommodated.

Tibetan Yogas of Body, Speech and Mind by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

Groundedness and connectedness (earth), comfort and fluidity (water), joy and inspiration (fire), flexibility and movement (air), and openness and accumulation (space).  If one or more of these five natural elements is lacking or diminished in us, our soul will be damaged.

Allowing the pain to freely arise, abide, and dissolve.

We practice meditation not only to relieve mundane suffering and conflicts but also as a spiritual path for this lifetime and for beyond this life as well.  Practicing meditation is a means of liberating not only ourselves but all beings from all the causes of suffering.

All the issues, conflicts, and emotions you get caught up with from day to day, hour to hour, or minute to minute, these are only reflections of the pain body, pain speech, and pain mind.  When you can learn to draw your attention to the stillness of body, the silence of speech, and the spaciousness of the mind your identity as pain body, pain speech, and pain mind can start to dissolve, and you can enter through these doorways to a lighter, more joyful sense of being.

We tend to justify and rationalize our anger, but this only fortifies it.  But if you become aware of the energy that anger rides, you can work directly with that energy and shift it.

If you listen to your inner dialogue, you may discern a certain view or logic at work as you compare yourself unfavorably with others or indulge in self-criticism.  Sometimes we get stuck there, and our whole existence becomes based on that pain.  We love from that pain.  We connect from that pain.  We hate because of that pain.  We do things in life because of that pain, or we stop doing things because of that pain.  And that pain becomes our whole operating system.  That identity is not who you really are. It is a habit.

When you want to make a change in a situation or in your own behavior, it is essential to shift your attention from the story you are telling yourself about what is happening to the inward experience you are having.  The first place to draw your attention to is your body, to experience the discomfort and agitation directly.