A student writes:

I am finding it very difficult lately to play any of my ‘roles’ whilst feeling there is no point or purpose to ‘my being’.

Lama Shenpen responds:

It sounds like you are struggling with ‘low energy’ as you also mentioned. It’s interesting isn’t it, that when our inspiration is riding high, we find it easy to sense a purpose of our being? But often that is because we are doing things and getting some sort of feedback from that, which keeps us going, gives us confidence.

It is a real challenge to our confidence – you might say our ego or conceit – anyway whatever it is, it is a false sense of our True Being – it is confidence in something that comes and goes.

So, when that energy and inspiration is no longer available, we have to rely on our True Being and it is at that juncture perhaps for the first time, we realise we don’t really trust that and it seems to manifest as despair or depression or a sense of meaninglessness – but actually our True Nature is not that either.

Therefore, our purpose is to hang on in there, trusting that our True Nature hasn’t actually changed, that how it manifests is not how it is and that although the pain of not being able to recognise that True Nature seems endless and hopeless, actually it is spurring us on to abandon what is false and open to what is real.

Just in little day to day occurrences, from moment to moment, notice what is false and let it be like that as you open to the sensitivity and brightness of every little sense impression. Notice the nostalgia for experiences we want to cling to and the hopelessness of wanting to grab on to anything at all, and allow things to unfold naturally, as I am sure you are doing.

I am with you all the way.

Lama Shenpen Hookham

Become a student of Lama Shenpen – Join the Awakened Heart Sangha:

Lama Shenpen’s students are members of the Awakened Heart Sangha and are all engaging in the Living the Awakened Heart Training – the structured, comprehensive, supported, distance learning programme in Buddhist meditation, reflection and insight. The training that begins with Discovering the Heart of Buddhism and is open to all, brings the profound Tibetan Buddhist Dzogchen and Mahamudra teachings to a Western audience in an experiential, accessible way, through spiral learning. Find out more and how to join the Awakened Heart Sangha and start your journey to discover the heart of Buddhism and meditation at www.ahs.org.uk/training