Here in the U.S., we have it drilled into us that that capacity attracts opportunity. Work hard with sincerity and commitment, and opportunity will inevitably result. Some of the more privileged among us just assume the world owes us opportunity, even without much effort. Among different classes, and in different countries around the world, there is no presumed connection between capacity and opportunity.

Recently, Chogyal Namkhai Norbu gave a beautiful teaching about the relationship between capacity and opportunity. I have been reflecting on this relationship for some years, and I want to share a few of Rinpoche’s words with you, along with the understandings I have absorbed from him, other teachings, and through my own experience.

Capacity is linked to opportunity. But not because opportunity is the reward of capacity.

Capacity doesn’t exist independently. It is discovered in the circumstance of meeting opportunity. Capacity is nothing other than an aspect of our essential nature revealed through meeting opportunity.

The first thing Rinpoche said about capacity was that it is “going the concrete way.”

Capacity is not static. It is going, it is a process, an activity. It is not a magical, abstract quantity possessed by the few. Going the concrete way means that capacity is practical. It is engaged with the world.

“Being aware,” said Rinpoche, “is the system for discovering capacity.”

What is being aware? Being aware is attunement to the world. We are relaxed. All of our senses are functioning. We are experiencing clarity without fixation or tension.

When we are being aware, we are sensitive to the appearance of opportunity. And at this moment, when we are relaxed, being aware, we discover naturally perfect capacity.

Opportunity is always in time. And, as Rinpoche says again and again, time is passing. Discerning the time of opportunity is capacity and is discovering capacity. This is the same as saying that by discerning the natural movement toward openness, and going with that, capacity is revealed.

For instance, you are tired, and you notice you are tired. Here is an opportunity to go with the natural movement and rest. If you are relaxed and aware, you will rest and capacity will be discovered. Your body will be permitted to follow its natural rhythm, and energy will be refreshed. If you have all kinds of tensions about what you should be doing, you follow your tension and you don’t rest. You are not relaxed and aware. You get more exhausted, and capacity remains undiscovered.

We’ve all heard of athletes being “in the zone.” A friend of mine who used to play professional basketball describes moments during which the other players on the basketball court seemed to slow down. He could see and sense everything with perfect clarity, and he felt that he was just walking in a relaxed manner in between the other players and placing the ball precisely into the net.

If my friend had tried to willfully power the ball through to the net, even though he was an expert player, in that moment his full capacity would have been undiscovered. On the other hand, if he had hung back, thinking, oh, I’m such a great player, I don’t have to do anything, again, capacity would be undiscovered.

Rinpoche gave the examples of a student who is in a teaching and thinking of something else or asleep. It doesn’t matter what this student does at some other time. In this moment, opportunity is not being met so capacity is unrevealed. Conversely, if you are listening to the teacher and being aware, you might discover your real nature. In that moment, you have discovered your perfect capacity in the circumstance of meeting opportunity.

Students often ask their teacher for an evaluation of their capacity. Relying on someone else’s idea of your capacity, you are always likely to freeze or fixate in some view of yourself. You just turn the other person’s evaluation into a self-image formation, positive or negative.

A teacher should be able to tell you if you have discovered the fruit of a practice, if you are practicing correctly, and when you are ready to move on. But any teacher who tells you, you can do this and not that, this is your capacity and not something else, is holding an incorrect view.

As Rinpoche said, capacity is something you should discover for yourself. You discover it as you go along. This is not to say that we do not have limitations. But we are all children of infinite potential. Our patterns do shift shape with time and circumstance. Capacity is never fixed. And most of us have moments of perfect capacity, when we are “in the zone,”
meeting opportunity. The most important job of a Guru is to transmit this open, natural state so we can begin to
recognize and stabilize in this.

I have occasionally met students who obviously had a good connection to the teachings, but who, at some moment, abruptly stopped studying. I could just say, “Oh, that person has no capacity.” But this would not be the case. In some moments, each of these students showed great ability to meet opportunity and absorb teachings.

What happened? Well, some tension arose. One time, a student with much affinity for the teachings stopped coming because I showed him pictures of my lineage teachers. He didn’t want to be involved in what he instantly decided was a “religion.” This is a tension that veiled relaxed awareness.

Sometimes students have felt some other kind of tension. I did or said something they didn’t like. Or they felt ashamed of some behavior and imagined that I disapproved of them. These are moments of lower capacity when our awareness is veiled by tension. In this state, we are less able to discern the moment of opportunity.

I must be lucky in that when I started studying Tantra under the guidance of a Guru, I was very argumentative. Whenever my teacher said or did something that bothered me, I felt compelled to argue with him, and that kept me from walking out in those moments!

Opportunity can be very obvious, or it can be very, very subtle, like a minute change in the texture of the air. We must be attuned: relaxed and aware in order to sense opportunity and meet it. As we relax more of our tensions, we become more sensitive to time and opportunity. Thus, we discover more capacity, more of our essential nature.

We could say that the definition of capacity is meeting opportunity and that the definition of opportunity is discovering capacity. This is the link.

OM Shanti,
Shambhavi

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