Dzogchen Teachings

[Jax]

Your Dharma brother, asunthatneversets, summed up how the mirror analogy is used in Dzogchen nicely:

My view is simply more zhantong rather than vedantic. Zhantong is a more accurate view that describes the experience of yogis, like Dilgo Khentse, Dudjum Rinpoche, Jamgon Kontrul and many other who supported zhangtong. The "unestablished" during rigpa has a quality of "being" that is intrinsic to this nirvanic empty Knowingness. Knowingness is another word for the permanent, omniscient Mind of a Buddha. "Although the Buddha Nature is devoid of all traces and afflictions, it is not void of its intrinsic, permanent attributes" Longchenpa. The "Knowingness" is also the known, yet both are utterly empty and impossible to establish. Imputed "substance" is always just as empty as the "unestablished".

[Jax]

 

 

If you're going to claim a Hinayana stage of insight then we have to delineate your descriptions of "rigpa" within the context of sutrayana in your posts. I'm addressing this in a general way.

 

Going by the highlighted parts of your posts, "rigpa" seems to be larger than the sum total of phenomena. When there's an experience, there is a property of cognizance. Like saying when there's an experience, there's the sense of 'presence.' Anatta, breaks experiences down to their basic constituents. The phenomena then becomes the expression of the sum total in itself. This just means that each individual manifestation of thoughts, sights, sounds, tastes, smells and sensations form the totality of experience. These constituents make up the 5 aggregates.

 

Emptying the 5 aggregates themselves, 'presence' then doesn't become fixed to a here, when, where. Phenomena are realized to be ephemeral and disjointed - one moment is manifesting the complete whole in this moment, the other moment is manifesting the complete whole that moment. In this sense: "Rigpa" is just these phenomenal moments, which are not bounded in any referential way.

 

I suggest going over to this website, to get help with how to proceed to insight into anatta: http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest;jsessionid=E0A5DB79EA7ED0CFF05E8352E5188677

 

 

No, actually rigpa is wisdom and all phenomena are also wisdom. Phenomena are just information. What knows this information? What "informs"? What displays this information as its intrinsic effulgence spontaneously? When you speak of knowing phenomena you are speaking horizontally, Rigpa also has a quality of verticality or depth in which phenomena may not be present, nor the consciousness, vijanana as the fifth skandha. Rigpa is a super-consciousness above, within and beyond the five skandhas. The Buddha mentioned this as well...

[Jax]

 

Hi Jax,

 

Didn't think that Dzogchen disagreed with Sutra.

 

Since the group here seems to like Norbu's words... Here is basically his same "Dzogchen perspective" as the Sutra I provided...

 

 

"After having recognized one's own state, it is necessary to eliminate all doubts about it, not in a merely intellectual way, but rather through experience: instantaneous pure presence or recognition, called rigpa, must ripen and become more stable thanks to the various Longde methods tied to particular experiences of contemplation. Finally, the practitioner's task is to integrate the state of knowledge into all his or her daily activities and to develop that capacity to the point of unifying the energy of the physical body with the energy of the outer world. This is the aim of the practices of the third and final series, the Mennagde, the supreme realization of which lies in the manifestation of the "rainbow body," the total re-absorption of the material elements into the pure energy and luminous essence of the primordial state."'

Chogyal Namkhai Norbu;Adriano Clemente. The Supreme Source: The Fundamental Tantra of the Dzogchen Semde (Kindle Locations 583-588). Kindle Edition.

Removing doubts and integrating body energy with energy of the outer world is part of my definition of removing obstructions. The belief that ones body is not the "same" as the outer world is itself an obstruction (or something that must be "ripened into" ).

Also, it is hard for me to tell from your posts... Do you agree with the "total re-absorption of the material elements into the pure energy" concept of the rainbow body?

Best wishes, Jeff

 

I could say alot about the "rainbow body" theories etc. But its pointless chatter... no one here will realize the rainbow body in this life. Trekchod realization is just as good. Any remainder dissolves in the bardo. So "RELAX"...

[ralis]

No, actually rigpa is wisdom and all phenomena are also wisdom. Phenomena are just information. What knows this information? What "informs"? What displays this information as its intrinsic effulgence spontaneously? When you speak of knowing phenomena you are speaking horizontally, Rigpa also has a quality of verticality or depth in which phenomena may not be present, nor the consciousness, vijanana as the fifth skandha. Rigpa is a super-consciousness above, within and beyond the five skandhas. The Buddha mentioned this as well...

 

 

Would it be correct to say that it is the heart center where all this takes place? As if our way of seeing is upside down? My reason for saying that is from what I experienced in sky gazing. It is as if I stopped seeing with my eyes.

Edited March 7, 2013 by ralis

[Jax]

 

Hi Jax,

 

Didn't think that Dzogchen disagreed with Sutra.

 

Since the group here seems to like Norbu's words... Here is basically his same "Dzogchen perspective" as the Sutra I provided...

 

 

"After having recognized one's own state, it is necessary to eliminate all doubts about it, not in a merely intellectual way, but rather through experience: instantaneous pure presence or recognition, called rigpa, must ripen and become more stable thanks to the various Longde methods tied to particular experiences of contemplation. Finally, the practitioner's task is to integrate the state of knowledge into all his or her daily activities and to develop that capacity to the point of unifying the energy of the physical body with the energy of the outer world. This is the aim of the practices of the third and final series, the Mennagde, the supreme realization of which lies in the manifestation of the "rainbow body," the total re-absorption of the material elements into the pure energy and luminous essence of the primordial state."'

Chogyal Namkhai Norbu;Adriano Clemente. The Supreme Source: The Fundamental Tantra of the Dzogchen Semde (Kindle Locations 583-588). Kindle Edition.

Removing doubts and integrating body energy with energy of the outer world is part of my definition of removing obstructions. The belief that ones body is not the "same" as the outer world is itself an obstruction (or something that must be "ripened into" ).

Also, it is hard for me to tell from your posts... Do you agree with the "total re-absorption of the material elements into the pure energy" concept of the rainbow body?

Best wishes, Jeff

 

 

Jeff, Sutra requires purification and renunciation. Dzogchen has no such concept. There are no afflictions except fantasies, like empty "day dreams". One's nature has never been afflicted in any way, conventionally nor ultimately. Being introduced to the "unestablished", one just remains as the "unestablished". That the difference. Even Tantra is a differnt view: transformation. The actual means of Dzogchen is "rang drol" or "self-liberation".

[Jax]

Would it be correct to say that it is the heart center where all this takes place? As if our way of seeing is upside down?

No, information is processed in the brain, organs,cells, chakras, and of course the heart. Many mini processing centers...

[ralis]

No, information is processed in the brain, organs,cells, chakras, and of course the heart. Many mini processing centers...

 

I wasn't referring to the heart organ but another center which you mentioned in an earlier post. Norbu pointed that out in a retreat to keep the focus there. I wasn't referring to that as a totality. Honestly, I can't explain explain what my experience was. No separate being is the only way I can explain it.

Edited March 7, 2013 by ralis

[Jax]

I wasn't referring to the heart organ but another center which you mentioned in an earlier post. Norbu pointed that out in a retreat to keep the focus there. I wasn't referring to that as a totality. Honestly, I can't explain explain what my experience was. No separate being is the only way I can explain it.

I know exactly what you mean... makes total sense!

[Jax]

Would it be correct to say that it is the heart center where all this takes place? As if our way of seeing is upside down? My reason for saying that is from what I experienced in sky gazing. It is as if I stopped seeing with my eyes.

Ah, I missed the last line about stopped seeing with your eyes... This is correct in thogal and of course sky gazing. When the Kati light channels fully open and the Clear Light is flowing up from the heart into and through the eyes, one senses one is seeing from the heart through a "periscope" from within the heart looking out the eyes. That's my experience often.

[Simple_Jack]

My view is simply more zhantong rather than vedantic. Zhantong is a more accurate view that describes the experience of yogis, like Dilgo Khentse, Dudjum Rinpoche, Jamgon Kontrul and many other who supported zhangtong.

 

 

 

The actual mode of meditation in rang stong and gzhan stong are not different at all. The difference lay primarily in how they conceptualize the view in post-meditation....

 

The basis in gzhan stong is still emptiness, albeit is an emptiness qualified by the presence of ultimate buddha qualities, where samsaric phenomena are considered extraneous. Why? Because these ultimate qualities are only held to appear to exist in post-equipoise, but their appearance of existence disappear when in equipoise.

 

The equipoise in both rang stong and gzhan stong is characterized as an equipoise free from extremes. In the case of commoners, this freedom from extremes is arrived through analysis that negate the four extremes in turn. This is necessary even in gshan stong because attachment to the luminosity described by the PP sutras will result in an extreme view, just as grasping to emptiness results in an extreme view.

 

As I said, the most salient difference between R and S is in their post-equipoise formulation. In terms of how adherents of the so called R and S views actually meditate, there is no ultimate difference.

 

The pitfall of both approaches is the same -- failure to eradicate all extremes results in the former grasping to non-existence as emptiness, and the latter grasping to existence as emptiness.

 

The purpose of Madhyamaka analysis is not to come to some imagined "correct" generic image of the ultimate, but rather to exhaust the mind's capacity to reify phenomena according to any extreme so that one's experience of conventional truth upon reaching the path of seeing in post-equipoise is that all phenomena are seen to be illusions, dreams and so on i.e. unreal and yet apparent due to the force of traces.

 

.....It is exactly emptiness precisely in the fashion that I described it, even in Dolbuwa's presentation.

 

~Lopon Malcolm

Edited March 8, 2013 by Simple_Jack

[ralis]

The Zhentong view is only distinguished in the post-meditative period. While both rangtongpas and zhentongpas actual meditative view is that of rangtong. Even Dudjom Rinpoche, said that rangtong and zhentong only applied as different views when in the post-meditative period (even if he was a proponent of "Great Madhyamaka.") Not all zhengtong is created equal, so to speak. The interpretation of zhengtong, as a post-meditative view, differed between people such as Mipham and Dolpopa.

 

To cut to the chase, how much have you practiced to realize what you have written as opposed to repeating from texts?

[Tibetan_Ice]

Ah, I missed the last line about stopped seeing with your eyes... This is correct in thogal and of course sky gazing. When the Kati light channels fully open and the Clear Light is flowing up from the heart into and through the eyes, one senses one is seeing from the heart through a "periscope" from within the heart looking out the eyes. That's my experience often.

 

Hi Jax

First off, let me welcome you here to TBB. I was sure surprised to see you visit, especially when I had quoted one of your posts on one of your pages a half a year ago, about the Kati light channels. Many people appreciated your article. (link below)

 

You are the only other living person in the world that I have found that seems to have experience with these channels.

 

I have had several experiences with this waterous crystal clear substance gushing forth out of my face and into the visual range. It's characteristics are: "luminescence, bliss, the feeling that it is 'me', clarity, love, silence and peace". It seems quite miraculous.

 

I wrote about some of those experiences here (with your article):

http://thetaobums.com/topic/24409-meaning-clear-light/

 

(warning, there are some posts about you in that thread that are not exactly nice... as seems to be the norm by those few posters. Pandits and intellectuals here have verified for me that the pure intellectual mind is desolate, barren and cold, something Eckhart Tolle pointed out a long time ago. )

 

I also learned that you can see things in the distance by using the channel in the eyes, by seeing with love through the heart. The experience is like looking through a telescope at the brow.. Later, I read that there is called a lasso lamp which does specifically that, so it was nice to discover that and get confirmation. The heart is a magical thing.

 

Again, your post here means so much to me, for it has given me confirmation that such experiences as clear light issuing forth are bonified experiences in advanced practices, and that perhaps I'm on the right path.

 

If you have any more information about the clear light and the heart channels, I would love to read about them. Further, if you have any other experiences about clear light that you are willing to divulge, I would love to read about them.

 

One question that I would really like to know the answer to: Is the clear light that issues forth from the heart and up the channel the son clear light or the mother clear light? Baby rigpa or mother rigpa?

 

All the best, and thanks for not bugging out because someone forget to lock the dogs in the garage..

 

TI

Edited March 8, 2013 by Tibetan_Ice

[Seth Ananda]

Ah, I missed the last line about stopped seeing with your eyes... This is correct in thogal and of course sky gazing. When the Kati light channels fully open and the Clear Light is flowing up from the heart into and through the eyes, one senses one is seeing from the heart through a "periscope" from within the heart looking out the eyes. That's my experience often.

Hmm.. This is interesting and raises a few questions for me.

 

How does clear light flow? You make it sound like a substance. I thought it was more like just how the mind sees when obscuration's are dropping away?

 

I would love to hear much more elaborations on the seeing from the heart element.

 

How does this relate to Rigpa? Also how similar would you say this phenomena is to the many other traditions that have the 'Hearts Knowing' as a central theme, and that treat the heart as a genuine organ of perception in its own right?

 

Thanks for this lively discussion by the way

[Tibetan_Ice]

Heyyyy, that's not nice. We're just being real here, brah.

Backstabbing, lying, misconstruing, insulting, trolling, derailing threads, generally being caustic and acidic, presenting unsupported unverifiable statements, implying undeserved ignorance and being destructive rather than educational and supportive are not my definitions of being real.

 

Are you contemplating what will happen when Jax reads your accusations and malicious statements in that other thread?

[teknix]

Jax,

 

Can you teach me something useful for practice? All this bickering is a waste, if you can teach us something pls do!

[ralis]

Jax,

 

Can you teach me something useful for practice? All this bickering is a waste, if you can teach us something pls do!

 

 

His book is coming out in a couple of weeks. Amazon Kindle I believe.

[skydog]

Is Dzogchen the same as Zen

 

Where you just sit and let go and there is nothing...even in pain, like its always heaven.

 

Always back to nothing.

 

Anyways..If so

 

What is the importance of having a blocked heart in this state, like say after an argument one can go back to nothingness but it has a different quality..or is this another intellectual rationalisation.

[Simple_Jack]

Also how similar would you say this phenomena is to the many other traditions that have the 'Hearts Knowing' as a central theme, and that treat the heart as a genuine organ of perception in its own right?

 

 

....The Buddha was clearly aware of, and rejected, Upanishadic ideas like the atman idealized as a luminous essence in the center of the heart -- ideas that were later recapitulated in Buddhist tantrism in a modified form -- thus, for example necessitating refutations of this idea in the Rig pa rang shar tantra, to give one example, in order to differentiate Dzogchen from Vedanta. Concepts like nadis, the five vāyus, etc., find their earliest literary expression in Candogya Upanishad, etc. Other concepts, like the five experiences of union with brahman which come from these early Upanishads are found regularly in Buddhist tantric texts i.e. smoke, fireflies, butter lamps, etc., as signs that the vāyu is entering into the avadhuti nadi. In short, while the metaphysics of Buddhist tantra may ultimately be grounded in emptiness, many, many concepts found in the Buddhist tantras, from a text critical point of view, find their earliest expression in the ten Mukhya Upanishads, also accepted as śruti by Hindus, but not by Buddhists, of course.

 

~Lopon Malcolm

Edited February 5, 2014 by Simple_Jack

[xabir2005]

The Buddha needs an update... there are no particles. Actually the theory of Abidharma got into the same problem when they attempted to see the skandhas as substantitive, which is what the Prajnaparamita was aiming to correct.

Having read some of the nikayas, I do not recall Buddha teaching particles, and it is obvious that Abhidharma was authored much later after Buddha's passing and aren't Buddha's words.

 

Phena Sutta, Kaccayanagotta sutta, Kalaka Sutta etc are however Buddha's words in the Pali canon and teaches the emptiness of all aggregates and teaches that they are completely illusory and empty.

Edited March 8, 2013 by xabir2005

[xabir2005]

Malcolm is wrong. There are no five "elements". They are Buddhist and Hindu pseudo-science. Modern physics, especially quantum is where you should be looking... not to Malcolm quoting Buddhist mythology. Recently I read a Lama said to another Lama about Westerners: "Do they really believe the Earth is round and not flat as the teachings say?" Or better yet, the Menri Loppon asked us if it is not true that when you squeeze a snake it will make its legs pop-out! When we told him no its not true, and that snakes have no hidden legs, he was shocked and dismayed. The Dalai said in a video that "brain scientists have proven that the information about the Abhidarma is wrong, so we must change our beliefs when science proves them wrong." Wake up people!

 

There are five elements, but five elements are purely conventional. They do not point to atomic particles, the Buddha has never described five elements in that way.

 

Instead, the Buddha describes five elements in terms of the experience of "solidity and softness comprise the element of earth (pathavī); cohesion and liquidity comprise the element of water (āpo); heat and cold comprise the element of fire (tejo); and support and motion comprise the element of air (vāyo)."

 

This is something that can be observed and experienced without a theory about smallest particles or elements etc. Nor does it contradict modern scientific findings. Nobody denies the sensation of heat, coolness, etc. However the five elements like anything else are actually conventions and empty of any real existence.

 

Therefore, five elements do not contradict modern science (either quantum or classical) or the 'table of elements' that we learn in science today, they are completely different subjects and ways of description. He is not talking about quantum science or classical science, Buddha is describing experience. Buddha is teaching about the 'elements' found in experience and furthermore teaches about the nature of all phenomena and experience, he is not positing a theory about the elements of particles etc based on observations from a microscope like classical science or physics. You are completely mixing them up.

 

And the five elements are more appropriate when it comes to experience, because you cannot observe the element of "carbon" in direct experience for example, but the sensation of coolness, softness when feet touches the floor is obvious and can be an object of vipassana meditation. That is why five elements are a suitable subject of meditative contemplation, for example.

Edited March 8, 2013 by xabir2005

[xabir2005]

I'm not convinced. Honestly, I think you have just got better at couching your descriptions in terminology you've read elsewhere; you've slipped up a couple times.

Actually, Jackson had a new realization recently. I used to find Jax's understanding very prone to Advaita and debated with him a lot in the past as well but after a recent sharing a week ago by Jax about his recent experience and insight, I told Greg Goode who is very much into Madhyamika that I foresee Jax will be start to find more resonance with emptiness teachings.

 

He said: Thanks, Soh! Is this recent for Jax? Let's see how it develops! It's funny, the many years I've known him, maybe 12-15 years, he has been a staunch awareness guy.

 

I said: nothing has fixed identity including jax and is subject to changes

Greg Goode: Everyhing is empty except for Jax! Now he's someone else!

 

 

I told Malcolm as well, he said "Well, it just,takes some of us a bit longer to understand".

 

p.s. I'm not endorsing Jackson as the new Oprah of Dzogchen, lol, cos Dzogchen has lineage and transmission issues. And whenever there is a lineage, I think permission or authentication from a qualified teacher to teach is quite necessary, otherwise there will be doubt (and reasonably so because without such 'hard certification', how does an ignorant sentient being tell if someone is qualified or not?) and issue of transmission etc. Just like only a Bhikkhu can transmit the monk's precepts to someone else, you cannot set yourself up as a monk without proper procedures per Buddha's instructions. This is quite a legitimate and reasonable system to some degree.

 

But this has to do with human institution... just like you can't teach in a university without having the 'documentation' and 'certification' (e.g. a PhD). Yet, ironically, being a 'certified teacher of Dharma' does not always necessarily indicate the person's real experiential understanding (either presence or lack thereof) either.

 

Just saying lets not judge people's understanding too soon. In the Dzogchen texts it says even a prostitute, for example, can be enlightened... (and there is no telling when) there were poems of enlightenment by prostitutes in the Kunjed Gyalpo as well. Enlightenment does not only happen to well known or great masters.

 

And hopefully there is basic respect for everyone here irregardless of whether we agree with their POV or not.

Edited March 8, 2013 by xabir2005

[ralis]

 

Actually, Jackson had a new realization recently. I used to find Jax's understanding very prone to Advaita and debated with him a lot in the past as well but after a recent sharing a week ago by Jax about his recent experience and insight, I told Greg Goode who is very much into Madhyamika that I foresee Jax will be start to find more resonance with emptiness teachings.

 

He said: Thanks, Soh! Is this recent for Jax? Let's see how it develops! It's funny, the many years I've known him, maybe 12-15 years, he has been a staunch awareness guy.

 

I said: nothing has fixed identity including jax and is subject to changes

Greg Goode: Everyhing is empty except for Jax! Now he's someone else!

 

 

I told Malcolm as well, he said "Well, it just,takes some of us a bit longer to understand".

 

p.s. I'm not endorsing Jackson as the new Oprah of Dzogchen, lol, cos Dzogchen has lineage and transmission issues. And whenever there is a lineage, I think permission or authentication from a qualified teacher to teach is quite necessary, otherwise there will be doubt (and reasonably so because without such 'hard certification', how does an ignorant sentient being tell if someone is qualified or not?) and issue of transmission etc. Just like only a Bhikkhu can transmit the monk's precepts to someone else, you cannot set yourself up as a monk without proper procedures per Buddha's instructions. This is quite a legitimate and reasonable system to some degree.

 

But this has to do with human institution... just like you can't teach in a university without having the 'documentation' and 'certification' (e.g. a PhD). Yet, ironically, being a 'certified teacher of Dharma' does not always necessarily indicate the person's real experiential understanding (either presence or lack thereof) either.

 

Just saying lets not judge people's understanding too soon. In the Dzogchen texts it says even a prostitute, for example, can be enlightened... (and there is no telling when) there were poems of enlightenment by prostitutes in the Kunjed Gyalpo as well. Enlightenment does not only happen to well known or great masters.

 

And hopefully there is basic respect for everyone here irregardless of whether we agree with their POV or not.

 

 

I will ask you the same question as simple_jack. Are you critiquing Jax out of experience with your practice or just having an academic rant?

[xabir2005]

 

 

 

I will ask you the same question as simple_jack. Are you critiquing Jax out of experience with your practice or just having an academic rant?

Out of experience with my practice, I recognize what he is talking about.

 

But my main point isn't about critiquing Jax. To summarize myself: don't judge people too easily, and lets be nice to each other.

Edited March 8, 2013 by xabir2005

[ralis]

Out of experience with my practice, I recognize what he is talking about.

 

 

Read what you wrote. My question is your experience with practice.

[xabir2005]

Read what you wrote. My question is your experience with practice.

Yes, what do you want to know?