What is wisdom in Dzogchen ?

[Paul]

Excellent remarks!

 

I argued with several Buddhists on this site for years and not one was able to offer a satisfactory explanation to the questions you are posing. Buddhists are trapped in absolutist anthropocentric ideology. Buddhists fall back on 'non being' and conveniently ignore the rest of the Hegelian dialectic; 'being, not being and becoming'.

 

It is to recognize that this dialectic is an intellectual trap. That's why Buddha says nirvana is not being, non-being, both or neither.

Edited July 8, 2014 by Paul

[asunthatneversets]

careful not to throw your pearls...

 

Yeah, been figuring that out in the past couple days actually... :/

[Paul]

 

oh, there is plenty of that in Kunjed Gyalpo-The supreme source

 

Pure and total consciousness is not subject to quantity and cannot

be depicted in any way. However, for the phenomena

created by consciousness, multiplicity arises. What is

created by consciousness? From the natural condition of

consciousness are created the animate and inanimate

world, Buddhas and sentient beings. In this way there

appears the manifestation of the five elements, of the six

classes of beings, and of the two types of emanations of

the dimension of form [sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya]

that act for their benefit. All of this manifests from the

nature of consciousness as multiplicity. [...]

The root of all phenomena is pure and total

consciousness, the source. All that appears is my nature.

All that manifests is my magical display. All sounds and

words express only my meaning. From the very

beginning, the pure dimensions, the wisdoms and

qualities of the Buddhas, the karmic inclinations and

bodies of beings, all the things that exist in the animate

and inanimate universe, are the nature of pure and total

consciousness.

 

This is still talking about existent things in the manner of a rope mistakenly seen as a snake.

[GrandmasterP]

^^^

The official result.

 

Tony Parsons knocks out one the UK's best Dzogchumps in the first two seconds of round one but unfortunately, while everyone was blinking Kali Vmarco had eaten Tony (although she spat him out as he tasted a bit off): -

 

Tony has to win on points as he can't be hit because as Tony says " No one is there."

Tony and me go back a long ways we were Osho sannyasin before Osho was Osho back in the Bhagwan days.

Tony's one of nature's gentlemen.

A really nice chap.

He only charges £10 for his monthly talks and anyone can go.

Unwaged and students get in free as does anyone who can't pay.

He has no centre or anything he just rents space in a Quaker Meeting Room and the door take pays for the room and some exes.

You do get some regulars who treat it as a satsang type of gig and that's a bit funny in a way as Tony is up there saying

( paraphrase)....

" There's NOTHING for you to get here, nobody is telling you anything."

 

[GrandmasterP]

careful not to throw your pearls...

That's one of the possible answers to the Rinzai Zen school koan...

 

" Why did Bodhidharma come from the west?"

 

Edited July 8, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[goldisheavy]

This word yeshe gets thrown about all the time by dzogchen scholars but so far i haven't found a satisfactory answer about what exactly is wisdom in the day to day circumstances like when you drink your coffee or when you walk your dog or in cases where you have to choose between this and that and so on...

What is wisdom in those circumstances ?

 

If you can't answer this question without terms like "non-arisen", "illusory" "empty of characteristics", "non-inherent" then i am afraid to say that your theoretical grasp of dozgchen view doesn't match your experiential understanding of dzogchen praxis.

 

First. I don't let anyone test my understanding of Dzogchen, because if I do, I lose yeshe.

 

Second. Taking your scenarios, if you're drinking coffee and suddenly it becomes tea, and you have yeshe, then you won't be surprised by this. Or if you have yeshe, you can drink 100 cups of coffee without becoming full. Or you can turn your coffee into wine. Or a million other things. You have yeshe if you realize that drinking coffee is not "what is" but only "what can be" and that no experience represents "what is." The same with the dog, etc.

[GrandmasterP]

So Yeshe is the same thing as bullshit then?

 

 

[goldisheavy]

So Yeshe is the same thing as bullshit then?

 

For most people, yes. For most people yeshe is not something that's attainable (in this lifetime).

Edited July 8, 2014 by goldisheavy

[GrandmasterP]

For most people, yes. For most people yeshe is not something that's attainable (in this lifetime).

 

Thought so.

You enjoy that coffee there bro.

 

[Apech]

First. I don't let anyone test my understanding of Dzogchen, because if I do, I lose yeshe.

 

Second. Taking your scenarios, if you're drinking coffee and suddenly it becomes tea, and you have yeshe, then you won't be surprised by this. Or if you have yeshe, you can drink 100 cups of coffee without becoming full. Or you can turn your coffee into wine. Or a million other things. You have yeshe if you realize that drinking coffee is not "what is" but only "what can be" and that no experience represents "what is." The same with the dog, etc.

 

 

Goldisheavy ... it feels like such a long time since I saw you on here. Welcome back if you have indeed been away. I have no idea what you mean by the cup of tea, cup of coffee thing but I am sure great wisdom lies therein.

[rex]

Yeah, been figuring that out in the past couple days actually... :/

How does that saying go? If Dzogchen is being taught and there are ninety-nine interested people listening then this is not enough. If one person doesn't want to hear about Dzogchen then this is too many.

 

This thread is not a conducive medium for meaningful or constructive discussion of Dzogchen.

 

Edit: Typos

Edited July 8, 2014 by rex

[Simple_Jack]

For what its worth I have been to see both Tony Parsons and one of the highest Dzogchen Lama's in the UK for group meetings and felt a lot more energetically and felt a lot more clarity about what was being pointed out when seeing Tony Parsons.

 

Similarly, how do you feel when you listen to this talk by Insight Meditation Society teacher Rob Burbea, he uses plain and straightforward language: http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/210/talk/6349/.

 

Do you feel there may be any significance to what he's saying, a correlate to direct experience, or merely intellectual? Do you feel these excerpts from the transcript may carry weight:

 

http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/search/label/Rob%20Burbea

 

...So often times we don’t really think about the nature of mind. It’s not something we give that much reflection to. Maybe, until we start meditating. And then, maybe we do. Because meditation is a lot about Awareness, a lot about Consciousness.

And at first, perhaps in the beginning years even of practice, the notion of the Mind, or Awareness, as the metaphor of a mirror might feel very apt. And obviously we obviously don’t think that there’s a mirror in us that if we cut open our brain we get to this mirror. But that sense of Awareness is somehow reflecting the world. We have that, even if it’s not a conscious notion, that notion somehow embedded in us: Awareness is something that reflects the world.

And in a way, we can see practice and the devotion to mindfulness and being present and bare attention as a kind of polishing of that mirror to see things as they really are, things as they truly are, to quote the Buddha. And the constant practice to let go of the entanglement in the story, the entanglement in the papanca (conceptual proliferation) and complication, the opinions that we layer onto experience, the pre-conceptions, the views, the images, the likes, the dislikes, all that whole baggage of veil that covers over the actuality of experience. When we have a sense of practice, just patiently polishing the mirror, so that the awareness can reflect things as they really are. And so sometimes, people use the phrase or word “Pure Awareness” and that actually means very different things used in different contexts. But that might be a meaning. Awareness is pure in the sense that it’s free of all that papanchizing complication story, etc.

Having that kind of model or metaphor, whether it’s conscious or unconscious, can bring with it a lot of clarity, a lot of vividness into the experience and I’m sure many of you have felt on retreat or as practice times goes by, the actual imprint of perceptions becomes brighter, more vivid. The actual grass seems greener, the lights seem more colorful, everything stands out, a beautiful aliveness because we’re metaphorically polishing that mirror....Again, practice is to be developed. I’m moving a lot of territories tonight, very quickly. Laying out again, possible ways of navigating through this. If one learns to cultivate that space and discover that space and hang out and then sustain and be familiar it, it’s possible that it deepens. It’s possible that the whole sense of it begins to deepen and objects, the phenomena that occur begin to feel as if they’re made of the same substance as the space of awareness. They’re made of the same substance as Awareness. So you might have heard analogies like waves in the oceans. Whatever happens, you, me, this, that, sounds, an event, whatever, it’s all just waves in the Ocean of Being, or the Ocean of Awareness. It’s all just the same substance taking different shapes. Incredibly freeing and useful perspective to open to.

Everything is just an impression in Awareness. And that in that sense, from that perspective we could say, things, the things of the world, all things, all phenomena, all observable phenomena are empty in the sense that they’re not different from empty. They’re empty of being something different from this vast insubstantial substance of Awareness. So things seem empty in that sense, they seem insubstantial, they seem not real in the sense of existing really outside of Awareness in the way that we usually think things do, usually perceive things. Have a whole different perception. With that too, as it deepens of course, there’s a sense of incredible oneness. All is One. And one has heard that in the teachings, different teachings, different traditions.

All is One. And sometimes we use the phrase Non-Duality, they use that in that sense as everything is One. So it seems to tie in very strongly. One has a real sense as this deepens of there being only One Mind. It’s not my mind, your mind, his mind, the dog’s mind, whatever. It’s One Mind. One Vast Mind that encompasses everything. And we hear about that in different teachings, some Buddhist teachings, some non-Buddhist teachings. One Mind, or Cosmic Consciousness, Awareness knowing itself. Everything is the play of Consciousness, but that Consciousness kind of is the Base, it’s somehow self-existent. That’s the Ultimate Reality. And so it’s very easy to have that view, very liberating. Very useful. And these views are not intellectual standpoints. I really like to stress this. They’re not intellectual standpoints. They are views that people come to through practice. So it’s not like someone is figuring out, “da da da da da”… It’s actually through deep and sincere care and practice. This is the practice that can easily, well not so easily, but eventually be come to.

With that Big Space Awareness, the Vast Awareness, it’s the place where most people would tend to stop their inquiry. It’s the most common place nowadays to stop the inquiry. But there’s a lot of assumptions there. A lot of assumptions....

One time the Buddha went to a group of monks and he basically told them not to see Awareness as The Source of all things. So this sense of there being a vast awareness and everything just appears out of that and disappears back into it, beautiful as that is, he told them that’s actually not a skillful way of viewing reality. And that is a very interesting sutta, because it’s one of the only suttas where at the end it doesn’t say the monks rejoiced in his words.

This group of monks didn’t want to hear that. They were quite happy with that level of insight, lovely as it was, and it said the monks did not rejoice in the Buddha’s words. (laughter) And similarly, one runs into this as a teacher, I have to say. This level is so attractive, it has so much of the flavor of something ultimate, that often times people are unbudgeable there. In the Dzogchen tradition, there’s a very beautiful saying – very simple but very beautiful. And it says, “trust your experience, but keep refining your view.” Trust your experience, but keep refining your view - there’s a lot of wisdom in that, a lot of wisdom....

In English we have a noun, “Awareness”, “Consciousness”, a noun, and nouns have a way of giving something a kind of sense of independent reality – it’s a clock, a thingy. It’s a thingy. And because Awareness or Consciousness is a noun, it seems to be a thing, a thingy. Pali apparently is more of a verb based language. When we think of what Awareness means, well it’s Awareness Of something, rather than Some Thing, some substance, it’s Awareness Of something. Putting it in verb terms, we could say it’s knowing. Consciousness or Awareness means knowing. Now, knowing needs a known, ok. For there to be knowing there has to be something that’s known. And if there’s a known, it needs knowing. So vice versa. Knowing needs a known, and a known needs knowing.

If I followed the not-self practice, or a number of other practices too, it’s not just that at all. If I follow that, I see that the known or otherwise the perceptions or objects are empty, because they don’t kind of exist by themselves. They depend on the identifying and clinging. And I don’t know how they really are, how much clinging reveals the real object. Then in a way the knowing, we could say, is leaning – it needs a known and it’s leaning on something that’s empty, it’s leaning on a vacuum. Do you see this? Knowing needs a known, the known needs knowing. If the known is empty, it’s leaning on nothing. It’s leaning on something that’s empty. We say that it’s groundless or unsupported. Awareness is unsupported, it’s groundless.

So tracing stages, we want to deliberately consolidate the insights, so – objects depend on the mind, so they’re empty, and the mind or consciousness or awareness depends on object so that is empty too, because it’s depending on something that’s empty. Anytime two things are mutually dependent, they have to both be empty. We can go into that but we don’t have time. This groundlessness, this emptiness, this lack of independent existence of Awareness, rather than being a kind of conundrum or a complication, is actually the insight that brings the deepest level of freedom. It’s not anywhere, and it’s not supported by anything, and it’s not anything that supports anything. Empty....

But one of the things I want to say is, it’s very easy in the Dharma after a long time of practice, to sort of hear this kind of talk and say, “well, I don’t want to quibble. Does it really matter? It’s all good, you say this, you say that, he says that, it’s all good. Let’s all be friends, and we can all be happy together.” And that kind of attitude again is very popular. I think it’s quite popular in the west. I think contrary to the self-image that we have, we actually don’t like debating with each other and wrangling out these points, we actually don’t like it. We prefer this kind of “it’s all good”, but there’s something that happens if I don’t grapple with these questions. When people in the Dharma look at me from the outside, and if my attitude is you know, “all this is the mind getting into complications and arguing”, if that’s what I say and it’s like I’m not gonna get into that, what it’s gonna look like, what it can look like from the outside is, “there’s someone really peaceful and wise and not engaging in da da da…”

But if I’m not grappling with these questions, although it might look like there’s some peace and freedom here, I don’t think that the deeper level of freedom will be arrived at. Like I said, I think it’s almost inevitable that at points in the unfolding of insights there’s going to be agitation. There’s going to be difficulty, there’s going to be frustration, there’s going to be confusion, there’s going to be a wrestling with these things. That deep freedom won’t be discovered unless we grapple with these stuff at some point in our practice whenever that is. And I hope it doesn’t sound intellectual tonight, it might have, I hope it didn’t. And that’s really not the point. What I really wanted to unfold is something we can see in practice through developing practice in the right ways.

There’s not one way of going about this but there’s ways that will unfold this. And what one sees is that different levels of freedom, unmistakably different levels of freedom open up in one’s experience. Different levels of freedom and release. And going through that, one sees, one understands this building process. Oh, goodness me, this whole structure of reality, what seemed to be a self, and a world and things, and time, and awareness, everything in space, everything I took for granted, is actually built. And I’ve understood that because I’ve gone through it and kind of unbuild it, and unbind it. And then one realizes almost in hind sight that one was either consciously or unconsciously giving things – the things of this world, subtle things and gross things, giving them an inherent existence, seeing them as possessing inherent existence. Ascribing to them an inherent existence...

[gatito]

Tony has to win on points as he can't be hit because as Tony says " No one is there."

Tony and me go back a long ways we were Osho sannyasin before Osho was Osho back in the Bhagwan days.

Tony's one of nature's gentlemen.

A really nice chap.

He only charges £10 for his monthly talks and anyone can go.

Unwaged and students get in free as does anyone who can't pay.

He has no centre or anything he just rents space in a Quaker Meeting Room and the door take pays for the room and some exes.

You do get some regulars who treat it as a satsang type of gig and that's a bit funny in a way as Tony is up there saying

( paraphrase)....

" There's NOTHING for you to get here, nobody is telling you anything."

 

Tony and I only go back about a decade. I attended several of his meetings and one of his retreats and I consider that he's spectacularly failed to integrate what he saw, as have all the neoadvaitins.

 

The last time I saw Tony (in 2011), I took my youngest son (who knew and knows far more about advaita than Tony ever will) in order to show him living evidence of the pitfalls of the Path. He learned a great deal in that regard.

 

My son was specifically refused discounted entry (he was about 15 at the time).

 

Therefore, we will just have to agree to differ because my direct experierience is different.

[gatito]

careful not to throw your pearls...

 

Another dharma king who considers that TTBs are swine.

 

Perhaps you would have been wiser to follow your own advice Paul instead of further illustrating the "wisdom" in your misunderstanding of Dzogchen.

[Paul]

So Yeshe is the same thing as bullshit then?

 

This is sad. Yeshe is seeing awareness appears empty. These flip attitudes are bullshit.

[gatito]

This is still talking about existent things in the manner of a rope mistakenly seen as a snake.

 

No.

 

It's not a rope - it's obviously a snake.

[ralis]

This is sad. Yeshe is seeing awareness appears empty. These flip attitudes are bullshit.

 

Why not use a different term as opposed to emptiness which is used ad infinitum. The use of has become trite.

[Paul]

No.

 

It's not a rope - it's obviously a snake.

 

You clearly don't understand the analogy. If you'd like an explanation let me know. Otherwise, I'll let it go.

[Paul]

Why not use a different term as opposed to emptiness which is used ad infinitum. The use of has become trite.

 

That's bullshit.

[Simple_Jack]

Perhaps you would have been wiser to follow your own advice Paul instead of further illustrating the "wisdom" in your misunderstanding of Dzogchen.

 

 

Gatito, you're exactly like the hordes of neoadvaitans out there, criticizing the other for "not getting it". You are the ultimate neoadvaitan who's come to correct the understanding of an entire lineage.

[ralis]

That's bullshit.

 

You have proved my point as to how Buddhists behave, which in general, is not civilized. Further, why not discuss in your own words, as opposed to parroting what you have read and heard.

[gatito]

You clearly don't understand the analogy. If you'd like an explanation let me know. Otherwise, I'll let it go.

 

On more careful consideration, you may realise that it's you who has misunderstood my analogy and you'd certainly demonstrate more wisdon than you have to date by letting it go.

[Tibetan_Ice]

I take it your comment "Bull", followed by "the dharmakāya is omnipresent" is suggesting that you believe dharmakāya to be transpersonal?

There is only one dharmakaya. If there were two or more, that would imply inherent existence.

There is no person. When the dharmakaya manifests something you are all persons, all the trees, all the clouds, the sky, the stars...

[Paul]

You have proved my point as to how Buddhists behave, which in general, is not civilized. Further, why not discuss in your own words, as opposed to parroting what you have read and heard.

 

You lack a sense of humor. I'm answering the OP, what does Dzogchen mean by wisdom, not what I mean. Dzogchen is beyond explanations. It is something that a master can transmit to someone who has that interest. There is nothing to say to those who don't. That's my experience.

Edited July 8, 2014 by Paul

[ralis]

You lack a sense of humor. I'm answering the OP, what does Dzogchen mean by wisdom, not what I mean. Dzogchen is beyond explanations. That's my experience. It is something that a master can transmit to someone who has that interest. There is nothing to say to those who don't. That's my experience.

 

Calling my post 'bullshit' does not lend a sense of humor to the conversation.