What is wisdom in Dzogchen ?

[Simple_Jack]

I haven't made any unnecessary dichotomies that I am aware of. I agree we should study and reflect on key texts. I was not attempting to dismiss the conceptual ... if I appeared to do that then it was not intended.

 

It seemed that way when you said this:

 

I think specific language is for philosophy but for spirituality often simplicity is the essence. I am not discounting the intellectual though ... its important and often useful ... but not really the key. More important is where the heart is.

 

Non-arising is Mahayana 101: emptiness, non-arising, dependent origination, are all synonymous. Do you know why Zen and Vajrayana seem (deceptively) easier to understand? It's because they are geared towards the 'instantaneous' type of practitioners. Mahamudra and Dzogchen divide practitioners into superior, middling, and inferior capacities (or rate at which one 'internalizes'/realizes the teachings). How easy do you think it is for the average Dharma practitioner to (genuinely) instantly realize or just intellectually understand dependent origination/non-arising through pith instructions? Compare that to the amount of neo-Advaita teachers out there giving satsangs and you start to see the bigger picture.

Edited June 10, 2014 by Simple_Jack

[Apech]

It seemed that way when you said this:

 

 

Non-arising is Mahayana 101: emptiness, non-arising, dependent origination, are all synonymous. Do you know why Zen and Vajrayana seem (deceptively) easier to understand? It's because they are geared towards the 'instantaneous' type of practitioners. Mahamudra and Dzogchen divide practitioners into superior, middling, and inferior capacities (or rate at which one 'internalizes'/realizes the teachings). How easy do you think it is for the average Dharma practitioner to (genuinely) instantly realize or just intellectually understand dependent origination/non-arising through pith instructions? Compare that to the amount of neo-Advaita teachers out there giving satsangs and you start to see the bigger picture.

 

 

The most gifted teacher I ever met was able to argue a point with anyone on practically any subject under the sun including various forms of philosophy. In his life he was extraordinary simple. People gave him clothes and he wore them ... but somehow managed to look immaculate and elegant. He owned practically nothing. When you have realisations then you can do this because arguing intellectually becomes easy because you know the core. When I said heart I did not mean sentiment or anything like that, I meant that in us which gives us direct realisation of the nature of things.

 

As I said above somewhere I don't really know anything about Dzogchen. I have a small understanding of Mahamudra because I practice in the Kagyu tradition. I don't see the transformative processes of vajrayana as particularly easy to understand. I completely agree that developing an understanding of the View is important. However luckily for us the realisations are real and do not depend on developing anything. Perhaps you could say learning to recognise them correctly requires some mental precision.

[Simple_Jack]

Zen divides practitioners into 'grades' also.

[Apech]

Zen divides practitioners into 'grades' also.

 

Well put my name down as one of the lowest

[Yascra]

[...] for you the individual, the ignorant practitioner, all of it is equally conceptual until the moment of realization.

I'd be careful with that, I feel that quite some people in this place here are not half as ignorant as you'd like them to be

[Yascra]

How easy do you think it is for the average Dharma practitioner to (genuinely) instantly realize or just intellectually understand dependent origination/non-arising through pith instructions?

Difficult, with all it's complicated language. Which is why I'd say people would be better off to start with Christianity, that's much more easy, and to reach liberation it's absolutely sufficient

[rex]

Right, like for example the beginning, intermediate, and advanced courses that FPMT offers its students, it does take a certain period of time to understand even basic Buddhist principles, but buddhadharma is not rocket science. I'm not sure how you're using 'scholar' in this context (few people in the Dharma scene can fit this description), because people on here like to throw this term around, when someone demonstrates that they have a proficient understanding of buddhadharma or if there's a sense they "know too much".

I used the term scholar quite specifically as one sangha I know of makes a big thing of shedras with in-depth instruction from geshes. These shedras are open to anyone though trainee instructors go as they will be eventually teaching and will need to operate from a base of solid understanding and not one of vague emotionalism.

 

Funny you mention about scholarship being used pejoratively here. It's either robust and perhaps overzealous bullshit detectors; a general cultural malaise of belittling intelligence or more sinisterly, the dark site of the Taobums collective - half committed people disparaging those who rise above a perceived set point.

[Yascra]

Funny you mention about scholarship being used pejoratively here. It's either robust and perhaps overzealous bullshit detectors; a general cultural malaise of belittling intelligence or more sinisterly, the dark site of the Taobums collective - half committed people disparaging those who rise above a perceived set point.

Excuse me, might you repeat that in simple words for a silly bum like me? Or anybody else'd like to explain...?

[Apech]

Shame this thread is deteriorating. No one that I have read has disparaged scholars. Why don't we get back to debating how to communicate things without using off-the-shelf portmanteau words and expressions.

[ralis]

I'd be careful with that, I feel that quite some people in this place here are not half as ignorant as you'd like them to be

 

I agree. I detest the use of the term ignorant. I have stated this misuse many times to several Buddhists on this forum. Just more elitist nonsense.

[Yascra]

No one that I have read has disparaged scholars.

Hmm, do you think someone should fil in that gap? Maybe I'd volunteer for the task =)

[Yascra]

I agree. I detest the use of the term ignorant. I have stated this misuse many times to several Buddhists on this forum. Just more elitist nonsense.

Well, if you ask me this place here is harmless concerning this, at least if you compare it to the habitual tone of more than one solely buddhist forum. I've seen mods in other places behave in such ways. Really not nice locations to be.

[Apech]

Hmm, do you think someone should fil in that gap? Maybe I'd volunteer for the task =)

 

 

If you feel ready for the backlash, yes by all means

[rex]

Excuse me, might you repeat that in simple words for a silly bum like me? Or anybody else'd like to explain...?

Displays of intellectual knowledge and learning rarely go down well - no one likes a know it all

 

Shame this thread is deteriorating. No one that I have read has disparaged scholars. Why don't we get back to debating how to communicate things without using off-the-shelf portmanteau words and expressions.

 

Sorry, I appear to have touched a nerve. The comment wasn't directed at anyone in this thread in particular or even a judgement on how the thread was progressing - it was a reciprocal general long term observation made in response to another general long term observation.

[doc benway]

Oh well ... person in the street (ex. man in the street) is just an expression for people generally I wasn't advocating shouting at people in the shopping mall. That would be appalling IMO

Wouldn't it though? I've gotten to the point that I don't talk about this stuff with people in general, just with folks who demonstrate a real interest.

 

 

I didn't see it so much as getting rid of phrases, but perhaps improving them for clarity.

I agree with you there but I doubt I can improve on the writings of the masters and the excellent scholars who do their best to translate. I think it's more a matter of having a frame of reference for experiential understand through practice and insight. Then, as you alluded to, the words don't really matter - any words will do... or none.

[Simple_Jack]

I'm always railing against neo-Advaitans and their satsangs at every opportunity, but I can sympathize with Rongzomfan when he dismissed the Zen tradition as a whole when he referred to them as 'those Zen guys'. There's an equivalent potential for ignorance (and nonsense) concerning the buddhadharma within Zen circles.

Edited June 10, 2014 by Simple_Jack

[Apech]

Displays of intellectual knowledge and learning rarely go down well - no one likes a know it all

 

 

Sorry, I appear to have touched a nerve. The comment wasn't directed at anyone in this thread in particular or even a judgement on how the thread was progressing - it was a reciprocal general long term observation made in response to another general long term observation.

 

 

Don't worry you haven't touched any nerves.

[ralis]

I'm always railing against neo-Advaitans and their satsangs at every opportunity, but I can sympathize with Rongzomfan when he dismissed the Zen tradition as a whole when he referred to them as 'those Zen guys'. There's an equivalent potential for ignorance (and nonsense) concerning the buddhadharma within Zen circles.

 

Neo Advaitans are somehow lesser in their realization than you? That makes you an elitist does it not?

[C T]

I'm always railing against neo-Advaitans and their satsangs at every opportunity, but I can sympathize with Rongzomfan when he dismissed the Zen tradition as a whole when he referred to them as 'those Zen guys'. There's an equivalent potential for ignorance (and nonsense) concerning the buddhadharma within Zen circles.

Knowing that, and yet persisting with such an act sounds rather foolish, lacks wisdom.

 

Shadow boxing, my friend. Waste of time & energy, dont you think?

Edited June 10, 2014 by C T

[Simple_Jack]

I used the term scholar quite specifically as one sangha I know of makes a big thing of shedras with in-depth instruction from geshes. These shedras are open to anyone though trainee instructors go as they will be eventually teaching and will need to operate from a base of solid understanding and not one of vague emotionalism.

 

Yeah, same with FPMT, they expect people who graduate from the masters program to assume a teaching role (now whether if the individual assumes that role is another question).

Edited June 10, 2014 by Simple_Jack

[doc benway]

Shame this thread is deteriorating.

 

Yup

[Simple_Jack]

To answer the OP:

 

As I pointed, all of this language concerning "the basis" comes from a passage in the Guhyasamaja uttaratantra. The continuum of the basis, since this is the reference, refers to the nature of the mind, which when recognized leads to buddhahood and when not, leads to samsara.

 

People get so hung up on the use of the word mind, consciousness and so on. Well, just look at these words: shes pa (jñā), rnam shes (vijñāna), shes rab (prajñā) and ye shes (jñāna). What do they all have in common? "shes". "Shes" just means "to know". If you say the basis is ye shes, that wisdom is a knower.

 

In any case, the commentary of the sgra thal 'gyur clearly maintains that ye shes is encompassed by a shes pa, and that shes pa exists individually in all buddhas and sentient beings as a mere knower (shes tsam).

 

We can conclude from this then that the basis (which really is strictly a man ngag sde term) is just a name for the continuum of the nature of the mind.

 

The extent to which it is unconditioned is the extent to which no one made the mind "clear and empty", the mind has been clear and empty from the very start. Thus the resting in the unfabricated mind, the unconditioned mind, is resting in that nature of the mind (inseparable clarity and emptiness) which cannot be altered or modified in anyway at all no matter what appears in it/to it(hence the mirror metaphor). You can't make it better, you can't make it worse.

 

We say that the nature of the mind in this sense is unconditioned because no one made it, it does not have a beginning, it cannot be altered or changed. You cannot take the clarity of the mind and make it unclear. You cannot take the emptiness of the mind and make the mind substantial.

 

The mind can have various experiences, suffering, happiness, affliction, purification, thus we can also say that the mind is conditioned. It is also momentary, its continuity is not substantial, it is a continuum of moments, thus it is conditioned.

 

Once again, we have a conditioned entity, dharmin, the mind, that has an unconditioned nature, dharmatā, the inseparability of clarity and emptiness.

 

The mind is not merely clear, for then it would be only conditioned. It is not merely empty, since then it would be non-existent. The unconditioned nature of the mind is the inseparability of clarity and emptiness. There is no teaching in Buddhism about the mind and the nature of the mind that goes beyond this.

 

When we understand the principles above, we understand the union of the two truths, we understand the continuum of the basis, Dzogchen, etc.

 

When it comes to Dzogchen teachings, it is crucial to understand that the differences between wisdom, shes pa and rnam shes, for example, are all based on the anatomy of the human body, and the modalities of our consciousness as embodied beings.

 

If we say that wisdom, for example, is beyond mind, does that mean that wisdom is inert, like a rock or a statue? No, it just means that wisdom transcends the operations of the restricted consciousness of ordinary beings, wisdom is a consciousness that has less restrictions. What is the basis for the freedom of wisdom? The pure clarity and emptiness of the mind, of course.

 

We do not have a refined vocabulary in English for discussing consciousness and its different modalities. But indeed, that is what Dzogchen as well Buddhist texts in general are talking about, i.e., consciousness and its various modalities, unawakened and awakened.

...

 

The "natural condition" as you call it, isn't something real; it is baseless. It isn't out there, like "atoms", "stars" and "galaxies"; it isn't inside like "blood cells", "mitochondria", etc. This "natural" condition is just the nature of your own mind. It is not an objective condition— there is no "objective condition" because there is no "subjective condition". There is no "natural" condition because there is no "unnatural condition".

 

There is no wisdom apart from the mind and there is no consciousness apart from the mind, there is no buddhahood apart from the mind, there is no delusion apart from the mind, there is no samsara apart from the mind, no nirvana apart from the mind. Apart from the mind, nothing else needs to be recognized.

 

The mind is not real because it cannot be established, it is not unreal because one cannot deny that one is feeling, thinking and so on, therefore we say it has "no reality" i.e. there is no state of being that pertains to the mind, since the mind is beyond any extreme, it's nature is sheer clarity and emptiness inseparable. You won't find the mind by resting your attention on a rock, you won't find it by resting your attention on a thought, you won't find even if you rest your attention on the mind's own sheer clarity. You won't find it even if you ascertain sheer clarity is empty. You won't find in nāḍīs, vāyus and bindus, deities, mandalas, etc.

 

However, that being said, if you do not have a proper method, your afflictions will not cease, you will not gather the twin stores of merit and wisdom, you will not expand your mind to the point of omniscience and you will not realize buddhahood.

...

 

I would say that kadag, lundrup and thugje are a generic context, just like "red" is a generic context for all cows that are red.

 

The Dzogchen tantras are not inventing a brand new theory of Buddhism, they are just riffing on Tantric Buddhism as it already exists. That being the case, Dzogchen tantras, just like all other Buddhist tantras, do not deny conventional doctrines such as mind streams (citta saṃtana) and so on, that are necessary for receiving impressions or traces (vasana, bag chags) etc.

 

In other words, Dzogchen tantras exist in a continuum with other texts upon which later Dzogchen tantras like the sgra thal 'gyur (which are clearly influenced by the gsar ma tantras) are based. You want to define the basis as ye shes. The sgra thal 'gyur defines wisdom as encompassed by shes pa, and its commentary indicates that the shes pa that encompass wisdom, whether in Buddhas or sentient beings, is individual and unique to each buddha and sentient being. So what this basically boils down to is a discussion of how individual sentient beings are liberated.

 

I don't really care about what meta discussion we can have about "what it means". I am interested in what the texts themselves say so that we can understand their intention.

 

Therefore, since the discussion of the basis is premised on the concept of the three continuums, and since that continuum is just the continuum of an individual sentient beings consciousness, it is pretty meaningless to me to try and insist that the Dzogchen tantras should be saying something other than what they clearly all say, i.e., sentient beings become deluded, and sentient beings become Buddhas.

 

~ Loppon Namdrol

 

Bump.

[ralis]

Cut/paste and various arguments posted here have not answered the OP's questions. Most of these arguments are untenable.

[Apech]

Somewhat ironic to cut and paste a long quote then bump your own post when it doesn't meet the question in the OP. If you want to create a library of quotes why not put in your ppf.

[Tibetan_Ice]

I'm always railing against neo-Advaitans and their satsangs at every opportunity, but I can sympathize with Rongzomfan when he dismissed the Zen tradition as a whole when he referred to them as 'those Zen guys'. There's an equivalent potential for ignorance (and nonsense) concerning the buddhadharma within Zen circles.

Shame on you!

 

Have you and Alwaysoff so little faith and understanding in Bhuddism that you must prop it up by denigrating other traditions?

 

But then isn't that the scholarly way? No, wait... Most scholars have more class than that.