The most direct training practice in Dzogchen

[BaguaKicksAss]

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Edited September 30, 2014 by BaguaKicksAss

[Wells]

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Edited October 29, 2014 by ZOOM

[thelerner]

Do you know how much it costs to spend a whole life in retreat?

Or how to arrange one?

Short answer. Everything.

Give away or donate then join a monastery <choose wisely>.

Just beware retreat ain't Vegas,

no free lunch, it can be a very hard life,

unless you have an egoless temperament.

 

 

On the third hand you can have a very spiritual time at a yoga ashram, for a few weeks or months. Some get pretty extreme. The Sivananda ashram on Paradise island is a nice middle ground. <maybe a bit further from the ascetic side depending on where you stay and how you conduct yourself>

Edited September 30, 2014 by thelerner

[soaring crane]

In Germany, however, things are rather as I told you above.

 

and here I was, thinking Dzogchen is a German word, meaning 'little dzog' :-)

 

http://www.dzogchen.de/

 

Gibt's sogar an der VHS

[C T]

no free lunch, it can be a very hard life,

unless you have an egoless temperament.

That may be helpful for retreats found in other traditions, but in Vajrayana, those with an oversized ego can actually benefit greatly.

[BaguaKicksAss]

Zoom, all you need is love, compassion, and to want to train to benefit all sentient beings .

[Wells]

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Edited October 29, 2014 by ZOOM

[Wells]

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Edited October 29, 2014 by ZOOM

[BaguaKicksAss]

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Edited September 30, 2014 by BaguaKicksAss

[Wells]

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Edited October 29, 2014 by ZOOM

[Wells]

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Edited October 29, 2014 by ZOOM

[ralis]

Well, you need the right teaching and several hours of daily training.

There are enough reports of "hidden yogins" achieving rainbow body

who had a normal family & working lifestyle

and were not members of monasteries.

 

You have to find another hidden yogin who got the right teaching

who does not look for money but for the right personality in a person

and who is willing to share his knowledge with you.

 

 

Norbu has two Uncles that achieved the 'rainbow body'. One of them was just a regular person who was an artist/stone sculptor. No one knew he was a high practitioner until he asked to be sealed in a tent and in seven days he was gone. Only hair and nails remained.

[BaguaKicksAss]

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Edited September 30, 2014 by BaguaKicksAss

[ralis]

Many of the current Dzogchen teachers here in the West require that students complete the Ngondro preliminaries before the Dzogchen teachings are given. Those practices take years to complete and are incapable of leading one to realization.

[BaguaKicksAss]

100,000 prostrations are excellent strength training!

[ralis]

100,000 prostrations are excellent strength training!

 

I agree. I could use more muscle tone. Then the other 300,000 practices need completing. The Vajrasattva recitations are usually the 100 syllable mantra, but the three syllable mantra is a shortcut which I would use which does the same thing.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngöndro

[BaguaKicksAss]

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Edited September 30, 2014 by BaguaKicksAss

[Wells]

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Edited October 29, 2014 by ZOOM

[asunthatneversets]

This thread... what a mess. A word to the wise - take what is being shared with a grain of salt.

[BaguaKicksAss]

Zoom: http://www.milareparetreat.org/index.php/en/2012-07-19-17-39-29/aufruf-zum-retreat

 

or

 

http://garchen.de/dokumente/Vorschau_Juli_Dez2014.pdf

 

Just 2 examples.

 

Sir, your google-fu needs work .

Edited September 30, 2014 by BaguaKicksAss

[ralis]

This thread... what a mess. A word to the wise - take what is being shared with a grain of salt.

To reiterate, one liners with no input to backup your narrative is trolling. I guess you have appointed yourself as the supreme dharma judge.

 

Your narrative is a legalistic/fundamentalist letter of the law ideology which seeks to oppress free thinking.

Edited September 30, 2014 by ralis

[katsura]

Sitting in front of your computer at home

you can find and evaluate enough resources for Dzogchen teachings

to get the informations you need to be able to practice valid forms of shamata, trekcho and thodgal

if you are willing to invest the necessary time and work.

 

After that,

you need to invest the necessary time and work

for several hours of intense daily training

until you got the result you were seeking.

 

This is hard to explain, and I can't speak for dzogchen specifically, but in my experience with other practices, certain technical dimensions will not be open to you unless you cultivate broader virtues, even if you're getting all the right instructions. At a mundane level, love and devotion will give you a level of constancy that sheer willpower will not, but I think there's also subtler and more profound reasons as well.

 

I have a friend who recently told me that what was driving much of his meditation practice was the hindrance of ill-will towards himself. That's interesting, isn't it? That a hindrance to meditation could drive us to meditate, and then further feed a hindrance to meditation. Vipassana is the kind of practice that throws a light back on whatever you're experiencing, so he was able to observe what was going on and make a breakthrough, but not all wisdom traditions work like that, especially not the vajrayana ones that spend a lot of time honing the mind's ability to shape reality before one even begins the process of seeing through it. You could make a real mess of yourself.

 

Purification of karma is a major aspect of the path to enlightenment, and I suspect that it's the ngondro that ensures you've reached a baseline purity (not to mention humility and dedication) to truly begin in earnest. If one took the ngondro as seriously as the dzogchen, there's no reason to think that it wouldn't also take one through the stages of meditation, and even enlightenment as well.