Dzogchen with or without ngondro?

[tamdrin]

whatever, every tradition has a lot of hype about the purity and greatness of its own.. The Tibetans fed for centuries off this kind of competition just as we do on here..

[username]

...

1- You are not saying anything. Just trying to divert attention. This might work in the media or a court, but not with me. This is the tactic which I saw practiced here before, namely to falsely pretend your opponent is agreeing with you.

2- Again you are trying to change the subject. You basically said Longchenpa got realized by Mahamudra dohas of Saraha. Then he codified these mahamudra teachings in the name of Dzogchen and he went even further to call them mind ters. You don't have to worry about me or what people here think, I'd worry about Dzogchen protectors such as Ekajati before saying such things.

3- A wild mind links everything to everything. I merely proved Longchenpa's termas were 1) Dzogchen not dishonest re-branding of Saraha's mahamudra as you stated and 2) were genuine major termas of a very special nature. Again you try to divert attention from the point by shooting off in new directions. Even a jury senses showmanship and style as opposed to content and being genuine. I always suggest being honest to be the best policy in the long run. Incidentally Humkara of Saraha lineage was one of Padmasambhava's teachers, as well as others within Garab Dorje's lineage which Padma called the highest often. So you are misrepresenting Padmasambhava too. But I'm sure codified such open and shut case details don't worry you. Also he was merely going through the motions as a pure nirmanakaya anyway, for the benefit of many.

4- No. You were saying Longchenpa got his Khandro Nyingthig half of Dzogchen lineage from Saraha's mahamudra and then shanghaied everyone. That this lineage whose fruits you have experienced, as detailed before elsewhere, is the highest and you were outing the real essence behind Longchenpa 's teachings. Now trying to link all that into the topic title is another futile excercise in style, done very badly I might add.

Genuine Drikungs don't talk in such way and manner about Longchenpa, Dzogchen or Padmasambhava.

[adinatha]

Excuse me username. It's not just me who thinks these things. I discuss stuff like this with my teachers all the time.
Anyway, I'm sorry I upset you. Enjoy your breakfast.

[username]

Excuse me username. It's not just me who thinks these things. I discuss stuff like this with my teachers all the time.
Anyway, I'm sorry I upset you. Enjoy your breakfast.

Anyone can say that in various debates on the forum, very weak. I remember before at the end of another debate you resorted to say, falsely, Chatral Rinpoche agrees with you! Like I said it's not me or other readers that you are bothering. My breakfast? Please collect your calm and try to be civil. All the best to you.

[adinatha]

Excuse me username. It's not just me who thinks these things. I discuss stuff like this with my teachers all the time.
Anyway, I'm sorry I upset you. Enjoy your breakfast.

Anyone can say that in various debates on the forum, very weak. I remember before at the end of another debate you resorted to say, falsely, Chatral Rinpoche agrees with you! Like I said it's not me or other readers that you are bothering. My breakfast? Please collect your calm and try to be civil. All the best to you.

I said, "tell that to Chatral Rinpoche." I never said he agrees with me. The implication was Chatral Rinpoche would not have agreed with the previous poster. I'm not the one lobbing volleys at you. If you have an issue with a point I'm making, just make your counterpoint. You are not doing that. I have no idea what you are saying username, other than you don't like what I'm saying. Go ahead, call me a liar. Doesn't do anything to me. I have facts. Some people don't like facts. I happen to like them.

[adinatha]

To state Longchenpa got realized by mahamudra Dohas of Sarah and wrote his treasuries based on that and then rebranded them as Dzogchen is another chaotic fantasy.

...

Spontaneous Arrival at the Level of the Great
Assembly of Sacred Letter Wheels
Highly intelligent people understanding the meaning of originally pure and awakened form from the beginning as originally pure and awakened from the beginning reject the regular course of study and practice because effective conditionning of the mind in the way of the buddhas is a long and slow process. Common minds listening to the secret teaching, regardless of how they interpret its substance, cannot reach true and profound confidence. Ordinary devotional minds with weak comprehension fail to perceive the true and profound in the teaching, and after experiencing delusory phenomena in their meditation, they believe that other practitioners have experiences similar to their own. They then curse others as liars, reviling superior beings. Adopting disputatious attitudes they insist upon a more secret vehicle to obtain the ultimate secret. Since there are so many obstacles to spontaneous recognition, until the intellect has evolved to intuitively understand the meaning of pure and awakened from the beginning as pure and awakened from the beginning, the preceptor should exhaustively teach the student the defects of samsara, the qualities of nirvana, and skill in the techniques of every lower approach to buddhahood, even though the disciple's eventual goal is to go beyond the lower methods. The preceptor should not initiate the many students who fail in this preliminary work and prove unworthy.

- Padmasambhava - Secret instruction in a garland of vision

I see what you are trying to say with this quote. It's a valiant effort. Try to remember you called me a liar, and are reviling me.

[adinatha]

Incidentally Humkara of Saraha lineage was one of Padmasambhava's teachers, as well as others within Garab Dorje's lineage which Padma called the highest often.

See this is what I'm talking about. How do you not see that this statement supports what I was originally saying?

[adinatha]

This is why Dzogchen is better. It can be demonstrated to anyone.

Oh boy... I don't think so. Not based on what I see.

[adinatha]

Huh? I don't follow this at all. Sorry. Don't termas originate with Padmasambhava?

No, not all.Vima Nyinthig is in a large part Chetsun Senge Wangchuk's terma -- no relationship to Padmasambhava at all.

ummm. khandro nyingthig? hello...

[username]

No I didn't insult anyone or name call despite the bad words or tone directed at me. What parts of a Padmasambhava teaching describing various capacities you focus on is known only to you. Personally I always assume myself to be the worst case scenario, just to be safe, unless told otherwise by a master.

Excuse me username. It's not just me who thinks these things. I discuss stuff like this with my teachers all the time.
Anyway, I'm sorry I upset you. Enjoy your breakfast.

Anyone can say that in various debates on the forum, very weak. I remember before at the end of another debate you resorted to say, falsely, Chatral Rinpoche agrees with you! Like I said it's not me or other readers that you are bothering. My breakfast? Please collect your calm and try to be civil. All the best to you.

I said, "tell that to Chatral Rinpoche." I never said he agrees with me. The implication was Chatral Rinpoche would not have agreed with the previous poster. I'm not the one lobbing volleys at you. If you have an issue with a point I'm making, just make your counterpoint. You are not doing that. I have no idea what you are saying username, other than you don't like what I'm saying. Go ahead, call me a liar. Doesn't do anything to me. I have facts. Some people don't like facts. I happen to like them.

Same thing, and I have been emphasizing facts over spin all along. BTW In the last couple of years Chatral Rinpoche has stopped seeing most, but not all, of the high masters that regularly used to visit him. Back to topic: Whether your lama says for Dzogchen teachings or high empowerments you need to complete %110 (for errors) or %100 or %80 or %50 or even %10 (as I saw recently) of a ngondro in order to do certain practices or no ngondro at all, then Chatral Rinpoche would recommend following that advice. Of course it is traditional to have more than one lama in many, not all, cases too. ChNNR teaches many techniques from Semzins, Rushens, daily life techniques, shiney, trekcho, meditative exercises and other methods, etc. in order as he says to create a sense of presence that upon being fully successful will hopefully introduce and then sustain a stable instant presence or rigpa.

We ALL need regular calming down anyway. As ever, best wishes.

[adinatha]

I met with a disciple of Chatral Rinpoche's. An 80 year old woman who did 3-year retreat at Mt. Kailash. Her name is Jangchub Palmo. She lives in Eugene Oregon. I just assumed what she was telling me was due to her study with him. Any way. Sounds like you all about him. I'll just defer to your first hand knowledge.

[heart]

the notion of a "non gradual path" is a contradiction in terms. all paths are by nature gradual. if it wasn't there would be "no path". so which is it you either follow a path and that is gradual by nature or you follow non path? or a path that is a non path but that is also a path by nature.. Lord Jigten Sumgon pointed this out in his Gong Chik.

I don't know the Gong Chik. According to the Dzogchen teachings you can't improve rigpa so if you are introduced to rigpa, well that's it. The path occurs, in a gradual manner for the practitioner, as you try to rest longer in rigpa and integrate with it 24 hours a day. Ngondro is an excellent way to do this for example.

/magnus

[kalden yungdrung]

Tashi delek,

Over the gradual way, one has finished the preliminaries, if one arrives at the Dzogchen Yoga.
Dzogchen has also its preliminary like i know in Bon and is Kordo Rushen(s).
This is also known in Nyingma, i guess, the Kordo Rushen(s)

So anyway one has to do the preliminaries, as well in the gradual way as with the direct approach over Dzogchen.
The Kordo Rushen differ from the general 400.000 preliminaries, which is a fixed custom in the 5 Tibetan Traditions.

But must underline that in all Tibetan Traditions plays the Guru Yoga an eminent role and is practiced in every path, from Sutra, Tantra and Dzogchen.
And Guru Yoga forms an aspect of the general Ngondro as well in the Dzogchen practice.
So there are preliminaries in Dzogchen.

Best wishes
KY

[Malcolm]

Excuse me username. It's not just me who thinks these things. I discuss stuff like this with my teachers all the time.

Yes, your Drikung Kagyu teachers.

[Malcolm]

Huh? I don't follow this at all. Sorry. Don't termas originate with Padmasambhava?

No, not all.Vima Nyinthig is in a large part Chetsun Senge Wangchuk's terma -- no relationship to Padmasambhava at all.

ummm. khandro nyingthig? hello...

Yes, Khandro Nyinthig is a terma credited to Padmasambhava-- I was merely making the point that not all so called "gter ma" are connected with Padmasambhava.

[Malcolm]

Saraha

It is impossible that Saraha was prior to Guru Rinpoche.

It is probable that there was more than one siddha called Hūṃkāra.

It is a fact that Indian lineage lists are hopelessly confused.

N

[Malcolm]

This is why Dzogchen is better. It can be demonstrated to anyone.

Oh boy... I don't think so. Not based on what I see.

I am just reporting what both Dzogchen tantras and upadeshas maintain.

I don't follow the words I hear in the marketplace. I follow what Dzogchen teachings actually say.

N

[Sönam]

ChNNR uses the term "presence"...

Is ChNN's translation of dran pa i.e. mindfulness.

Following is what the french translator Jean-Luc Achard says about presence for rigpa ...

"I personally think that "Presence" is the worst word ever to use in order to translate Rigpa. Presence is a sensation, so it belongs to the aggregate of sensations. It, of course, involves consciousnesses (both sensory and mental) and that's precisely where the problem lies. Rigpa is beyond sensations and consciousnesses. It does not depend on these. It is the knowledge of the natural state. What does that mean really ? It means that the Natural State has two qualities : Emptiness and Clarity. Emptiness means absence of inherent existence and Clarity means that this state is self‐discerning ("it knows itself by itself", as Lopon often puts it). In other words, the Clarity of the natural state corresponds to what Rigpa is. This Rigpa is that through which one knows the natural state (when being introduced to it by the master) and that through which our natural state knows itself (just like a lamp illuminates both itself and what is around). And how does it knows itself since it's not a mental consciousness? It precisely discerns (rig) itself from the ordinary mind (sems), from consciousness (rnam‐shes), intellect (blo), intelligence (blo gros), mental (yid), etc. So when you are in the state of Rigpa, you clearly discerns (rig) what pertains to Mind (sems‐nyid, the ultimate nature of Mind) from what pertains to ordinary, conditioned mind (sems). In Thogel context, Rigpa corresponds to the fourth Lamp — the Lamp of the Self‐Arisen Sublime Knowledge (shes‐rab rang‐byung gi sgron ma) — which is, precisely, the Sublime (rab) Knowledge (shes) corresponding to the state of Trekchö. In all of this, there is a very active and dynamic aspect of total Discernment (rig‐pa) or real Knowledge (shes rab) of the natural state, not a mere state of sensing a presence (of what by the way?).
The use of Presence apparently came up about 15 years ago (in printed material, it must have been there orally sometime before, I actually don't know) in the context of the Dzogchen Community from some "translator" (known for indulging quite a lot in the use of smoking illegal substances and in mixing the teachings with other non‐Buddhist/Bon traditions) who put this essentially "New Age" concept into the brain of the masters. The success of the word is actually tragic: people identify inner sensations of quietness and pervasiveness as a state of Presence which they think is Rigpa. This is really far from what Rigpa is."

and to the question : So which translation for rigpa do you like?

"Well, so far in English I haven't found anything I’m really crazy about. In the English translations i do i use Awareness because it's practically impossible to change the usage now. But, as we've discussed elsewhere, etymologically (the high‐German gewhar from which Awareness is derived) does not really fit with the context. In French I use another word. I use "Discernment" because it fits with the simplest definition of Rigpa found in the ZZNG where it is said that Rigpa discerns (rig) or distinguishes (phyed)
the pure (dag = Mind, the nature of mind) from the impure (ma‐dag = mind, the conditioned mind). In this discerning aspect (rig‐cha), there is no duality, simply the ever‐pure, lucid, vivid and fresh knowledge of the natural state. In such a state, the arising of thoughts is not a problem at all, on the contrary they may be more than welcome, especially for investigating the meaning of the teachings, spreading them, etc."


Sönam

[adinatha]

Excuse me username. It's not just me who thinks these things. I discuss stuff like this with my teachers all the time.

Yes, your Drikung Kagyu teachers.

And my Dzogchen teachers.

[adinatha]

This is why Dzogchen is better. It can be demonstrated to anyone.

Oh boy... I don't think so. Not based on what I see.

I am just reporting what both Dzogchen tantras and upadeshas maintain.

I don't follow the words I hear in the marketplace. I follow what Dzogchen teachings actually say.

N

That's fantastic.