The individual in dzogchen, independence, dharmakaya

[Acid_Trancer]

I am very much interested in dzogchen but I dont understand the relation between the dharmakaya and the individual natural state.

On this site it is written that everyone has an indivudal natural state:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... clnk&gl=de

"The Natural State is the same in all beings, from the Primordial Buddha down to the lowest insect; it does not get any bigger or get any smaller. It is the same in all beings, but it is individual for each being. It is not all just “One Mind.” Otherwise, if one individual attained enlightenment, all other beings would simultaneously attain enlightenment. Or if one individual thought of the Bodhichitta, all other beings would think of the Bodhichitta. This is not our experience. Each individual has a different mind or stream of consciousness. Yet the Natural Sates is the same in everyone; it has the same quality. The Yermed in all beings is the same. But this is not just One Mind occurring everywhere. The qualities of the human mind and the insect mind are different, but their respective individual Natural States have the same quality of Yermed. This is not like the assertion in Vedanta that only one Brahman exists. The attaining of Nirvava is not like a drop falling into the sea. Whether we find ourselves in Samsara or Nirvana, there exists individuality."

But here it is written that the dharmakaya is not individual.

http://books.google.de/books?id=_o3QDa5 ... al&f=false

"Dharmakaya is all-pervasive and totally infinite, beyond any confines or limitations. This is so for the dharmakaya of all buddhas. There is no individual dharmakaya for each buddha, as there is no individual space for each country.You cannot say there is more than one space, can you?It is all pervasive and all open."

1. Is there an indivdual natural state in dzogchen ? Or is there only one common natural state ?

2. If it is indivudal:

Why the natural state is not something independent ?

I think it is not independent because the indivudal natural state is beyond dependence and independence, because it is nondual. Is that right or not ? This question is the most important.

What is the relation between the individual natural state and the dharmakaya?

Please answer all the questions if possible, i dont want to choose a teaching, when i am not sure about the basic theory. Thanks.

[gad rgyangs]

i spend a lot of time thinking about this, meditating on this. i don't yet know the answer for sure, but i feel like the investigation itself is a crucial practice.

to your question "is there an individual natural state? is there one common natural state?", i suspect the answer is "yes".

[Pema Rigdzin]

Relatively speaking, beings seem to exist, and so do their individual obscurations, so accordingly every being must realize the natural state for him or herself. But from the absolute POV, since the natural state is uncompounded and free of extremes of existing or not existing - there are no parts or any center or periphery to the natural state - one cannot speak of one natural state/dharmakaya or many. There are no such reference points for "one" or "many" on that level.

[Lingpupa]

Isn't the answer already in your question? Your quote says:

You cannot say there is more than one space, can you?

Indeed you can't - but the space I am in is not the same as the space you are in, otherwise you would be me. It's only the words that sound odd, the reality is very simple.
So there are not multiple dharmakayas, and I don't have a personal natural state distinct from yours, as if it were a thing or a substance. But the stream of my consciousness is not the same as yours.

[Sönam]

Dharmakaya is immutable and all-pervading, you (and I) is a limitation ...

Sönam

[wisdom]

I believe whats being said is that the Dharmakaya is the same for everyone, but each person must realize it and experience it for themselves. Two people experiencing the Dharmakaya are going to be experiencing the same thing and if their realization is equal, will reach the same conclusions about its nature and so forth. Contrast this with samsaric experience where two people experiencing the same thing might interpret it vastly differently. This is why all the literature describing the absolute sounds the same, and is describing the same thing, often using the same language, even when we find it in other cultures. Yet everything else describing almost anything else is vastly different.

It is also all pervading and infinite, present in all things. As an analogy, its like wi-fi. Its everywhere, but each device has to connect to it separately. The presence of wi-fi doesn't mean everything is connected, or even that everything can connect.

So its not "my Dharmakaya, your Dharmakaya" rather its "My experience of the Dharmakaya, your experience of the Dharmakaya". Each experience is individualized, the Dharmakaya itself is universal.

[gad rgyangs]

It is also all pervading and infinite, present in all things.

how is this different from vedanta or theism?

[Malcolm]

It is also all pervading and infinite, present in all things.

how is this different from vedanta or theism?

Dharmakāya isn't real.

N

[gad rgyangs]

It is also all pervading and infinite, present in all things.

how is this different from vedanta or theism?

Dharmakāya isn't real.

N

dharmakaya is a turtle living in a gingerbread house under the sea, but it isnt real, so my statement is buddhist and not a fairytale.

[Malcolm]

dharmakaya is a turtle living in a gingerbread house under the sea, but it isnt real, so my statement is buddhist and not a fairytale.

Being unreal does not mean being arbitrary.

[Pero]

It is also all pervading and infinite, present in all things.

how is this different from vedanta or theism?

Dharmakāya isn't real.

It also isn't present in all things.
I think in English we could perhaps say that our dharmakayas are equal (instead of the same), no?

[gad rgyangs]

dharmakaya is a turtle living in a gingerbread house under the sea, but it isnt real, so my statement is buddhist and not a fairytale.

Being unreal does not mean being arbitrary.

so you're agreeing that dharmakaya is "all pervading", "infinite", and "present in all things"?

[Pero]

But here it is written that the dharmakaya is not individual.

http://books.google.de/books?id=_o3QDa5 ... al&f=false

"Dharmakaya is all-pervasive and totally infinite, beyond any confines or limitations. This is so for the dharmakaya of all buddhas. There is no individual dharmakaya for each buddha, as there is no individual space for each country.You cannot say there is more than one space, can you?It is all pervasive and all open."

All-pervasive can mean that it pervades all sentient beings. I don't agree with the rest of it. While you maybe can't say that there is more than one space, you can say space over there and space over here. Also you can say this country is in this space and that one in that space. But that's why I think a better word is to say we have equal dharmakaya (sounds better in my language though, perhaps "equal" isn't totally equivalent to what I'm thinking).

[PadmaVonSamba]

but the space I am in is not the same as the space you are in, otherwise you would be me.

You misunderstand this word 'space'. The context:
"there is no individual space for each country. You cannot say there is more than one space, can you?"
The author never heard of territorial sovereign air space! It means that there is no actual dividing line.
in terms of dharmakaya, it means we are all included in the absolute truth of everything.
In some ways, dharmakaya shares the same meaning as dharmata.
It's simply "what is" inclusive of everything. Nothing exists beyond everything.

The best example I have heard describing dharmakaya and personal space, which I have mentioned before,
is the analogy of a massive, endless stream of photons coming from the sun, zooming through a darkness of space.
Think of those uncountable billions of photons as completely filling space, the way granules of salt fill a glass jar.
That's the picture of dharmakaya.
Now, consider that those photons only become visible light when they bounce off something, such as the moon.
When you look to the night sky and see a full moon, you see it against a dark sky.
So, it appears that all around the moon there is nothing.
But this is an illusion. there are just as many photons...more in fact, that you don't see,
than there are bouncing off the moon and appearing as visible light.
So, in this analogy, the moon represents the individual.
Likewise, seeing the individual as separate is also illusion.
the individual in this case is a product of the clinging mind.
If the moon were a cube, you would see a square moon. If it were a triangle you would see a triangle moon.
It is round, so you see a round moon.
This is an analogy to karma.
Depending on your individual karma,
the Dharmakaya appears as this or that, as one thing or another. But that is a finite view.

That isn't really the infinite dharmakaya.
Even contradictory opinions are both absorbed in the context of total "everythingness".

Dharmakaya= "everythingness".
.
.
.

[PadmaVonSamba]

While you maybe can't say that there is more than one space, you can say space over there and space over here.

No, there is one space, but there are many different places within that space.

[wisdom]

Dharmakāya isn't real.

It also isn't present in all things.
I think in English we could perhaps say that our dharmakayas are equal (instead of the same), no?

Why isn't it present in all things?

[Sherab]

I1. Is there an indivdual natural state in dzogchen ? Or is there only one common natural state ?

I'll take a stab at this.

In the realm of the ultimate, nothing in the realm of the deluded relative can be used to describe it. That is why the realm of the ultimate is beyond the four extremes of existence, non-existence, neither or both.

The closest analogy from the realm of the deluded relative that I can think of is the probability cloud of electrons where a scientist would be hard put to pin any of the four extremes on an electron within that probability cloud.

Because of the difficulty of speaking of the real reality, some people argue that the Buddha's teachings are merely soteriological. However, the experience of enlightenment has to be an experience of the ontological if that experience is to have any soteriological value. And in my view, the Buddha did indeed point to the ontological in the suttas, sutras and elsewhere.

[brendan]

It is also all pervading and infinite, present in all things.

how is this different from vedanta or theism?

Dharmakāya isn't real.

N

Why then did you write "RIP Steve Jobs" on your facebook page when Steve Jobs died?

Dharmakaya is only correct on paper.

So incest,war,cancer,abnormal cell growth etc etc is also unreal.

Come on.

[asunthatneversets]

"Mind is empty in essence and cognizant by nature....... the knower needs to recognize his own mind. We then see that there isn't even a hair-tip of something to see. It is as the Heart Sutra said: "No form, no feeling, no perception, no formation, no consciousness, no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind" That absence of any concrete substance whatsoever is called dharmakaya. Is there anything more precious in this entire world than dharmakaya?
In the moment of seeing that, there is no 'thing' to see. In this moment that fact or experience is an obvious actuality. The cognizant quality that sees that there is no thing to see is called the sambhogakaya aspect of the awakened state. The mind's absence of any concrete thing, and it's ability to know that it is no thing, are indivisible, like water and wetness, fire and heat, sugar and sweetness. That indivisible unity of these two aspects - being empty and cognizant - is called nirmanakaya. At the moment of recognizing you see that these three are inseparable, and this is the svabhavikaya, the essence-body. This is what i mentioned before: seeing no 'thing' is the supreme sight. In this world, is there anything more profound than being face to face with the three kayas? Recognizing this fact is the essential point of all practice."

"....space doesn't see itself. Mind, on the other hand is cognizant as well as empty. The empty quality is dharmakaya, the cognizant quality is sambhogakaya and their unity is nirmanakaya."

"The relationship between dharmadhatu, dharmakaya and dharmadhatu wisdom is like the relationship between a place, a person and the person's mind. If there is no place, there is no environment for the person to exist in; and there is no person unless that person also has a mind dwelling in the body. In the same way, the main field or realm called dharmadhatu has the nature of dharmakaya. Dharmakaya has the quality of dharmadhatu wisdom, which is like the mind aspect."

- Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche

[Malcolm]

Why then did you write "RIP Steve Jobs" on your facebook page when Steve Jobs died?

Why do you care?