No-self and Rigpa

[Sönam]

"... Reasoning about these distinctions does not mean we are entering into real knowledge in the Dzogchen sense of the term, since such analysis proceeds at the level of mere logic. Of course, logic has its role. If someone is debating and discussing, establishing a point of view, then you must answer appropriately. One person asks, another replies. You cannot respond with a history of your spiritual experiences."

Namkhai Norbu Rinpoché

[xabir]

We are running into the limitations of language in the attempt to discuss what is non-dual by nature. There absolutely is no separate observer from that which is observed. I am trying to express in language the nature of our Beingness, not so easy! There is no background Awareness separate from the arisings. The arisings are self-luminous Awareness. The nature of Being is boundless transparency, like an infinite hologram in which the totality is Knowingly Itself. The Absolute is appearing as the relative without the least separation. The experience of the relative is the form of the Absolute. The form is exactly emptiness and the emptiness is exactly form. This is a living experiential Knowing (yeshe), not a mere philosophical axiom. The experiential Knowing is that you are everything, in perfect oneness, yet free of any concept of "oneness". Awareness or Being (dharmakaya) has no form of it's own other than our immediate experience. That being so, all experiences are equally the forms that the Dharmakaya is assuming in each moment. Hence all experience is already perfection. So we leave all experience as is, without the least effort to correct, change or improve our moment to moment experiences. We don't even try to dissolve our sense of "self", or avoid "distraction" as nothing can obstruct this fully present Knowing within and as all experience. The sense of personal selfhood is just a harmless experience. The sense of being distracted or confused are both likewise just harmless experiences, as are ALL experiences.

I like what you wrote here about the non-dual nature of Awareness. But there's a subtle difference between substantial non-dual and anatta (insubstantial non-duality). Like Thusness said, its like 85% of the description is similar (in both cases experience is non-dual, but view of inherency causes a subtle referencing and sinking back to a source) but the 15% makes a crucial difference.

Since August 2010 when dancing I had this intense peak experience which then lasted a few days in great intensity and clarity, the formless Observer (which I awoke to since Feb 2010) collapsed into this seamless aliveness undivided by subject and object... absolutely no sense of self, just sights and sounds of the moment. I perceive (except there is no separate I to perceive) all there is as simply an undivided aliveness/experience/consciousness - there is just the hearing, seeing, etc without a separate observer. The sense of a Witness creeps back a few days later, but through the ongoing contemplation on the seamless and borderlessness where I cannot find an edge, division, boundary between 'awareness' and 'contents of awareness' led to increasingly stable resting in non-dual awareness in the following two months (due to increasingly clear insight that there Awareness never had a subject-object dualistic division to begin with). Its seen that there never has been any division of 'awareness' and 'contents', there is just this seamless and undivided field of awareness. But even this, is not yet the realization of Anatta. (No-self insight and experience has many degrees, or rather there are different degrees of the deconstruction of self in its many faces: impersonality, non-duality, anatta, anatta integrated with D.O., etc)

In one of my entries in my e-journal in September ( http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/ ... urnal.html ), I wrote: Aliveness is bliss. Or rather, being absorbed in aliveness, in reality, is bliss. The falling away of the sense of subject-object dichotomy is bliss.
I'm laughing... blissing out... tears rolling down my face for no apparent reasons (in bliss and laughter, not sadness)... I'm totally lost! I don't know what all these means. It doesn't mean anything. LOL! Anyway, I just heard a word 'personal consciousness' and broke out into laughter. Sometimes one just has to laugh at the ridiculousness of some of the human concepts.
Nothing ever means anything. Just forms of aliveness. Dynamic... never stays... never graspable... yet always Just This. Humans like to find meaning and concepts and overlook direct perception... This actuality... the Only Isness there IS... and every word it comes up is from this perspective so silly, so funny. Just stay with This. Bliss comes, bliss goes, still, THIS thought-free wakefulness IS.

Thusness replied, Hi Simpo and AEN,
Yet we cannot get carried away by all these blissful experiences.  Blissfulness is the result of luminosity whereas liberation is due to prajna wisdom.  
To AEN,
For intense luminosity in the foreground, you will not only have vivid experience of ‘brilliant aliveness’, ‘you’ must also completely disappear.  It is an experience of being totally ‘transparent’ and without boundaries.  These experiences are quite obvious, u will not miss it.  However the body-mind will not rest in great content due to an experience of intense luminosity.  Contrary it can make a practitioner more attach to a non-dual ultimate luminous state.
For the mind to rest, it must have an experience of ‘great dissolve’ that whatever arises perpetually self liberates.  It is not about phenomena dissolving into some great void but it is the empty nature of whatever arises that self-liberates.   It is the direct experience of groundlessness and non –abiding due to direct insight of the empty nature of phenomena and that includes the non-dual luminous essence.
Therefore In addition to bringing this ‘taste’ to the foreground, u must also ‘realize’ the difference between wrong and right view.  There is also a difference in saying “Different forms of Aliveness” and “There is just breath, sound, scenery...magical display that is utterly unfindable, ungraspable and without essence- empty.”
In the former case, realize how the mind is manifesting a subtle tendency of attempting to ‘pin’ and locate something that inherently exists. The mind feels uneasy and needs to seek for something due to its existing paradigm.   It is not simply a matter of expression for communication sake but a habit that runs deep because it lacks a ‘view’ that is able to cater for reality that is dynamic, ungraspable, non-local , center-less and interdependent. 
After direct realization of the non-dual essence and empty nature, the mind can then have a direct glimpse of what is meant by being ‘natural’, otherwise there will always be a ‘sense of contrivance’. 
My 2 cents and have fun with ur army life.

During those days in basic military training (Singaporeans have 2 years compulsory national service) I also received many profound visions and messages in dreams containing the stuff Thusness wanted me to know (he said it was possible only due to my strong connection with him) in which I realized its meaning a month later when I realized anatta through contemplating on Bahiya Sutta. I realized how 'Awareness', 'seeing', is always just the seen, in the seen just the seen, no seer, absolutely no agent, not even some unchanging substance called 'Awareness' that exists which could be 'inseparable from' changing manifestations. It is the deconstruction of One Mind, One Awareness into all constituent manifestation... to even say 'The Awareness' is inseparable from the various manifestation does not apply anymore, since there is no inherent Subject, no 'One Awareness' - Awareness is simply a label collating the diverse experience of various forms appearing via dependent origination, there is nothing singular, independent, unchanging, inherent. Nothing can be pinned down.

And even this is not the end... but at this point there is no longer so much of the tendency to sink back into some substantial ground (well the tendency still arise but through deepening of insight, the remnant tendencies are also cleared away).

[xabir]

You cannot respond with a history of your spiritual experiences."

Namkhai Norbu Rinpoché

oops!

[Anders]

No, no Gad! The whole point of this unique perspective, Mahdyamaka, is that there are no "factual" realities or "things". We can defer to quantum physics regarding "factual" things being only "probabilities" that only appear momentarily to be localized time/space entities based on the presence of an observer. When no longer "observed" things return to their super-position status as mere mathematical probabilities. Only conceptual grasping can bring about the seeming appearance of objective, factual existents. Conventional reality although quite convincing like a tooth ache, never attains some status beyond that of a tooth ache in a dream.

Something I've been wondering for a while: If a Buddha observes a wave function, does it still collapse?

[Sönam]

"... you must distinguish clearly between these two very different approaches, the logical and the experiential. You can begin to move toward realization only through your experience of the state of knowledge."

ChNN

[muni]

Argumentation, reasoning or engaging in comparitions and rightnesses is veiling/hiding reality and therefore delusion regarding Dzogchen.

In whatever way we structure Dzogchen or defy Dzogchen, we only construct imaginary which is veil. While the Dharmakaya master deconstruct or cut through....dissolve.



There is already enough intellectual stuff on the market to fill permanent life.

ps whatever can help people to see sharper, all reasonings and discussions... but possible not to call it Dzogchen rather general teachings to not confuse.

[gregkavarnos]

A kind of unrelated question, though related in terms of concpetion of mind, what is the relationship between the alaya vijnana and the basis? The analysis on mind at the begininning of the thread stopped at the manas/mano vijnana aspect of mind and there was no mention of the alaya vijnana.

If this question has been answered elsewhere can somebody please refer me to the thread?

Thanx

[catmoon]

No, no Gad! The whole point of this unique perspective, Mahdyamaka, is that there are no "factual" realities or "things". We can defer to quantum physics regarding "factual" things being only "probabilities" that only appear momentarily to be localized time/space entities based on the presence of an observer. When no longer "observed" things return to their super-position status as mere mathematical probabilities. Only conceptual grasping can bring about the seeming appearance of objective, factual existents. Conventional reality although quite convincing like a tooth ache, never attains some status beyond that of a tooth ache in a dream.

Something I've been wondering for a while: If a Buddha observes a wave function, does it still collapse?

The wave function does not collapse. At least, i don't believe it does any more.

[Sönam]

" ... People who have learned a little about Sutra and then study the Dzogchen teaching often confuse the Base in Dzogchen with the concept of the “base” in the Yogachara system. The Yogachara system uses the term kunzhi, kun meaning “all,” and zhi meaning “base.” For Yogachara, the kunzhi is the base because that is where the potentiality of karma is stored. Traditional Buddhist scholars asked, for example, how seeds of future karmic payment, caused by our actions, mature; how today is connected with that moment in the future when the karmic result manifests; how the seed is preserved, and why it does not change or lose its capacity. To answer these questions, the Yogachara scholars posited the kunzhi, the “base of all,” where karma-producing seeds, as potentiality, are maintained. They considered that the base exists for this purpose. Nagarjuna refuted the Yogachara concept of kunzhi and never accepted it. He could not understand the Dzogchen view of the Base, and thus his Madhyamika philosophy rejected that as well.
...
Dzogchen states that mind, or the nature of mind, our potentiality, is like a mirror. Reflections appear in a mirror when secondary causes manifest, but this does not mean that the mirror creates what you see. You must grasp this distinction. Everything, good or bad, appears in the mirror, and this mode of manifesting energy is called rolpa. Rolpa means manifesting in its own dimension. This manifestation occurs because the secondary cause presents itself. For example, if a dog stands in front of a mirror, then that dog is reflected in the mirror; if there is a statue of Buddha, then a statue of Buddha appears in the mirror. For the mirror there is no difference. Reflections appear because secondary causes are present, but the mirror is not creating the Buddha or the dog. If you understand that distinction, you will comprehend why the Base in Dzogchen has nothing in common with the base as understood in the Yogachara system."

ChNN

[gregkavarnos]

The alaya vijnana is not a creator/producer, it is the storehouse of both deluded and Aryan qualities. you have to go two levels further, to the mano vijnana to get to the producer.

Nagarjuna "could not understand the Dzogchen view of the base"? What is the basis (in the text you quoted, or even other texts) for this statement?

[Sönam]

" ... The Sutra teaching has never recognized rigpa as explained in the Dzogchen teaching. Why? In Sutra the most important view is that of Nagarjuna, as expressed in Madhyamika philosophy. Sakya Pandita (1182–1251) said that no point of view surpasses Nagarjuna’s, because Nagarjuna established the view beyond concepts. If another philosophical position is considered more important than his, that position is necessarily a fixed concept. What does it mean that Nagarjuna’s explanation “reached beyond concepts”? With great intelligence he employed logic to reach beyond itself, which is the final goal in Madhyamika. Intellect can go no further.
The Dzogchen knowledge is neither an analysis nor an intellectual path. A Dzogchen teacher introduces methods that you use to have meditative experiences. Through these experiences you discover the real sense of Dzogchen. People who adhere to the ideas of Sutra do not accept that process. In the real sense this is not negative, because Sutra always aims for the understanding or knowledge of shunyata.
How can you reach realization if you are not going to have experiences? Madhyamika explains with the four “beyond concepts,” which are that something neither exists, nor does not exist, nor both exists and does not exist, nor is beyond both existing and not existing together. These are the four possibilities. What remains? Nothing. Although you are working only in an intellectual way, this can be considered the ultimate conclusion in Madhyamika. As an analytical method, this is also correct for Dzogchen. Nagarjuna’s reasoning is supreme. If you distinguish, however, between the use of a logical system and a method that functions with experience through which you discover your nature, you will see that these methods are radically different. This is why Madhyamika, which is a philosophical system, negates the existence of the Base completely. In Dzogchen, the Base does not mean a concrete object or concept, but rather our real condition. Introduced to your natural state, you become one with that knowledge. That is the meaning of introduction."

ChNN

What is explained here is that, by an intellectual process, the consequence of Madhyamika is shunyata. But the Base in Dzogchen is not only sunyata but an aspect of our real condition, that is it includes also energy/movement ...

"The Base has three aspects: Essence, Nature, and Energy. Its Essence is emptiness; its Nature is clarity; and its Energy is without interruption."



Sönam

[Lhug-Pa]

A kind of unrelated question, though related in terms of concpetion of mind, what is the relationship between the alaya vijnana and the basis? The analysis on mind at the begininning of the thread stopped at the manas/mano vijnana aspect of mind and there was no mention of the alaya vijnana.

This is interesting, that gZhi can be translated as either Sthana or Laya.

It seems that gZhi (Sthana or Laya), Kun-gZhi (Kunzhi or Alaya) and Kun-gZhi—Nam-she (Kunzhi-Namshe or Alaya-Vijnana) are not three different terms, but two different terms. In other words that the term Kunzhi (Alaya) can refer either to gZhi (Sthana or Laya) or to Kunzhi-Namshe (Alaya-Vijnana) depending on the context. So there's apparently no such thing as Kunzhi (Alaya) by itself, as Kunzhi (Alaya) is either shorthand for Kunzhi-Namshe or longhand for gZhi (someone correct me if I'm mistaken), again depending on the context even though the term Kunzhi (Alaya) by itself doesn't accurately refer to what it is actually pointing at.

And it gets really interesting when we consider the Eight-Consciousnesses and the Three Own Natures, in relation to the meaning of Dharmata, Dharmadhatu, Dharmakaya, Paramarthasatya, Sugatagarbha, Tathagatagarbha, and Svabhava, Prakriti, and Kara.

[Malcolm]

So there's apparently no such thing as Kunzhi (Alaya) by itself, as Kunzhi (Alaya) is either shorthand for Kunzhi-Namshe or longhand for gZhi (someone correct me if I'm mistaken).

Yes, there is a kun gzhi which stands by itself.

In dzogchen we have the gdod ma' spyi gzhi, "the original general basis".

The we have the kung gzhi (ālaya), which arises from ignorance. From the ālaya or all-basis eight eight consciousness, including the ālayavijñāna (all-basis consciousness), dependent origination's twelve links and so on arise.

Not distinguishing the kun gzhi from the gzhi causes a lot of problems for people when trying to understand Dzogchen.

For example, the a text from the dgongs pa zang thal states:

The all-basis is the bardo of all,
unconsciousness, unclear, and inexpressible,
does not form wisdom, being the cause of samsara.

[gregkavarnos]

As an analytical method, this is also correct for Dzogchen. Nagarjuna’s reasoning is supreme. If you distinguish, however, between the use of a logical system and a method that functions with experience through which you discover your nature, you will see that these methods are radically different. This is why Madhyamika, which is a philosophical system, negates the existence of the Base completely.

I cannot see how ChNN arrives at this conclusion. Madhyamaka is a philosphical defintion of the experience of emptiness. It is not apart from the experience. Dzogchen systems also explain the Basis, this does not mean that the Basis is to be understood merely intellectually. Madhyamaka philosophy is merely a pointer. It seems that ChNN is divorcing the philosophy of Madhyamaka from it's place, smack bang in the middle of Buddhist practice, in order to justify his conclusion.

Is there any support for this theory from other Dzogchen literature apart from ChNN? Just so that we don't quote ChNN to support ChNN's position.

[gregkavarnos]

In dzogchen we have the gdod ma' spyi gzhi, "the original general basis".

Would you say that this term is synonymous with dharmadhatu?

[Sönam]

It seems that gZhi (Sthana or Laya), Kun-gZhi (Kunzhi or Alaya) and Kun-gZhi—Nam-she (Kunzhi-Namshe or Alaya-Vijnana) are not three different terms, but two different terms. In other words that the term Kunzhi (Alaya) can refer either to gZhi (Sthana or Laya) or to Kunzhi-Namshe (Alaya-Vijnana) depending on the context. So there's apparently no such thing as Kunzhi (Alaya) by itself, as Kunzhi (Alaya) is either shorthand for Kunzhi-Namshe or longhand for gZhi (someone correct me if I'm mistaken), again depending on the context even though Kunzhi (Alaya) doesn't refer to either with complete accuracy.

That is not what Longchen Rabjam explains. In the Tshig-Don Rin-Po-Ch'e'i mDzod it is said ...

As the universal ground (Kun-gZhi) is the root of samsara, it is the foundation of all traces, like a pound. As the Dharmakaya is the root of nirvana, it is the freedom from all traces, and it is the exhaustion of all contaminations ...
In the state od clear ocean-like Dharmakaya, which is dwelling at the basis, the boat-like universal ground filled with a mass of passengers - mind and consciousness and much cargo, karmas and traces - sets out on the path of enlightenment through the state of intrinsic awareness, Dharmakaya.
In some sutras, and tantras, the aspect of the "basis" is termed the universal ground. Here, some people who did not understand the actual meaning asserted that the basis and the universal ground are the same. This is a grave mistake. If they are the same, then they are many faults: since the universal ground has traces, the Dharmakaya would also have traces; since the universal ground changes, the Dharmakaya would also change, and since the universal ground is temporary, the Dharmakaya would also be temporary.

[Anders]

As an analytical method, this is also correct for Dzogchen. Nagarjuna’s reasoning is supreme. If you distinguish, however, between the use of a logical system and a method that functions with experience through which you discover your nature, you will see that these methods are radically different. This is why Madhyamika, which is a philosophical system, negates the existence of the Base completely.

I cannot see how ChNN arrives at this conclusion. Madhyamaka is a philosphical defintion of the experience of emptiness. It is not apart from the experience. Dzogchen systems also explain the Basis, this does not mean that the Basis is to be understood merely intellectually. Madhyamaka philosophy is merely a pointer. It seems that ChNN is divorcing the philosophy of Madhyamaka from it's place, smack bang in the middle of Buddhist practice, in order to justify his conclusion.

Is there any support for this theory from other Dzogchen literature apart from ChNN? Just so that we don't quote ChNN to support ChNN's position.

I think it's a vajrayana thing to reduce Madhyamika to a mere dialiectic tool. It certainly isn't so in its east-asian incarnation and I think neither was it so in its Indian incarnation.

[Lhug-Pa]

Right I understand that there's a huge difference between gZhi and Kun-gZhi (in fact, perhaps they are like opposites, both in light of the fact that the former is Laya and the latter is Alaya, and also what was quoted here from Longchenpa and the Gongpa Zangthal).

So then Alaya is (the root of) ignorance, and Laya is (the root of) Wisdom or is at least (the root of) the beginning of true Wisdom?

However in reading the said quotes of Longchenpa and the Gongpa Zangthal, I don't see much if any difference between Alaya and Alaya-Vijnana. I guess then that if Kunzhi is (the root of) ignorance, then Kunzhi-Namshe is not only of ignorance but is of ignorance yet compounded?

Or perhaps better said that Alaya is the root of ignorance and Alaya-Vijnana is a result of ignorance....

[Mariusz]

Not distinguishing the kun gzhi from the gzhi causes a lot of problems for people when trying to understand Dzogchen.

[/i]

Ju Mipham Rinpoche’s Exposition of the Madhyamakālaṃkāra concludes:

Without finding certainty in primordial
purity (ka dag), just mulling over some “ground that is neither
existent nor nonexistent” will get you nowhere. If you apprehend
this basis of emptiness that is empty of both existence and nonexistence
as something that is established by its essence separately [from
everything else], no matter how you label it—such as an inconceivable
self, Brahmā, Visnu, Īśvara, or wisdom—except for the mere
name, the meaning is the same. Since the basic nature free from the
reference points of the four extremes, that is, Dzogchen—the luminosity
that is to be personally experienced—is not at all like that, it
is important to rely on the correct path and teacher. Therefore, you
may pronounce “illusionlike,” “nonentity,” “freedom from reference
points,” and the like as mere verbiage, but this is of no benefit
whatsoever, if you do not know the [actual] way of being of the
Tathāgata’s emptiness (which surpasses the limited [kinds of] emptiness
[asserted] by the tīrthikas) through the decisive certainty that
is induced by reasoning.

In the state od clear ocean-like Dharmakaya, which is dwelling at the basis, the boat-like universal ground filled with a mass of passengers - mind and consciousness and much cargo, karmas and traces - sets out on the path of enlightenment through the state of intrinsic awareness, Dharmakaya.

The seeming is not totally faulty for the sentient being but it is useful like the boat crossing to the other shore - the beyond the sentient being itself, the Tathāgata’s emptiness.

[gregkavarnos]

I think it's a vajrayana thing to reduce Madhyamika to a mere dialiectic tool. It certainly isn't so in its east-asian incarnation and I think neither was it so in its Indian incarnation.

In the Kagyu tradition Nagarjuna is one of the Mahasiddha, thus quite clearly a philosopher AND a great practitioner.