Dzogchen and Buddhism

[Andrew108]

But it is sufficient, Rongton Sheja Kunrig refers to this as the upadesha lineage of Madhyamaka. .

Yes I really agree with this. This is how I see it as well.

[heart]

Malcolm? Is that fire and brimstone and you turning in to Namdrol again?

/magnus

[gad rgyangs]

Proverbs of Hell.

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
The cut worm forgives the plow.
Dip him in the river who loves water.
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.
Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure.
All wholsom food is caught without a net or a trap.
Bring out number weight & measure in a year of dearth.
No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.
A dead body revenges not injuries.
The most sublime act is to set another before you.
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
Folly is the cloke of knavery.
Shame is Prides cloke.

Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion.
The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.
The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.
The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.
The nakedness of woman is the work of God.
Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.
The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man.
The fox condemns the trap, not himself.
Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth.
Let man wear the fell of the lion. woman the fleece of the sheep.
The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.
The selfish smiling fool, & the sullen frowning fool shall be both thought wise, that they may be a rod.
What is now proved was once only imagin'd.
The rat, the mouse, the fox, the rabbet; watch the roots; the lion, the tyger, the horse, the elephant, watch the fruits.
The cistern contains: the fountain overflows.
One thought fills immensity.
Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.
Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth.
The eagle never lost so much time, as when he submitted to learn of the crow.


The fox provides for himself. but God provides for the lion.
Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.
He who has suffer'd you to impose on him knows you.
As the plow follows words, so God rewards prayers.
The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.
Expect poison from the standing water.
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.
Listen to the fools reproach! it is a kingly title!
The eyes of fire, the nostrils of air, the mouth of water, the beard of earth.
The weak in courage is strong in cunning.
The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow; nor the lion, the horse, how he shall take his prey.
The thankful reciever bears a plentiful harvest.
If others bad not been foolish, we should be so.
The soul of sweet delight can never be defil'd.
When thou seest an Eagle, thou seest a portion of Genius. lift up thy head!
As the catterpiller chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.
To create a little flower is the labour of ages.
Damn braces: Bless relaxes.
The best wine is the oldest, the best water the newest.
Prayers plow not! Praises reap not!
Joys laugh not! Sorrows weep not!


The head Sublime, the heart Pathos, the genitals Beauty, the hands & feet Proportion.
As the air to a bird or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible.
The crow wish'd every thing was black, the owl, that every thing was white.
Exuberance is Beauty.
If the lion was advised by the fox. he would be cunning.
Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.
Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.
Where man is not, nature is barren.
Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd.
Enough! or Too much.

[Sönam]

In this case to learn is to do until it's stabile ... no one needs to show, it's innate.

Based on that logic nobody needs to point out to me my true nature since it is innate and all I need to do is magically (ie without learning, without introduction) stabilise my abidance.

From generation to generation, humans are walking on two feets so it beacme a true habituation, an automatism ... this is not the case for their true nature for which the habituation is the obscuration. It does not support the comparison.

Sönam

[kalden yungdrung]

In this case to learn is to do until it's stabile ... no one needs to show, it's innate.

Based on that logic nobody needs to point out to me my true nature since it is innate and all I need to do is magically (ie without learning, without introduction) stabilise my abidance.

Tashi delek,

if without learning and introduction one is able to get into ones Natural State, that is here a personal; point of view which is not shared at all by the Dzogchen Masters. It is taken out of Dzogchen things or throw them away in the sense we can "proudly" say we don't need that introduction and learning.

But maybe do i understand words here in a wrong context, could be............

Mutsog marro
KY

[catmoon]

Dude. There is like NO baklava in Bangladesh. None. Think about this.

[LastLegend]

I don't get any of it-all of it.

[Sönam]

...
Tashi delek,

if without learning and introduction one is able to get into ones Natural State, that is here a personal; point of view which is not shared at all by the Dzogchen Masters. It is taken out of Dzogchen things or throw them away in the sense we can "proudly" say we don't need that introduction and learning.

But maybe do i understand words here in a wrong context, could be............

Mutsog marro
KY

True ... alone one cannot "realize" the natural state. Realization imply the master (or a genuine practitioner)

Sönam

[gregkavarnos]

What are we talking about again? Why am I so confused today?

Solar eclipse and new moon today. Did you do your protector offerings yesterday? Your tsog today?

[Simon E.]

It seems to me that this thread has now become a headless chicken. Its purport was served some time back. Now its just a vehicle for indignation and being angry with Pop.
" How could he do this to us ? "
Which I guess to a point has its use.

[Blue Garuda]

It seems to me that this thread has now become a headless chicken. Its purport was served some time back. Now its just a vehicle for indignation and being angry with Pop.
" How could he do this to us ? "
Which I guess to a point has its use.

Who cut the head off the chicken?

[Simon E.]

Internet forum threads heads have an inbuilt obsolescence. Sooner or later they succumb.

[Simon E.]

And if Dzogchen contradicts the sutra/tantra teachings even on such basic buddhist doctrines, what is actually the use of studying sutra teachings at all for someone who's mainly interested in Dzogchen? I mean, isn't it actually a waste of time studying Abhidharma, if later on you realize that the Dzogchen teachings have a complete different POV on many Abhidharma subjects? The same applies for studying Madhyamaka: why waste many years to gain an in depth understanding of the two truths if later on you realize that there's only one truth in Dzogchen?

This is a very good question. I have been moving slowly toward the pov of view that for most people studying these lower yānas is a complete waste of time. Oh, it can be useful to study a bit of Abhidharma because it helps contextualize mandala practice, and Madhyamaka does help cut through intellectual proliferation, properly studied and absorbed. Studying a bit of Madhyamaka helps one avoid the pitfal of crypto-advaita.

Also places where Dzogchen differs from sutra and tantra will not be readily understood if one does not have at least some superficial familarity with them.

You don't really need to study all this sutra stuff to understand Dzogchen, and as far as Tantra goes, anuyoga is sufficient. On the other hand, also a practitioner needs to understands that nothing really limits their practice to so called "Dzogchen practice" -- anything at all whether from Buddhist or non-Buddhist sources like Yoga, etc., can be incoporated into Dzogchen practitioner's life. One can even participate in a non-Buddhist religion, if for some reason that is necessary.

I personally think one will understand Dzogchen much better if one is grounded in sutra and tantra, but no, it is not completely necessary to learn these things. Understanding the five elements, three gates, emptiness, and bodhicitta are about all one needs at bare minimum. That, and a realized Guru -- and those are in rather short supply.

N

This was the OP. Much that follows is then an emotional reaction...which is OK to a point.
But nowhere does Malcolm suggest that anyone else follow his example..in fact he is at pains to urge that people find their own way through.
Someone said that Malcom's pov would be uncontroversial if he were Tibetan. I think that is quite the case. I have heard a number of Tibetans make exactly the same points vis-a-vis the outer form of practice. I think as westerners we then subconsciously " make allowances " for their lack of cultural awareness.
I have heard western Buddhists saying that HHDL would not be so tolerant to Christianity or Judaism if he had been raised in the west.
I think that underestimates HH. I think he knew exactly what he was saying.
It seems highly likely to me that Malcolm has reached a similar platform, and that this is threatening to those whose Buddhism still contains a strong element of aversion to their own cultural conditioning.

[Jikan]

At this point in my life and practice I just feel differently about things than I did before. I am nearly 50 (in about a month actually). I have spent most of my adult life engaged in the pursuit of spiritual truths. I remember when I first met Chogyal Namkhai Norbu. I was so buzzed someone needed to put chains on my legs to keep me from floating off the ground. It changed my life. But I am a stubborn person, and I was also very conditioned by the Sakya school by the time I met him. So when I did my three year retreat, I combined Lamdre practice with tregchö according to ChNN's instructions. I was in a golden cage of my own making (some will say I still am) to a large extent. I became very expert in debating various tenet systems.

Then, 2003, I started to study the system of Tibetan medicine. This changed my understanding of Dzogchen considerably because now I had access to a different way of seeing the body and I began to see things in Dzogchen teachings that that years of studying static tenet systems had not prepared me for. When I looked at Dzogchen texts after that, they became alive for me in a different way, the very language of the Dzogchen tantras changed. I understood Tibetan language differently.

Also I started to study medicine because it it useful for helping everyone, whereas with Madhyamaka and even Buddhism, people have to sign on to a point of view. With medicine, no one has to sign onto any point of view -- they are sick, they go to a practitioner like me, and I help them get well based on their own experience. It is all driven by their own experience. Dzogchen is also like that, as I see it. The view of Dzogchen and the view of Tibetan Medicine are exactly the same.

They both propose two states, a unchanged state and a changed state. The former is healthy and balanced and the latter is unhealthy and out of balance. The cause of the unhealthy state is ignorance. The role of introduction and practice in Dzogchen and diagnosis and therapies Tibetan Medicine are to remove ignorance through knowledge (rigpa) and restore balance through methods. The changed state has all the components of the unchanged state, but because the unchanged state is not correctly seen, imbalances enter the system, change occurs, and ill-health results. When the imblances are adressed the changed state is correct and returned to the unchanged state. The result of both Dzogchen and Tibetan Medicine is the body of light.

Tibetan Medicine is connected with Dzogchen and it is also connected with the ancient Rishis of India, the Drang srong of Tibet, and the immortals of China.

Why is institutional Buddhism different? Institutional Buddhism is a bit like allopathic medicine -- if you have x disease, you get exactly the same treatement as everyone else with x disease. Maybe it will cure a disease, but just as likely, you will contract another illness from your treatment But if you go to a skilled Tibetan doctor , everyone who has x disease will receive a completely different treatment. So Dzogchen is like that, at least the Dzogchen that I practice, as I understand it.

If you go to Sakya, you get one practice, Nyingma, another practice, etc. Of course this is fine and there is nothing wrong with it. But in my opinion the modern institutional approachs we find in Tibetan Buddhism are not truly healthy, just like the institutional approaches to medicine create as many illnesses as they treat. I think they reflect more about Tibetan fuedal culture than they do about Dharma. There are eight great practice lineages in Tibet and a thousand minor ones. That is a more accurate way to define things -- those eight pratice lineages are the real Dharma in Tibet. Not, Kagyu, Sakya, Nyingma, Gelug, Jonang, Bon, etc.

I don't care anymore where wisdom comes from-- wisdom about plants, yoga, channels, winds, bindus, nature of mind, elements, people, etc. I just don't care anymore where it comes from. Wisdom is wisdom. If other people want to be involved in counting the horns on rabbits with tenet system studies, that is fine, I also put in my time with it until I realized it was a total waste of energy and never got me one inch closer to recognizing my true nature. That kind of knowledge, as far as I am concerned is only useful for polemics. And polemics are useful for nothing but passing the time, verbal flatuence for the most part.

There are beautiful teachings in the Vedas, the Puranas, Mahāyāna, the Pali Canon, Bon, Taoism, Confucism, Tantras, both Buddhist and Hindu, and of course, for me most of all, in the Dzogchen tantras irrespective of whether they are from Oddiyāna or Zhang Zhung.

We live in a world contaminated with rage, hate, anger, division and so many of us sit around and pick lint out of our navels. And the reason we do this is because we take our pet philosophy, whether it is Buddhism, Dzogchen, etc., and rather than helping one another, we try to convert everyone to our point of view. Lord (take your pick, Allah, Buddha, Jesus, Krishna) knows that in the past I also have behaved in precisely the same way. For example, our friend Magnus told this poor guy "If you are a Zen practitioner you must be a Buddhist!". My reply to this, if he does not feel like a Buddhist, then for Buddha's sake don't insist to him he must feel that way.

To be perfectly frank I don't really feel very much like a Buddhist either. I do feel like a Dzogchen practitioner, because that is what I spend most of my time doing and have been doing so since 1992. But please don't tell me I don't love the Dharma as much as the next guy because I am not feeling very buddhist anymore. There is more to the Dharma than the name "buddhist". Our friend Jñāna pointed out that Buddhism is for whoever is interested. This is perfectly true, well, with one proviso. Dharma is for whoever is interested. Buddhism is only for "Buddhists" by definition.

Just because I am not feeling very buddhist does not mean I won't practice Shitro for my loved ones and friends when they die, that I won't practice Mandarava for longevity, that I won't do Ganapuja to Guru Rinpoche, etc. Guru Rinpoche never said, for example, I will only come to Buddhists on the tenth day of the lunar month when they invoke me. He said I will come before anyone in person on the tenth day of every month who invokes me. This is his samaya, to appear in person to anyone who calls on him with faith (good thing he is beyond limitations because that day is very full of appointments). Don't tell me I don't have confidence in Guru Rinpoche because I am not feeling very buddhist. Don't tell me that my bodhicitta, or my love and compassion is defective because I am not feeling very buddhist these days.

Just because I am not feeling very buddhist does not mean that I have lost the sense of refuge. My path is the path of Dzogchen. It is not other paths. So the path upon which I am going for refuge is the Dzogchen path. If you want to see it as a buddhist or a bon path, that is ok if it makes you feel more comfortable. It is not meaningful for me to see the path of Dzogchen as a buddhist or bonpo. I am going for refuge on the Dzogchen path. I am not conditioning others. I am talking about it means for me. So I am going for refuge on a Dzogchen path and I am not feeling particularly like I need that lable "buddhist" anymore. I also don't need the label "Dzogchen practitioner". But my path is Dzogchen, so that is the most accurate label for me at present, though "malcolm" is a little better still.

When I was feeling very Buddhist I used to read the religious books of other schools, but not to enjoy them, only to reject them. What foolishness! The Upanishads are beautiful. There is a beautiful hymn to medicinal herbs in the Atharvaveda. There are beautiful praises the moon, the sun, the stars, the planets and so on in the Rk Veda. The Bhagavad Gita is renowned for its beauty. But buddhists tend to merely read them to reject them. We even have rules about how much time we should spend reading non-buddhist books. What nonsense! When we read a Bonpo mdo (sutra), we read it to compare it with some imagined Buddhist "original" because we buddhists can't get our heads out of our own asses long enough to see how foolish we look. Because of this bias, Bonpos don't even want to share the beauty of their tradition with buddhists, because face it buddhists -- we (to the extent I still feel buddhist) have been total assholes to the Bonpos for 1400 years, ever since Srongtsan Gampo assassinated the last king of Zhang Zhung in the 5th decade of the seventh century. The buddhists scattered them like ants during the time of Trisrong Detsen, fabricated stories about their beliefs that are still repeated to this day, forced them to ape buddhist morays and so on.

I read authors like Wendell Berry, who is a lovely man, a very important writer in the local farming movement in the US who writes lovely things like the following:

It would be foolish, probably, to suggest that God’s pleasure in all things can be fully understood or appreciated by mere humans. The passage suggests, however, that our truest and profoundest religious experience may be the simple, unasking pleasure in the existence of other creatures that is possible to humans. It suggests that God’s pleasure in all things must be respected by us in our use of things, and even in our displeasure in some things. It suggests too that we have an obligation to preserve God’s pleasure in all things, and surely this means not only that we must not misuse or abuse anything, but also that there must be some things and some places that by common agreement we do not use at all, but leave wild.
Berry, Wendell (2010-04-23). What Matters?: Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth (pp. 98-99). Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition.

The old grumpy buddhist in me would have bristled at such language. Now I just see the beauty that Mr. Berry is trying to convey. For example, before a series of intense thunder storms yesterday in western Ma, I went for a walk up the hill. My senses open, as I walk up the hill, my heart beating faster, the stream by the road full from the previous days runoff, birds singing in the woods by the road, and I know exactly what Wendell Berry is talking about. As Garab Dorje said, "The Color of Rtsal is green".

We may not see directly the wisdom display that underlies all of our karmic experience, but if we know it is there through our personal experience, we can still come to the appreciation of mystery of things as they are, we can come a little bit more into balance when we integrate with our natural surroundings, sitting with the experience of the five elements. The teachings of the Gongpa Zanghtal state that we can also use our aesthetic experiences of beauty to be in a state of instant presence.

The lable "buddhist" was just getting in my way. It's a label I don't need anymore. I guess it does not really apply except in the most superficial of ways i.e. I am a Sakya Acharya. I have received teachings from Nyingma and Kagyu teachers, and even Bon teachers. I hold the lineage of Abhidharma, among other things. I have a small amount of skill explaining Dharma tenets and texts. I still enjoy reading sutras, tantras, sastras, though I read them now quite differently than I once did. These things many people will think define me as a Buddhist. But for myself, I really don't feel very buddhist.

But I definitely feel like a Dzogchen practitioner. And that, my friends, is all I want and need for the moment.

M

I've been reflecting on this post for some time now. I think it contains valuable insights, and I very much appreciate Malcolm's willingness to put himself forward in this soulful kind of way.

At a very practical level, the level of pedagogy, it seems to me there's a comparison to be made here between the two kinds of medicine Malcolm describes, the personalized and anarchic Tibetan approach on one side and the one-size-fits-all corporate-institutional approach, on the other, and the dialectical approach taken in the Ekayana teachings. Enlightened ones reach out to suffering beings because it is their nature to do so; they devise different ruses to reach different beings with different needs, and these ruses need not be internally consistent or consistent with each other because their consistency comes from the pedagogy of leading beings to recognize their nature as identical to Buddhahood. (Remember in the Srimaladevi sutra: sentient beings are described as dharmakaya with obscurations, that is, dharmakaya limited by karmically-produced business that prevents recognition.) Waking up is like getting the punchline of a joke; the punchline leads one to re-consider, recontextualize all the other material that had come before (the set-up of the joke). (the joke analogy is Brook Ziporyn's.)

I'm not saying that Dzogchen & TienTai understand terms like dharmakaya & buddhagarbha the same way, but merely that, at a practical level, what Malcolm is describing has some precedent outside of the Tibetan milieu.

If, as Malcolm suggests, a Sufi or Christian or Hindu Dzogchen might be possible... what might a Tendai Dzogchen look like? I don't know: I'm just proposing it as a thought experiment (or in my case, a life experiment)

Finally: thank you, Malcolm, for describing your understanding to us. I for one greatly appreciate it.

[username]

As we are told by enlightened beings like Yeshe Tsogyal, Padmasambhava, Garab Dorje, Nagarjuna, Sariputra and others, all the possibilities we have like Hinayana, Mahayana, Vajrayana, Mahamudra and Dzogchen are only possible under the protective shadow of and the cycle of fortunate era that was started by the kindness and capacity of Shakyamuni Buddha. As will future vehicles shall return and come into action again after the parinirvana of future Buddhas. That is how things work.

[Andrew108]

As we are told by enlightened beings like Yeshe Tsogyal, Padmasambhava, Garab Dorje, Nagarjuna, Sariputra and others, all the possibilities we have like Hinayana, Mahayana, Vajrayana, Mahamudra and Dzogchen are only possible under the protective shadow of and the cycle of fortunate era that was started by the kindness and capacity of Shakyamuni Buddha. As will future vehicles shall return and come into action again after the parinirvana of future Buddhas. That is how things work.

[Simon E.]

" Thats how things work " ?
Well its one model of how things work that is provisional and will do as well as any other.

[Malcolm]

If, as Malcolm suggests, a Sufi or Christian or Hindu Dzogchen might be possible... what might a Tendai Dzogchen look like? I don't know: I'm just proposing it as a thought experiment (or in my case, a life experiment)

There is no Buddhist Dzogchen or Bonpo Dzogchen. This why there cannot be a Hindu Dzogchen, a Sufu Dzogchen, a Christian Dzogchen, or a Tendai Dzogchen, a Zen Dzogchen.

Dzogchen does not belong to a school. There is no school of Dzogchen. A Dzogchen school would not be Dzogchen. This would be a completely wrong approach.

But anyone from any school or traditon who would like to learn Dzogchen can come and learn Dzogchen from a qualified teacher.

For example, the lineage of Dzogchen at this juncture in time appears in Buddhism and Bon. This does not make Dzogchen Buddhist and Bonpo. Dzogchen is the essence of the teachings, all teachings. When we do Ati Guru Yoga, we unify all the knowledge we learned from any teacher, be they Buddhist, Bon, Hindu, Christian, Sufi, etc.

If you are a Dzogchen practitioner, you must go beyond the limitations of schools. In the context of Tibetan culture, the rimey movement was started by Dzogchen practitioners. Why? Because they understood the need to go beyond the limitations of schools and discover the essence of the teachings. Now Dzogchen, the jewel of Tibetan culture, has left the confines of Tibean culture. We must go beyond the limitations of all schools, all philosophies, all ideologies if we are to practice Dzogchen.

As human beings, we have too much to lose if we continue to remain limited by religion, ideology, class, race and tribe. Yesterday, ChNN strongly stated that every human being should learn Dzogchen and put these teachings into practice. And if every human being did this, we would have much less problems in the world.

I cannot say the same thing about Buddhism. Why? Because the very first opponents of Dzogchen were Buddhists! And Buddhists remained hostile to Dzogchen for centuries.

We human beings like our niches, our cages we build for ourselves, the limitations in which we place ourselves. We justify those limitations, and create many arguments for them. I suggest that people look at that. I have, and I have found these wanting, and unnecessary.

M

[Malcolm]

Finally: thank you, Malcolm, for describing your understanding to us. I for one greatly appreciate it.

You are welcome, Dan.

[username]

I can't remember where I heard or read it but apparently in very ancient periods when human beings were closer to nature and before sedentary farming was invented people attained rainbow bodies much easier. I guess large post historic city states, conceptual mushroomings and mega wordsmithing did not help much and now we have the internet too.