Abandoning past practice commitments

[LunaRoja]

These are the first sources I can give you right away. Study both of you guys better Vajrayana and you will find evidence of that

These are not sources. This is just hearsay. A source would be, for example, a clear statement from some tantra, etc. Since no such rite exists, however, you will not be able to provide such a source.

not in a text, but Kagyu is the "ear whispered" lineage after all Malcolm! Maybe give the benefit of the doubt to this persons teachers. . . Tantras are coded and interpretable, which is why there is such an emphasis on oral instructions. . .

This is true the tantras are written in Sanskrit and in code passed down through realized masters. I also have heard of returning samaya. Thank you Dorje e gabbana!

[dorje e gabbana]

You worry about you. I will worry about me.

Sure Malcolm Sure, it is only the originality of your point of view that is really amazing, believe me, not kidding you
The problem is that you write about it as if it was pure Dharma nectar when is only your personal POV, quite misleading BTW.

Good night to everybody or good morning In my place the sun is rising Now
I assume I have to wake up and I am supposed to go to work in my country.

Thank you very much for your nice company and the interesting discussion.

[Malcolm]

I also have heard of returning samaya. Thank you Dorje e gabbana!

No one said you cannot ask some Guru to relieve you of samaya you may have undertaken. But there is no ritual to do so. You simply ask.

It is also true that if you are a Dzogchen practioner, there is no need to return anything -- all samayas are maintained perfectly by pursuing Dzogchen practice.

[dorje e gabbana]

Supposing what you said is true, these are isolated events that do not generally occur in the Vajrayana/Dzogchen, but onestly, I'm a skeptical of anyone reporting (anonymously by internet) about the qualifications of some western yogi they met with years ago. Your memory could be failing you, you could have misunderstood what explained, this "yogi" might be less qualified than you think, etc...There are infinite ways that your declarations could be erroneous. People should have a critical eye. We are often concerned about preserving righteousness than coming to actual truth [/color]

Sorry the last one before really going to take care of my business.
If you read my post more less superficially you would realized that the source I quoted is not one lama,but two different lamas of two different tibetan school. We also debate this subject with other vajrabrothers who practised vajrayana for more than 30 yrs nowdays, older and endowed with more knowledge than me, and we remnber perfectly wath the lamas told us about what i have written


Marigpa: you are another guy that only believe the things he thinks to know. Following your way to think also subparticles in quantum phisics could be a bogus.
Come on marigpa! How many years have you really practised tantra of whatever tibetan school going beyond the recite of the mantra and deepening your knowledge of tza lung tigle?
It seems that you only have second hand information about vajrayana.
But probably it is because you are a wonderful dzogchenpa abiding 24 hrs in the trek chod and you are not really very interested in little stupid things like vajrayana inner yogas like me.
I have been studyng dzogchen for only 22 yrs, my understanding of trek-chod and todgal is very limitated compared to the one of my masters, but I still remain very interested also in maha and anuyoga tya lung tigle practice like tummo practice

Goodnight

[LunaRoja]

"When one is practicing on such a path, it is necessary to observe all the primary and secondary samayas (which are subsumed within the principles of enlightened form, speech, and mind) just as they are described. If one does not observe them, one will develop many faults, the inevitable consequences of which are weighty, and one will linger for a long time in lower states of rebirth" Longchenpa ( How the Lower Approaches are Subsumed into The Higher) p.353 The Precious Treasury of Philosophical Systems

[Malcolm]

"When one is practicing on such a path, it is necessary to observe all the primary and secondary samayas (which are subsumed within the principles of enlightened form, speech, and mind) just as they are described. If one does not observe them, one will develop many faults, the inevitable consequences of which are weighty, and one will linger for a long time in lower states of rebirth" Longchenpa ( How the Lower Approaches are Subsumed into The Higher) p.353 The Precious Treasury of Philosophical Systems

When one receives an initiation, for example, one promises to carry out the transformation practice daily, reciting the corresponding mantra at least three or seven times. On top of this commitment, there are also many other related samaya which must be observed. But in Dzogchen the only samaya involved is to find oneself in the condition of "what is," as it is. All the rest, that is to say all the judgments and creations of the mind, all our limits, and so on, all these are false and superfluous.

Chogyal Namkhai Norbu. Dzogchen: The Self-Perfected State (Kindle Locations 986-989). Kindle Edition.

Now, I never met Longchenpa -- but I know ChNN, since he is my root guru. The person who asked the original question is a student of ChNN and interested in following him, I will refer that person to ChNN's POV over Longchenpa.

Sorry if you find that offensive.

[LunaRoja]

Now, I never met Longchenpa -- but I know ChNN, since he is my root guru. The person who asked the original question is a student of ChNN and interested in following him, I will refer that person to ChNN's POV over Longchenpa.

Sorry if you find that offensive.

No offense. It is good to offer people different POVs.

[Malcolm]

Now, I never met Longchenpa -- but I know ChNN, since he is my root guru. The person who asked the original question is a student of ChNN and interested in following him, I will refer that person to ChNN's POV over Longchenpa.

Sorry if you find that offensive.

No offense. It is good to offer different POV.

In ChNN's case, you can consider that he has granted all of his students permission to just unify their practice in Ati Guru Yoga. I was talking to a ChNN student.

At the end of the day, one must admit that students of ChNN have a very different attitude towards these issues than Nyingmapas. So really, it is better to leave it alone.

And it is super boring to have people insist to us we have not understood our own teacher's point of view. I have been to countless retreats with ChNN and read countless books by him. But every now and again, someone comes along who is not in the DC who starts telling DC people based on Nyingma, or Kagyu, or whatever, what we are supposed to think. Just stop it.

Dzogchen Community is not part of Nyingma. I wish people would just get used to this fact.

Thanks,

M

[Lhug-Pa]

"When one is practicing on such a path, it is necessary to observe all the primary and secondary samayas (which are subsumed within the principles of enlightened form, speech, and mind) just as they are described. If one does not observe them, one will develop many faults, the inevitable consequences of which are weighty, and one will linger for a long time in lower states of rebirth" Longchenpa ( How the Lower Approaches are Subsumed into The Higher) p.353 The Precious Treasury of Philosophical Systems

Panchen Pema Wangyal summarizes the Tantric precepts in the following lines:

"In brief, IF you realize your own body (i.e. Body, Speech, and Mind) as the Three Vajras (the Body, Speech, and Mind of the Deities),
Then the observance of hundreds of thousands of millions of precepts of Tantra is encompassed in this realization."

Could we then say in the Dzogchen Community that Ati Guru Yoga fulfills all Samayas only if through it we are actually being in Instant Presence/Rigpa? Has Chögyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche specified this, or has he only said that we just have to practice Guru Yoga and do our best?

[heart]

Dzogchen Community is not part of Nyingma. I wish people would just get used to this fact.

Because you say so, or do you have a quote?

/magnus

[Malcolm]

Dzogchen Community is not part of Nyingma. I wish people would just get used to this fact.

Because you say so, or do you have a quote?

/magnus

Because ChNN says he is not a Nyingmapa.

Also I do not belong to any school of Tibetan Buddhism. I am just a member of the DC.

[Adamantine]

"When one is practicing on such a path, it is necessary to observe all the primary and secondary samayas (which are subsumed within the principles of enlightened form, speech, and mind) just as they are described. If one does not observe them, one will develop many faults, the inevitable consequences of which are weighty, and one will linger for a long time in lower states of rebirth" Longchenpa ( How the Lower Approaches are Subsumed into The Higher) p.353 The Precious Treasury of Philosophical Systems

When one receives an initiation, for example, one promises to carry out the transformation practice daily, reciting the corresponding mantra at least three or seven times. On top of this commitment, there are also many other related samaya which must be observed. But in Dzogchen the only samaya involved is to find oneself in the condition of "what is," as it is. All the rest, that is to say all the judgments and creations of the mind, all our limits, and so on, all these are false and superfluous.

Chogyal Namkhai Norbu. Dzogchen: The Self-Perfected State (Kindle Locations 986-989). Kindle Edition.

Now, I never met Longchenpa -- but I know ChNN, since he is my root guru. The person who asked the original question is a student of ChNN and interested in following him, I will refer that person to ChNN's POV over Longchenpa.

Sorry if you find that offensive.

I might be missing something, but I don't see ChNN's quote as contradicting Longchenpa's in any way. The way I read ChNN's quote is that in Dzogchen practice, the only samaya is to find oneself in the condition of "what is," as it is. I believe this is the Dzogchen samaya, once one has transmission for it. He does not here say, imply, or intend that if you have already taken a Mahayoga empowerment for instance, with whatever samayas that entails, that taking Dzogchen transmission relieves you of that samaya and all you need to focus on is your Dzogchen samaya. I don't see how you get that at all from this quote. Please find some textual proof, in Dzogchen tantras or ChNN's own writing or transcribed teaching where he says this. I have attended a few retreats with him in person and a bunch of webcasts and read his books and I never ever heard him say this.

[Sherlock]

ChNN has written about when he was a novice in the monastery he used to spend hours in the night reading through the sadhanas to maintain his commitments because he had not learned to integrate all of the transmissions.

From the Guruyoga book:

"It is not good to receive teachings without keeping samaya, and according to Dzogchen the way to keep all samayas is to do Guruyoga."

[Josef]

ChNN has written about when he was a novice in the monastery he used to spend hours in the night reading through the sadhanas to maintain his commitments because he had not learned to integrate all of the transmissions.

From the Guruyoga book:

"It is not good to receive teachings without keeping samaya, and according to Dzogchen the way to keep all samayas is to do Guruyoga."

That's really all one needs to know.
For those of us who take ChNN as our teacher and authority the answer is very clear.
Other people with other teachers who have other opinions have to work with them, but for us the answer is Guru Yoga.

[dorje e gabbana]

Could we then say in the Dzogchen Community that Ati Guru Yoga fulfills all Samayas only if through it we are actually being in Instant Presence/Rigpa? Has Chögyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche specified this, or has he only said that we just have to practice Guru Yoga and do our best?

This is the crucial point. I met CNNR first time in 1990 and I always heard and read in his teaching that Guruyoga is a way to find our real state or rigpa. He teaches thatIn this state we can integrate all the different trasmissions and samaya received. But I have never heard from him that sounding A you just automatically enter the rigpa state.
Infact many people also after 10 yrs sounds A durign the Guru Yoga , but they have very little confidence about their rigpa state and they honestly say. "I hope it is Rigpa but I am not sure"
Other people instead enthusiastically sounds A and also B and C without asking themselves and cheking out if they really are in the rigpa. They think to be in rigpa state but they are very little understanding of dzogchen and nature of mind and they just like sing vajra song playing chod damaru, doing vajra dance
IN the late 90's I was in Merigar following a CNNR Norbu teaching and taht morning he was very upset and publicly complained that not even one of his students (included the oldest one) could remain in the contemplation or rigpa state during the short time of a vajra song, without getting distracted. I do not know if throughout the years he changed his mind about this subject noticing some general improvement in the understanding of what rigpa state was between his students.

Just to say that CNNR has never said that sounding A during Guru yoga you automatically experience the rigpa state, as a matter of fact.
The crucial point is that according to his teaching about keeping other tantric samaya unifying all the linneages and guru deva dakini of which you received initiations with Guru Yoga, to really do it you it is obvious that you are supposed to be in a real rigpa state. Otherwise you cannot says" I am practicing guruyoga according to dzogchen" because you are just practicing it from a tantric point of view. Furthermore you are still using the your mind instead of integrating everything in the nature of the mind or rigpa. So, if you are using your mind you just breaks all your tantric samayas if don't practice the commitements you got and think to integrate everything....it is very simple to understand.

HH Dudjom rimpoche observed that many people think to be in the rigpa and to be real dzogchen practioners but they just are contempalting their subtle mind that fabricates a fake rigpa.....He achieved in 1987 a form of rainbow body (the one where ythe body shrinks emanating rainbows and ring sel) and so we can assume that he has a knew Dzog chen quite well.
Also CNNR adviced many times that students have to work with all methods like semdzins and many others in order to really discover their natural state of mind.

[Adamantine]

Could we then say in the Dzogchen Community that Ati Guru Yoga fulfills all Samayas only if through it we are actually being in Instant Presence/Rigpa? Has Chögyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche specified this, or has he only said that we just have to practice Guru Yoga and do our best?

This is the crucial point. I met CNNR first time in 1990 and I always heard and read in his teaching that Guruyoga is a way to find our real state or rigpa. He teaches thatIn this state we can integrate all the different trasmissions and samaya received. But I have never heard from him that sounding A you just automatically enter the rigpa state.
Infact many people also after 10 yrs sounds A durign the Guru Yoga , but they have very little confidence about their rigpa state and they honestly say. "I hope it is Rigpa but I am not sure"
Other people instead enthusiastically sounds A and also B and C without asking if they really are in the rigpa. They think to be in rigpa state but they are very little understanding of dzogchen and nature of mind and they just like sing vajra song playing chod damaru, doing vajra dance
IN the late 90's I was in Merigar following a CNNR Norbu teaching and taht morning he was very upset and publicly complained that not even one of his students (included the oldest one) could remain in the contemplation or rigpa state during the short time of a vajra song, without getting distracted. I do not know if in the year he changed his mind noticing some improvement in the understanding of what rigpa state was between his students.

Just to say that CNNR has never said that sounding A during Guru yoga you automatically experience the rigpa state. The crucial point is that according to his teaching about keeping other tantric samaya unifying all the linneages and guru deva dakini of which you received initiations, to really do it you it is obvious that you are supposed to really be in the rigpa state. Otherwise you cannot says" I am practicing guruyoga according to dzogchen" but you just would practice from a tantric point of view because you are still usign the mind instead of integrating everything in the nature of the mind or rigpa. In case you are not in rigpa state you just breaks all your tantric samayas....it is very simple to understand.

HH Dudjom rimpoche observed that many people think to be in the rigpa and to be real dzogchen practioners but they just are contempalting their subtle mind that fabricates a fake rigpa.....He achieved in 1987 a form of rainbow body (the one where ythe body shrinks emanating rainbows and ring sel) and so we can assume that he has a knew Dzog chen quite well.
Also CNNR siad many times that student has to work with all methods like semdzins etc in order to really discover his natural state of mind.

[Sherlock]

You might have a point dorje e gabbana, but I don't know, that sounds like ChNN was upset that people couldn't maintain rigpa while singing the Song of Vajra for the 2+ minutes, which is quite hard for most people -- certainly more than enough time for an ant to scrawl past your nose and all over your face. I think if properly done with the visualizations etc, guru yoga will give you at least a ksana of rigpa. I don't know if it's just me but I personally find the 21 semdzins more effective than the Song of Vajra in bringing a state of rigpa. The first time I attended his teachings in person I did indeed leave quite confused and wondering whether I received direct introduction but after practising the semdzins then later on listening to the Dorje Drolod webcast my doubts evaporated.

[Adamantine]

Since there seems to be a great need for clarity here, I am taking the time to transcribe a portion of Dudjom Rinpoche's own commentary on Ngari Panchen's Ascertaining the Three Vows:

The samaya of the Great Perfection includes two divisions: the simultaneously arising samaya of "nothing to guard" and the progressive stages of samaya maintenance.

1. The first, the simultaneously arising samaya, refers to the primordial nature of all dharmas having transcended the need to accept or reject, an object to protect from, the activity of protecting (vows), and a protector. In the expanse of great bliss where samsara and nirvana are the very nature of equality, this profound awareness of the all-pervasive equality is actualized, and all appearances are nothing more than the play of the great primordial wisdom. Accordingly, there is nothing to guard, since all words of honor are simultaneously perfected

2. The second division concerns the progressive stages of samaya maintenance, which are necessary because, although one may have received the profound pointing out instructions, in order to fully realize the depth of the view and meditation, a faithful, diligent, and wise aspirant must enter the common door of knowing how to guard body, speech, and mind through the stages of progressive development on the path. In this way, the words of honor correspond exactly to the levels of progression as taught in the tantras.



I think the issue at hand is that many people seem to believe they are at the point of Dzogchen realization where "samsara and nirvana are the very nature of equality" and thus, all the words of honor are simultaneously perfected, as in category #1. But to quote Dudjom Rinpoche again, again:

"After a time, your tense, dualistic attitudes will evaporate and you will get to the point where gold and pebbles, food and filth, gods and demons, virtue and nonvirtue, are all the same for you-you’ll be at a loss to choose between paradise and hell! But until you reach that point (while you are still caught in the experiences of dualistic perception), virtue and nonvirtue, buddhafields and hells, happiness and pain, actions and their results – all this is reality for you. As the Great Guru has said, "My view is higher than the sky, but my attention to actions and their results is finer than flour."

So don’t go around claiming to be some great Dzogchen meditator when in fact you are nothing but a farting lout, stinking of alcohol and rank with lust!" '

Does anyone here really claim that food and filth, gold and pebbles, pleasure and pain, are all the same for them? If they are not, I believe that automatically brings you to category #2, regarding samaya: the progressive stages of samaya maintenance. And if I am interpreting this correctly, I believe this also means you are responsible for the tantric samayas you have taken.

[dorje e gabbana]

you might have a point dorje e gabbana, but I don't know, that sounds like ChNN was upset that people couldn't maintain rigpa while singing the Song of Vajra for the 2+ minutes, which is quite hard for most people -- certainly more than enough time for an ant to scrawl past your nose and all over your face. I think if properly done with the visualizations etc, guru yoga will give you at least a ksana of rigpa. I don't know if it's just me but I personally find the 21 semdzins more effective than the Song of Vajra in bringing a state of rigpa. The first time I attended his teachings in person I did indeed leave quite confused and wondering whether I received direct introduction but after practising the semdzins then later on listening to the Dorje Drolod webcast my doubts evaporated.

Thank you for sharing your experience Sherlock. I also prefer semddzins, but it is a personal taste and it is good to try to integrate our vision using various methods and not limitating to only one.

In that retreat CNNR was quite rude and direct using his favorite metaphore about his students sayng they are not like Brunello of Montalcino Wine that the more is old the more is considered good.
He added also that old student frorm time to time has to refresh their knowledge of dzog chen, the various methods to discover rigpa according to the 3 gankyl doors and wake themselves from their aptitude to take their practice for granted.

Even if he was really wrathful durign that retreat, I have really to thank CNNR because after 7 Years I stopped taking for granted I was a real Dzogchen practitioner and I increased my practice doing more personal retreats, studying with other Nyma Lama Triyik Yeshe Lama, one of the most important manual of dzog chen meditation form longchen Nyntig, and trying to deep my understanding of trek chod in various way

[dorje e gabbana]

Since there seems to be a great need for clarity here, I am taking the time to transcribe a portion of Dudjom Rinpoche's own commentary on Ngari Panchen's Ascertaining the Three Vows:

Unbelievable! I was checking on the web the same text some minutes ago

and the bottom line is:

o don’t go around claiming to be some great Dzogchen meditator when in fact you are nothing but a farting lout, stinking of alcohol and rank with lust!"