adinatha wrote:Alaya is deluded.
For sure in Dzoghen.
But this is a standard (non-Kagyu) mahamudra terminology. Here ālaya just means the inseparable clarity and emptiness of the mind.
It is true that the alāya is deluded in Dzogchen.It is true the terma ālaya it is considered the ālaya vijñāna in Kagyu mahāmudra teachings, but in other texts, for example, the Seven Points of mind training ālaya is not considered to be the same as ālaya vijñāna.
The dharmakaya is not the alaya.
From a Dzogchen perspective, agreed. But the term is used differently in different schools.
It's impossible there is a basis beyond the dharmakaya.
From a Dzogchen perspective, agreed. But what is understood as luminous clarity in mahāmudra, which is taken as the basis [gzhi] and is taken as dharmakāya, is quite different than what is understood as luminous clarity in Dzogchen. Same word, very different meanings.
Same thing with the term "ālaya" -- yes in Drikung Mahāmudra, influenced a little by Dzogchen, they make a distinction between ālaya and the the basis.
The mahamudra lineage is the dharmakaya lineage.
The various mahāmudra schools make the clarity, emptiness and inseparability of the mind into the three kāyas. They may term the basis differently, etc. But the meaning is that same.
This is not, ultimately, the approach of Dzogchen.
Story about the universe and all that, sounds nice, but it makes Shakyamuni a liar, that his teachings don't end the cycle of birth and death, because a reversion to the basis of alaya would entail being returned to the cycle of samsara in the following universal cycle.
I am simply reporting what Garab Dorje, Padmasambhava, Shri Singha et al actually say. I don't need to interpret anything.
In Hīnayāna, Shakyamuni taught arhatship as buddhahood. In Mahāyana, he taught that arhatship was not buddhahood, and was inferior to buddhahood. And that in fact, after attaining arhatship, arhats would be roused from their nirodhasamapatti at some point and then they must traverse the paths of stages of Mahāyāna. So, was the Buddha lying in Hināyāna when he told his followers that arhatship was it?
In Vajrayāna, in the Samputa tantra it is clarified that there are three stages of Buddhahood. Two stages of Buddhas who do not recognize all phenomena as being the display of their own wisdom and the thireenth bhumi, Vajradhara, where all phenomena are so recognized. Does this make the Buddha a liar about Mahāyāna?
In Dzochen, there are enumerated another three stages, three more stages of those who dwell within wisdom, rendering the thirteenth bhumi a lower stage of buddhahood. Does this make the Buddha a liar about Vajrayāna?
In any event, this notion of "Buddhahood that reverts to the basis [gzhi, not kun gzhi]" as an inferior buddhahood that is not complete is well attested in Dzogchen. It has to be the case because as Garab Dorje points out, all sentient beings in the previous eon attain buddhahood by the end of the eon. This is explicitly stated by Garab Dorje in the commentary I mentioned to above.
But to illustrate my point further, the Drikung view is Dzogchen is definitely subordinated. For example, Jigten Sumgon states in Gongcik: “The supreme realization is not touched by the three great ones.” This is echoe of a statement by Gampopoa to his nephew, Gomchung.
But I don't during Jigten Sumgon's time Nyingthig was wide spread. At this point in history Nyingma was very much on the decline.
