heart wrote:
I have no problem with this except that I personally feel incapable to, among the huge amount of worldly Dharma systems that exist, even guess which are of short term or long term benefit. I certainly can't say if any of them will eventually lead to liberation.
All of them are Samantabhadra's vehicles.
Of course, at this point you are debating with ChNNs statement. But I will endeavor to set out what I take away from it. People have generated traditions around Dzogchen. Those traditions are secondary. The rig pa'i rtsal dbang is much misunderstood. It is not a ritual, though it can be packaged in one. The rig pa'i rtsal dbang is direct introduction. Dzogchen transmission depends solely on direct introduction. Direct introduction can be given in myriad ways, there is no set tradition.
Which of these interpretation of "tradition" do you think ChNNR intend? Because certainly some of these above does corresponds pretty good with both Dzogchen and Dzogchen Community.
Dzogchen Community is not Dzogchen, just like the thun book is not Dzogchen practice.
No matter how direct introduction is achieved, it certainly can happen in many different ways, ChNNR himself have regularly been given three special transmissions every year according to a preset and that can, at least to a certain degree be called a ritual.
Yes, there is a rite that goes with the WW transmission days. But direct introduction is not restricted to that and does not depend on that.
The Dzogchen tantras themselves maintain that no distinction is made in Dzogchen between those of higher capacity and lower capacity, good karmic accumulations or negative.
Well, Jigme Lingpa certainly do that distinction in the Yeshe Lama.
I prefer to follow what Dzogchen tantras say. Tri Yeshe Lama is important, but it is not the end all be all of Dzogchen.
Quite literally there are differences between the paths of renunciation (yānas 1-3), transformation (4-8), and self-liberation (ati).
As I have pointed out endlessly, there is a difference between Hināyāna and Mahāyāna, for example. Important differences in vows, conduct, practice, methods, etc. What is permissible in one is not permissible in the other. This also applies to Vajrayāna - what is permissible in Vajrayāna is not permissible in Mahāyāna. In Dzogchen there are no rules.
That things are different don't meant that they are incompatible or in any kind of conflict.
Dzogchen practitioners can and should eat meat. Mahāyanists should never eat meat. If you want to wish away the various contradictions that exist in the three or nine yānas, which are demonstrated in tantras such as kun byed rgyal po to be misakes and devitions, feel free.
Sakyamuni did not teach Dzogchen so far as anyone knows -- there is no record of it in the original tantras of Dzogchen.
Except that he, for example in the Vima Nyingthik, is counted among the twelve Dzogchen Buddhas.
Yes, as has been pointed out endlessly, the reason for this is not that he taught Dzogchen, but because he predicted Garab Dorje. Also, the source of the twelve teachers is sgra thal gyur.