Andrew108 wrote:
You agreed with all these words but actually these words don't have any meaning. They are just garbage words. What you get from a teacher is a thousand times more meaningful. What you get from a teacher of Dzogchen is just....... Wonderful.
This type of thinking is example of the mixing of the view of the two yanas with the view of definitive meaning, which is an error.
A qualified teacher is helpful to realization but it does not rid the need for study and analysis of the dharma for oneself in order to attain certainty. Because the final certainty is based on oneself, not the teacher, as the Buddha said that though he gives the teaching, he cannot gives realization, since the practice and realization depends on oneself. A teacher cannot be greater than the Buddha, he similarly cannot gives realization to others, without the others engaged themselves in study and analysis of the teaching.
The words of definitive dharma contained meaning, it is unlike the provisional dharma that point to a method with concealed intent and not actually containing the meaning. Thus, in the two yanas, the dharma is considered a raft that is to be discarded (dropped) after one reached the 'other shore'. However, in the definitive dharma, if there is words about a nirvana or 'other shore' to be reached, such a scripture is considered non-definitive. Thus, in the definitive dharma, the words of dharma, or the dharma itself is not consider a raft to be discarded.
Generally with the various dialectic traditions, the scriptures of the final turning are considered definitive, they are essential for study and for analysis in order to attain certainty.
MIPHAM'S BEACON OF CERTAINTY:
<<The fame of the Moon of the Amazing Dharma
Arises along with the light of elegant speech
In the vast sky of the Buddha's teaching,
Vanquishing the heavy darkness of doubt.
.
(i.e. The basis for all of this studying, reflecting and meditating, about the way things really are, is the teachings of the Madhyamika School: Nagarjuna & all. More precisely, the correct reasonings as explained by Chandrakirti and Dharmakirti. By studying the way to establish the two truths through syllogism and prasanga, one gain this certainty about the view, path and result, and do not fall into extremes.)>>
Jyoti