My filled Tara statue (questions)

[padma norbu]

Since I have confusion, I want to fill up my time with beneficial actions rather than deluding myself that I am maintaining dzogchen view or at least trying and progressing. When I do Tara practice, everything gets better; there is no denying that.

Definitely, and at the end, I'm sure you're dissolving everything and relaxing in the natural state to boot. Practicing like this and taking to heart advice from lamas like Guru Padmasambhava who said (about beginning Dzogchen practice) "short sessions repeated very often," you can make all your experience a continuous flow of practice and eventually cause everything to be subsumed within rigpa.

Yes, I pretty much start and end with everything dissolved since I encapsulate Tara practice within my main practice, which begins with A.

[Grigoris]

Can't go wrong with Tara

Sigh... I LOVE Tara practice!

mt_green_tara.jpg (17.75 KiB) Viewed 2624 times

[muni]

Muni, most so-called Dzogchen practitioners.....

And if you yourself aren't in rigpa 24/7, then if you're choosing not to do any "lower yana" practices, you're wasting your precious human life on totally mundane experience in between a few flickers of rigpa here and there, if even that.

Practices for stability, to see I am 'talking' to own beings' reflection.

Aversion gets less chance.

[Sönam]

Muni, most so-called Dzogchen practitioners still don't know for sure what rigpa is, so they are distracted always, from the POV of Dzogchen. Even most people who do know what rigpa is are still distracted most of the time, grasping at mundane perception and non-virtuous objects. So for these people, a fabricated meditation on a yidam, for instance, is what you can call a grade A, first class distraction. It's very beneficial in such a context. There is no Dzogchen master who has ever lived who has said aspiring Dzogchen practitioners should not do such practices or that they are harmful for Dzogchen practice.

When a Dzogchen practitioner does not know what is rigpa, the only thing useful to do is Guru Yoga. No fabrications will help, it will only postpone the moment of the real practice. Maybe Dzogchen master who has ever lived have said different things, but Chögyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoché states :

"Many secondary practices exist that we can learn to do, but it is important to understand that this is not the main point. As I always repeat, the principal point of Dzogchen is Guruyoga. ... All practices have to be connected with the transmission and with Guruyoga. There is no other way to come to know our real state"

Sönam

[Pema Rigdzin]

Muni, most so-called Dzogchen practitioners still don't know for sure what rigpa is, so they are distracted always, from the POV of Dzogchen. Even most people who do know what rigpa is are still distracted most of the time, grasping at mundane perception and non-virtuous objects. So for these people, a fabricated meditation on a yidam, for instance, is what you can call a grade A, first class distraction. It's very beneficial in such a context. There is no Dzogchen master who has ever lived who has said aspiring Dzogchen practitioners should not do such practices or that they are harmful for Dzogchen practice.

When a Dzogchen practitioner does not know what is rigpa, the only thing useful to do is Guru Yoga. No fabrications will help, it will only postpone the moment of the real practice. Maybe Dzogchen master who has ever lived have said different things, but Chögyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoché states :

"Many secondary practices exist that we can learn to do, but it is important to understand that this is not the main point. As I always repeat, the principal point of Dzogchen is Guruyoga. ... All practices have to be connected with the transmission and with Guruyoga. There is no other way to come to know our real state"

Sönam

Yes, and in traditional Nyingma Mahayoga and Anuyoga generation stage practice (especially termas, which are dominant nowadays), yidam practice is always connected with Dzogchen transmission, and the yidam is always meditated on as one's own nature inseparable from the guru. Furthermore, the yidam in this tradition always arises from the natural state and self-liberates... So there's no contradiction with Rinpoche's statement.

[Grigoris]

Yes, and in traditional Nyingma Mahayoga and Anuyoga generation stage practice (especially termas, which are dominant nowadays), yidam practice is always connected with Dzogchen transmission, and the yidam is always meditated on as one's own nature inseparable from the guru. Furthermore, the yidam in this tradition always arises from the natural state and self-liberates... So there's no contradiction with Rinpoche's statement.

Yup, that's about the exact same take as we have in the Kagyu "view" on Yidam and Mahamudra.

[heart]

Muni, most so-called Dzogchen practitioners still don't know for sure what rigpa is, so they are distracted always, from the POV of Dzogchen. Even most people who do know what rigpa is are still distracted most of the time, grasping at mundane perception and non-virtuous objects. So for these people, a fabricated meditation on a yidam, for instance, is what you can call a grade A, first class distraction. It's very beneficial in such a context. There is no Dzogchen master who has ever lived who has said aspiring Dzogchen practitioners should not do such practices or that they are harmful for Dzogchen practice.

When a Dzogchen practitioner does not know what is rigpa, the only thing useful to do is Guru Yoga. No fabrications will help, it will only postpone the moment of the real practice. Maybe Dzogchen master who has ever lived have said different things, but Chögyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoché states :

"Many secondary practices exist that we can learn to do, but it is important to understand that this is not the main point. As I always repeat, the principal point of Dzogchen is Guruyoga. ... All practices have to be connected with the transmission and with Guruyoga. There is no other way to come to know our real state"

Sönam

Thoughts are all fabrication Sönam. So what is the difference between thinking a white Ah and thinking a Yidam? If one is helpful, why not the other?

/magnus

[padma norbu]

Here's the way I look at:

1. all symbolic understanding is conceptual fabrication
2. within dualistic ignorance, there is the appearance of greater and lesser beings of more or less power
3. I am not a realized being
4. Tara is as real as you or me
5. some practices have more or less benefit depending on the person doing the practicing
6. Tara practice helps improve my relative condition and gradually expands my awareness and understanding
7. Dzogchen view is slippery and easy to lose track of for me, it is not stabilized
8. I think #7 is true for most people, actually... you can say "all is in your mind" all you like, but if I punch you in the face, you will suffer (a punch in the face here is just an example of our relative condition in samsara)
9. Tara practice, for me, is I believe how it is supposed to be viewed: mingling your mind with that of a realized being, the guru, whose ultimate nature is identical to your own. I would assume that when this "mind meld" is complete, you realize yourself as the guru in more than simply an intellectual way. That has not happened to any of us yet, unless you are a realized being.

[Sönam]

So what is the difference between thinking a white Ah and thinking a Yidam? If one is helpful, why not the other?

/magnus

Agree Magnus, both are identical ... maybe Yidam is more complex to create. And white A is not the absolute method ... it's a tool. The object is to be in the identicity of the master, it could also be immediate.

Sönam

[heart]

So what is the difference between thinking a white Ah and thinking a Yidam? If one is helpful, why not the other?

/magnus

Agree Magnus, both are identical ... maybe Yidam is more complex to create. And white A is not the absolute method ... it's a tool. The object is to be in the identicity of the master, it could also be immediate.

Sönam

"The identity of the master" is just an other way to say the natural state. It isn't helpful for those who haven't recognized the natural state. Even if you recognized it might be difficult when you are upset and have many thoughts. So you need methods that can be a bridge. These methods are all fabrications, all mind, but they still work as a bridge. Could be simple, like ChNN's Guru Yoga with a white Ah, or complicate like the Kalachakra mandala. It doesn't matter as long as it works.

/magnus

[Grigoris]

8. I think #7 is true for most people, actually... you can say "all is in your mind" all you like, but if I punch you in the face, you will suffer (a punch in the face here is just an example of our relative condition in samsara)

No I won't, I'm a muay thai instructor, I've been punched in the face so many times it makes no difference at all!

But seriously, I totally understand (and sympathise) with what you are saying.

Sometimes I get all crazy and say to my lama: "I'm sick of all these deities and sadhanas. One deity coz I got no money, another coz I have a nagging cough right now, another for my constipation... I mean if the essence of all the practices is Mahamudra why don't I just practice Mahamudra and get it over with?" To which he replies: "But you have no money, you have a nagging cough and constipation, obviously you need to do the deity practice which deals with each of these."
Then I get all bezerk like: "Tommorow is the third day after the waxing moon, so I need to get this torma ready and those tsog substances and..." and he replies: "Why don't you just go do some Mahamudra practice instead, the nature of all the sadhanas is Mahamudra after all."

Get what I mean?

[padma norbu]

8. I think #7 is true for most people, actually... you can say "all is in your mind" all you like, but if I punch you in the face, you will suffer (a punch in the face here is just an example of our relative condition in samsara)

No I won't, I'm a muay thai instructor, I've been punched in the face so many times it makes no difference at all!

But seriously, I totally understand (and sympathise) with what you are saying.

Sometimes I get all crazy and say to my lama: "I'm sick of all these deities and sadhanas. One deity coz I got no money, another coz I have a nagging cough right now, another for my constipation... I mean if the essence of all the practices is Mahamudra why don't I just practice Mahamudra and get it over with?" To which he replies: "But you have no money, you have a nagging cough and constipation, obviously you need to do the deity practice which deals with each of these."
Then I get all bezerk like: "Tommorow is the third day after the waxing moon, so I need to get this torma ready and those tsog substances and..." and he replies: "Why don't you just go do some Mahamudra practice instead, the nature of all the sadhanas is Mahamudra after all."

Get what I mean?

You should totally punch him in the face.

[Grigoris]

I totally love him!

[Dechen Norbu]

Great teacher you have there, I suspect.

[Yontan]

From the Dzogchen perspective, there is no basis for relating to Tara. However, there is plenty of benefit from practicing the visualization, mantra recitation, etc., while also applying dzogchen teachings.

Of course there is, Garab Dorje received the Dzogchen teachings from Vajrasattva. Vajrasattva is a Samboghakaya Buddha just as Tara is. Also, from memory, ChNN says somewhere "Tara is the state of Dzogchen" or something similar.
I think you are confusing your own ideas about the method of Yidam practice and the Samboghakaya. But, if it isn't helpful for your Dzogchen practice to do Tara, why would ChNN teach it?

/magnus

This is the best I can come up with to answer the OP.
When speaking of a relationship to a yidam, "doing Tara practice" before a filled statue, bowls, small cabinets, etc., we are not exercising the dzogchen view any more or less than when we eat oatmeal or go poop. Gathering accumulations and training the mind is very helpful for most of us when we do come to apply the dzogchen view - and I mentioned the benefit - but I wouldn't presume to guess why Norbu Rinpoche does what he does. It seems that PN's OP was looking to clarify uncertainty about how to deal with this statue and shrine in a "dzogchen" way. If we treat our shrine and sacred objects in accord with the general views of inner tantra there's benefit to be gained. Trying to define the dzogchen protocol is just gilding a lilly.
I do hope that helps.

[heart]

From the Dzogchen perspective, there is no basis for relating to Tara. However, there is plenty of benefit from practicing the visualization, mantra recitation, etc., while also applying dzogchen teachings.

Of course there is, Garab Dorje received the Dzogchen teachings from Vajrasattva. Vajrasattva is a Samboghakaya Buddha just as Tara is. Also, from memory, ChNN says somewhere "Tara is the state of Dzogchen" or something similar.
I think you are confusing your own ideas about the method of Yidam practice and the Samboghakaya. But, if it isn't helpful for your Dzogchen practice to do Tara, why would ChNN teach it?

/magnus

This is the best I can come up with to answer the OP.
When speaking of a relationship to a yidam, "doing Tara practice" before a filled statue, bowls, small cabinets, etc., we are not exercising the dzogchen view any more or less than when we eat oatmeal or go poop. Gathering accumulations and training the mind is very helpful for most of us when we do come to apply the dzogchen view - and I mentioned the benefit - but I wouldn't presume to guess why Norbu Rinpoche does what he does. It seems that PN's OP was looking to clarify uncertainty about how to deal with this statue and shrine in a "dzogchen" way. If we treat our shrine and sacred objects in accord with the general views of inner tantra there's benefit to be gained. Trying to define the dzogchen protocol is just gilding a lilly.
I do hope that helps.

The whole Dzogchen teaching comes from the Sambhoghakaya Buddhas so saying "there is no basis for relating to Tara" is completely faulty. Take a little look at ChNN descriptions how he received his termas again. About Yidam practice as a method there is a lot to say but I think it is enough to mention that ChNN always say that the result of Anuyoga is Dzogchen. So even there is a clear connection.

/magnus

[Yontan]

Please do not confuse a literal and out-of-context analysis of my words with what I am trying to say. This is about PN's statue and shrine in the context of the Dzogchen perspective, not at all saying "in the practice of Dzogchen you will never meet Tara," or anythign else absurd like that.

Let's look at this instruction on development stage from the Guhyagarbha Tantra, as quoted by Jigme Lingpa in Ladder to Akanistha, translated in Deity, Mantra and Wisdom:

The deity is you and you are the deity.
You and the deity arise together.
Since samaya and wisdom are nondual,
There is no need to invite the deity,
Nor to request it to take its seat.
Self-emanated and self-empowered,
Awareness itself is the Three Roots.

...and this from Chogyal Norbu, from Cycle of Day and Night:

Here in Dzogchen, the Generation Process and the Perfection Process, that is, the elaborate visualizations of deities and mandalas, as well as the internal esoteric yoga of the channels and energies, and so on, are no longer necessary. The definitive method here in Dzogchen is not that of renunciation or purification or transformation as it is with the Sutras and Tantras, but the path of self-liberation.

I don't particularly want to argue the point, but the OP had a valid question about practice, and it deserves an attempt at an answer.
Hope everyone has a lovely day.
YG

[heart]

Please do not confuse a literal and out-of-context analysis of my words with what I am trying to say. This is about PN's statue and shrine in the context of the Dzogchen perspective, not at all saying "in the practice of Dzogchen you will never meet Tara," or anythign else absurd like that.

So, when you said "from the Dzogchen perspective, there is no basis for relating to Tara" you were not negating ChNN statement that "Tara is the state of Dzogchen"?

/magnus

[Yontan]

You bet.
The natural state of Tara and everything-as-it-is is perfect and complete. Otherwise the path would be useless. When we are completely accustomed to this view, Tara is not separate from anything else, and so there's no statue per se.
But Chogyal was not referring to a statue.

[heart]

You bet.
The natural state of Tara and everything-as-it-is is perfect and complete. Otherwise the path would be useless. When we are completely accustomed to this view, Tara is not separate from anything else, and so there's no statue per se.
But Chogyal was not referring to a statue.

I am not exactly sure what you try to say, but your previous statement is a negation. A statue is a symbol, like a vajra or a painting of a white Ah. Considering the meaning of these symbols the idea of having an altar makes perfect sense and if one have an altar it is a good idea to take care of it. If you don't want an altar it doesn't make you more Dzogchen.

/magnus