Dharma practice is a placebo.

[muni]

We possibly can think that buddhism is something solid we need to add on our solid being, which than becomes better.......
Seeing clear in this, since all is already perfect, 'we' are grasping, suffering by our ideation; modelating in preferences, in rejections and so on..


"This might shock you, shock many of you. I think Buddhism, the whole Dharma practice, is a placebo. You know placebo? Placebo. Placebo is a pill, it is a fake, it is not a medicine. Sometimes you give it to someone saying that this will work. And they eat and they think it works. Whole Buddhism is that. And Buddha said so. It is not that as if I am making it up actually.

Buddha said that. The path, it’s a deception but it’s a necessary deception. It is a necessary deception. Let’s say you and I are in the dessert. You are very thirsty. Everywhere you look you see mirage and you think it is a water. And you say you really want to go to this water. Now I have been to the desert and I know you are hallucinating. Now I can be very unskilled, little bit of compassion but no skillful means, no wisdom. And then I can tell you: “Hey you shut up, this is not a water, this is a mirage.” That is not going to help you.

So if I am a compassionate, skillful, then I might say: Yes. Even so knowing that this is not true. Because I know that you will not hear me saying this is not water. I will have to say: “Yeah, let’s go.” I might even go with you. And as we get closer you yourself will see it is a fake. And this is what we call skillful means of the Buddha. There is a thousands of that. How many? Eighty four thousands placebos".
http://justdzongsar.wordpress.com/2010/ ... a-placebo/

[Paul]

I knew that would be Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche the moment I read that statement.

[gregkavarnos]

Over at the blogsite I posted the following reply:

The practice is a placebo, but is the fruit of the practice also non-existent? Well at the ultimate level: yes! But if following the Noble Eightfold Path has as its result the fruit of social cohesion, then the placebo suddenly has become a medicine capable of curing the relative ills of social disorder. Even a placebo has the power to cure. A medicine is defined by its capacity to cure. A placebo that cures becomes a medicine. 84,000 placebo, 84,000 medicines!

You see, I imagine, that if the entire talk was posted, that Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche was commenting in regards to the ultimate truth. Once again, as evidenced by the posts in this thread, people blind themselves to relative reality and relative truth. Like ignoring heads in preference for tails! Two truths people! Two truths!

[Clarence]

I knew that would be Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche the moment I read that statement.

Me too. I always wonder whether he doesn't get tired of trying to be provocative. To me, it doesn't seem spontaneous but rather contrived. That said, I read his Ngondro commentary in Cortland Dahl's Entrance to the Great Perfection and even though I was very impressed I always have the feeling he is just pandering to a certain audience. He is over 50 so he is not a young Lama anymore and I think he would be more inspiring (and inspire more people) if he would follow Mingyur RInpoche's example, give up everything and just practice.

[muni]

Over at the blogsite I posted the following reply:

The practice is a placebo, but is the fruit of the practice also non-existent? Well at the ultimate level: yes! But if following the Noble Eightfold Path has as its result the fruit of social cohesion, then the placebo suddenly has become a medicine capable of curing the relative ills of social disorder. Even a placebo has the power to cure. A medicine is defined by its capacity to cure. A placebo that cures becomes a medicine. 84,000 placebo, 84,000 medicines!

You see, I imagine, that if the entire talk was posted, that Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche was commenting in regards to the ultimate truth. Once again, as evidenced by the posts in this thread, people blind themselves to relative reality and relative truth. Like ignoring heads in preference for tails! Two truths people! Two truths!

In ultimate truth, where is conventional truth?

There are no extremes. Dependently arising appearances inseparable from emptiness.
Placebo.

[gregkavarnos]

In ultimate truth, where is conventional truth?

Have you ever seen a one sided coin in your life?

[muni]

In ultimate truth, where is conventional truth?

Have you ever seen a one sided coin in your life?

This example is a very good one.
As merely eyes -mind cannot see 'the sides' at once, while appaerances-voidness cannot be recognized apart.

[Andrew108]

DKR is superb. I love him. We all do right? who couldn't love him?
The causal vehicles are placebos - it takes awhile to realize but yep Buddhism is placebo all the way up to but not including Dzogchen and Mahamudra.

[Dechen Norbu]

Illusions to cut through illusion.

[Dechen Norbu]

DKR is superb. I love him. We all do right? who couldn't love him?
The causal vehicles are placebos - it takes awhile to realize but yep Buddhism is placebo all the way up to but not including Dzogchen and Mahamudra.

Well, the intellectual explanations, engaging and developing practice while still afflicted by karmic vision perhaps can be considered placebos in the sense DKR is using the word, not the actual meaning for placebo. If you are poisoned and take a placebo you'll die the same. The metaphor is funny, but shouldn't be abused.
DKR is presenting something widely known in a funny different language. Buddhadharma pertains to samvriti satya while Sadharma is paramartha satya.

[Andrew108]

Skillful means = path of necessary deception.This is the point DKR is making. The path is not the ultimate point. It's as delusive as anything else.
I think this is why it's important to keep questioning. To not get stuck with just skillful means. What does it mean 'to be stuck with skillful means'? It means that the result is thought into existence. We think our realization into being as a causal result of the path. But if the path is false then the result is false. Right?

[Dechen Norbu]

Another way to put it is to get stuck looking at the finger instead of looking where it is pointing, the moon.
The way is practice. Lot's of practice and good teacher to access our state and see if we are doing fine. Theory corrects practice that allows understanding what theory is saying, as in a cycle with a positive feedback.

Let me give an example. Imagine we are talking about the difference between the taste of sugar coming from a cane or from a sugar-beet. If you tasted both, a lot of things said about this make sense, but will be subtle even to those who tasted sugar. Now imagine having such conversation with someone who never tasted sweet.
The way I see it, theory prevents us from getting stuck with temporary experiences, taking them for what they aren't. It helps overcoming obstacles that arise along the path and so on.

[Dechen Norbu]

According to Dzogchen, yes, it's not a result that can be caused.
This doesn't mean however that we do nothing (I'm not saying you hinted this or anything like that).
Imagine you are dreaming and if you perform certain dream actions you wake up, while if you perform others you don't and keep dreaming. Can you say that those actions that allowed to to wake up were real? However they were real experiences, but in terms of ontology they aren't any more real that those actions that kept dreaming. More important, can we say that those unreal actions caused your waking state or allowed you to discover it? I think the second is more correct. They didn't cause the awaken state. They just allowed you to realize it. While you were dreaming you took your own projections as real. In your dream your universe could be as large and as old as you can possible conceive. It can be as solid too. And while dreaming one hundred dream years might have passed. Once you wake up you realize all those entities were projected by yourself. This is a metaphor, so it has shortcomings (some really noteworthy like the fact that nobody else shares your dream) and doesn't translate reality, but I find it useful somehow.

[gregkavarnos]

Yes, well, except that this is in the Nyingma forum and not the Dzogchen forum.

[Dechen Norbu]

Humorously, maybe it can be said that Dzogchen is to Nyingmapas what Mahamudra is to the Kagyupas, so I don't see the problem...

[gregkavarnos]

Well, the "problem" is mainly regarding the Vajrayana view of the two truths. It is not 100% compatible with that of Dzogchen, wouldn't you agree?

[Dechen Norbu]

Well, but Dzogchen is the apex of Nyingma...

[muni]

No problem.

"we" who try to see our nature, while those "we" are artificial fabrication...those "we" can use placebo.

"Nature always is perfect, but temporary obscured by adventitious bias, distortions". (Maitreya)

Thank you for the reflections.

[deepbluehum]

DKR is superb. I love him. We all do right? who couldn't love him?

I'm not a fan.

The causal vehicles are placebos - it takes awhile to realize but yep Buddhism is placebo all the way up to but not including Dzogchen and Mahamudra.

How do you know?

[Andrew108]

How do I know? Or what is it that I know?
Well...lets say that if you practice now in the hope for a future payoff then your dharma practice is a placebo. If you practice now based on what you have understood in the past then your dharma practice is a placebo. If you hope for liberation or see yourself as inadequate then your dharma practice is a placebo. In terms of the present moment - if you want to transform what you have now then your dharma practice is a placebo. If you think the present moment is not there and use emptiness as an antidote then your dharma practice is a placebo. If you think this shining moment of awareness is 'me' then your dharma practice is a placebo.
If you let go of dharma practice - let go of the idea of achieving - let go of the idea of salvation then dharma practice is genuine. if you see the ever fresh present moment as always unique - 'hyper-unique' -then you understand what 'unborn' means. When you want to drag things out or extent the experience then you are using dharma as a placebo.
If you think rainbows are real then you are using the dharma as a placebo. If you understand that this ever fresh unique moment of awareness is all you have ever had or will ever have and that even this has no solidity or base - then the dharma has hit the spot. When you get tired doing dharma practice or feel like you have to make an effort then then your dharma practice isa placebo. When dharma delights and is effortless - then this is genuine dharma
There are obvious limits when we are using words and I don't wish to appear as arrogant, but when a practitioner makes a distinction between genuine dharma and relative dharma then they are really doing well.