The Role of Shamatha/Vipaysana in Dzogchen

Tata1
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Re: The Role of Shamatha/Vipaysana in Dzogchen

Post by Tata1 »

MiphamFan wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 4:54 pm I think the point isn't really that this or that master or practitioner did or didn't learn sutra, tantra, or other practices before they do Dzogchen.

The point is that Dzogchen as a path does not depend on those other practices.

I never really listened to much of Lama Lena's teachings, but yesterday she was telling a story of how her lama asked her to do a Dzogchen retreat as her very first solo retreat. She ran into some obstacles, then he told her, okay, maybe you are really not ready for Dzogchen right now, try doing Vajrakila instead. She then had some results with Vajrakila. IIRC, she said she actually never seriously did a sadhana practice before that.

I believe she was talking about Lama Wangdor.

So it might not be very common, but there are indeed traditional Tibetan teachers besides Chogyal Namkhai Norbu who did encourage their students to try practising Dzogchen right from the beginning, and then use the methods of transformation for supplementary practices.
She also said on other occations that lama wangdor got into tantra late in his life.

If you read blazing splendor you can see how nagchen lamas thought dzogchen to anyone passing by.
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Re: The Role of Shamatha/Vipaysana in Dzogchen

Post by laowhining »

Lingpupa wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 3:48 pm So Vimalamitra WAS practicing Guhyagarbha and Vajrakilaya, but he wasn't REALLY practicing them, so it doesn't count?

Philosophy 101, anyone?
It feels like you’re being willfully obtuse because you have some kind of axe to grind.
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Re: The Role of Shamatha/Vipaysana in Dzogchen

Post by Ati108 »

Lingpupa wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 3:48 pm
Malcolm wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 2:04 pm
yagmort wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 9:56 am even if there are zero deity yogas in Vima Nyingthig, how do we know today it was not intended as strictly dzogchen proper text? -meaning whoever it was who composed Vima Nyinthig wasn't bothered to cover topics which were extensively discussed elsewhere and focused on dzogchen specificly?

are there any specific lines in Vima Nyingthig against Maha- and Anu- practices?

and if yes, then how do we reconsile these with the fact the Vimalamitra himself was Guhyagarbha and Vajrakila lineage holder?

if Vimalamitra did practice both Guhyagarbha and Vajrakilaya the whole notion of masters practicing dzogchen only looks questionable to me.
One must make a distinction between practicing deity yoga as a complete path as opposed to using deity yoga for temporary benefits, like removing obstacles, life extension, and so on. One can use the two stages as a complete path, however that is not the path of Dzogchen proper.

The distinction is between employing sems as the path or ye shes as the path. The former is based on concepts, the latter is based direct perception.
So Vimalamitra WAS practicing Guhyagarbha and Vajrakilaya, but he wasn't REALLY practicing them, so it doesn't count?

Philosophy 101, anyone?
Really practicing? Sure, as secondary methods. Vimalamitra went Rainbow via Dzogchen. There is no other route to this end.
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Re: The Role of Shamatha/Vipaysana in Dzogchen

Post by PeterC »

Lingpupa wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 3:48 pm So Vimalamitra WAS practicing Guhyagarbha and Vajrakilaya, but he wasn't REALLY practicing them, so it doesn't count?

Philosophy 101, anyone?
Come on, you know very well that there’s a difference between someone practicing Kilaya as a complete path (ie the two stages) and someone practicing it to remove obstacles to their main practice.
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Re: The Role of Shamatha/Vipaysana in Dzogchen

Post by yagmort »

Malcolm wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 2:04 pm One can use the two stages as a complete path, however that is not the path of Dzogchen proper.
yes, i make no argument about that, but from i understand both Guhyagarbha and Vajkrakilaya are not just deity yogas to remove obstacles or what not, they are two stages as a complete path and was practices as such by Vimalamitra and besides him there were lots of practitioners who practiced both 2 stages and dzogchen.
PeterC wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 5:24 am Come on, you know very well that there’s a difference between someone practicing Kilaya as a complete path (ie the two stages) and someone practicing it to remove obstacles to their main practice.
yes and to claim Vimalamitra practiced them just to remove obstacles is really belittling.
he was pivotal for transmission of both Guhyagarbha and Vajrakilaya and wrote plenty of texts on Mahayoga. the Guhyagarbha translation done by Vimalamitra, Ma Rinchenchok, and Nyak Jnanakumara is in all editions of Nyingma Gyubum after all

i am not saying i myself adhere to the mixed maha-, anu-, ati- approach. if anything, i would prefer to stick with 7 mind trainings/rushens/tregcho/thogel only as it is my intrinsic proclivity for simplier, more condensed things and i always had a feeling that sadhanas and mantras recitations is not the be-all and end-all, but it is what it is - meaning who can name any practitoner who did it without any sadhana involved? we go circles about this topic but no names have surfaced so far. Wangdor Rinpoche mentioned earlier did his youth training in Drukpa so it is really strange to say he was exposed to tantra later in life..
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Re: The Role of Shamatha/Vipaysana in Dzogchen

Post by Lingpupa »

PeterC wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 5:24 am
Lingpupa wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 3:48 pm So Vimalamitra WAS practicing Guhyagarbha and Vajrakilaya, but he wasn't REALLY practicing them, so it doesn't count?

Philosophy 101, anyone?
Come on, you know very well that there’s a difference between someone practicing Kilaya as a complete path (ie the two stages) and someone practicing it to remove obstacles to their main practice.
Of course I know that. I’m afraid I forgot that in this kind of forum things have to be spelt out very clearly – the context gets overlooked only too easily (and I confess to doing that as much as anyone). So I suppose I should make the effort to clarify.

Way back on page 8 of this thread I estimated that
it's only in certain corners of Internet Buddhism that "dzogchen without sadhana" is given much credence,
and invited those with a different view to
offer references to acknowledged, non-mythical, living dzogchen practitioners who do not and have not practiced extensive sadhana.
Malcolm’s response was an evidence-free assertion that my estimate was wrong, while Zoey85 stated, again without reference, that it was “in the literature”, and later *guessed* that “you can still find them in retreat places and towns in parts of Nepal and India”.

Eventually, maybe a week later, I pointed out that *nobody* had produced any references of the type that I was interested in, and it was therefore clear that if any significan number of “acknowledged, non-mythical, living dzogchen practitioners who do not and have not practiced extensive sadhana” exists at all, they are nevertheless extremely rare. Malcolm’s response to this was a couple of yawn emojis. The modern equivalent, I suppose, to putting your hands over your ears and singing “Naaa-naa na naaa-na”.

Now we get to the crux of the matter. Yagmort pointed out that
Vimalamitra himself was Guhyagarbha and Vajrakila lineage holder,
and that the corollary is that the notion of Vimalamitra as a master practicing dzogchen only, i.e. without sadhana, looks questionable. And it was (here at last is the context) as a counter to THAT point that Malcolm brought in the
distinction between practicing deity yoga as a complete path as opposed to using deity yoga for temporary benefits.
Against a blank background, this distinction, as you say Peter, is entirely straightforward. But Malcolm made it as a direct counter to Yagmort’s doubts. It was made, as the context shows, in an attempt to dismiss Vimalamitra’s expertise in Guhyagarbha and Vajrakila, and to retain him as a standard-bearer for sadhana-free dzogchen. As I put it, an implication that:
Vimalamitra WAS practicing Guhyagarbha and Vajrakilaya, but he wasn't REALLY practicing them, so it doesn't count.
A clear case of an informal fallacy.

(In any case, this assumes that we have reliable historical knowledge of Vimalamitra’s life and private practice, but that is a question for another time and place.)

The conclusion is obvious: sadhana-free dzogchen is essentially a didactic ideal. Theoretically perhaps possible, but the reason for talking about it is to emphasize the fact that the realization of dzogchen is not something produced or manufactured, that it is not the “”result” of accumulating hours and hours of samatha or millions and millions of mantras. Great. It’s just not the way dzogchen as a stream of teaching and practice is generally done in real life.
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Re: The Role of Shamatha/Vipaysana in Dzogchen

Post by PeterC »

yagmort wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 8:29 am
Malcolm wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 2:04 pm One can use the two stages as a complete path, however that is not the path of Dzogchen proper.
yes, i make no argument about that, but from i understand both Guhyagarbha and Vajkrakilaya are not just deity yogas to remove obstacles or what not, they are two stages as a complete path and was practices as such by Vimalamitra and besides him there were lots of practitioners who practiced both 2 stages and dzogchen.
PeterC wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 5:24 am Come on, you know very well that there’s a difference between someone practicing Kilaya as a complete path (ie the two stages) and someone practicing it to remove obstacles to their main practice.
yes and to claim Vimalamitra practiced them just to remove obstacles is really belittling.
he was pivotal for transmission of both Guhyagarbha and Vajrakilaya and wrote plenty of texts on Mahayoga. the Guhyagarbha translation done by Vimalamitra, Ma Rinchenchok, and Nyak Jnanakumara is in all editions of Nyingma Gyubum after all
Please don’t go beyond what I actually said. I was making the general point that the fact someone does a certain deity practice doesn’t mean that was their most important practice. Moreover this is Vimalamitra you’re talking about, it is silly to try to infer too much about how he became realized. There’s also the issue of what was written by vs attributed to him.
i am not saying i myself adhere to the mixed maha-, anu-, ati- approach. if anything, i would prefer to stick with 7 mind trainings/rushens/tregcho/thogel only as it is my intrinsic proclivity for simplier, more condensed things and i always had a feeling that sadhanas and mantras recitations is not the be-all and end-all, but it is what it is - meaning who can name any practitoner who did it without any sadhana involved? we go circles about this topic but no names have surfaced so far. Wangdor Rinpoche mentioned earlier did his youth training in Drukpa so it is really strange to say he was exposed to tantra later in life..
As I mentioned above, if you grew up in Tibet for the past few centuries and were a practitioner, you would almost certainly have done lots of sadhanas. So trying to prove by example is not going to be very helpful.
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Re: The Role of Shamatha/Vipaysana in Dzogchen

Post by PeterC »

Lingpupa wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 9:06 am
(In any case, this assumes that we have reliable historical knowledge of Vimalamitra’s life and private practice, but that is a question for another time and place.)
That we really know very little about Vimalamitra historically, and nothing reliably, does indeed make it difficult to base a discussion on him.
The conclusion is obvious: sadhana-free dzogchen is essentially a didactic ideal. Theoretically perhaps possible, but the reason for talking about it is to emphasize the fact that the realization of dzogchen is not something produced or manufactured, that it is not the “”result” of accumulating hours and hours of samatha or millions and millions of mantras. Great. It’s just not the way dzogchen as a stream of teaching and practice is generally done in real life.
I think it’s more than a didactic ideal.

I completely agree that the way Dzogchen is presented by the vast majority of teachers today and in recent centuries (probably), and practiced, is at the end of a more general structure involving preliminaries, three roots, etc. On that much we can probably all agree.

When you go back to the core texts - the seven treasuries, the seventeen tantras, etc, it is clearly presented as a complete curriculum that does not involve the two stages or their associated preliminaries, but is (if we’re talking mennagde) semdzins/rushens/trekchod/thogal, or other curricula if you’re doing semde or longde.

There are contemporary teachers who have their students practice it in this way. ChNNr is the obvious one but you will find Bonpos who also teach a similar approach (though in a different style). There are other examples. One can quite easily find very good living teachers that don’t require the two stages as an entry route to practicing Dzogchen.

So I think it’s more than a didactic ideal. The interesting question is - so why does everyone end up accumulating lots of mantras? The easiest answer would be - cultural preferences. And that maybe right. The three most practiced terma lineages today are probably the Dudjom ter, chokling ter and LN, and the practice tradition in all of them involves doing lots of sadhanas.

As a person who has, in the past, done lots of sadhanas, I certainly have no issue with it and consider it a perfectly valid and effective path to realization. But if we say it’s a necessary part of the path to realization by practicing Dzogchen, then I think we’re saying something contrary to the most important texts in the Dzogchen canon.
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Re: The Role of Shamatha/Vipaysana in Dzogchen

Post by yagmort »

PeterC wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 9:14 am
Please don’t go beyond what I actually said. I was making the general point that the fact someone does a certain deity practice doesn’t mean that was their most important practice.
well sure, i am not saying that either.

'm saying he practiced those good enough to become key figure in certain mahayoga transmissions.

as i said i would be first in line if current masters will start to teach Vima Nyingthig without any ngondro accumulations, but considering dzogchen forefathers were neckdeep in mahayoga and figures like Togden Orgyen Tenzin who burned through several prostration boards and went rainbow eventually this is unlikley to be happening anytime soon
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Re: The Role of Shamatha/Vipaysana in Dzogchen

Post by PeterC »

yagmort wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 9:38 am
PeterC wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 9:14 am
Please don’t go beyond what I actually said. I was making the general point that the fact someone does a certain deity practice doesn’t mean that was their most important practice.
well sure, i am not saying that either.

'm saying he practiced those good enough to become key figure in certain mahayoga transmissions.

as i said i would be first in line if current masters will start to teach Vima Nyingthig without any ngondro accumulations, but considering dzogchen forefathers were neckdeep in mahayoga and figures like Togden Orgyen Tenzin who burned through several prostration boards and went rainbow eventually this is unlikley to be happening anytime soon
The extent of things that you can receive teachings on without ngondro accumulations might surprise you. I haven’t come across the VN but there’s a huge amount of material of equivalent level and content that is taught on this basis by qualified teachers.
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Re: The Role of Shamatha/Vipaysana in Dzogchen

Post by yagmort »

PeterC wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 9:43 am there’s a huge amount of material of equivalent level and content that is taught on this basis by qualified teachers.
i would be grateful if you could name those teachings and the teachers.
not that it will change much to me cause i already committed to receive chetsun nyingthig from the teacher i trust, but there are plenty of people here who i assume will benefit a lot from this information.
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Re: The Role of Shamatha/Vipaysana in Dzogchen

Post by PeterC »

yagmort wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 9:55 am
PeterC wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 9:43 am there’s a huge amount of material of equivalent level and content that is taught on this basis by qualified teachers.
i would be grateful if you could name those teachings and the teachers.
not that it will change much to me cause i already committed to receive chetsun nyingthig from the teacher i trust, but there are plenty of people here who i assume will benefit a lot from this information.
Like most members of this forum, I respond to PMs but rarely post information about my own teachers in the public forum.

Since the CN has a complete cycle of teachings, you are very fortunate and obviously need nothing else from a practice perspective.
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Re: The Role of Shamatha/Vipaysana in Dzogchen

Post by Zoey85 »

Lingpupa wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 9:06 am
PeterC wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 5:24 am
Lingpupa wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 3:48 pm So Vimalamitra WAS practicing Guhyagarbha and Vajrakilaya, but he wasn't REALLY practicing them, so it doesn't count?

Philosophy 101, anyone?
Come on, you know very well that there’s a difference between someone practicing Kilaya as a complete path (ie the two stages) and someone practicing it to remove obstacles to their main practice.
Of course I know that. I’m afraid I forgot that in this kind of forum things have to be spelt out very clearly – the context gets overlooked only too easily (and I confess to doing that as much as anyone). So I suppose I should make the effort to clarify.

Way back on page 8 of this thread I estimated that
it's only in certain corners of Internet Buddhism that "dzogchen without sadhana" is given much credence,
and invited those with a different view to
offer references to acknowledged, non-mythical, living dzogchen practitioners who do not and have not practiced extensive sadhana.
Malcolm’s response was an evidence-free assertion that my estimate was wrong, while Zoey85 stated, again without reference, that it was “in the literature”, and later *guessed* that “you can still find them in retreat places and towns in parts of Nepal and India”.

Eventually, maybe a week later, I pointed out that *nobody* had produced any references of the type that I was interested in, and it was therefore clear that if any significan number of “acknowledged, non-mythical, living dzogchen practitioners who do not and have not practiced extensive sadhana” exists at all, they are nevertheless extremely rare. Malcolm’s response to this was a couple of yawn emojis. The modern equivalent, I suppose, to putting your hands over your ears and singing “Naaa-naa na naaa-na”.

Now we get to the crux of the matter. Yagmort pointed out that
Vimalamitra himself was Guhyagarbha and Vajrakila lineage holder,
and that the corollary is that the notion of Vimalamitra as a master practicing dzogchen only, i.e. without sadhana, looks questionable. And it was (here at last is the context) as a counter to THAT point that Malcolm brought in the
distinction between practicing deity yoga as a complete path as opposed to using deity yoga for temporary benefits.
Against a blank background, this distinction, as you say Peter, is entirely straightforward. But Malcolm made it as a direct counter to Yagmort’s doubts. It was made, as the context shows, in an attempt to dismiss Vimalamitra’s expertise in Guhyagarbha and Vajrakila, and to retain him as a standard-bearer for sadhana-free dzogchen. As I put it, an implication that:
Vimalamitra WAS practicing Guhyagarbha and Vajrakilaya, but he wasn't REALLY practicing them, so it doesn't count.
A clear case of an informal fallacy.

(In any case, this assumes that we have reliable historical knowledge of Vimalamitra’s life and private practice, but that is a question for another time and place.)

The conclusion is obvious: sadhana-free dzogchen is essentially a didactic ideal. Theoretically perhaps possible, but the reason for talking about it is to emphasize the fact that the realization of dzogchen is not something produced or manufactured, that it is not the “”result” of accumulating hours and hours of samatha or millions and millions of mantras. Great. It’s just not the way dzogchen as a stream of teaching and practice is generally done in real life.
Really? Are you sure about that? WTF then do you suppose is meant by the injunction in the literature to give up all outer and inner activities and remain like a mute?
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Re: The Role of Shamatha/Vipaysana in Dzogchen

Post by yagmort »

PeterC wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 12:12 pm ...rarely post information about my own teachers in the public forum.
i see your point, but i wasn't really asking about your teachers or anything connected to you specifically..
i guess you could've mentioned just teachings and the teachers without making any connections to yourself, but now if you do so people will think you're talking about your teachers.. )
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Re: The Role of Shamatha/Vipaysana in Dzogchen

Post by treehuggingoctopus »

PeterC wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 9:36 am
Lingpupa wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 9:06 am
(In any case, this assumes that we have reliable historical knowledge of Vimalamitra’s life and private practice, but that is a question for another time and place.)
That we really know very little about Vimalamitra historically, and nothing reliably, does indeed make it difficult to base a discussion on him.
The conclusion is obvious: sadhana-free dzogchen is essentially a didactic ideal. Theoretically perhaps possible, but the reason for talking about it is to emphasize the fact that the realization of dzogchen is not something produced or manufactured, that it is not the “”result” of accumulating hours and hours of samatha or millions and millions of mantras. Great. It’s just not the way dzogchen as a stream of teaching and practice is generally done in real life.
I think it’s more than a didactic ideal.
My takeway lesson after all these years is that there really are many ways to teach it, and the differences can be major. A crux is what you actually need to experientially know in order to start Dzogchen. Some teachers insist that you need a major breakthrough (certainty regarding the view, etc) in order to begin -- anything less is not good enough, and here the preliminaries, sadhanas, etc. enter. Some teachers say that certainty regarding the view cannot be the starting point for trekcho since the aim of trekcho is certainty regarding the view (I am quoting, pretty much), and thus ngondro, yidam yoga etc may become less focal -- but not necessarily have to, actually. (ChNN would tell both stories at different times.)

However that tension is resolved, I have yet to meet a Nyingma teacher who would not present whatever they teach in the context of Dzogchen, which is always the guiding framework: Whatever they teach, they teach in order to enable/facilitate trekcho practice (and then togal, etc.). The major initiations contain liberating instructions and feature often extensive Dzogchen explanations.

DW is somewhat unique in that it keeps returning to the argument about Dzogchen being or not being an entirely standalone path, intrinsically separate from tantra; two different worlds that may or may not be merged, at user's discretion. I have never heard it phrased exactly like that by any teacher, to be honest. Even the ones who often teach Dzogchen qua Dzogchen (including Bon lamas) will not use these words. When ChNN taught Longsal sadhanas, he did so because he thought they can both help one discover the state and help one develop one's Dzogchen practice, as he often said -- so no real separation here.

Does that mean one can practice Dzogchen and never ever touch tantra? Well, ChNN also taught us to do puja regularly, and he never forgot to transmit the so-called secondary practices (which of course become primary if one can combine them with moments of resting in the state). There are teachers, such as James Low or some Bon lamas, who very rarely teach tantra (James changed this recently, btw). They do practice tantra themselves, though. I think the row about Dzogchen being or not being a completely standalone path is mostly semantics, tbh. But can one skip tantra entirely, and do just Dzogchen? But why are we asking -- is it just mere curiosity, or is there a practical, practice-related reason (another good question would be, why one would want or need to do that?) In the end one just follows the advice of one's teacher(s), after all...
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Re: The Role of Shamatha/Vipaysana in Dzogchen

Post by Lingpupa »

Zoey85 wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 1:15 pm Really? Are you sure about that? WTF then do you suppose is meant by the injunction in the literature to give up all outer and inner activities and remain like a mute?
What I suppose is exactly what I already said. It's a didactic ideal. A theoretical possibility. Useful to bear in mind that it is possible, rarely encountered in real life. But I already said that.

Also perhaps an approach to take at some phase of an extremely close retreat. How many of us here, I wonder, are in such a retreat?
Last edited by Lingpupa on Mon Jun 05, 2023 2:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Role of Shamatha/Vipaysana in Dzogchen

Post by Malcolm »

Lingpupa wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 3:48 pm
Malcolm wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 2:04 pm
yagmort wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 9:56 am even if there are zero deity yogas in Vima Nyingthig, how do we know today it was not intended as strictly dzogchen proper text? -meaning whoever it was who composed Vima Nyinthig wasn't bothered to cover topics which were extensively discussed elsewhere and focused on dzogchen specificly?

are there any specific lines in Vima Nyingthig against Maha- and Anu- practices?

and if yes, then how do we reconsile these with the fact the Vimalamitra himself was Guhyagarbha and Vajrakila lineage holder?

if Vimalamitra did practice both Guhyagarbha and Vajrakilaya the whole notion of masters practicing dzogchen only looks questionable to me.
One must make a distinction between practicing deity yoga as a complete path as opposed to using deity yoga for temporary benefits, like removing obstacles, life extension, and so on. One can use the two stages as a complete path, however that is not the path of Dzogchen proper.

The distinction is between employing sems as the path or ye shes as the path. The former is based on concepts, the latter is based direct perception.
So Vimalamitra WAS practicing Guhyagarbha and Vajrakilaya, but he wasn't REALLY practicing them, so it doesn't count?

Philosophy 101, anyone?
Many teachers maintain lineages they don’t primarily practice because they contain important teachings. For example, Guhyagarbha has an important chapter on Dzogchen, chapter 13. That does not mean that Vimalamitra’s path was Guhyagarbha. Vimalamitra primarily spent his time practicing rushen, trekcho, and thogal.

There are also lineages of Yamantaka, Zhitro, etc., that descend from Garab Dorje, but he wasn’t practicing these. He didn’t need to.
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Re: The Role of Shamatha/Vipaysana in Dzogchen

Post by Malcolm »

treehuggingoctopus wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 1:41 pm
DW is somewhat unique in that it keeps returning to the argument about Dzogchen being or not being an entirely standalone path, intrinsically separate from tantra; two different worlds that may or may not be merged, at user's discretion. I have never heard it phrased exactly like that by any teacher, to be honest. Even the ones who often teach Dzogchen qua Dzogchen (including Bon lamas) will not use these words. When ChNN taught Longsal sadhanas, he did so because he thought they can both help one discover the state and help one develop one's Dzogchen practice, as he often said -- so no real separation here.

Does that mean one can practice Dzogchen and never ever touch tantra? Well, ChNN also taught us to do puja regularly, and he never forgot to transmit the so-called secondary practices (which of course become primary if one can combine them with moments of resting in the state). There are teachers, such as James Low or some Bon lamas, who very rarely teach tantra (James changed this recently, btw). They do practice tantra themselves, though. I think the row about Dzogchen being or not being a completely standalone path is mostly semantics, tbh. But can one skip tantra entirely, and do just Dzogchen? But why are we asking -- is it just mere curiosity, or is there a practical, practice-related reason (another good question would be, why one would want or need to do that?) In the end one just follows the advice of one's teacher(s), after all...
ChNN made it quite clear that Dzogchen was a stand alone path, not an add on to Vajrayana. He never taught pujas as absolute requirements or samayas. He did, as you say, teach many Dzogchen adjacent cycles, as supports, in keeping with Manjushrimitra’s observation that there is also an indirect path of dzogchen through symbols. But he always maintained Dzogchen is an independent vehicle, entirely self-sufficient and complete, like the other nine yanas.
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Re: The Role of Shamatha/Vipaysana in Dzogchen

Post by Zoey85 »

treehuggingoctopus wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 1:41 pm
PeterC wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 9:36 am
Lingpupa wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 9:06 am
(In any case, this assumes that we have reliable historical knowledge of Vimalamitra’s life and private practice, but that is a question for another time and place.)
That we really know very little about Vimalamitra historically, and nothing reliably, does indeed make it difficult to base a discussion on him.
The conclusion is obvious: sadhana-free dzogchen is essentially a didactic ideal. Theoretically perhaps possible, but the reason for talking about it is to emphasize the fact that the realization of dzogchen is not something produced or manufactured, that it is not the “”result” of accumulating hours and hours of samatha or millions and millions of mantras. Great. It’s just not the way dzogchen as a stream of teaching and practice is generally done in real life.
I think it’s more than a didactic ideal.
why are we asking -- is it just mere curiosity, or is there a practical, practice-related reason
Let's hope so. Otherwise, why are we even talking about it?...
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Re: The Role of Shamatha/Vipaysana in Dzogchen

Post by treehuggingoctopus »

Zoey85 wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 2:28 pm
treehuggingoctopus wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 1:41 pm
PeterC wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 9:36 am

That we really know very little about Vimalamitra historically, and nothing reliably, does indeed make it difficult to base a discussion on him.



I think it’s more than a didactic ideal.
why are we asking -- is it just mere curiosity, or is there a practical, practice-related reason
Let's hope so. Otherwise, why are we even talking about it?...
Well, when we talk about what Vimalamitra practiced, I guess we are not seeking to solve a personal practice-related issue. Which, in any case, we should be solving by talking to our teacher.
Générosité de l’invisible.
Notre gratitude est infinie.
Le critère est l’hospitalité.

Edmond Jabès
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