Emptiness Teachings Primer

It seems many, if not most, in my groups have very little experience or familiarity with the Buddhist Emptiness Teachings. Due to this, many of my posts and comments must seem bizarre and nihilistic; not so. These powerful teachings, especially “Prasangika”, are really complete paths in themselves. So perhaps everyone could engage with these texts below, and ask questions as needed.

Khenpo Tsultrim Gyatso:

“Emptiness ultimately means that genuine reality is empty of any conceptual fabrication that could attempt to describe what it is.”

“Emptiness does not mean complete nothingness, it means dependent origination. Emptiness and dependent arising have the same meaning.”

Twofold Emptiness Explained

The first fold is "emptiness of self":

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding regarding the question of selfhood and whether a personal, individual self of any kind actually exists. Some think there is a personal self that underlies the fictional self, which is only a conceptual construction. This is the view of an "atman" or "self-soul" that the Buddha thoroughly refuted. The so called conventional self can't be found to exist within the body-mind nor outside the body-mind. That leaves no other option for its existence except within imagination.

In a dark room, a rope may be mistaken to be a snake, along with all the descriptions about snakes that the mind contains. We feel anxiety, fear and our adrenalin and blood pressures go up, as well as heart beat.

But if we look closely at the rope in brighter light, we won't be able to find a snake within the rope, or upon the rope, nor outside of the rope. That leaves only the imagination as its residence. It's the same regarding our snake-self. Our body-mind is like the rope. The mind infers a self as a personal "me" upon and within the body-mind in the darkness of confused mental functioning. We have real feelings felt about this imaginary "me" that create moods, altered bio-chemistry and sense of a "suffering me". But if we introspectively look within our mental events, we won't find a "me" anywhere; not in the body, not in the mind; we only find thoughts and feelings ABOUT a self, but no self is discovered. Then the lights go on and suddenly the subconscious mind ceases to generate the mistaken "me" belief. The personal self or "me" was no more real than the imaginary snake! There is no "liberation or enlightenment" beyond this direct insight and cessation of this cognitive error, and none without it. Read this below.

Khenpo Tsulstrim Gyatso:

"When we realize the selflessness of the individual, however, this whole process stops. The wrong views that have their root in the belief in self cease, then the mental afflictions cease, then karmic actions cease, and as a result of that, birth in samsara’s cycle of existence ceases."
Khenpo Tsulstrim Gyamtso

"We can formulate the following logical reasoning: Karmic actions and results are mere appearances devoid of true existence, because no self, no actor, exists to perform them. This is a valid way to put things because if the self of the individual does not exist, there cannot be any action, and therefore there cannot be any result of any action either."
Khenpo Tsulstrim Gyamtso

"Someone might ask, “Isn’t it nihilistic to think that karmic actions and their results do not exist?” In fact, this is not a nihilistic view because there exists no self to have any nihilistic view. There can be a nihilistic view only if there is someone to hold it, but since there is no one to have any view, then there can be no nihilism. Furthermore, since the thought of nihilism neither arises nor abides nor ceases, there can be no nihilism in genuine reality. Genuine reality transcends the conceptual fabrications of realism and nihilism. It transcends karmic actions and results, and the absence of karmic actions and results as well. If karmic actions and their results do not exist in the abiding nature of reality, then what is the quality of their appearance?

Nagarjuna describes this in the chapter’s thirty-third verse:

Mental afflictions, actions, and bodies, as well as actors and results, are like cities of imaginary beings, like mirages, and like dreams."
Khenpo Tsulstrim Gyatso

"Some people might argue, “There are yogis and yoginis who realize selflessness, and this proves that the self really does exist after all, or else who would be the ones who possessed this realization?”

Nagarjuna answers this claim in the third verse:

"The ones who do not cling to “me” or “mine” do not exist either. Those who do not cling to “me” or “mine” see accurately, So they do not see a self."
Khenpo Tsulstrim

The second "fold" is "emptiness of all objectively existing things":

In the Sutra Requested by Madröpa, the Buddha said:

Whatever arises from conditions does not arise. It does not have the nature of arising. Whatever depends on conditions is explained to be empty, And to know emptiness is the way to be conscientious.

IN THIS CHAPTER, Nagarjuna explains the meaning of this passage and proves its validity with logical reasoning. The reason Nagarjuna composed this chapter was that people believe that causal conditions are real. As a result of that, they believe that things really happen. They believe that arising is real. When they believe that, it is difficult for them to believe in emptiness and to gain confidence that all phenomena are empty of inherent existence. However, in order to understand the true nature of reality, we must realize that nothing ever really happens. We must realize that arising and birth are not real. Therefore, Nagarjuna analyzes causes, conditions, and arising, and he proves that they are in fact empty of any inherent nature.

Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso

“Whatever object we analyze, we find that it is merely imputed to exist in dependence upon its parts. Analyzing the parts themselves, we find that they too are imputed to exist in dependence upon their own parts. Down to the subtlest particles of matter imaginable, nothing has any type of existence other than as a mere dependent imputation. Therefore, since there really is no object out there, no reference point for any notions of pleasant or unpleasant, pleasant and unpleasant themselves cannot exist. This is what Nagarjuna teaches in the ninth verse:
How could it be possible for sentient beings who are like illusions or objects that are like reflections, be either pleasant or unpleasant?”

“Nirvana does not truly exist because when we analyze, we cannot find anything or anyone that can actually attain it.”

“IN THIS CHAPTER, Nagarjuna explains the meaning of this passage and proves its validity with logical reasoning. The reason Nagarjuna composed this chapter was that people believe that causal conditions are real. As a result of that, they believe that things really happen. They believe that arising is real. When they believe that, it is difficult for them to believe in emptiness and to gain confidence that all phenomena are empty of inherent existence. However, in order to understand the true nature of reality, we must realize that nothing ever really happens. We must realize that arising and birth are not real. Therefore, Nagarjuna analyzes causes, conditions, and arising, and he proves that they are in fact empty of any inherent nature.”

“We can formulate the following logical reasoning: Karmic actions and results are mere appearances devoid of true existence, because no self, no actor, exists to perform them. This is a valid way to put things because if the self of the individual does not exist, there cannot be any action, and therefore there cannot be any result of any action either.”

Milarepa:
“There is no karmic act, no maturation, so even the name “samsara” does not exist.”

“Someone might ask, “Isn’t it nihilistic to think that karmic actions and their results do not exist?” In fact, this is not a nihilistic view because there exists no self to have any nihilistic view. There can be a nihilistic view only if there is someone to hold it, but since there is no one to have any view, then there can be no nihilism. Furthermore, since the thought of nihilism neither arises nor abides nor ceases, there can be no nihilism in genuine reality. Genuine reality transcends the conceptual fabrications of realism and nihilism. It transcends karmic actions and results, and the absence of karmic actions and results as well. If karmic actions and their results do not exist in the abiding nature of reality, then what is the quality of their appearance? Nagarjuna describes this in the chapter’s thirty-third verse: Mental afflictions, actions, and bodies, As well as actors and results, are like cities of gandharvas, like amirages, and like dreams. This verse teaches us that karmic actions and their results do not genuinely exist; they are mere conventions, mere superficial appearances, like cities of gandharvas, mirages, and dreams. Thus, even though actors and actions do not genuinely exist, in apparent reality they do exist as dependently arisen mere appearances. So you do not need to worry or be afraid of reality being nothingness. Reality is appearance and emptiness undifferentiable, and this appearance-emptiness is open, spacious, and relaxed.”

“The Heart of Wisdom Sutra teaches: There is no ignorance nor any ending of ignorance, no aging and death nor any ending of aging and death.”

“Milarepa sang: No meditator and no meditated, No paths and levels traveled and no signs, And no fruition bodies and no wisdoms, And therefore there is no nirvana there,
Just designations using names and statements.”

“This whole passage is a logical reasoning that progresses in stages. First, Milarepa sang that there is no meditator. There is no meditator because there is no self. If there is no meditator, there cannot be any object of meditation, and if there is no object of meditation, there cannot be any path or any signs of progress on the path. If there is no path, there cannot be any fruition at the end of the path in the form of the fruition bodies and wisdoms. If there are no fruition bodies or wisdoms, there is no such thing as nirvana.”

“Since samsara is just a dependently arisen appearance, it is naturally open, spacious, and relaxed. Therefore, we do not have to cleanse ourselves of samsara, only of our thoughts that samsara truly exists.”

“Furthermore, whatever arises in dependence upon causes and conditions does not truly arise. One way to understand this is to see that it is not the case that just one single cause or one single condition can bring something into existence, but rather, that many causes and conditions must come together for any one particular result to arise. Thus, if we look at any particular result and first see that it requires a number of causes and conditions to come together to produce it, we can then look at those causes and conditions and see that each one of them as well requires an incredible number of causes and conditions to cause it to arise. We can go back and back and get to even the most subtle causes and conditions, and we find that these too do not exist independently, but rather can only exist in dependence upon a multitude of their own causes and conditions. Then we realize that nothing exists independently with a nature of its own, that there is nothing truly there. Everything is like a dream and an illusion. The same can be said for all of the thoughts that arise in our minds, whether they are good thoughts, bad thoughts, or neutral ones. There is not a single thought that can arise on its own, that can decide to come to existence and then be born. Thoughts can arise only when many causes and conditions come together to produce them. Since these causes and conditions also exist only in dependence upon their own causes and conditions, and those causes and conditions themselves need their own causes and conditions in order to arise, and on and on, all of them are empty of inherent existence. The arising of thoughts is therefore empty of any inherent nature.”

“Along these lines, in his song No Birth, No Base, and Union, the lord of yogis Milarepa sang: The true nature of appearances is that they’ve never been born. If birth seems to happen, it’s just clinging, nothing more. The spinning wheel of existence has neither a base nor a root. If there is a base or root, that’s only a thought.”

“If there is no “me” in the first place, How could there be anything that belongs to me?”

From Nagarjuna:

“CHAPTER 17: AN EXAMINATION OF KARMIC ACTIONS AND RESULT:

Mental afflictions, actions, and bodies, as well as actors and results, are like imaginary cities of gandharvas, like mirages, and like dreams.”

“Similarly, sentient beings are not bound and do not become free.”

“CHAPTER 9: AN EXAMINATION OF WHAT COMES FIRST
The one who experiences perceptions does not exist before, during, or after the experiences of seeing and so forth. Knowing this, all thoughts of an experiencer of perceptions either existing or not existing are over-turned.”

“In Chandrakirti’s text Entering the Middle Way, he explains, “The present does not abide; the past and the future do not exist.”

“Analyzing in this way makes it clear that the three times do not truly exist, that time is just a creation of our thoughts.”

“CHAPTER 7: AN EXAMINATION OF THE COMPOSITE
Arising, abiding, and ceasing do not exist, and therefore there are no composite things.”

Khenpo Tsultrim Gyatso:

“The Heart of Wisdom Sutra teaches:
All phenomena are emptiness: They have no characteristics, no birth, no cessation, no stains, no freedom from stains, no decrease, and no increase.”

“Nagarjuna wrote this chapter to explain how it is that views themselves do not exist.”

From Sri Lankan Master Niyananda:

"If, for instance, a whirlpool in the ocean comes to cease, can one ask where the whirlpool has gone? It will be like asking where an extinguished fire has gone. One might say that the vortex has 'joined' the ocean. But that, too, would not be a proper statement to make. From the very outset what in fact was there was the great ocean, so one cannot say that the vortex has gone somewhere, nor can one say that it is not gone. It is also incorrect to say that it has joined the ocean.

A cessation of a whirlpool gives rise to such a problematic situation. What, in short, does it amount to? The vortex ceased and now 'became' the great ocean itself? That is the misunderstood significance of the comparison of the emancipated one to the great ocean.

The commentators do not seem to have paid sufficient attention to the implications of this simile. But when one thinks of the relation between the whirlpool and the ocean, it is as if the realized practitioner has become one with the ocean. But this is only a mis-turn of speech.

In reality, the whirlpool is merely a certain momentary state of the ocean itself. That momentary state (a personal self) is now no more. It has ceased. It is because of that momentary altered state and its whirling self-grasping that there was a manifestation of suffering (and the personal self).

The cessation of suffering could therefore be compared to the cessation of the whirlpool, leaving only the great ocean as it is.

Only so long as there is a whirling vortex (conceptualizing mind) can we point out a 'here' and a 'there'. In the vast ocean, boundless as it is, where there is a whirlpool, or an eddy, we can point it out with a 'here' or a 'there'.

Even so, in the case of the saṃsāric individual, as long as the whirling round is going on in the form of the mental vortex, there is a possibility of designation or naming as 'so-and-so' (identity). But once the mental vortex has ceased, there is actually nothing to identify with, for purposes of (personal) designation. The most one can say about it, is to refer to it as the place where a vortex has ceased.

Such is the case with a Buddha too. Freedom from duality is the cessation of the vortex itself (the conceptualizing mind and it's imaginary self).

We have explained on a previous occasion how a whirlpool or vortex comes to be. A current of water, trying to go against the mainstream, when its attempt is foiled, in clashing with the mainstream, gets thrown off and pushed back, but turns round to go whirling and whirling as a whirlpool. This is not the norm. This is something abnormal. Here is a distortion resulting from an (the egoic mind) attempt to do the impossible (to survive as a self). This is how a thing called 'a vortex' (samsaric mind and self) comes to be."

"Yā c' eva kho pana ajjhattikā paṭhavidhātu, yā ca bāhirā paṭhavidhātu, paṭhavidhātur ev' esā. Taṃ n' etaṃ mama, n' eso 'haṃ asmi, na meso attā 'ti evam etaṃ yathābhūtaṃ sammappaññāya daṭṭhabbaṃ."(from the Buddha)

"Now whatever earth element that is internal, and whatever earth element that is external, both are simply earth element. That should be seen as it is with right wisdom thus: 'this is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.'"

The implication is that this so-called individual, or person, is in fact a vortex, formed out of the same kind of primary elements that obtain outside of it. So then, the whole idea of an individual or a person is a mere momentary self-illusion. The notion of individuality existing in beings is comparable to the apparent individuality of a whirlpool in a stream. It is only a pretence. That is why it is called asmimāna, the conceit 'I am'. In truth and fact, it is only a conceit.”

Prasangika from Gen Lamrimpa:

"The entire universe and everything in it is conceptually designated."

"We say that phenomena are established by the power of conceptual designation."

"Since phenomena do not exist inherently, they must exist conventionally. And since phenomena are established by the power of convention, they exist in a dependent fashion. Phenomena are dependent upon something else; in particular, they are dependent upon conceptual designation."

"There are a number of Buddhist scriptures that make this point. For example, there are sutras that say phenomena are established by conception. Also, Nagarjuna’s writings say that phenomena are established by thought, and Aryadeva makes the same point. All these Buddhist writings say that phenomena are established by convention, and what they mean here is that they are conceptually designated."

"This is an assertion unique to the Prasangika Madhyamaka view. All four Buddhist philosophical systems affirm that phenomena are dependent upon the collection of their preceding causes and conditions. But apart from the Prasangika system, the other Buddhist philosophical systems do not assert that phenomena are established by conception. Advocates of those other systems are not able to comprehend this point."

"Nagarjuna comments that total emptiness, or universal emptiness, remains upon the complete cessation of all appearances of conventional reality. In the absence of all conventional appearances, that emptiness can be called “the clear light of the fourth occasion.” The Buddhist scholar Sangye Yeshe states that this mind of clear light pervades all of space. This indicates the essential nature, or the mode of being, of the awareness (rigpa)."

"We can ask this question in relation to the “I.” How does the “I” exist? First of all, the “I” does not exist except as a conceptual or verbal designation. Apart from that, the “I” has no other mode of existence."
(Translated from Tibetan by B. Allan Wallace)

“For example, someone may think, “Well, the Buddha died, so the Buddha is not here now. The Buddha does not exist now because the Buddha is impermanent.” If someone thinks like that, then the explanation to give is that the dharmakaya of natural purity is permanent and unchanging. The dharmakaya of natural purity is nothing other than the Buddha, and therefore the Buddha is permanent. The Buddha is precisely the natural purity of reality’s basic essence, which never ceases to exist.”

“If you study these reasonings presented in The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, when you receive Mahamudra and Dzogchen explanations of emptiness and lack of inherent reality, you will already be familiar with what is being taught and so you will not need to learn anything new.”

co říkáte na toto?

Buddhism made EXTREMELY simple – David Leon
https://davidleon.blog/2020/09/29/buddhism-made-extremely-simple/

The Doors of Liberation

No self, no form, no goal: Thich Nhat Hanh on the truth we’re distracting ourselves from.

The Doors of Liberation - Lion's Roar
https://www.lionsroar.com/the-doors-of-liberation-may-2014/

If you are running after nirvana, you should know that nirvana is already there in yourself and in everything. If you are running after the Buddha, be aware that the Buddha is already in you. If you are seeking happiness, be aware that happiness is available in the here and now.

The Practice of Dzogchen

http://93.174.95.29/main/5DE2EC9F39401BAD5BA3191B5C2C3471


Mahamudra

How to Do Mahamudra Meditation - Lion's Roar
https://www.lionsroar.com/how-to-meditate-dzogchen-ponlop-rinpoche-on-mahamudra/

The Mind of Clear Light

The reason we practice or engage with Dzogchen teachings is so that the "Mind of Clear Light" becomes fully revealed in direct experience. When that occurs all lower levels of consciousness and karmic mind are absent.

The karmic mind/self suddenly transforms into the Mind of Clear Light. A primordial wisdom arises in that moment called rigpa or gnosis. This is the revelation of Ultimate Truth.

The true nature of the karmic mind is itself the Mind of Clear Light. By attention being focused upon the formative characteristics of mentation and consciousness, the karmic mind is maintained along with its endless conceptual constructions and stories.

When instead attention reverts back to the empty aware space from which its arising, the karmic mind reveals its own empty and transparent nature, which is itself the Mind of Clear Light.

Longchenpa shares how to apply these teachings as well:

"The method is directing attention upon attention or awareness. When any arising is experienced, especially thoughts, moods, emotions, or feelings of personal self-identity, one simply notices one’s present naked awareness."

"By directing the attention back to awareness, the arising dissolves back into its origin and its essential nature, awareness."

"In doing this, the arising releases its formative energy in its dissolution as a surge of further clarity of Clear Light, the power (tsal) and potency of awareness (rigpa) that energized the arising in the first place. Hence one’s Awareness presence is enhanced in the collapse of the formative arising. Hence the Dzogchen comment that “the stronger the afflictive emotion upon dissolution, the stronger the enhancement to the clarity of presence."
(Longchenpa quotes from: 'A Treasure Trove of Scriptural Transmission', Padma Publication)

One of the important insights that will become clear is that all of reality; all perceptions, mental events, feeing/sensations, karmic mind and egoic self are all equally the primordial Mind of Clear Light appearing AS those experiences. Appearances whether as thoughts or perceptions are not appearing "to" the Mind of Clear Light but are themselves the Mind of Clear Light appearing "as" those phenomena.

Work with this in sessions while sitting with your eyes closed. Once some experiences of this become familiar, then add this method below which mechanically does the same thing but enhances the clarity
and insights tremendously:

Opening the Eye of Wisdom

"The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love. (From The Sermons of Meister Eckhart)"

I learned this practice from Qassim, my Sufi teacher in Kashmir. When done properly, a powerful state of intuitive awareness arises and perhaps complete enlightenment. Sit quietly on a chair or a cushion on the floor for a few minutes with the eyes closed. Let all thoughts and desires come to stillness. Notice that all thoughts are empty, meaning they have no substance or permanent basis, like empty clouds. Notice that all your stories about everything are also empty. Next notice how your sense of personal self is also just another story based on memories and is, therefore, also empty, like a dream. Notice that the space of your inner awareness is also empty and is the context in which thoughts and stories arise, along with your sense of self. Recognize that you are this changeless empty awareness.

Imagine there is a large single eyeball embedded in the center of your forehead looking outward. It is above the location of the third-eye chakra. It’s quite large and tapers backward on both sides contacting the ears. Once comfortable with that visualization, get the feeling that you don’t have to “imagine” the eye, but rather it has always been there unnoticed.

Just rest as though you are looking into the room through that eye, with your two eyes closed. Remain in this contemplation for at least fifteen minutes at a time and repeat as often as possible. When you notice thoughts, remind yourself that thoughts are empty, stories are empty, and your sense of personal self is empty. Again notice that the space of your inner awareness is also empty and is the context in which all thoughts, stories and sense of self arise.

Recognize that you are this changeless empty awareness.

It is also excellent practice to do this exercise lying on your back when going to sleep. Fall asleep while doing this practice yet maintaining a sense of vivid clarity in the area of your forehead. The results may appear gradually or suddenly. An extremely clear state of transparency that is full of wisdom and insight arises in the area of your forehead. When fully opened, you realize the nature of reality and your true nature. That’s why this eye is called the wisdom eye. Clairvoyance and other extrasensory perceptions may also arise. The wisdom eye is recognized in Kabbalah, Sufism, Tibetan Buddhism, Kundalini Yoga, and Shamanism.

Excerpt from my book: "The Natural Bliss of Being"

Osvícení je skutečně velká věc, je to trvalý stav, který nikdy nepomíjí.

The Great Perfection: All is Always Perfect!

Rongzom Pandita (lived 1012 to 1088 a.d.) wrote a very important Dzogchen text called “Entering the Great Way” in which he defends the Dzogchen teachings against various critical competing views. He wrote the text around 300 years before Longchenpa was born. His views do vary from more modern versions of Dzogchen, so his writings offer a window into earliest or original Dzogchen.

Here are some selected quotes from this text:

“All Confused Appearance Is Seen as the Play of Samantabhadra”:

“Concerning the phrase “the play of Samantabhadra”: everything is “all-good” (samantabhadra, kun bzang), because there is nothing at all negative or to be rejected in connection with everything known to beings wandering within saṃsāra, which are confused appearances (’ khrul snang). Since there is not any goal to strive toward and no core point to resolve, since illusion is a state like a game, it is play (līlā, rol pa).”

“Totally unimpeded appearance never strays from Reality (Dharmakaya) and is in fact indivisible from Reality
itself—and thus is an ornament. Given that there is no phenomenon that is not totally perfect (sangs rgyas), everything, because of being the very proof of the Buddha Mind’s deeds, pertains to the nature of greatness.”

“Thereby, one may be described as “abiding in the view of the Great Perfection,” which is the act of simply being divorced from all clinging to views.”

“In attaining meditative absorption (samadhi), clairvoyance is attained. Through mastery of the breath, a luminous maṇḍala emerges.”

“Utter luminosity is such that it is unbearable to gaze upon.”

“All phenomena are resolved to be nondual”

“All phenomena are included within the mind. Therefore, there is nothing knowable outside of the mind.”

“...resolve how the ground of the indivisible Samantabhadra is disclosed spontaneously without effort in the present state because of the greatness that constitutes the fact that everything, everywhere, is at all times already perfect.”

“Given that there is no phenomenon that is not totally perfect..”

Kunje Gyalpo tantra:

“The meaning of 'Perfect' is the following: this Source, self- originated wisdom, pervades all and is totally Perfect in everything, such as beings, their karmic visions, everything encompassed by the universe and its beings, all buddhas of the three times, sentient beings of the six classes in the three realms, and just-that-ness. Thus, the Source is 'Perfect'. “

“The root of all phenomena is All-Creating Pure Perfect Presence. Whatever appears is my nature. The way in which appearances manifest is my magical display. All sounds and words that arise in any way manifest my state as words and sounds. Everything encompassed by the animate and inanimate universe, such as the qualities of the kayas and wisdoms of buddhas and the bodies and karmic tendencies of sentient beings, is primordially the nature of Pure Perfect Presence.”

“When followers of these vehicles, who struggle for three eons, seven lifetimes, six months, one year, or sixteen months, are taught this nature beyond action, they will come to abide in the bliss of self-perfection beyond struggle.”

“In this dimension there does not exist anything that is not perfect. Because there is one perfect, two perfect, and all perfect, activities are bliss as the Perfections. 'One perfect' means that all is perfect in Pure Perfect Presence. 'Two perfect' means that all (conventional) creations of Presence are perfect. 'All perfect' means that all Perfections are perfect. Through this perfect teaching about the one, beings can abide in this knowledge of a Buddha. Through this meaning of total perfection, everything functions as the Perfections. "Whoever abides in this effortless state, even with the body of a god or human, is a buddha in the real condition of knowledge.”

"Everything is naturally perfect just as it is." Dilgo Khentse Rinpoche

"It is perfection of all in that whatever appears is completely perfect."
Longchenpa

The Künjé Gyalpo Tantra says:

"This has nothing about it at all that is not perfect."

The earliest known Dzogchen text:

The Six Vajra Verses

"Although apparent phenomena manifest as diversity yet this diversity is non-dual, and of all the multiplicity of individual things that exist none can be confined in a limited concept.

Staying free from the trap of any attempt to say it's 'like this', or `like that', it becomes clear that all manifested forms are aspects of the infinite formless, and, indivisible from it, are self-perfected.

Seeing that everything is self-perfected from the very beginning, the disease of striving for any achievement comes to an end of its own accord, and just remaining in the natural state as it is, the presence of non-dual contemplation continuously, spontaneously arises."
(Translation by Namkhai Norbu)

The great early Dzogchen master yogi and scholar, Rongzom (1012-1088) wrote; regarding that even if one doesn’t yet see this view of the Great Perfection, the perfection of ALL current phenomena, in direct experience:

“Thus it is not in any way a mistake if one, rather than that, is inclined to approach simply by faith, regarding the scriptures and oral instructions as valid. One will then gain access through trust.”

(Excerpt From
“Establishing Appearances as Divine” by Rongzom, translated
By Heidi I. Koppl)

The very early Dzogchen master Rongzom, says even if one hasn’t seen the perfect nature of all and everything directly, just having faith in this universal perfection, is itself of great benefit.

My point is asking “how would just having and holding the concept that all phenomena, mental states, actions and events are always absolutely “perfect”, influence our state of mind, stress and enjoyment of life?”.

One can find many benefits regarding having a positive attitude for body and mind in the medical literature. But what would an unbreakable conviction regarding the total perfection of all phenomena and experiences do? I would suggest such a view, even if only conceptually held, could be completely transformational in nature.

But through the approach of Dzogchen methodologies when applied, actual experiences of this “total perfection” arise as the non-conceptual, conscious insights of rigpa’s unique wisdoms.

Without this insight into the “total perfection” of all and everything, indestructible joy, the ending of fear, unconditional love and infinite compassion would not be possible.

"The bottom line of being introduced to mind essence is to recognize that it is empty, cognizant, self-existing, suffused with knowing. That is the true training in recognizing the nature of mind.

The key point, after being introduced and recognizing, is to not do anything to the natural state. We do not have to try to improve upon this empty cognizance, or try to correct it in any particular way that requires effort on our part. In fact, we do not need to do anything to make our mind empty and cognizant. It does not require any job whatsoever. This nondoing itself is the training, and it is the opposite of our usual habit. Simply train in not correcting this empty cognizance, which is our natural state."
Tulku Urgyen

Read carefully:
“However, as the 8th Karmapa extensively discussed, buddha nature is not just some small core or space that is literally and only located “within” every sentient being. In fact, it is the other way round—our whole existence as sentient beings is in itself the sum of adventitious stains that just float like clouds within the infinite, bright sky of buddha nature, the luminous, open expanse of our mind that has no limits or boundaries. Once these clouds dissolve due to the warm rays of the sun of wisdom shining within this sky, nothing within sentient beings has been freed or improved, but there is just this radiant expanse without any reference points of cloudlike sentient beings or cloud-free Buddhas.“
Karl Brunnholzl

Thogal theory and Practice

I am writing this as a "quick start" instructional guide that will allow anyone to begin practicing thogal effectively and safely.

Thogal means "over the skull", "over the crest". It actually means to arrive instantly without jumping to get there, like a quantum leap. Thogal practice makes it very easy to experience, know and differentiate rigpa from all other mind states, in its purest form.

Rigpa is our primordial Buddha Mind that is intrinsically perfect, permanently. Because it's permanent, it's always present. But it is not our experience, rather our experience is other coarser states of mind as content, which are appearing within the space of changeless rigpa awareness.

By practicing thogal, rigpa itself becomes its own self-experience. What is experienced is its own penetrating transparency, insightful clarity, wisdoms, and absence of a "me" egoic identity, as well as the absence of the sense of an "external" universe. Eventually the physical body will dissolve into pure Light as the practice comes to perfect fruition.

Thogal focuses on the visual apparatus. That means we use our eyes as our path.

Traditionally we use the sun by looking towards the sun in early morning and late afternoon. One does not look directly at the sun but slightly underneath it or off to the side, and with sun glasses on. I find using one eye at a time works best. One squints so that the ball of the sun is no longer visible but only a diffraction pattern of colored rays and a background tapestry of circles as though similar to looking at a peacock's feather. Within that diffraction pattern you can see little round spheres that may have little circular rings within them as well. At first they may just look like this but completely round: @

They get larger over time with consistent practice. They are called "thigles" in Tibetan. (Pronounced: teeglay)

One then begins to focus on one little sphere by not moving the eyes. You just gaze at it. So do just this much for several sessions. I recommend a safer and easy way to do thogal:

Use your iPhone or similar phone with only the black screen. Hold it down toward your waist, angle it so you can look down and see the reflection of the sun. Squint your eyes until the ball disappears into the light refraction and continue as described above. This allows practicing throughout the day, even at noon. But be sure to wear sun glasses. Between the UV absorption in the phone's black glass and your sun glasses, no harmful UV rays should be entering your eyes. It's only the UV rays that damage the eyes. I recommend 20 minute sessions. 10 minutes with each eye. Start with one session per day and add a session later in the day if desired. But practice everyday. The effects will last and are cumulative.

If sun is not available you can flip the phone around and use the flashlight feature as though looking at the sun, but no sunglasses are necessary. You can also use an ordinary light bulb.

There are specific recommended postures for during thogal practice but I have not found them necessary and Namkhai Norbu stated that once the practice is working the postures are no longer necessary. I have taught dozens of people this approach in my retreats and it works for everyone without exception.

Once you are a little familiar wth the inner landscape and can focus on these thigle spheres easily, then while looking at the spheres ask your self "who or what is doing the looking?". "Where exactly is the observer?" Is there a "someone" looking or is there just empty perception?".

Also from time to time notice the empty space between the thigle and the place from where you are observing. Notice that completely clear and transparent space. Sense that space behind you and all around you and through you.

Also notice your state of inner empty clarity, transparent and vividly awake; from time to time.

Pay less attention to the condition of the thigles than to your empty awareness that is looking.

After you finish, look closely at various textures and surfaces close up and notice the sharpness of detail. Sometimes you can actually feel the textures by sight alone. Vision will become amazingly clear along with a sense of transparency and absence of selfness. It's this transparency (zangthal) and absence of selfing that transforms the mind completely into its own vivid emptiness. There is nothing to think about or workout. The practice does it all automatically.

There are many more aspects to all of this. To learn more and for additional support please join our thogal group here at FB, Dzogchen Thogal.

I am posting this on the general Dzogchen group to encourage those interested to practice. There is currently lots of misinformation out there regarding thogal and I would like to keep this technology available in an easy and workable format that can bring infinite benefit to any competent practitioner that wants to learn.

There are several lineage authorized books on the open public market now that explain thogal in complete detail. Now the traditional lineage Lamas have allowed these thogal teachings to be propagated broadly for everyone's benefit also out of a fear that these precious teachings may disappear eventually.

I received the thogal transmission and practice instructions privately in 1985 through the Yeshe Lama text as presented to me by a Nyingma Lama who was taught by Dudjum Rinpoche. I later received the detailed Bon transmission of Shardze Rinpoche's text "Heart Drops of the Dharmakaya" trekchod and thogal instructions personally from the Bon Menri Lopon. Shardza Rinpoche attained the "rainbow body of light" in the 1930's. Neither of my teachers asked me to keep these teachings secret, nor have I pledged any samaya regarding not sharing any of the Dzogchen teachings with others.

Please share your successes and insights in our thogal group as well as your practice issues.

I recommend reading my book and gaining familiarity with all the practices in the appendix before commencing thogal practice: "The Natural Bliss of Being", as well as attending one of my thogal retreats.

May all beings benefit! Emaho!

DRZEEF:

Three Styles of Approach
Because of most people’s difficulty in having practical and enduring results with working with only the “direct path” of sudden recognition, as taught in Dzogchen and some Zen schools, I have recommended in my book three alternative methodologies: the direct path, the path of meditation entailing shamatha and vipassana or zazen and the path used exclusively by Milarepa; kundalini yoga or tumo.
If the inner subtle body chakras have not become relaxed, illuminated and fully blossomed, through the transformation of the karmic mind’s prana into the wisdom energy of kundalini, the real insights of vipassana will remain more as very subtle intellectual conceptions.
In this case the main centers necessary to be released from their dense and energetically contracted states are the root chakra at the bottom of the spine, the navel chakra, the heart chakra, the throat chakra, the third eye and the crown chakra fully opened at the fontanelle.
It’s the contracted state of the subtle body energies that give the illusion of being a localized entity existing apart from everything else. The main contraction is in the heart, felt as “I” or “me”. When that contraction suddenly releases, the sensation of self vanishes
completely.
One should practice in formal sessions of zazen slowly extending the periods of resting in the vivid and awake clarity of no thought, up to sitting for three hours in a single session. This will bring about a true condition of thought-free shamatha or shiné fairly quickly within days or weeks.
Success in shamatha is measured by a deep and profound sense of calm and thought free clarity, which will be followed by the spontaneous wisdom insights of vipassana.
In between sessions of kundalini practice and zazen, always rest in trekchod.
All three approaches will instigate an arousal of profound insights into the nature of reality and the absence of self; all reducing experiences of suffering significantly.
Use my book as your handbook with full instructions regarding all three of these approaches, in chapter 5 and in the appendix.
Let’s see how you all do with this expanded approach, utilizing all three methodologies simultaneously.
This combined approach is much as taught in the Yeshe Lama text.

How We Project our World

All the great Tibetan masters claim that we are projecting our own worlds as projections of Mind. Is this claim meant to be just a metaphor? Or perhaps just uneducated “magical thinking”? Or has something fundamental regarding the nature of experience and the universe become discovered and revealed by these great masters?

Physics and especially quantum physics today, has offered a completely new way of understanding our universe; first it’s known now that the universe can only be subjective in nature, not as an objectively real universe and world as a fixed, objectively real common ground that we can all “look at” independent from it.

Neuroscience in many ways has it right, in that it claims each person is looking at a 3D mental projection, as a representation of what’s really “out there”. But they lack an objective universe “out there” that we could use to make our inner mental movies approximate the “what’s out there”.

Look around you and at your body. What you see is a mental 3D projection of what is supposed to approximate what lies on the other side of our sensory organs; the “what’s out there”. This is a provable fact. Except there is no real and objective “stuff” out there that we are all making representations of.

Whats “out there” are various quantum fields of information in “superposition”. Superposition means that phenomena don’t reveal their potential characteristics until measured, observed or analyzed.

Let’s say there is a tv show of the Oscars recorded on a digital memory bit at the tv broadcast station and is being currently broadcast. Before that information, encoded in specific electromagnetic field frequencies is seen on your tv at home, that tv show is all around you, the room and outside your dwelling. The tv show is there, but can’t be decoded. The tv decodes the electromagnetic field frequencies, and converts that information into an image that looks 3D with sound.

The 3D image appearing on the tv, is the same way our 3D world appears in our minds. The outer world of sensory experience, is all around us as “information fields” in “superposition”, waiting for us to convert that information into full 3D holograms with all the included five senses of experience.

Even though the tv show is all around us in “superposition”, floating in space and time, when we turn on the tv, everyone can see a “common” tv show. Catching on?

There are no colors, no sounds, no flavors, no odors, no sensations, no thoughts, no emotions and no personal identities or selves, objectively existing “out there” in the universe. They are only the subjective interpretations resulting from processing the information fields which make contact with our five senses.

Just like a full 3D dream and self in the dream, arise from stored “data” or information such as memories and conditioning, likewise our experienced 3D world is how our mind translates sensory information in “superposition”, into geometrically rendered 3D holograms.

This will become more clear if I quote a famous professor of quantum information theory:

In his book Decoding Reality: The Universe as Quantum Information, Vlatko Vedral currently professor of Quantum Information Theory at Oxford, England wrote about several aspects of quantum information theory that tie in nicely with Bohm’s ideas.

Vedral reduces the universe to its basic building blocks of q-bits of information. Here are some key quotes from his book:

“Unsurprisingly, the language Nature uses to communicate is “information”… Eastern religion and philosophy have a strong core of relational thinking…What emptiness means in Buddhism is that “things” do not exist in themselves, but are only possible in relation to other “things”… It might seem desirable to distinguish the “mathematical fictions” from “actual particles”; but it is difficult to find any logical basis for such a distinction.

Discovering a particle means observing certain effects which are accepted as proof of its existence. [British Astronomer Arthur Stanley] Eddington claims here that a particle is just a set of labels that we use to describe outcomes of our measurements. And that’s it… It all boils down to a relation between our measurements and our labels!

The complexity that we see around us in this world (and this complexity we believe to be growing with time, as far as life is concerned at least) is just due to the growing interconnectedness. In this way, can we now analyse how we encode reality?

By doing so, we will never arrive at ‘the thing in itself’ by any kind of means. Everything that exists, exists by convention and labelling and is therefore dependent on other things. So, Buddhists would say that their highest goal—realizing emptiness—simply means that we realize how inter-related things fundamentally are… We have reached a point where any particle of matter (such as an atom) and energy (such as a photon) in the Universe is defined with respect to an intricate procedure that is used to detect it. If the detector makes a click (like a Geiger counter) the particle is detected. The click itself creates one extra bit of information comprising reality.

The crucial point is that the particle does not exist independently of the detector. The click has no cause at all and therefore we have no underlying particles. And since there are no underlying particles in reality, there are no things in the Universe that are made up of particles existing without the intricate procedures to detect them…

Anything that exists in this Universe, anything to which you can attribute any kind of reality, only exists by virtue of the mutual information it shares with other objects in the Universe. Underneath this, nothing else exists, nothing else has any underlying reality…

It is counterintuitive that although we seem to perceive a well-defined reality around us, quantum physics suggests that there is no underlying single reality in the Universe independent of us—and that our reality is actually only defined if and when we observe it… The Universe starts empty but potentially with a huge amount of information. The key event that gives the Universe some direction is the first act of “symmetry breaking,” the first cut of the sculptor.

This act, which we consider as completely random, i.e., without any prior cause, just decides on why one tiny aspect in the Universe is one way rather than another…

But where do these qubits (bits of information as the basis of the universe) come from? Quantum theory allows us to answer this question; but the answer is not quite what we expected. It suggests that these qubits come from nowhere! There is no prior information required in order for information to exist. Information can be created from emptiness…

Within our reality everything exists through an interconnected web of relationships and the building blocks of this web are bits of information. We process, synthesize, and observe this information in order to construct the reality around us.

As information spontaneously emerges from the emptiness we take this into account to update our view of reality. The laws of Nature are information about information and outside of it there is just darkness. This is the gateway to understanding reality. And I finish with a quote from the Tao Te Ching, which some 2500 years earlier, seems to have beaten me to the punch-line:

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of the ten thousand things. Ever desireless, one can see the mystery. Ever desiring, one sees the manifestations. These two spring from the same source but differ in name; this appears as darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gate to all mystery.”

Quantum physicist, David Bohm wrote:

“The tangible reality of our everyday lives is really a kind of illusion, like a holographic image. Underlying it is a deeper order of existence, a vast and more primary level of reality that gives birth to all the objects and appearances of our physical world in much the same way that a piece of holographic film gives birth to a hologram. If the concreteness of the world is but a secondary reality, and what is “out there” is actually a holographic blur of frequencies, and if the brain is also a hologram and only processes some of the frequencies out of this blur, what becomes of objective reality? Put quite simply, it ceases to exist. Although we may think we are physical beings moving through a physical world, this is an illusion. We are really “receivers” floating through a kaleidoscopic sea of frequency.”

A “material brain” as our decoder of external electro-magnetic frequencies in “superposition”, is simply the way “Consciousness” or Mind is being represented in and as the 3D hologram. The visual and sensory appearances of a brain, is what our consciousness “looks like”, where it is itself a mass of informational frequencies with no objectively existing, underlying physical “material” at all!

This is the explanation that the great Tibetan masters lacked, but experienced directly.

When science looks very closely at the material of our world, they find almost nothing but empty space. They are actually looking into something which has no fixed characteristics itself. That’s because everything is potential information in a state of immaterial superposition until it becomes converted into a 3D hologram as a “particle”, “photon” or “electron”, by being looked at, measured or observed; and all 3D holograms are only subjective creations existing in individual minds, such as photons, electrons, atoms, molecules, trees, people, mountains and stars.

We are all sharing the same infinite field of quantum information, that only takes form in our individual minds as our immaterial consciousness observes various regions of “standing wave forms” of quantum information.

Clairvoyance, telepathy and synchronicity, are all phenomena resulting from accessing deeper regions of information than is the norm.

Does this then mean, that the regional quantum wave forms of information and the mind-generated holograms, are both objectively “real”?

A very enlightened being once shared: “You can’t say they are real, nor not real, nor neither real and not real, nor both and neither”. I call this condition of “reality” a “superposition” which avoids all extremes.

Getting more practical, one could ask “how do I control how I project my daily 3D hologram?” It’s exactly as how you control the landscapes, identities and dramas in your dreams at night. “Huh?” “But I don’t control the content of my dreams!”. That’s right, just like during the daytime. You don’t control your daytime holograms, because you are just a holographic projection yourself. You, felt as a “me”, are just a holographic projection of a much deeper level of Consciousness, at the level where all the potential information lies in superposition. This is the level where all the truly great Tibetan and Sufi masters reside.

We enter this realm by abandoning all thought, and relaxing attention into just resting in its own undirected vividness and equipoise.

The great Soto Zen Master Dogen Zenji advises:

“To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.”

Brilliant!

Dzogchen teacher, Alan Wallace, from his book
“Meditations of a Buddhist Skeptic”:

“Who has ever observed this physical reality—composed of matter, energy, space, and time—that objectively exists independently of all subjective sensory appearances?

If we closely apply mindfulness to the immediate contents of our sensory experience, we perceive only appearances.

If we recognize that in the seen there is only the seen, in the heard only the heard, and so on, we see that these appearances arise in the space of our minds as qualia, without physical attributes.

The colors we see—as opposed to the frequencies of photons to which they correspond in the objective world—are not composed of matter or energy and do not exist in physical space, independent of awareness. Visual qualia have no mass, charge, or momentum—they have no physical attributes at all. This is also true of the sounds we hear, as opposed to physical sound waves that strike the eardrum; the smells we experience, as opposed to molecules suspended in the air; the tastes we experience, as opposed to the molecular components of our food; and the tactile sensations we feel, as opposed to electrochemical processes in the body.

In short, all that we immediately experience in our own bodies and the world around us consists of appearances to our five senses, but none of these appearances has physical qualities.

We conceptually assign the attributes of mass, electrical charge, momentum, and so forth to physical objects and processes that occur invisibly and independently of our sensory impressions. In other words, the real, absolutely objective physical world existing independently of our perceptions—including all scientific measurements and observations—is one that we know only conceptually.

From a radically empirical perspective, all that we know by way of direct perception consists of appearances to our own minds. These appearances are not composed of matter or energy and have no location in objective space independent of awareness, because they are not physical.

The very existence of an absolutely real, objective, physical universe is something that we can know only by means of rational inference.

But how compelling is this so-called inference? In modern terms, the objective universe is a kind of “black box,” whose interior we can never inspect to see what’s really inside. We can observe only appearances allegedly produced by an unseen reality. The colors we see, for instance, are said to be generated in part by electromagnetic fields interacting with the retina, which then catalyzes a series of electrochemical events in the optic nerve and the visual cortex.

But we never perceive electromagnetic fields themselves, nor do we perceive the retina, optic nerve, or brain, even though we may acquire impressions of these phenomena either through “direct” observation or via computer-generated imagery.

We are attempting to causally infer the existence of physical entities and processes on the basis of their nonphysical effects, namely our sensory representations of them.

But without knowing the actual nature of any physical entity as it exists from its own side, independent of our observations and measurements, we are in no position to determine how closely our sensory appearances “re-present” reality.

We can never compare our experience to what exists independent of it—there is no way of poking into the black box of the objective physical world. The assumption we have been maintaining is that such an independent physical world must exist, for without it, there would be no explanation for the commonality and replicability of our experience of the world around us.

We collectively look at the sky and see the same stars, planets, sun, and moon, all moving through space while the Earth spins, whether or not anyone is looking. Likewise, stars form and collapse independently of our observations of them. But is this the only possible explanation?

According to Buddhist epistemology, it is possible to infer the existence of a cause on the basis of its effects only if one can observe the cause and determine that it uniquely causes the inferred effect.

For example, one can infer the existence of fire on the basis of the presence of smoke only if one has already observed fire itself and knows that it alone is capable of producing smoke. If one were never able to observe fire or its production of smoke, one could not causally infer the existence of fire on the basis of observing smoke. For smoke might be produced by something else entirely, something unimaginable.

Likewise, we have been assuming that the commonality of our experience of the world around us must be due to the fact that the appearances we perceive are representations of physical things and events that exist independently of experience.

But how can we assume that the universe as it exists independently of our perceptions and thoughts corresponds to our human concept of “physical”? The very notion of physicality has evolved together with the evolution of modern physics, and it now includes such invisible, undetectable entities as dark matter and dark energy, which are said to constitute most of the physical universe.

But since no one can observe any physical entity as it exists in itself, no one can guarantee that physical entities alone generate our subjective experience of the world.

In short, to be a radical empiricist—in the seen to acknowledge just the seen—compels us to question the fundamental metaphysical assumption that underlies virtually all of modern science: the necessary existence of a physical world prior to and independent of consciousness.

From a radically empirical perspective, all that we truly know is the reality of our own awareness and the sensory and mental appearances that arise to it. Whatever exists independently of these appearances is unknowable in principle, and there are no grounds for attributing existence to something that can never be known.

Most of modern science—with the exception of quantum physics—is based on the metaphysical assumption that scientific theories “re-present” the objective, physical, quantifiable world that is really out there, independent of all our measurements and observations.

But this assumption demonstrates a limited imagination that asserts that the commonality of experience can be explained only by invoking the existence of such an invisible and ultimately unknowable physical universe.

In fact, all that we actually know is the mind and its appearances—they are all that we can confidently claim to exist. This is one assertion of the Yogachara, or Chittamatra (“ mind-only”) school of Buddhism, which is a form of philosophical idealism.

Instead of adopting the materialist stance that physical reality is ultimately real and mental phenomena are emergent properties of physical processes, radical empiricism leads us to the opposite view: only the mind and its appearances are ultimately real; the so-called physical world is nothing more than a conceptual construct superimposed on nonphysical sensory appearances.

This means that the materialist assumption behind scientific discoveries concerning the nature of objective reality independent of appearances is simply a pervasive delusion.

An absolutely objective physical world doesn’t exist at all, and any statement about what occurs independent of appearances is fictitious.

This conclusion has also been reached by some contemporary quantum physicists.

How then shall we account for the commonality of our experience? It is not only humans who perceive and interact with the physical world but also animals, however different our perceptions and interpretations may be. We can explain the consensual nature of our experience as resulting from the fundamental role of the mind in nature and the profound entanglement of the individual mind-streams of sentient beings inhabiting the universe.

Such a hypothesis might seem shocking to those of us accustomed to revering science as the most authoritative method for exploring reality. But reliance upon objective, quantitative measures is a very recent trend in human history; it became globally dominant only in the twentieth century.

When one’s awareness becomes immersed in this radically empirical approach to the investigation of the mind, it is easy to reach the conclusion that the mind alone is real. As William James so cogently declared, “for the moment, what we attend to is reality.”

If an individual or society focuses all attention on physical reality, this is certain to be taken as exclusively real; and if all attention is focused single-pointedly on the mind and its appearances, this too will be taken as exclusively real. This “mind-only” conclusion is not derived on the basis of logical reasoning alone; instead, it requires a combination of experiential, contemplative inquiry into the nature of the mind and its relation to the world of the physical senses together with the use of reason to make sense of one’s observations.

This is a rational conclusion based upon empirical investi gations using contemplative science rather than materialistic science as we know it today. The culmination of such contemplative inquiry is not merely the intellectual formulation of a philosophical position, but rather an immediate, nonconceptual experience of the nonduality of subject and object.

Appearances are directly perceived to be empty of any external, independent reality, physical or otherwise.

In the seen, there is only the seen, in the heard, only the heard, in the felt, only the felt, and in the mentally cognized, only the mentally cognized. When we come to this direct realization, we perceive reality for the first time as it actually is, consisting only of the mind and its appearances, arising nondually from moment to moment.

Appearances are ungrounded in any other reality—not in matter, energy, space, or time. We experience appearances nakedly, for they are not “re-presentations” of anything else. They are what they are, and the sense of a reified bifurcation into self and other, or subject and object, vanishes.

As a result, we attain freedom from a range of subtle mental afflictions and obscurations that arise in dependence upon the delusion that grasps onto an absolute distinction between subject and object.

This is a true revolution in our understanding and experience of the natural world, and it destroys the very foundations of virtually all of modern science, with the exception of the most fundamental branch of physics, quantum mechanics.

MADHYAMAKA: ONTOLOGICAL RELATIVISM

The preceding application of radical empiricism and logical reasoning leads to the conclusion that only the mind, together with its emergent appearances, is real. Within the field of experience, we continue to identify a class of phenomena as physical—from subatomic particles up to galactic clusters—but they have no external existence independent of the mind. Such physical entities have only conventional existence.

To the delusional, dualistic mind, even without conscious labeling, physical objects appear to be already existent as the referents of their names. In other words, even before we verbally or conceptually identify the entities that objectively appear to us, we have a sense that they are already awaiting the labels we impute upon them. This assumption that entities are self-defining affects every sentient being—even those who do not use language, such as animals and babies—and it is illusory.

But in the same spirit of radical empiricism, we may investigate the nature of the mind itself: Is its appearance any less illusory than that of the physical world?

Let us now turn the focus of our contemplative inquiry inward upon the very nature of the mind that observes phenomena and acts upon them.

Materialists regard only the physical world and its emergent properties and functions as real; everything else is illusory.

However, the preceding line of contemplative and philosophical inquiry led us to the conclusion that only the mind and its emergent properties and functions are real, everything else being illusory.

The physical world, as something absolutely objective but hidden behind the veil of subjective appearances, turned out to have no basis in reality.

What about the mind? When we seek to observe the mind itself—the source of emergent appearances and functions—is it anywhere to be found?

Following the Buddha’s maxim, “in the cognized, there is only the cognized,” all that we actually experience are appearances and awareness; nowhere is a “mind” found apart from this flow of ever-changing appearances and awareness.

Just as no inherently existent physical world is ever found that underlies appearances of the objective world, so there is no evidence of an inherently existent mind that underlies subjective experience.

The very distinction between mind and appearances is purely nominal, and the more deeply we probe into the immediate contents of experience, the more clearly we perceive that appearances are as empty of inherently existent mind as they are of inherently existent matter.

Both “matter” and “mind” are simply conceptual constructs imputed upon appearances; neither has any existence of its own, independent of these conceptual imputations.

Just as the physical world has no inherent existence, independent of words and concepts, neither does the world of the mind have any inherent existence, independent of words and concepts.

There is no real physical world existing independently “out there,” and there is no real mental world existing independently “in here.”

We may now adjust our earlier translation of the Buddha’s instructions to Bahiya, replacing “you” with “thing,” referring to any inherently existing subject or object:

‘When for you there is only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the felt in reference to the felt, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bahiya, there is no thing here. When there is no thing here, there is no thing there. When there is no thing there, things are neither here nor there nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of suffering.’

The very distinction between external and internal is purely conventional, having no existence apart from words and thoughts.

Conventionally speaking, the physical world may indeed be said to exist independently of sensory appearances, and there are dimensions of consciousness that exist independently of any physical basis.

But these external physical and internal mental phenomena do not inherently exist independently of conceptual designations.

By recognizing the symmetry of the emptiness of physical and mental phenomena, objective and subjective, we avoid the philosophical extremes of both materialism and idealism. This is the Madhyamaka view.

All phenomena exist only relative to the ways they are known. Perceptual appearances exist relative to perceptual experience, and conceived objects, such as elementary particles, energy, and space-time, exist relative to the minds that conceive them. These are all relative, or conventional, realities.

Only the emptiness of inherent nature of all phenomena is ultimate. This is the sole invariant in all of nature. While abiding in nonconceptual meditative equipoise, directly realizing the emptiness of inherent existence of all things, we find that sensory appearances vanish into a spacelike vacuity.

When we emerge from such meditation, appearances arise once again, but they now exhibit a dreamlike quality. Even though objects appear to exist from their own side, independently of words and concepts, we intuitively know that such appearances are illusory.

Nothing during the waking state exists by its own inherent nature, from its own side, any more than appearances in a dream.

As for the commonality of experience and the regularities of causal interactions that seem to occur independently of appearances, these can be understood by perceiving all phenomena arising as dependently related events, without any inherent basis in mind or matter.

When we truly fathom this way of viewing reality without falling to philosophical extremes, we see that it is only because all phenomena are empty of inherent nature that they can causally interact, and insight into their dependently related mode of existence reveals their emptiness of inherent existence.

This direct, nonconceptual, experiential insight uproots even the subtlest of mental afflictions and obscurations.

THE GREAT PERFECTION: THE ONE TASTE OF PURITY AND EQUALITY

Imagine that you are in the midst of a prolonged nonlucid dream, unaware that you are dreaming, and you devote yourself single-pointedly to the shamatha practice called settling the mind in its natural state. When you withdraw your awareness from all sensory appearances in the dream, all appearances dissolve into the substrate (alaya), and your dreaming mind dissolves into the substrate consciousness.

Now imagine that you return to the dream and practice vipashyana, probing into the nature of all objective and subjective appearances. Finally, when you achieve a nonconceptual realization of the emptiness of inherent nature of all phenomena, all appearances again dissolve into the substrate, not because you have withdrawn your awareness from them but because your nonconceptual mind no longer imputes existence upon any of them.

Your mind again dissolves into the substrate consciousness, but instead of apprehending the mere vacuity of the substrate, you directly realize the emptiness (Skt. shunyata) of all phenomena, also known as ultimate reality (Skt. dharmata), and the absolute space of phenomena (Skt. dharmadhatu).

This is nirvana itself, and according to the Buddha, the phenomenal world of samsara would not exist without it. Now imagine that you reactivate your conceptual mind and reengage with the world of appearances, which you clearly see to be dreamlike. Then suddenly it dawns on you that everything you are experiencing is not like a dream, it actually is a dream.

Now you become lucid, “breaking through” your dreaming consciousness to waking consciousness, so that you are awake within the dream.

You see that whatever occurs—both heavenly experiences and hellish ones—can neither harm nor benefit you.

You perceive the “one taste of equal purity” concerning all that appears within the dream as well as the absence of appearances in the dreamless experience of the substrate. Being fully awake, you are not deluded into reifying things and events in the dream; nor is your mind withdrawn into the substrate. If you should display “supernormal abilities” and someone were then to ask you whether you are human, your reply would be, “No.” You are not anyone within the dream, human or otherwise.

You are awake. Such was the Buddha’s reply when asked these questions about the nature of his identity.

According to the view of the Great Perfection, the culmination of the path of radical empiricism occurs when we realize the nonduality of samsara and nirvana, no longer bound within the miseries of the former yet not lost in the utter transcendence of the latter.

For the first time, we are truly awake to the nature of the whole of reality manifesting as displays of the nonduality of primordial consciousness and the absolute space of phenomena. Now that we are perfectly awake to this Great Perfection, all that remains to be done is to awaken everyone else.”

Půlnoční dharma

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To understand Dzogchen, it’s necessary to get the whole teaching in a single instruction. Only then does it all make sense.

Mandatory Study Text for my Dzogchen groups:

This text below is the best single detailed explanation of Dzogchen practice and theory that I have ever read. It covers the theory of both trekchod and thogal. I would read this through several times and post questions regarding aspects that are not clear. I am considering this "mandatory reading" for our Dzogchen groups. I have received these teaching directly from Norbu several times but haven't found them put together in such a concise manner before... Thanks to Chris Kroger for unearthing this gem! (I added pronunciation guides in parenthesis after certain key Tibetan terms.)

From Namkhai Norbu:

"When you discover and you have that experience then what do you do? It means that it is not sufficient only to have experience but you integrate, you are in that, in ordinary language it means that you are applying contemplation, or you are in contemplation, but how are you in contemplation?

In general, when we do meditation or practice, then we explain how to sit for doing practice, or we ask. "How is the position of practice?" That means that since one of our ways of existence is our physical body, for that reason then we must coordinate our body, and therefore we have an explanation of the position. After that, we consider the existence of our voice and for that reason we ask, "What is the method of breathing when we do practice?" Or, if there is no particular explanation related to breathing then, "How do we look with our eyes and how are the functions of the senses?" Finally we have an explanation on how we must do visualization, thinking, meditating, because we have mind, the existence of mind.

So it means that we control our body, speech and mind, and all three are coordinated in the practice. So how do you integrate all these aspects in contemplation? This is explained in the Dzogchen Upadesha teaching with the Four cog.bzhag; (pronounced "chozhag") cog means "how it is", bzhag means "remain, being as it is." This means you don't change, you don't modify, you should be as it is in your real nature. So then you can go through them one by one: how should your body be when you do practice? You remain just as it is. Then you continue with your voice and mind; so the cog.bzhag are for giving you the knowledge of that principle. The first one is ri.bo(riwo) cog.bzhag, like a mountain; this does not mean that you remain in a gigantic manner without moving. Sometimes you can find in the sutra teachings some explanations referring to being like a mountain. For instance it is said that many demons tried to distract Buddha, but he remained on contemplation like a mountain. There the idea is of something that cannot be disturbed, some idea of stability. But here, in this context, it does not have the same meaning. Also Dzogchen teachings explain that the cog.bzhag of the mountain gives the idea that you are on a mountain. If you are on the top of a mountain you can see everything, you do not feel limited as one in a tomb or a cage; yet this explanation is relative, in that it is not the main meaning. The main meaning of ri.bo cog.bzhag is that you remain as you are, just at that moment.

You see, there are millions and millions of different kinds of mountains in the world -- some are very sharp and high, some are very large, some are very low, some are very extended, some are small. Why? because it depends on circumstances, on their condition. For example, some mountains are formed with very strong rock and are covered by snow all year like Kailash and Everest, so then of course they become very sharp and high. But mountains formed by sand are never very sharp and high. In the same way we human beings are living in different situations, and different circumstances. We live in time and with different circumstances and they change every day. Sometimes we are standing, sometimes lying down, sometimes doing something, so we then are being present at every moment, whatever the condition of our body, just being in that position. Sometimes you are lying down on a bed, so if you are present it doesn't mean that immediately you should get up and sit in a meditation position. If, while you are walking, you have presence, or you are in a state of contemplation, it doesn't mean that you immediately sit in a position for meditating. If you are, for example, on a toilet, it could also be that you are in contemplation, it doesn't mean you have to immediately go in the temple….in contemplation there are no problems; you can contemplate and integrate everything, so that is the real meaning of the cog.bzhag of the mountain.

The second cog.bzhag is called rgya.mtsho cog.bzhag; rgya.mtsho(gyatso) means "ocean". There are explanations for this name: "ocean" refers to being in a state of contemplation, and that state is like the ocean that reflects all the universe. That is an example of developing clarity. But this explanation is relative, because it is more intellectual. In practice that is not the meaning of ocean. Ocean is the secret name for the eyes. The eyes are the first of the five sense organs, and by knowing the function of the eyes, you then know the function of our other organs. So, it means to remain as it is, in that condition without changing or modifying your vision. It does not mean, for example, that you should concentrate in a one-pointed inner state, or do fixation on an object, or gaze at something in a particular way.
In general, we have two eyes for looking and their nature is to be open and have contact with objects, but sometimes we are lying down on a bed with closed eyes. In this case it does not mean that when you are in contemplation, you immediately open your eyes, or as in the sutra system, when you do meditation you immediately close your eyes. It just means to be in the normal way with organs having normal contact with sense objects. The same applies to breathing, because breath and the function of the senses are all related. So this is the real meaning of the second cog.bzhag.

Then we have the third cog.bzhag; we call it rig.pa'i cog.bzhag, cog.bzhag of the state of rigpa. Generally we ask, "How should our mind be, how do we concentrate or do visualization?" The answer is the state of instant presence, and that is the state of rigpa, without changing, modifying or creating anything. This means we are in the nature of the mirror instead of being like reflections. We may have infinite reflections and have no problems with them, since they are something like qualifications of our state. That is the third cog.bzhag.

Then the last cog.bzhag is called snag.ba cog.bzhag, the cog.bzhag of vision, meaning mainly the sense objects. Firstly there is the object of our eyes, that is the forms and colors and all things; then through the ears we hear different kinds of sound, and so on with all our senses, while for our mind we have all dharmas, all phenomena. So there is nothing wrong or considered to be without value. It does not matter if it is pure or impure vision, we say Kuntuzangpo, meaning everything is fine. If you are in the state of rigpa you don't have any problem with vision, that is why in the Dzogchen teachings we say, "Visions are ornaments of the primordial state." Ornaments create beauty for you, they don't create problems. In the same way, even though it is a samsaric vision, if you are not conditioned, if you are not distracted and you are in the state of rigpa, there is nothing wrong. You can be in that and everything is your mandala of energy. That is the last cog.bzhag.

When we explain the four we do it one by one, but when they are applied in the state of contemplation it does not mean there is a progressive order such as first you do this, then second you do that. Your entire existence, how it must be in that moment, is called cog.bzhag. The practice method for being in that state is called khregs.chod (pronounced "trekcho") in Dzogchen Upadesha. Many translators today translate khregs.chod as "breakthrough." I do not think that really does correspond to the meaning of khregs.chod because "break" is done with effort. If you have effort it is not contemplation. One of the most important points is "beyond effort," so how can you be beyond effort if you break through something? However, you can learn the real meaning of it. It does't matter if you don't get a precise word, as you cannot realize with words anyway, while you do realize with meaning. So in the real sense khregs.chod in the Tibetan language has this meaning: khregs means something bound together, a bundle, such as wood bound up with a rope for fire. In Tibetan we say shing.khregs, shing is "wood", khregs is "bound." If we bind cut grass together , then we say rtsa.khregs, if many clothes are bound together, then we say gos.khregs. Any kind of thing that you bind together is called khregs. In general, we are bound with our tension, emotions, and so on, all our existence, and that is the real meaning of khregs.

So khregs (trek) means that we cut that tension by doing something and being liberated. We are liberated from that binding, so that its called khregs.chod, chod meaning "liberated." The root of the syllable chod comes from gcod, which means actively cutting with a knife or something. But if there is someone who is not cutting, but is self-liberated then that is called chod. Maybe you hear these two as the same word, but they are not the same -- one is chod, the other is gcod. The word gcod means something like cutting, the same word as that of the practice of the gcod; while the word chod means something which is self-liberated. So khregs.chod means "totally self-relaxed" and this name refers to these Four cog.bzhag. When you learn the Four cog.bzhag then you apply and integrate in your daily life -- this is our practice, what we do.

Within the series of Upadesha we also have the most important secret teachings such as thod.rgal (thogal) and Dzogchen yang.tig. Both methods are for developing contemplation. This means that you already have such knowledge of contemplation but in order to realize it, so that that knowledge becomes something concrete, you have particular methods. That is why, for example, for doing practices like thod.rgal and yang.tig , the first thing that you must try to have is a base. To have a precise base means that you have experience of contemplation. When you start with the Four cog.bzhag, it means that you already have something to develop and, in particular, the use of methods such as thod.rgal and yang.tig implies that you are in a precise experience of contemplation, and you are using these methods to develop rapidly. Why are there these important and special methods? That principle is explained with the Four Visions, which are the principle of both Dzogchen yang.tig and thod.rgal. It does not mean that we are only speaking of some kind of visions, but how we can apply this method and have that experience. Remember, we learned previously the Four Cog.bzhag in order to have knowledge of contemplation and continuation, and how we integrate them in our existence.

The first vision is called cos.nyid mngon.sum. (cho nyi gon sum) You know chos is the Tibetan translation of the sanskrit word dharma and it means all phenomena. In Sanskrit we have two words: dharmadhatu and dharmata. Many people understand them as having the same meaning. Dharmadhatu means the universal condition of all phenomena, including sentient beings and their nature. It is somewhat related to dharmakaya, the dimension of all phenomena. But dharmata means the nature or real condition, particularly of an individual. Dharmadhatu means nature, the real condition of subject and object, the whole, the complete; while dharmata, chos.nyid in Tibetan, means our individual nature, our potentiality.

You see, each individual has infinite potentiality, in that the state of the individual is also the center of the universe. For example, I have in my state infinite potentiality, and that potentiality is the center of the universe, but it means that for me, not for you. You are another individual, you have infinite potentiality and yours for you is the also the center of the universe. Yet being the center of the universe is not for egotistic or selfish feelings, or a feeling of being more important than others. Rather it refers to what is the real potentiality of each individual, that is the real meaning of dharmata.

We can discover our potentiality, dharmata, with the method of the Four Visions. The First Vision is chos.nyid mngon,sum. Chos.nyid means "dharmata", mngon.sum means "real", meaning something we have contact with or we discover through our senses, not merely imagination. For example we say, "Emptiness is our real nature," although that is a kind of experience, yet it is not something we really see or experience concretely. By contrast chos.nyid mngon.sum means something concrete. How can we have that concreteness? We acquire that through visions. The First Vision we can have is the thigle. For example, you are looking in empty space, then the thigle appears, particularly if there are secondary causes like sun-rays, or other kinds of light. In that case you look into the rays of that light with your eyes half closed and in a dimension of rays you can discover the apparition of the thigle. It looks somehow like a peacock feather, and it is shining and sometimes when you see it and look at it then it goes away and disappears. So even though we did not do much practice we can have that experience, we can have that experience because everybody has that potentiality in their nature. Our potentiality can manifest and we can easily discover it.

So what really is the manifestation of the thigle? A thigle is the form of our potentiality manifesting in front of our eyes as something like a vision because there is a secondary cause for its manifesting. For example the sun's rays are only a secondary cause. For example, if you sit with your hand, or any part of the body near your eyes, you notice that you have many hairs on your hand and if you look through this hair near the sun's ray it is shining and many kinds of thigle manifest. Or if you lay down on the ground and you put a piece of woolen or silken cloth on your face, looking at the sun-rays through this cloth you can see many thigle. You might think that they are coming from the woolen cloth or from the rays, but those are only the secondary causes; the thigle do not originate from them.

Let us take the example of a crystal rock. If you put it in the light when secondary causes, such as sun rays, are present, then from this crystal rock infinite lights having rainbow colors come out. They are not really manifesting from sun rays, which is only a secondary cause. In reality that manifestation comes from the potentiality of the crystal rock, and in the same way, the manifestation of thigle comes through our potentiality. You can discover that when you are doing the dark retreat: in the dark you are only doing some specific positions and gazing with the eyes and you can have infinite visions of thigle. How can you have these visions when there are no sun rays? Even if you live in the dark you still have your potentiality, only the secondary causes for manifesting it are not the sun rays; it could be the position and the manner of gazing. There are many ways in which you can develop that possibility , and that is called "the real vision of dharmata." You have that vision of thigle; it means something like having the vision of your potentiality, because through that you discover your potentiality. So this is the first stage of the vision; through this very important method you can have possibility of that vision and discovering your potentiality. So your vision of dharmata is very important for realizing and integrating your potentiality.

All the practices like thod.rgal and yang.tig start and develop from that point of thigle. You always have the production of a karmic body -- your material body is the resultant product of the potentiality of karma that you produce. You see, your real nature is pure from the beginning, and has infinite potentiality which manifests through sound, light and rays. But when we do not have that knowledge and we are distracted and enter into a dualistic vision, that is the starting point of samsara. Someone may ask, "Who made, and who created this samsara and when was it created?" Although you cannot trace a cosmological map of its origin, yet whenever you enter in a dualistic vision, you are already in samsara and that is the starting point.

For example, you have the five elements and in your potentiality they are like the five colors if you manifest some pure manifestation or pure dimension. But when you produce negative karma that characteristic of negative karma is associated with all your elements, with all your potentiality, so your elements slowly, slowly become somewhat material, more on a material level due to the production of karma, and the result of it is what we call karmic vision.
The vision of the thigle and that of our physical existence are very distinct: the physical body and all our human dimension is the production of karma, while what appears in the thigle is our real potentiality.

When you have this knowledge then you have the possibility that your existence, this karmic production is integrated in that thigle. If you totally succeed in integrating your existence in that thigle, that is called "Great Transference" -- there is no death and even the elements, all existence, is realized in its natural manifestation of the rainbow body. Even if you do not have the capacity for that total integration in the thigle, but are on that path, and you have the capacity of integrating, even if your material karmic body remains, depending on the level of your capacity of contemplation when you die, still you can totally integrate -- maybe it will take seven days, but then your physical body dissolves in its real nature. Even if you have death, your realization manifests as the rainbow body. So the first stage is seeing or having real experience of dharmata.

The second stage is called nyams.snang gong.'phel. Nyams means experience, snag means "vision"; through experience you can have different kinds of visions. Visions do not only refer to visions related to our eyes, but also mean the functions of all the senses. Gong.'phel means "developing," "increasing," and it refers to the fact that you are using specific positions. In general we have three main positions: Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya. By using a particular position and by controlling your energy the result is that specific aspect of manifestation. for example, you are gazing into space, or you are looking in the sun rays and you have visions of thigle, one or many thigle. And when you have that thigle you can also see a kind of light net; sometimes you can see silver strings, and we call that vajrasattva chain. That too is a manifestation of the continuation of our potentiality. When you observe the thigle all these chains move; then when you observe this net of light, do not go after the thigle and these things, but remain in a state of contemplation. In this way you can find these thigle and all other visions stop moving. And slowly, slowly, day after day, you develop and you can find some stable thigle; then you fix on that thigle and integrate your existence in that thigle. It does not mean very much if you have many visions of thigle, that is only the manifestation of your potentiality, also you must not only have curiosity and kind of play about with the visions, you should only integrate, and be in that thigle.

Integrating means that whatever you see, you are just that, and that is in your existence. If you do not remain in a dualistic vision you can develop your manifestations more and more. When you develop visions you must not immediately create an attachment to them. Some people, when they have some kinds of visions, such as nice things, feel very happy and say, "I always want to have this vision." With this kind of attachment you block your possibility of development. On the contrary, you have to relax in that state, in any kind of vision, and integrate in that state in this way so that the vision of the thigle increases. You can also experience the development of visions in a thigle, such as full or partial manifestations of the Dhyani Buddhas or a half form, a partial form of it. So this is called increasing your vision.
The Third Vision is called rig.pa tshad.phebs and means "maturing your knowledge," being in a state of rigpa. When you are in that contemplation, you do not need any effort for being or integrating; you easily, automatically get in that state of integration and remain that way in this vision. Through applying integration in that way you have the vision of how all that has matured and totally developed. Particularly in the dimension of the thigle there are many different kinds of visions, some are pure and some are impure. So this is the third stage.

Then you have the last stage which is called the stage of chos zad, chos means "dharma", or phenomena, zad means "consuming"; thus consuming phenomena, principally in your vision, in your consideration of subject and object. You see, you have a physical body, which is the product of karma, and through this practice of integration with that capacity you slowly, slowly consume your existence -- it means dissolving your physical body into its real nature. So when you are entering in this stage, applying this practice and you die on that path, your death and your realization is the rainbow body. If you succeed at that stage then there is the great transference.
This is a vey important, essential method, so you must be very serious about this method and its teaching.

It is important to realize how energy manifests. The characteristics of our energy are called gdangs,(dang) rol.pa and rtsal (tsal). The energy of the state of rigpa is immutable, and being in that energy itself, that is the state of contemplation of gdangs.(dang) How is the gdangs energy itself? In general we learn about it with an example: gdangs energy is like a crystal ball: it has no color, and its real nature is pure, limpid and clear, but if you put it on a piece of collared cloth, for example, then it will appear to be the same color as the cloth.

In Dzogchen, when we give teachings with the symbolic transmission, we sometimes place symbolic objects on a table, not merely speaking about them, so that the practitioners can observe them and then discover what they mean by going into the experience concretely. For example, you take a table and cover it with a piece of cloth which has four different colors, one on each side of the four directions like a mandala: the mandala in the east is white, the vajra family; in the south is yellow, the ratna family; the one in the west is red, the padma family; while in the north it is green, the karma family; and the center is blue, the position of vairocana, the buddha family. Then at the center of this mandala you place a crystal ball; if you look at the ball from above it appears completely blue because in the center the base is blue.

Then you go to the east side and you look in the crystal ball, and it appears white, then you go and turn around a little and its aspect changes again and it becomes yellow, if you keep on walking it will keep on changing into red and then green, because all directions have their color, and so on according to the direction you are walking around. So what does this mean? It means that whatever the situation and the circumstances are, the state of contemplation manifests that, because in the real Dharmakaya state there are no colors, or forms, or positions. All circumstances and positions are relative, so when you are in your real nature nothing ever changes, even if you are seeing different colors. The nature of the crystal is always clear, pure and limpid. So you are like that; this is your state, and in any circumstances in which you integrate, and you find yourself in that integration -- that condition of energy is called gdangs.

The energy of rol.pa is infinite manifestation beyond limitation. When you are in this, beyond limitation, that is the state of rol.pa. For introducing that we use the example of the mirror. In general, our ideas are very limited. For example, good is not bad, big is not small, and so on; all are in conflict and different. So if someone says "big," you understand "big," you never understand "small" -- that is our limitation of dualistic vision. If a dimension is small , you cannot conceive of how to put something big inside it, that is impossible. For that reason also the story of Milarepa in a yak horn seems strange. In the biography of Milarepa, it is explained that one day Milarepa and his disciple Rechungpa were walking when suddenly it started to rain. When they arrived at the place to which they were going, Rechungpa noticed that his Master was not with him. Then he started to look but could not find him, so he just waited for him. Later when the rain stopped he heard Milarepa singing but he could not see him, though he continued to look for Milarepa everywhere. Finally he noticed that the sound of Milarepa's voice was coming from a yak horn, and he thought, "Oh, it is impossible!" But it seemed that sound was really coming from there, so slowly, slowly he went towards the yak horn. A yak horn is not very big -- it is like a big cow horn -- so then he looked inside and saw Milarepa sitting in his usual position and singing. Rechungpa really saw him, it was not an illusion, so he was very surprised. He said, "The yak horn did not become big because it is its normal size," while he also saw that Milarepa was his normal size and had not become smaller. That is why he was very surprised and thought it impossible. Yet he really saw that. Then Milarepa sang, "You feel that is strange, but that is the real condition. That is what we mean by being beyond limitation." That was the teaching he received from Milarepa. Although it seems impossible, sometimes we have this kind of possibility. I also once had a personal experience similar to that one when I was doing the practice of thod.rgal. I had a manifestation of a thigle and it seemed like a mandala: in the center there was a thigle of five colors, and in the four directions there were four thigle, all five thigle being within a big thigle. So this was my experience. If during my practice I have some interesting experiences, I usually try and draw them afterwards so that i remember them. So when I finished my practiceI tried to draw it, but it never looked like what I saw. I really saw these five thigle in one thigle, with no empty spaces in between them, but while I was drawing I discovered that it was impossible. I tried to draw them again and again, but after three or four pages of drawing I understood logically that it is impossible. Then I thought that it might look like that , but in reality it couldn't be so. After two or three days, while I was doing my practice, it appeared again and at that moment I knew it was impossible to draw them. Even though I already knew it was impossible to do this, at that time I really saw why. So I was a little surprised but that is real -- in nature there are things like that.

So when we take the example of the mirror, we can illustrate there the conflict of big and small: the big cannot be put into the small; nevertheless, if you have a small sized mirror you can see the whole countryside in it. You can see the whole countryside without its changing size and becoming smaller -- you just see it in the normal way. That is a good example for breaking the conflict of big and small. So rol.pa energy, in relation to our dimension, means something like a mirror, then we have infinite potentiality of manifestation. You can manifest the whole universe in your dimension. Also, when you are doing a transformation method in tantric teaching, you are manifesting the whole universe in a mandala like that of the Kalachakra, or you are transforming your existence into that of a deity and your whole, total existence into that mandala. In the real sense it does not mean that you are building a mandala outside somewhere, but you are just manifesting in your dimension the characteristic of rol.pa energy, as we do in our practice of zhi.khro -- peaceful and wrathful manifestations which are related to our energy, movement and the calm state. All these are manifesting in our dimension, just as in the example of the mirror. The characteristic of this kind of energy is called rol.pa. It is very important that you know that principle and how the energy manifests, especially if you do transformation and realize the whole manifestation in your dimension.
Then we have the non-dual rtsal energy in the state of rigpa. What is rtsal energy?The rtsal energy has the characteristic of manifesting in a different way from the gdangs and rol.pa energies I explained before. You can learn about the rtsal energy with the example of a crystal rock. The crystal rock is the symbol of your real nature, which is clear, pure and limpid. It does not differ much from the crystal ball, but the crystal rock has many corners and many shapes. In the same way rtsal energy is more related with our different conditions, our characteristic functions of energy; also different kinds of elements are all related with our physical body and energy. So that is the root of our pure and impure vision.

To have an example of this we put the crystal rock in the sunshine, then, when the sun rays strike the crystal rock, rainbow colors manifest everywhere. But in the absence of sunshine, all these lights and their potentiality remain inside the crystal rock, because it is the source of the manifestations of these colors. Of course, if there is no secondary cause -- sun rays -- there is no manifestation.
With the mirror, for example, the secondary cause is the presence of an object or some people in front of it, if that cause is not present, then here is no reflection. It is similar with the crystal rock -- its potentiality manifests only when there are secondary causes. Let us take the manifestation of deities or mandalas. Their cause for manifesting is sound, light and rays -- first sound, then light becomes rays of different colors, and from the five colors different shapes form which are the manifestations. We call that a pure dimension, which is part of our real energy.
When we are distracted, conditioned by subject and object, we produce a lot of karma and the potentiality of karma. All potentiality of karma is associated with our energy, and then instead of light, we have impure vision -- karmic vision -- and that becomes an obstacle for having knowledge or being in real potentiality. So in that way we have samsara, and we say then that we have the different visions of lokas, mainly the six lokas. What are the six lokas in a practical sense? They are part of our rtsal energy. What does an enlightened being like Kalachakra or some other Sambhogakaya manifestation display? That is rtsal energy. We can speak of rtsal energy in a more detailed way, as it pervades our whole existence. Our prana energy, for example, which is more related to our physical body, the kundalini energy, or even ordinary physical energy force -- everything is related to tsal energy.
So rtsal energy is like the root of all, that is why we say our primordial state is the center of the universe; the whole universe is our rtsal manifestation. Everybody has the same condition. When you are in the state of rigpa, what is rtsal energy? It is your experience and through experience you are in the rtsal energy, and this is called rig.rtsal. No longer do you have a dualistic consideration such as, this is energy, this is my condition and so on, because in that instant presence you are not in dualistic vision. that is the most important point in contemplation. In this way we integrate all our existence -- body, voice, and mind -- the whole universe and all circumstances, in a state of contemplation.

So, these three main manifestations of our energy are related with the three states of the kayas: the gdangs energy never changes its real nature, which is primarily in the state of the Dharmakaya. For demonstrating the rol.pa energy, we took the example of the mirror and being integrated in that is the Sambhogakaya. And rtsal energy is more related with our condition, both pure and impure dimensions, so it is linked with the Nirmanakaya state. You can understand that it is not sufficient just to have knowledge of your nature and energy, but there is something to do in your practice."

-from transcript of commentary on song of the vajra

No Enlightenment, No One to Liberate

No one has ever become enlightened, because no self or mind has ever existed to become enlightened.

No one has ever been in samsara, because no one has ever existed to experience samsara or nirvana.

No one has ever realized anatta or no self, because no one has ever existed to realize their own absence. Who could exist to realize they never existed?

No teaching has ever benefited anyone, because no one existed to receive a teaching.

The self “you” seem to be, is no more real than the self in last night’s dream. Both are illusory projections of subconscious conditioning.

Diamond Sutra:

SECTION XXV. THE ILLUSION OF SELF

"Subhuti, what do you think? Let no one say the Buddha cherishes the idea: “I must liberate all living beings”. Allow no such thought, Subhuti. Why not? Because in reality there are no living beings to be liberated by the Buddha. If there were living beings for the Buddha to liberate, He would partake in the thoughts of selfhood, personality entity, and separate individuality."

Also from the Diamond Sutra:

"Yet when vast, uncountable, immeasurable numbers of beings have thus been liberated, verily no being has been liberated. Why is this, Subhuti? It is because no Bodhisattva who is a real Bodhisattva cherishes the idea of an ego-entity, a personality, a being, or a separated individuality."

Grasping the Known

After a sense of “I am” is arising in the mind, a perspective of “being” an individual self entity arises, felt as “me”.

Existence then becomes an interactive game of grasping, rejecting or resisting everything “other” than the “I am”, as the conceptualized “me”.

However when the mind sees the “empty nature” of all things or events, grasped at, rejected or resisted; there is no longer a viable target of that grasping, rejecting or resisting. It was seen to be like trying to grasp at clouds in the sky, empty, always moving and evolving appearances, with no central core or solidity. When this is clearly seen, the grasping ceases, and with nothing to grasp, the “grasper”, also ceases. The grasper was also seen to be as empty as a cloud in the sky.

The empty, cloud-like nature of the “I am” was nothing more than a cloudy swirl of “me” and “mine” thoughts. When all thoughts cease their movements, the self illusion vanishes.

All that was ever grasped at were never more than cloud-like movements of energy, all in transition, without ever becoming any fixed thing or person.

*Selective perception suggests a portion of a wave which extends without limits in all directions, both in space and time, can somehow be grasped, for at least some period of time.*

What’s attempted to be grasped, rejected or resisted, can’t possibly be domesticated or controlled, just like the impossibility of doing so with a cloud in the sky.

The only way to have some illusion of success, is to create a label which implies a fixed quality of solid existence for that selected perception. Through naming and labeling, the mind creates an endless plethora of people, things and objects; which only exist as conceptualized beliefs in the mind. It is actually only through the names and labels which imply that any perception is “real” as a fixed entity, and is able to be grasped or controlled.

Such a life, is rife with disappointment, frustration and grief, as it’s found that no one and no thing can actually be permanently grasped or brought under total control. Somehow, everyone and everything eventually slips away into the darkness of non-existence; with no person, no domicile , no possession, no relationship, no planet, sun or galaxy remaining intact. There is only transience, momentarily appearing.

Without labels and thoughts that attempt to reify (solidify) that which can’t be reified, both the imaginary cloud of a self, its suffering and the imagined clouds as “everything else”, which the mind attempts to grasp and control, never appear as anything defined at all.

Samsara is only the mind’s swirl of thoughts, which generate the illusion that someone and some things actually exist where none otherwise, can be found in a mind where the flow of thoughts have come to rest.

Tulku Urgyen wrote in Rainbow Painting: "When there are no thoughts whatsoever, then you are a Buddha".

Chokyi Nyima wrote:

“Being free of thought is liberation.”

A student asked Ramana when is one finally enlightened?

Ramana replied “When there are no more thoughts.”

The Buddha: MN 140 Dhātuvibhaṅga Sutta:

" ‘He has been stilled where the currents of conceiving (thinking) do not flow. And when the currents of conceiving do not flow, he is said to be a sage at peace.’ Thus was it said. With reference to what was it said?

Monk, “I am” is a conceiving. “I am this” is a conceiving. “I shall be” is a conceiving. “I shall not be” ... “I shall be possessed of form” ... “I shall be formless” ... “I shall be perceiving ” ... “I shall be non-perceiving” ... “I shall be neither-perceiving-nor-non-perceiving” is a conceiving.”

“Conceiving is a disease, conceiving is a cancer, conceiving is an arrow. By going beyond all conceiving, monk, he is said to be a sage at peace.

“Furthermore, a sage at peace is not born, does not age, does not die. He is unagitated, and is free from longing. He has nothing whereby he would be born. Not being born, how could he age? Not aging, how could he die? Not dying, how could he be agitated? Not being agitated, for what will he long?”

“So it was in reference to this that it was said, ‘He has been stilled where the currents of conceiving do not flow. And when the currents of conceiving do not flow, he is said to be a sage at peace.’"

Nagarjuna: "What language describes is non-existent. What thought describes is non-existent. Things neither arise nor dissolve, just as in Nirvana."

Questioner: How can I tell if I am making progress with my enquiry?
‘The degree of the absence of thoughts is the measure of your progress towards Self-Realization. But Self-Realization itself does not admit of progress, it is ever the same.’ Ramana Maharishi

Here is what many other great masters have shared with us regarding the obscuring nature of our thought constructs:

Dzogchen teacher, Chokyi Nyima:

“The most subtle type of obscuration is to simply conceive of something – like simply thinking, “It is.” Any notion we may hold is still a way of conceptualizing the three spheres: subject, object and action. Whenever there is a thought which conceives the three spheres, karma is created. People ask, ‘What is karma? I don’t get it! Where is karma?” In fact, karma is our mind conceiving something. Karma is the doings of conceptual mind. This subtle forming of a notion of anything is like a web, a haze that obscures our innate suchness just as mist obscures the sun from being vividly seen.

The great master Nagarjuna said, “There is no samsara apart from your own thoughts.” Samsara is based on thought; samsara is made by thought.”

“A thought includes attachment and aversion. A thought by its very nature involves an attitude of selecting and excluding. Every thought is hope and fear. Hope and fear is painful, in the sense of making you uneasy. Implicit in hope is the idea that “I have not yet achieved.” That is painful, isn’t it? Likewise, fear is accompanied by the thought, “It may happen and I don’t want it.” That is also painful; that is also suffering. Whenever there is involvement in thought, whenever a thought is formed, there is disturbing emotion. There is hope and fear, and therefore there is suffering.”

Dzogchen Master, Vairocana wrote as an instruction, in the 800’s a.d:

“So the state in which we don’t think at all is the supreme heart-essence of equanimity. We set ourselves down where we have no thoughts, and just stay there, without getting lost in the forces of depression or wildness.”

"Thinking only begins after marigpa (ignorance) sets in, at the loss of rigpa. During the nondistraction of rigpa, no thought can begin. I cannot emphasize this enough —there is no thought during the state of rigpa!"Tulku Urgyen

"Honestly, there is nothing more amazing than this recognition of rigpa in which no thought can remain."Tulku Urgyen

Bon Dzogchen Master, Lopon Tenzin Namdak wrote:

"Buddhas do not have any discursive thoughts (rnam-rtog); they have primal awareness or gnosis (ye-shes). Thoughts are always mixed up with negativities and obscurations. Thoughts represent obscuration. Thus we keep in a thoughtless state (mi rtog-pa). When we keep in the Natural State and everything dissolves, then we do not need to do or change anything. We just let things be, just let thoughts go. We let everything remain just as it is."

Dzogchen master, Chokyi Nyima:

“Thought is samsara. Being free of thought is liberation."

Bhante Gunaratana (contemporary Theravada master):

“Once your mind is free from thought, it becomes clearly wakeful and at rest in an utterly simple awareness. This awareness cannot be described adequately."

Dogen Zenji, 13th century Japanese Zen Buddhist founder of Soto Zen:

“Be without thoughts, this is the secret of meditation."

Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch of the “Sudden Enlightenment” school of Zen, states:

"Therefore ‘no-thought’ is established as the doctrine."

“Good Knowing Advisors, why is no-thought (wu nien) established as the doctrine? Because there are confused people who speak of seeing their own nature, and yet they produce thought with regard to states. Their thoughts cause deviant views to arise, and from that all defilement and false thinking are created. Originally, not one single dharma (thing attained) can be obtained in the self-nature. If there is something to attain....that is just defilement and deviant views (thoughts). Therefore, this Dharma-door establishes “no-thought” as its doctrine."

Nisargadatta:

“To remain without thought in the waking state is the greatest worship."

Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche from his book “Present , Fresh Wakefulness”:

"Basically and fundamentally, our mind is utterly empty, sheer bliss, totally naked. We do not need to make it like this; we do not need to cultivate it by meditating, to create this state by meditating.”

“Give up thinking of anything at all, about the past, the future or the present. Remain thought-free, like an infant.”

“Innate suchness is unobscured the moment you are not caught up in present thinking.”

“That which prevents us from being face to face with the real Buddha, the natural state of mind, is our own thinking. It seems to block the natural state.”

“Rigpa, the Natural State, is not cultivated in meditation. The awakened state is not an object of the intellect. Rigpa is beyond intellect, and concepts.”

“This is the real Buddhadharma, not to do a thing. Not to think of anything, like Saraha said, "Having totally abandoned thinker and what is thought of, remain as a thought-free child."

“Thinking is delusion.”

“When caught up in thinking we are deluded. To be free of thinking is to be free.”

“That freedom consists in how to be free from our thinking.”

“As long as the web of thinking has not dissolved, there will repeatedly be rebirth in and the experiences of the six realms.”

“The method: But if you want to be totally free of conceptual thinking there is only one way: through training in thought-free wakefulness. (rigpa).”

“Strip awareness to its naked state.”

“If you want to attain liberation and omniscient enlightenment, you need to be free of conceptual thinking.”

“This is not some state that is far away from us: thought-free wakefulness actually exists together with every thought, inseparable from it... but the thinking obscures or hides this innate actuality. Thought free wakefulness (the natural state) is immediately present the very moment the thinking dissolves, the moment it vanishes, fades away, falls apart.”

“Simply suspend your thinking within the non-clinging state of wakefulness: that is the correct view."

From one of the earliest Dzogchen masters, Vairocana:

“The absence of ideas is a lucidity. This lucidity is also an absence of ideas. It is the basis for a true essence that is not a designation. We remain within a river of awareness, just as it is.

It is primordially pervaded by luminosity, just as it is.

It has no thought.

It has no memory.

It has no motion.

The dhyāna meditation of greatest virtue is to use your dhyāna to an absence of thought...”

Vairocana:

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"Thought is bondage; the immeasurable openness of Empty Awareness (rigpa) is freedom."

Dzogchen Master Nyoshul Khenpo

*This is not to suggest that “you” are doing the “thinking”, that’s not possible, because there is no “you”. So “you” can’t stop thinking, because “you” are just a thought. *

Chokyi Nyima wrote:

“Being free of thought is liberation.”

A student asked Ramana when is one finally enlightened?

Ramana replied “When there are no more thoughts.”

Lama Thubten Gonpo Tsering:

This.. silence.. of the mind. It is a gesture.. a first step. To awaken.. the spiritual heart has to open.. completely and properly. And only the Source, the Beloved.. can do this. If "we" try.. it will never happen properly. How to allow the Source to happen upon you? Relax completely.
❤ Smile sweetly.. your smile is an invitation. Relax. Smile. Feel.
Not an emotion
Nor imagination.
Relax both.
Relax and smile sweetly.. and experience a gentle sensation awaken in your chest. Relax more.. don't try or so anything. The smiling becomes natural.. effortless.
Experience..and melt.❤
Trust will come. The Source wants to do all the most wonderful things for you.. but.. if you are busy.. being "spiritual".. doing
The Beloves will wait.. having the most profound respect..
For your free will.
So... relax. Smile. Let go.. relax more. Aware of the awakening sensation in the chest. Enjoy and be grateful.

More buddhist philosophy texts at:

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A summary of the Base or Zhi in Dzogchen, our actual State:

The Song of the Vajra

Unborn, yet continuing without interruption, neither coming nor going, omnipresent, Supreme Dharma, unchangeable space, without definition, spontaneously self-liberating— perfectly unobstructed state— manifest from the very beginning, self-created, without location, with nothing negative to reject, and nothing positive to accept, infinite expanse, penetrating everywhere, immense, and without limits, without ties, with nothing even to dissolve or to be liberated from, manifest beyond space and time, existing from the beginning, immense dimension, inner space, radiant through clarity like the sun and the moon, self-perfected, indestructible like a Vajra, stable as a mountain, pure as a lotus, strong as a lion, incomparable pleasure beyond all limits, illumination, equanimity, peak of the Dharma, light of the universe, perfect from the beginning.

Translation approved by Namkhai Norbu, from his book; The Crystal and the Way of Light