(The terma tradition and Dzogchen’s two paths)
There are earth terma, sky terma, water terma, and space or thought terma, and those terma teachings have been rediscovered by the heart sons and daughters of Padmasambhava in later times and propagated, expanded, and taught extensively in different forms.
Two paths Dzogchen incorporates two paths, or methods: Trekcho and Thogal. Trekcho means “cutting through,” and reveals the view of primordial purity beyond conceptual elaboration through combining intrinsic awareness and emptiness. When the clarity of rigpa is revealed, all of our samsaric views and beliefs are destroyed or cut through. Thogal means “leaping over,” and is related with the integration of appearance and emptiness. It works directly with the internal and external luminosity by employing certain postures and gazes. Thogal practice can only be undertaken once a practitioner has gained stability in the practice of Trekcho.
The meaning of life cannot be found by constructing all kinds of metaphysical and transcendental concepts, but rather by trying to become more in touch with our own existence, by coming in touch with who we are.
It is a metaphor, it does not mean that unconsciousness is literally underneath the consciousness. Even when we say, “Our true nature,” it does not mean that our true nature is somehow hidden inside our heart. Fundamentally, what it means is to be able to have a holistic view of ourselves. This means to unreservedly see our good and bad aspects, to develop a uniform idea of who we are.
The mind that we are normally aware of has the capacity to retain memories, and is also the sub-stratum of our traces and dispositions. The transcendental consciousness, or mind-in-itself, is basic awareness which is free from our memory, traces, and dispositions, and is also completely free from our past conditioning and habitual mode of perceiving things. It is also free of future expectations, in terms of how we wish things to be or how we want things to turn out. The capacity to be able to be aware of the moment by moment process that goes on within the mind, free of any judgments, and without using our conceptual categorization, is the transcendental consciousness, or mind-in-itself.
That is what basic awareness is. It is free from memory and free from history. It is an ahistorical process of awareness. That is why it is differentiated from our ordinary mode of perceiving, which is historical and is conditioned by external and internal factors. Whereas, basic awareness is not conditioned, it is simply present.
the difference between reality and illusion is that the reality is that which is already present, just simply there. The illusion is created when we perceive that reality through a pre-established pattern of thinking. This obscuration inhibits our ability to see the way things actually exist.
The ground of being refers to the way in which things actually exist, or the reality of things. The meaning of the terms rigpa and emptiness, for instance, would constitute what is known as the ground of being, where there is no differentiation between subject and object. The first order is sometimes translated as “ideally absolute.” “Absolute” can often refer to a god or underlying reality, however, that is not the meaning here. Absolute in this context means that the ground of being is already present within the relative. The second order is based upon causal relationships, and that is how things exist in the relative sense. Whatever we perceive, and whatever we experience, even psychologically and internally, there is nothing that has come about without being dependent upon causes and conditions. That is why it is called “causal relationship,” or “relative.”
(Ground of being, primordial purity, and the nature of energy)
The Ground of Being As mentioned previously, it is necessary to distinguish between the ordinary consciousness and the transcendental consciousness. Self-existing wisdom, or the ground of being, refers to the original natural state of the mind or the transcendental consciousness. It serves as the backdrop for all of our experiences of samsara and nirvana, and is also the basis of sustaining our abilities to develop wisdom and our ability to eradicate ignorance and confusion. Without the ground of being, nothing would be possible. The ground of being is the pre-condition that makes everything possible.
The ground of being, our natural state, has been pure right from the beginning, it is the alpha state, the primordial state. The ground of being has never been corrupted or vitiated by our defilements or obscurations, which are the product of primordial ignorance.
Primordial Purity Primordial purity is called ka dag in Tibetan. Ka is the first word in the Tibetan alphabet, so that symbolizes “the beginning,” and dag means “pure.” So ka dag means “alpha pure” or “primordial purity,” right from the beginning. This suggests, no matter how corrupted, depressed, or terrible we feel, right from the beginning, we have been endowed with this incorruptible primordial purity, which neither increases nor decreases. That is to say, if we are drifting in the samsaric condition, it is not diminished, and if we become enlightened, it is not increased. It is the basic primordial purity.
In the Dzogchen context, when we meditate and develop an understanding of the idea of emptiness, that does not mean we stop using concepts. Rather, because we understand our mental events—concepts, ideas, thoughts, and so forth are not real or substantial within themselves, we have further impetus to use our thoughts, ideas, and concepts incessantly and to our advantage. Energy refers to the potency of the dynamic experience, that whatever experiences we might be having are in a dynamic process and that is totally potent. There is a lot of potency in terms of our experience of the whole thing. Energy is unceasing in terms of its process. The reason why there is energy in the first place is because the whole idea of static-ness is not present. Energy has three aspects, which are known as tsal, dang, and rolpa in Tibetan. These three words are very hard to translate, but we can get an approximate idea if we translate tsal as dexterity, dang as transparency, and rolpa as sensation.
The second aspect, dang, or transparency, means that even when our mind is in a state of confusion, it is never opaque or solid. Even when we are subjected to confusion, indecisiveness, and so forth, or even in a state of extraordinary emotional upheaval, our mind is always transparent. The mind is never hidden from itself, it is always transparent, thus is free from opaqueness.
Even when one finds their mind cluttered up with thoughts, emotions, and sensations of all kinds, one manages to not entangle oneself in that state. The practitioner realizes that what is taking place is the mind in the state of ying. We need to realize that we can never reduce our mind or consciousness simply to imagination, memory, thoughts, emotions, and so forth. There is a wider field or horizon always present. In Dzogchen meditation, we are trying to remain in a that mode of being, so we are not disturbed by either calmness or agitation, understanding that calmness does not necessarily lead to boredom, or agitation lead to despair.
Other people might be able to see what we are doing, thinking, and how we are behaving. Our seemly best inner-kept secrets often manifest through our actions and interactions with other people. Others can often see the parts of ourselves we do not want to have anything to do with, the parts we are blind to and disengaged from.
Chapter Seven: The Four Yogas, Meditation, and Mental Clarity
Chapter Seven The Four Yogas, Meditation, and Mental Clarity The Four Yogas
According to Dzogchen, one pointed concentration does not require us to empty our minds of thoughts, ideas, and emotions, but rather to rest one’s mind while the mind is in movement or agitated. Normally, it can be easier to empty our mind of activities to create a “state of tranquility.” However, in Dzogchen, it is not a matter of discarding our thoughts, as much as being able to rest with our thoughts. It is known as the “indivisibility of transformation, change, and rest,” in regard to mental activities. There is no division seen between the mind that is completely rested and calm, and the mind that is active.
When we cease to make such sharp distinctions and suspend our judgments, the experiences can manifest by themselves. We can then realize that what we normally regard as immediate experience is not immediate at all. We realize that what is so called immediate is actually a product of our conceptual processes.
The third is the “yoga of one flavor,” or “yoga of one taste,” ro chik in Tibetan, ekerasa in Sanskrit. By transitioning through the two previous yogas, we come to realize that all our experiences are permeated by emptiness or insubstantiality, whether positive, negative, good, bad, wholesome, or unwholesome. Everything we experience has the same flavor, the flavor of emptiness. We begin to develop the attitude of non-acceptance (not accepting certain experiences as being totally wonderful), and non-rejection (not rejecting some experiences as being totally bad).
When one is fully present with full awareness, whether one is meditating or not, there is no difference. Being fully present all the time, whether asleep or awake, walking or sitting, they are always present.
The Significance of the Pause in Body, Speech, and Mind As has already been stated, the first eight yanas of the nine yana system deal with the ordinary, everyday consciousness, whereas the ninth yana deals with one’s existential being, or mind-in-itself.
In the Dzogchen tradition, all boundary concepts are broken down, including the distinction of seeing oneself as an afflicted, ordinary sentient creature, and that one must become an enlightened, awakened person. All such boundary concepts need to be transcended, and eventually the ideas of meditation and non-meditation are also transcended, or dissolved.
Once we begin to pay attention to the pauses or gaps, ying, the notion of the spaciousness that pervades all of our activities, begins to make much more sense.
If we do not pay attention to the pauses, the gaps, the intermediate stages, we lose sight of the whole. If we pay more attention to the gaps or pauses within our actions, our actions can become less compulsive. The reason our actions are compulsive is because we do not allow ourselves to have any gaps, any pauses, in our actions. The reason why our speech is compulsive is because we do not allow any gaps in order to see what is being said or spoken of.
Mind-in-itself, rigpa, or bare awareness, is already present in such a gap. Whether the gap is long or short is relative. It is a gap that the Dzogchen practitioner is trying to maintain. At the same time, I should emphasize that we are not trying to rid ourselves of thoughts.
- Meeting an old friend Initially, liberating a thought or emotion is like meeting an old friend. A thought or emotion appears, it triggers some kind of reaction, but then one recognizes the situation in the same way one would recognize an old friend and remembers to release it. 2. A snake unknotting itself When a thought occurs, by leaving it to itself, it will at some point be freed naturally, like a snake unknotting itself from its coils.
Experiencing the world through our senses assumes a whole new dimension beyond our normal sensory presentations or sense pleasures. It turns into a total spiritual experience.
The aspect of non-conceptuality in relation to bliss is connected with the nirmanakaya, or manifest aspect of Buddha’s being.
The non-conceptuality of reality is connected with the dharmakaya, or the authentic state of Buddha’s being. One has to understand those three types of non-conceptuality in relation to these three aspects of Buddha’s embodied being.
Chapter Ten: Imagination and the Five Elements and the Four Modes of Resting in Meditation
Chapter Ten Imagination and the Five Elements and the Four Modes of Resting in Meditation
Resting One’s Mind Like a Mountain The first mode is called “resting one’s mind like a mountain.” What that means is that instead of trying to see whether one is having any thoughts taking place in the mind, or going through any emotional state, one should try to rest simply as it is. When one has developed a certain confidence within oneself, one does not try to pretend to be doing this and that.
Resting One’s Mind Like an Ocean
There is a sense of total stillness. Whenever one is having emotional upheavals during meditation, one can see them as just waves on the ocean. They do not disturb one’s basic level of being, and they are unable to corrupt the impeccability of rigpa, or bare awareness.
That is why in Dzogchen it is said that one should not have to feel neurotic about one’s neurosis. There is a much more sane approach. That is, to be able to be gentle with oneself, with one’s neurosis and emotional conflicts.
(Confidence, openness, and freedom from neurosis)
When one starts to look at the temporality of one’s own true condition, one’s own mortality, as well as the temporality of things external to oneself, it does not lead to despair and nihilism. This leads to real pleasure and bliss in the sense that we are no longer afflicted by the idea that we are somehow inadequate. It also brings about a certain particular confidence within oneself, which is different from either arrogance or pride.
Tibetan. With this experience, one is totally open to criticism, rejections, and all kinds of normally unwanted advances from others. This is extremely important. Even intellectually, if a person is confident in oneself, then they are able to listen to other people’s opinions, views, and attitudes.