Source Text
We cannot enter the immediate path of Dzogchen until we have intuited the complete futility in the striving on a graduated path. Only then can the graduated path be integrated into the immediate path so that the immediate path can be realized. That is another way of saying that the unitary pathless path is achieved by initiatory experience into the nature of mind.
Evidence of realization is the experience of every moment of the 24-hours as of equal worth. That experience provides the rationale for calling radical Dzogchen meditation ‘nonmeditation’. It is only with the understanding that simply sitting is nonmeditation that we can properly engage in formal meditation. Once we have that understanding, free of any impulse towards enlightenment or at least disabused of the folly that we can actually prepare the ground for buddha, only then can we simply sit.
Such a ritual consumes everyone who has had full experience of mind’s nature and whose only purpose in life is to retain identity with the essence of being. That implies enjoyment of the ritual of embodiment. To put it another way, we are identified with nondual awareness to enjoy the illusory duality of karmic propensity.
There are no degrees or levels of karmic purity: ‘karma’ is karma of the human soul, every manifestation of human life uniformly rooted in the nature of mind. The wheel of life constantly spins, taking us through both upper and lower realms, and all states of mind, surely, are equally illusory and equally sticky.
Freed from the need to produce any result from meditation, the elements of practice become a source and expression of pleasure. The buddhas, wrathful or peaceful, are always inherent in the unitary here and now, never to be confronted in a ‘me’-and-‘it’ dualization. The wrathful deities in the mandala are integrated as compassionate clowns with terrific faces and costumes. The yab-yum pairs are locked into a basic understanding of mutual awareness. The imps and goblins at the mandala’s periphery are sympathetic figures of fun. We play life as a dance of either peace or war, tragedy or comedy, sexual harmony or belligerent conflict, but always as illusionary show intrinsic within the complete and perfect unitary Dzogchen moment.
We play life as a dance of either peace or war, tragedy or comedy, sexual harmony or belligerent conflict, but always as illusionary show intrinsic within the complete and perfect unitary Dzogchen moment.
Thus simply sitting is a product of initiatory experience, rather than a cause of it. To simply sit with the express purpose of relieving the pain of existence is counter-productive — there are other better ways of reducing anxiety. Simply sitting is performed without any purpose at all. Initiatory experience has convinced us that the nature of mind is perfect as it stands and that whatever arises out of it, likewise, is as perfect as can be, and that nothing whatsoever can be done to improve it. Meditation guilds the lily; nonmeditation appreciates the natural flower.
So long as there is a suggestion — even a hint — of anticipation or hope, a prospect of improvement, ‘a better rebirth’, ‘enlightenment’ in the future, daily practice and simply sitting are undercut and may prove counterproductive.
end. The beginning consists of the Nine Breaths, the Refuge and Celebration (of the Bodhisattva Vow). The rituals of Refuge and Bodhisattva Vow appear at the commencement of all Mahayoga and Anuyoga practices, and are of no less importance in Dzogchen Atiyoga. Insofar as they appear at the start of the ritual they are of primary importance and should not be overlooked as vocal impediments.
We were part of it before birth and we are a part of it after death and, in this life, we are rooted in it. We have never left it and the Refuge is a ritual recognition of that fact.
AI Summary
Dzogchen Daily Practice by Keith Dowman presents key insights from the Dzogchen tradition. The 10 passages above capture the essential teachings.
Core Themes:
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Key Passages: Highlights 1, 3, and 10 are particularly representative.
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