Index
Wonders of the Natural Mind: The Essence of Dzogchen in the Native Bon Tradition of Tibet
The outer cycle is the path of renunciation (spong lain), the Sutra teachings. The inner cycle is the path of transformation (sgyur lam), the Tantric teachings, which use mantras. The secret cycle is the path of self-liberation (grol lam), the Dzogchen teachings. This division into Sutra, Tantra, and Dzogchen (mdo sngags sems gsum) is also found in Tibetan Buddhism.
Self-arising wisdom is the base. The five negative emotions are manifested energy. Seeing emotions as mistaken is an error. Letting them be in their nature is the method To find the non-dual state of Liberation. Overcoming hope and fear is the result.
Tapihritsa is depicted in Dharmakaya form, like Kuntuzangpo, naked and without ornaments.
“The view is my master. I practice the nonconceptual state. I meditate on everything I see in the three dimensions (of existence). I am carrying thoughts in my bag. My behavior is to work as the servant of sentient beings. I am going nowhere.”
Human or animal, in order to bring the cycle of samsara to an end, we must discover the source of suffering. This is the thinking mind that gives rise to the passions and to attachment. The only way to overcome the poisons of the five passions and their manifestations is to bring the mind under control. This can be done through practicing the teachings that bid us to observe ourselves in order to understand and, through practice, overcome our grasping mind. In this way the teachings guide us to know the underlying nature of the mind and integrate its true condition with our daily life.
Defilements, or obscurations, are not in the nature of the mind (sems nyid) but in the moving mind (sems), so they can be purified.
If we realize our innate purity but only integrate with it from time to time, we are not totally realized. Being in total integration all the time is final realization.
even though it is a quality that is innate, we have to develop it. The traditional analogy is to the way the quality of butter already exists in milk: to get the butter we have to chum the milk.
The main point to bear in mind in relation to meditation is to avoid indulging in spiritual fantasies and to remember that the fundamental purpose of the practice is to acquire, maintain, and develop continuity of presence of awareness.
there is nothing spoken about in the teachings that we cannot find in ourselves, in our own experience.
all that there really is left to do is to sit quietly;
Effort and commitment to practice are necessary. No obstacle that arises in zhine practice, such as laziness or mental agitation, should divert us and no kind of daily activity should distract us.
When we start to meditate, it is best to alternate short sessions of formal practice with rest periods, gradually increasing the duration of the sessions as we become more accustomed to relaxing in the calm state of mind.
Prepare a piece of indigo paper one inch square with the Tibetan letter A drawn as illustrated on page 89. The A should be enclosed in five concentric, colored circles. The central circle should be indigo. This should be surrounded by green, red, yellow, and white in that order. (If one feels uncomfortable with the Tibetan letter, an English “A” can be used in its place.) Place the paper on a stick high enough so that the square can rest about one and one half feet in front of your nose.
We must not blink the eyes or inhibit the flowing of “the three waters”: saliva from the mouth, mucus from the nose, and tears from the eyes. These must be allowed to flow freely, because we must concentrate and not allow these reflex actions to distract us.
we should concentrate as if we were putting a thread into the eye of a needle. As regards the mind, we should neither think of the past nor the future, nor should we try to change the present situation. We must simply maintain presence of awareness of the A, but without thinking about the A, and concentrate as intensely as possible. We must not lose awareness of the A even for a second. It is important to distinguish between simply maintaining presence of awareness of the A, that is, directing the attention continuously to the A without the stream of attention being distracted, and actively thinking about the A, which is merely creating another thought.
Thoughts cannot be liberated by other thoughts: “good” thoughts cannot liberate “bad” thoughts, just as blood cannot wash away blood from a hand. “Good” and “bad” thoughts are both obstacles to direct understanding of the natural state, which is beyond thought, and thought cannot understand what is beyond thought. Understanding of the natural state can only be direct understanding not mediated by thought; it is the empty nature of the mind understanding itself.
thoughts are the movement of the mind and are of the same nature as the natural mind, just as waves are of the same watery nature as the sea. When thoughts arise during the state of contemplation, we are aware that they arise from emptiness and that their essence is of the nature of emptiness. We are not disturbed by them but let them go, remaining in the equanimity of contemplation. In this way the natural state of emptiness becomes clearer:
What is important for us is to reach the condition in which we are no longer distracted or disturbed by thoughts. This is not a blank state in which thoughts are absent. In fact, the cultivation of the calm state without thoughts, if prolonged beyond the natural gap that exists between two thoughts, becomes a state of ignorance, not of presence, if in the forced absence of thoughts there is only emptiness without clarity, relaxation without presence. In the true state of contemplation we are relaxed and neither create nor block thoughts but remain present without distraction in the mind-moments of both presence and absence of thoughts.
When we are present, we suffer just as all people suffer, but our way of suffering is different and the result is different, because although we have problems and suffering, these cannot distract us from presence in the natural state;
Dzogchen practitioners it is very important to work with presence, to develop it well and then to integrate it with our actions of body, voice, and mind in order to have total presence. But what is “total presence”? It is the continuity of presence.
When we see with our eyes in the state of contemplation what we are really seeing is our own wisdom. The eyes are the portals of wisdom according to Bon Dzogchen.
once we have stabilized our contemplation, it is important not only to remain in tranquility but also to “practice with the movements of energy of secondary causes.”
it is important to try to remain in the state of presence and overcome the subtle dualistic division between contemplation and everyday life, between thun and je thob, between formal practice sessions and “after practice,” and to integrate presence and contemplation with daily life.
Integration means the coordination of presence with the movement of energy and consists of the application of the pure wisdom of contemplation to our senses, to our body, voice, mind, and actions in every moment of our life by remaining present in the primordial state and imbuing all the activities of body, voice, and mind in daily life with awareness.
Bonpo Ati system of Dzogchen meditation, where the disciple is told to integrate first with virtuous actions, then neutral actions and finally nonvirtuous actions.
Virtuous actions are those that do not distract us from the state of presence and that accumulate merit; nonvirtuous actions are those motivated by the five passions and that accumulate obstacles to spiritual development; neutral actions are those that have no karmic consequences and thus accumulate neither merit nor obstacles.
Initially we try to integrate the state of contemplation with activities of the body, which are easiest, then with activities of speech, and finally with activities of the mind, which are the most difficult.
the point of integrating with negative states is not to justify wrong action. It is, rather, the best way to minimize harm and, ultimately, to overcome negativity. If we all mastered the practice of integration, there would be no harm or injury since we would all be in the non-dual state and when we are in the non-dual state we cannot cause harm.
five poisons. These are: attachment to people and to things; anger, which can manifest when simply seeing someone gives rise to an unpleasant sensation; pride, which can manifest not only by thinking oneself to be very important but also by thinking one is the worst kind of person; jealousy, which means all kinds of comparisons and competition; and ignorance, which means not understanding the real condition. So in relation to the mind we start by trying to integrate with virtuous actions, then gradually pass to neutral actions, and finally to the five poisons. In this way, the whole mind, all thoughts - good, bad, and neutral - are integrated with the state of presence.
it is not the number of thoughts that arise that is important, but how we deal with them.
There is actually only one way to deal with them, and that is not to be distracted by them. This can be done in three ways: by remaining in presence; by not following after them or creating more thoughts (such as the thought not to follow them); and by not allowing them to influence us (in this case it is not a matter of not following the thoughts but of not allowing the thoughts themselves to lead us away).
it is easier to discover and realize self-presence through sense perception that is fresh and immediate than through thought that elaborates perception by conceptualization.
When there is more presence with greater sensation, there is more feeling of integration.
If your mind does make a judgment, do not grasp it as inherently existent; if you do grasp it, do not develop it into a gross passion.
It is the application of practice in daily life that is most difficult, working with our energy in every life situation, with every sense perception, with every person we meet, whether we
It is of great importance to have experiential, and not merely conceptual,
The traditional example is of a farmer that looks for a yak and cannot find it: what he finds is “no yak.” When we search for a “self” and do not find one, what we find is “no self”; this means finding our true self.
Sometimes symbols can be much more effective than clarification through intellectual descriptions because, although we learn through intellectual descriptions, we grow through symbols;
Do anything without any indecision or hesitation. Without expectations or doubts All actions are completely free. Behavior becomes like a peacock’s, Taking all negative obstacles and appearances as blessings. When unhappy, abide completely in unhappiness; When happy, abide completely in happiness; When ill, abide completely in illness; When hungry, abide completely in hunger; When afraid, abide completely in fear; When you don’t like something, abide completely in the state of not liking. This is the big wind. When vision is an obstacle, be careful; When vision becomes your friend, liberate yourself. Then everything becomes a benefit to your practice.
the five pure lights develop and begin to appear. This process is represented by the five-colored tigle that surrounds the white A and which symbolizes the primordial natural condition. The pure lights of the five colors constitute the second step in the production of existence; they are the source of the five elements that are the underlying structure of both the external existence of the world and the internal existence of the individual.
clear light energy resides in the heart, rises through the channels, and is projected through the eyes.
observing anger and seeing its inherent emptiness is the antidote to anger.
when anger arises, we can see the anger in ourselves, but when we try to examine it closely, we only find the inherent emptiness of anger,
Specific togel practices include the dark retreat in which we spend time practicing in complete darkness (the standard dark retreat lasts forty-nine days, although some Dzogchen practitioners have spent many years in dark retreat), or gazing at the sun, at the moon, or into the sky.
everything is connected: external vision, the eyes, and the internal energy,
we have to discard as dualistic even the idea of practice and non-practice. We enter into the meditation of inner space and abandon this subtle dualistic concept.
light that can transform itself into material objects.
effortless spontaneity of remaining in presence in undistracted meditation. If no effort of concentration is required, this means there is no distraction.
Dharmakaya is emptiness; the Sambhogakaya is light and the internal manifestation of energy; the Nirmanakaya is the external manifestation of the energy.
Dzogchen, in contrast, is a nongradual path, and from the very beginning the master teaches the practitioner to seek to understand emptiness directly without thought, through zhine practice. Through the application of mind beyond thought and concepts, we achieve undistracted presence and understanding of the inseparability of emptiness and clarity. The understanding of emptiness arises without the mediation of the thought-producing mind but directly by clarity.
According to Dzogchen, the best way of understanding emptiness is not by applying thought, because the understanding obtained in this way can never go beyond the conceptual level. The logical mind comes to understand the logical concept of emptiness, but the truth of emptiness is beyond thought and concept, beyond the logical mind. True emptiness cannot be understood by logical inference because thought, the conceptual mind, can only understand the concept or meaning generality of emptiness and cannot directly perceive emptiness itself.
If we are able to maintain continuity of presence during our waking hours, we will eventually be able to maintain it through the moment of falling asleep and into our dreams.
According to Dzogchen there is no beginning to samsara as such, but there is a beginning to individual samsara. The beginning of samsara is caused by ignorance.
We must not only recognize that we are dreaming, but realize presence in the dream. Many people who don’t follow teachings also recognize when they are dreaming, but in our practice what we must do is to remain present and eventually direct and control the dream ourselves.
As mind’s last moment is the most important,