Dzogchen Retreat 2015 - Realising our true nature (part 17)

0:14 So I must say, I'm very drawn to just the precision, simplicity of Dijun Lingma's account here. I often teach this practice with quite a bit of elaboration and nuance and this and that and the other thing, which I think can be helpful. I mean, I found it useful. But his approach is just so, like, just a razor sharp. Bam! Right to three points. Be aware of the flow of the thoughts, recognize that's movement. Report an error in the passage at 0:14 Highlight the passage at 0:14

0:41 Maintain that flow of awareness, that's cognizance, and let your flow of awareness be still. Those three things, don't be separated. That's the whole instruction right there. That's pretty good. So let's do that. Then you don't need any more instruction from me. Do it. So see you in 24 minutes. Report an error in the passage at 0:41 Highlight the passage at 0:41

· · · silence, 26 minutes

26:49 Let's pick up where we left off. So we had this dream in which a young one placed 13 white mustard seeds on the mirror, gave him a prophecy, and then placing this mirror on his heart, she sang this song. How wonderful. Sun of the clear light vajra essence. So that of course is referring to pristine awareness or primordial consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 26:49 Highlight the passage at 26:49

27:11 Your own mind is the basis of all of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. Report an error in the passage at 27:11 Highlight the passage at 27:11

27:21 So here, when the term mind is used, it's clearly not the dualistic mind because the dualistic mind is not the basis of nirvāṇa. Here we can speak of coarse mind, subtle mind and very subtle mind. This can only be referring to the subtlest, that is a subtle mind, which is... Pristine awareness. But of course that pristine awareness is nothing other than your own mind. But we'll see this. This is going to come out. So this is all... Report an error in the passage at 27:21 Highlight the passage at 27:21

27:46 Eric, wasn't it last night? Eric, yes. This is now... Here's the real response to your question last night. The relationship between mind and awareness. Here it comes. This is really her pointing out instruction to him. Report an error in the passage at 27:46 Highlight the passage at 27:46

27:59 So son of a clear light vajra essence, your own mind is the basis of all of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. The origin from which it first emerges is empty. The location in which it resides in the interim, that is once it's arisen, once you've awakened from deep sleep, for example, the location is empty, nowhere to be found, unfindable. Report an error in the passage at 27:59 Highlight the passage at 27:59

28:21 And the destination to which it goes, to which it finally goes, is empty. Perceive the essential nature of emptiness. Okay, so clearly she's going right to Vipassanā here. And so it, this mind, this mind of yours, the referent of what you think of when you think mind, It has no form, shape, color or source. It is neither one nor many, and it is neither emanated nor reabsorbed. Report an error in the passage at 28:21 Highlight the passage at 28:21

28:53 She's playing back and forth here. It's quite interesting. Because as we go, what she's doing is making a transition here. Going from the mind, the emptiness of the mind, and then just keep on going right through like an express train, going right through town and continue to going on. Because when speaking of one or many, well, one can say on a relative level, of course you have one mind, you don't have many minds, and we go to a deeper level, substrate consciousness, everybody has one, every sentient being has one. Report an error in the passage at 28:53 Highlight the passage at 28:53

29:23 Quite clear, individuated continuum of consciousness. When you cut through that, and that's where she's taking him right now, taking on this express strain from mind to the emptiness of mind, right down to pristine awareness. When you go down to that deepest dimension, then this deepest dimension, This Vajra, this clear light Vajra essence, this transcends the very constructs or divisions of one and many or something that is emanated, something that is reabsorbed. Report an error in the passage at 29:23 Highlight the passage at 29:23

29:53 It's truly transcendent. So it, now going to the deepest level, it is neither one nor many and it is neither emanated nor reabsorbed. It transcends the parameters of existence and non-existence. That's a real giveaway right there. As soon as you say that, then this can't be referring to the substrate consciousness because it exists. That's the end of it. It does exist. Conventionally, relatively exists. Report an error in the passage at 29:53 Highlight the passage at 29:53

30:17 Your coarse mind exists. But when you're going to pristine awareness, now you've just stepped outside the boundary limit of conceptual constructs altogether. It transcends the parameters. It doesn't fit either into the category of existence or non-existence. It is empty. Of the conventional words of negation and affirmation. So now it's simply beyond, beyond, something that can be known but cannot be known by the mind that's still locked into the conceptual grid of logic, of categories, of affirmation and negation, transcends that. Report an error in the passage at 30:17 Highlight the passage at 30:17

30:55 It is spontaneously actualized as great emptiness. And that is when you realize rikpa, or primordial consciousness, in that very realization, You simultaneously realize that it is empty of inherent nature. It is emptiness. It is a mirror that transcends causes and conditions and is able to give rise to all manner of reflections. Report an error in the passage at 30:55 Highlight the passage at 30:55

31:19 So the coarse mind, the subtle mind, the substrate consciousness, they're totally enmeshed within the matrix or the fabric, the context of causality. Pristine awareness is not. It transcends that matrix and yet it's able to give rise to all manner of reflections. The ultimate source of all appearances is, in fact, pristine awareness, the basis of all of saṃsāra nirvāṇa. Report an error in the passage at 31:19 Highlight the passage at 31:19

31:45 Whatever light or dark colors arise, the character of its essential nature is unchanging. So he's giving this just an example. There's colors, there's smells, tastes and so forth. But whatever visual appearances arise, dark or light colors, they come and go, they come and go, but they carry it at its essential nature, the essential nature of pristine awareness. Report an error in the passage at 31:45 Highlight the passage at 31:45

32:07 It's unchanging. It's beyond the context, beyond the scope of change. This is an analogy for the mind and pristine awareness. So the mind is like the light and dark colors that arise. The mind is sometimes very clear. Sometimes it's dull, sometimes it's virtuous, unvirtuous, happy, sad. It goes through all kinds of gradations, all kinds of shadow and light. And as he said earlier, it's just the nature of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 32:07 Highlight the passage at 32:07

32:34 Sometimes it's happy, sometimes it's sad. Get over it. So those are the light and dark colors, using this as a metaphor, whereas pristine awareness, its essential nature is unchanging. So he's giving a pointing out instruction here, and it's enormously important, it comes up a lot in Dzogchen, of drawing these sharp distinctions. Report an error in the passage at 32:34 Highlight the passage at 32:34

32:53 Sharp distinction so that we don't conflate mind for pristine awareness. So this is an analogy for the mind of pristine awareness. Do not regard the mind and pristine awareness as two grounds. So she's weaving a kind of a middle path here. As two grounds, as being two entirely separate entities. Like your mind is over here, it's all screwed up, it's samsaric mind, but over here on the other hand is pristine awareness. Report an error in the passage at 32:53 Highlight the passage at 32:53

33:21 It's not like that. So don't regard them as totally separate, utterly distinct. At the same time, here's a pair of lines. On the one hand, do not regard them as two grounds. On the other hand, do not mistake pristine awareness for the mind. Don't conflate the two. And this, by all accounts, by the account of Penchenabhache, Dujjom Lingba and so many others, this happened an awful lot. Report an error in the passage at 33:21 Highlight the passage at 33:21

33:47 That is the conflation of the two. So people receiving... Receiving some meditation instruction on what now are sometimes called open monitoring, open presence, like that. These are terms of chokshak from the Tibetan. These are Dzogchen terms. They're pretty good. Or just resting, chokshak, or just letting it be. There's various translations. Report an error in the passage at 33:47 Highlight the passage at 33:47

34:10 They're all pretty good. Report an error in the passage at 34:10 Highlight the passage at 34:10

34:14 And they are accurate. They're good. They're good translations. Report an error in the passage at 34:14 Highlight the passage at 34:14

34:20 Assuming that you actually know the context. Having just translated this text by Yang Tanerbache, the whole text is on the view, meditation and conduct within Dzogchen, the great perfection. And he lays it out in exactly that sequence, which is classic. But he does say something enormously, many things are very important. Here's one of them. He said, among the three, the view, this is the Dzogchen view. Report an error in the passage at 34:20 Highlight the passage at 34:20

34:44 The Dzogchen view is all about how can you cut through the mind, break through the mind, So you're viewing reality, whatever you're attending to, peanuts, popcorn, a solar eclipse, whatever you might be attending to, you're attending to whatever reality that comes to mind from the perspective of pristine awareness. Report an error in the passage at 34:44 Highlight the passage at 34:44

35:04 If you're doing that, if your vantage point, your view, is if you, from the perspective of pristine awareness, that is the great perfection. That's the clear light vajra, vajra essence. And so, among the three, view, The meditation, which is this open monitoring, open presence, just resting, sometimes called non-meditation because you're not really doing anything. So you have the view, the meditation, and then the conduct, the way of life that is the context, the nest for your view and meditation. Report an error in the passage at 35:04 Highlight the passage at 35:04

35:37 You said, which one is most important? Any guesses? Yeah, it's the view. Yeah, good. It's the view. If you don't have the view, then your meditation is just sitting there like a marmot. Report an error in the passage at 35:37 Highlight the passage at 35:37

35:51 I mean, really. And so this, unfortunately, there's just a lot of amateurs out there, and that's fine, but when amateurs present themselves as experts, that's not so fine. And this is happening an awful lot now. It's people who are, I'm sure they're well, I mean, on the whole, I think they're probably very well-intentioned, but they do a bit of vipassanā, but this really totally watered-down vipassanā, where vipassanā is just equated with mindfulness, which is just not a Buddhist notion at all. Report an error in the passage at 35:51 Highlight the passage at 35:51

36:17 Well, that means when you're practicing shamatha, you're practicing vipassanā. Because how can you practice shamatha without mindfulness? Or when you're just practicing ethics, you're trying to be aware of your conduct. Is it wholesome and unwholesome, right? We have to do that with mindfulness. Oh, now just practicing ethics is vipassanā. Well, it's silly. It's just, it's kind of like, can't you read? I mean, what's the problem here? Why are you dumbing it down that far? Report an error in the passage at 36:17 Highlight the passage at 36:17

36:39 We're not that stupid. So no, vipassanā is not the same as mindfulness and mindfulness is not the same as bear attention or is it the same as open presence, choiceless awareness, open monitoring. Or Zazen, it's not the same. But in this big movement of a lot of enthusiasm and very little understanding, when people are jumping onto this bandwagon that bear attention, open presence, open monitoring, Dzogchen, Zen, Mahamudra, Vipassanā and the mindfulness revolution, they're all the same thing. Report an error in the passage at 36:39 Highlight the passage at 36:39

37:10 And then they say, ah, you see, this is the essence of all of meditation. I've seen that one actually, too. Not just this is the essence of Buddhist meditation, this is, you know, just everything. Vedanta, Zen, Taoism, Sufi, it all boils down to be here now. Well, that's very sweet, but man, it's dumb as a doornail. You know, really, it's so uninformed. Report an error in the passage at 37:10 Highlight the passage at 37:10

37:30 I mean, I wonder why it got so popular. People are not that stupid. But when the people presenting themselves as authorities are saying this, then, you know, there's an awful lot of confusion. So I think it's unfortunate, really. Very unfortunate. And then they put Dzogchen right in there. Oh yeah, we're practicing Dzogchen too, while we're also practicing the Vipassanā. Report an error in the passage at 37:30 Highlight the passage at 37:30

37:49 And the mindfulness revolution. So it's flat out silly, but kind of tedious really, because they completely miss the point. This is open presence with no view, which means it's marmot meditation, which is fine if you're a marmot, but it's certainly not Dzogchen. So this is why the view is so important. You break through to the view, you have some breakthrough experience, so at least you're getting some glimmering, some glimpse, some taste. Report an error in the passage at 37:49 Highlight the passage at 37:49

38:15 From the perspective of pristine awareness, and once you've broken through to that, then you practice the meditation. And the meditation is a profound not doing, an open presence, open monitoring, a just resting in rikpa. But this is why it's called rikpa choksha, just resting in rikpa. But if you're not resting in rikpa, then you're just resting. Report an error in the passage at 38:15 Highlight the passage at 38:15

38:38 And that's sometimes called taking a nap. And that's not Dzogchen. Report an error in the passage at 38:38 Highlight the passage at 38:38

38:45 I had lunch with His Holiness in Brisbane several years back during that conference. It was a delightful experience. Jane Goodall was there. What a treat. What an amazing woman. And His Holiness, it was maybe 12 of us around, and we'd all had this just lovely lunch during the conference up there. And then I was sitting right next to His Holiness, and we'd all finished. Report an error in the passage at 38:45 Highlight the passage at 38:45

39:05 His Holiness turned to me, and he just commented, I can't quote him, but he was saying, you know, people nowadays thinking Dzogchen's really easy. It's kind of just sitting there. And he just burst into laughter and walked off. So there's no need to make that mistake. It's quite silly. And so do not regard the mind and pristine awareness as two grounds and do not mistake pristine awareness for the mind. That's the whole point of this song, to clearly distinguish. Report an error in the passage at 39:05 Highlight the passage at 39:05

39:36 So when you're resting in the mind, that's fine, but that's called resting in the mind. And it may not be shamatha or vipassanā, or it may be shamatha, as in taking the mind as a path. Or you may be probing right into the origins, location, destination of the mind, in which case it's Vipassanā, but they're not the same. The mind, so now let's see, the mind refers to something projected by pristine awareness. Report an error in the passage at 39:36 Highlight the passage at 39:36

39:59 Now that's clear. Nowadays, my impression is, maybe I'm wrong, but my impression is in the modern scientific study of the mind that awareness or consciousness is considered to be an attribute of the mind. And then many mental functions are considered to be non-conscious. And I think they say that with good reason. And they tie this in with brain function and so forth. There's a lot of very fascinating research there. But almost like consciousness is just kind of like peripheral. Report an error in the passage at 39:59 Highlight the passage at 39:59

40:24 In fact, there was an article written not too long ago, is consciousness useful? Report an error in the passage at 40:24 Highlight the passage at 40:24

40:32 And I guess if you're asking the question, the answer may be, maybe not. At least not for you if you're asking that question. But they really don't know what to do with it. They just don't know what to do. Francisco Varela, who was a dear friend of mine, passed away years ago, but world-class neuroscientist, he was referring to his experience among the crème de la crème of neuroscientists because he was really top-notch back in the 1990s as a practicing cognitive neuroscientist. Report an error in the passage at 40:32 Highlight the passage at 40:32

41:00 And he said, you know, back then, things did change by the time we got around the millennium, but he said back then, as a practicing neuroscientist, there was just kind of an unspoken taboo, don't talk about consciousness. You don't use the C word. And if you must, you wait until you're having tea, and you talk about it over tea, as in chit-chat. Report an error in the passage at 41:00 Highlight the passage at 41:00

41:22 But in the lab, you just don't talk about it. And I think, this is his report, not my judgment or criticism, but he said, you know, it was just one of those things we just didn't talk about. It was considered flaky, new-agey, to talk about consciousness. Because they would say, well, what are you talking about? Define it. Report an error in the passage at 41:22 Highlight the passage at 41:22

41:41 Or to use a scientific term, operationalize it. What are you talking about? If you can't operationalize it, then you're just making noise here. You can't operationalize it. You can't measure it. You can't define it. You don't know. Then why don't you even talk about it? Why don't you stop talking about it? Let's get back to neurons firing and synapses firing. Report an error in the passage at 41:41 Highlight the passage at 41:41

41:59 Let's get back to things we can really talk about. And so consciousness is just an anomaly, even to this day. Just don't know what to do with it. Why it's there? What it does? Is it necessary? Is it even useful? Or, according to some, does it even exist? So that's how far it's gone. Report an error in the passage at 41:59 Highlight the passage at 41:59

42:16 So the mind, but now here, let's just stay tuned here. The mind is something projected by pristine awareness. Pristine awareness is the ground, the ground awareness, the deepest dimension, the transcendent dimension. And now we have to speak metaphor because they mean it when they say this transcends thought and articulation. They're not kidding. Report an error in the passage at 42:16 Highlight the passage at 42:16

42:36 Which means we can still talk, but we have to know we're using words in a special way. It's analogical, metaphorical, it's poetic, it's suggestive, it's instrumental is a term that's used. You're using your words instrumental like if I say, Andrew, look at the moon up there. It's not there, but you know, imagine. I say, look at the moon up there. Report an error in the passage at 42:36 Highlight the passage at 42:36

43:01 When I say look at the moon up there, that doesn't tell you anything about the moon at all. Is it round? Is it square? What color is it? It didn't tell you at all. And my finger, if you look at my finger, I'm looking at your finger. No, that's not what I meant. When I say look it up there and then you look at the tip of my finger. No, I was not suggesting that my finger looks like the moon. I'm suggesting look where my finger is pointing. Report an error in the passage at 43:01 Highlight the passage at 43:01

43:25 And then the words are useful. Because they launched you to the referent of moon. And that's what all the talk, and there's a lot of talk, there are many books about Dzogchen, and it's all instrumental. None of them are really trying to describe it, so I think I got it now. I caught it in the net of my thought, my intellect, my conceptual construct. I think I got it. I can reel it in now. I think I got the fish. Report an error in the passage at 43:25 Highlight the passage at 43:25

43:49 You'll never get the fish, but the words can still be useful. So the mind refers to something projected by pristine awareness. The most helpful metaphor I've seen, and I've seen Jumlingba use it, His Holiness the Dalai Lama use it, is that mind and pristine awareness. Report an error in the passage at 43:49 Highlight the passage at 43:49

44:05 Number one, they're not two separate entities. And number two, they're not the same thing. So then, okay, what? And then we start using metaphor and analogy. And here it is. And that is that pristine awareness, when you're realizing, when you're resting there, viewing reality from that perspective, pristine awareness is like water in its fluid state. Report an error in the passage at 44:05 Highlight the passage at 44:05

44:27 And mind, when you're locked into this conceptual grid of dualistic grasping and all of that, reifying everything you're looking at, including yourself, mind is like ice. Report an error in the passage at 44:27 Highlight the passage at 44:27

44:39 And when you melt your mind, and it goes through the slush, now I'm really playing with it, the slush of substrate consciousness. And that melts into just pure liquid water. Then you have found that your mind was never anything other than pristine awareness. It's a projection, a display, a crystallized version of pristine awareness. Melt it and it doesn't shift to something else like water becoming wood. Report an error in the passage at 44:39 Highlight the passage at 44:39

45:07 It just melts. And that's a metaphor. And I think that that's about as good as it gets. But in this fashion then, the mind is something that It doesn't emerge from pristine awareness as a sprout emerges from a seed. That's a nice temporal, the seed turned into the sprout. It's not that. It's not that. At the same time, the mind is projected from. So you see, the words are being used in an unusual way, suggestive rather than purely descriptive. Report an error in the passage at 45:07 Highlight the passage at 45:07

45:41 But now let's continue. The night does not occur during the daytime and the day does not occur during the nighttime. Space does not turn into either one. Report an error in the passage at 45:41 Highlight the passage at 45:41

45:52 Distinguish between the mind and pristine awareness in this way. So the night. The night, for example. How about night-night? Substrate consciousness, when you're fast asleep. And how about day-day? That is, when you're awake and your mind is fully operative, your coarse mind is fully operative. Well, the subtle mind, the subtle mind, the substrate consciousness, when you're deep asleep, that's that. But that's not manifesting when you're wide awake and engaging with all this stuff. Report an error in the passage at 45:52 Highlight the passage at 45:52

46:20 And when you're engaging with all the appearances here, you're not aware of the substrate consciousness. So when one's there, the other one's not there. What's present in both cases equally? That's it, pristine awareness. Space, the sky, or you could say the sky. The sky is there during the daytime, the sky is during the nighttime, and it does not turn into, space does not turn into the night, space does not turn into the day, but without space there wouldn't be any day or night. Report an error in the passage at 46:20 Highlight the passage at 46:20

46:48 Distinguish between the mind and pristine awareness in this way. So again, they use an enormous amount of metaphors here. Because they do mean it when they say this is, they say, Masam Jumet, inconceivable and incapable of being expressed in words or thought. Masam Jumet, incapable of being expressed in word or thought. Masam Jumet, that's how they say it. I'll say it again, incapable of being expressed in word or thought. Report an error in the passage at 46:48 Highlight the passage at 46:48

47:16 That's it. So they mean that, but they do still invite you to think about it and they do still use words and they're not... They're not messing around. They're using it in a very, very special way. Observing one thought after another is the path for achieving shamatha. But you don't enter the authentic path. Report an error in the passage at 47:16 Highlight the passage at 47:16

47:35 So there's the path to achieving shamatha. Nine stages, you've arrived. Good. You've completed the job. You have now achieved shamatha. Excellent. But authentic path, now we're talking, now you know very well, the authentic path is a path where there is irreversible transformation, purification. Freedom and awakening taking place. You haven't got them there yet. Moreover, sustaining your own consciousness of luminosity and cognizance allows for thoughts to release themselves. Report an error in the passage at 47:35 Highlight the passage at 47:35

48:04 This is that one again, that manifestation of the wonderful healing property of the mind. That when you're just resting in there in the luminosity and cognizance of your own awareness, thoughts blossom like flowers blooming. Maybe they're poisonous flowers, maybe they're lovely flowers. They bloom and then they just, they just... Report an error in the passage at 48:04 Highlight the passage at 48:04

48:23 Fireworks is nice. The image of fireworks, you know, but then nobody, we've all seen fireworks, when you see them go boom, nobody says, bring out the fire hose. Report an error in the passage at 48:23 Highlight the passage at 48:23

48:36 You know, like, otherwise everything will go, no, no, actually, everybody relax. And they all release. That's very close. That's very close. Extravaganza, something really bursts, like an emotional upheaval. If you can just observe it from that. Luminosity and cognizance. So some big emotion or desire or memory comes up like fireworks. If you can just be present there, it shows over. Report an error in the passage at 48:36 Highlight the passage at 48:36

49:07 Self-released. That's a relief. So you don't have to bring out antidotes for all those 20,000 mice. Report an error in the passage at 49:07 Highlight the passage at 49:07

49:17 Over-sustaining your consciousness of luminosity and cognizance allows for the thoughts to release themselves. That includes mental afflictions. Craving, hostility, jealousy and so forth. Release themselves. Such a relief. But you don't directly get to the point. That is, you haven't crossed the threshold into Vipassanā yet. You've certainly not realized pristine awareness yet. Report an error in the passage at 49:17 Highlight the passage at 49:17

49:40 So he says, get that far so you're really good at it. You really know what it's like to be resting there in continuity, resting in the stillness of your awareness, watching the movements of thoughts. Nail that one. Become expert in that one. You haven't gotten to the point yet, but that's not wasted time by any means. It's right on the same trajectory. And now what? Identify ground pristine awareness. Report an error in the passage at 49:40 Highlight the passage at 49:40

50:05 There's ground, path and fruition pristine awareness. And the ground pristine awareness, of course, is that which has always been there. Time out of mind. It's always been there. It's nothing to achieve, to acquire, to discover later on, as if it's going to freshly arise. Identify ground pristine awareness, O child of wisdom and pristine awareness. The secret treasury of the Dakinis is your inheritance. Report an error in the passage at 50:05 Highlight the passage at 50:05

50:31 The secret treasury of the Dakinis is his own pristine awareness. This is your inheritance. This is your birthright. And it's interesting, final point before we take our break, how she refers to him. Report an error in the passage at 50:31 Highlight the passage at 50:31

50:45 How does she start? She started by, O clear light vajra essence. Report an error in the passage at 50:45 Highlight the passage at 50:45

50:53 These words are never used randomly or just kind of like, oh, what shall I say? I guess I'll say this. This is Dujum Lingba. So he's going to always be choosing his words very carefully. We can read a lot into that without, you know, going crazy. That is, when you address somebody, oh, clear light vajra essence, what aspect of that person are you addressing? Report an error in the passage at 50:53 Highlight the passage at 50:53

51:15 When you call them by name and say, oh, clear light vajra essence. This means you're speaking from your pristine awareness and you're looking right to the heart of that individual. You're bypassing the intellect, not insulting it on the way by, but you're speaking right to pristine awareness. And the invitation is listen with pristine awareness to see if you can get this resonance from here's this enlightened dakini appearing in his dream and she's speaking straight from her pristine awareness. Report an error in the passage at 51:15 Highlight the passage at 51:15

51:46 I must say I think I witnessed that when I saw kandala, when I heard her speaking. It was just, it was, it was just, there were just five of us. There was Thupen Jim's wife, her friend, one Tibetan, my wife Vesna and I, there were five of us. And I don't know that any of us ever did anything like that. We came in, I'll tell you, just, it just, it was very moving. We'd heard about her, of course. Report an error in the passage at 51:46 Highlight the passage at 51:46

52:08 I'd never met her. Vesna never, my wife never met her. Most of the others, maybe none of us had met her. And she had this very austere little room in the Namgyal Monastery. And we found her. And it was early morning. There's nobody there. There's no line. So we just got to walk right in. And we introduced ourselves and we asked whether she might give us some teaching. Report an error in the passage at 52:08 Highlight the passage at 52:08

52:31 And her first response was, I don't know anything. I have nothing to teach you. Alan, you're a scholar. You can do the teaching. I don't know anything. I have nothing to teach you. Report an error in the passage at 52:31 Highlight the passage at 52:31

52:42 But I've been around for a while. And so I said, well, I understand that, but anything. You know, I basically, I just said, what was my heart? Anything you share with us, anything at all, we'd really be very grateful for anything you might share. And I'll be happy to translate for you, because she had no interpreter there. Report an error in the passage at 52:42 Highlight the passage at 52:42

53:00 And then she smiled, and then she spoke for an hour. And it was just this sheer, spontaneous outflow of incredible teaching, and so pertinent, so sharp, sometimes very critical of some aspects of the current Dharma scene, Report an error in the passage at 53:00 Highlight the passage at 53:00

53:18 From my perspective, very clearly from a straight Dzogchen perspective, it was clear, and then her voice is really, I have no romantic feelings for her at all, if anybody's wondering that, because she's a attractive woman, that just, it's not there. But her voice is just incredibly sweet. It's kind of like angelic. And she would be just giving, she was giving these teachings, and then she just burst into laughter. Report an error in the passage at 53:18 Highlight the passage at 53:18

53:44 Just a very light, almost like butterfly laughter. And then she'd come right back into the flow again, and then just kind of laughter coming up. It's quite extraordinary. I am saying this not just to rhapsodize about somebody and certainly not to exaggerate anything. I would say this, anybody listening or watching this video, anybody here, if you have the opportunity to spend any time with this woman, she is remarkable, a pure soul. Report an error in the passage at 53:44 Highlight the passage at 53:44

54:09 And her teachings are coming from a very deep, very spontaneous place, and they're quite exquisite. And her devotion is something really, one of the seven wonders of the world. So pure, so deep. So I love speaking of this of sort, because there's a person of real virtue, for whom I have great admiration. Report an error in the passage at 54:09 Highlight the passage at 54:09

54:30 And so, so Kandala, when she was speaking to us, I cannot avoid the conclusion, I don't have any choice. She was just speaking straight from pristine awareness. She's called Rangju Nanjorma, a self-emergent Dakini. She didn't get it by years and years of training and studying under great masters and studying texts and so forth and so on. Just rangjung, self-emergent, outflow from her own pristine awareness, absolutely contemporary, right on the spot, well-informed, incisive, radiant, clear and incredibly sweet. Report an error in the passage at 54:30 Highlight the passage at 54:30

55:01 So she's speaking from pristine awareness. Here's this dakini. And she's speaking to young Dujum Lingba and she's addressing him by name as Clear Light Vajra Essence. So she's alerting him. I'm about to speak to your Buddha nature. Report an error in the passage at 55:01 Highlight the passage at 55:01

55:15 So if you can, as much as you can, listen from that perspective because that's the audience. I'm speaking to your Buddha nature. From my Buddha nature, your Buddha nature. This is a pointing out instruction. That's what she just gave. And then she concludes by saying, oh child of wisdom and pristine awareness. Report an error in the passage at 55:15 Highlight the passage at 55:15

55:35 Wisdom is prajna. Wisdom as a mental faculty, or that is prajna as a mental faculty, is intelligence. When you bring it to its heights, it's called prajna paramita, perfection of, we should call it wisdom now, rather than perfection of intelligence. It is perfection of intelligence, but it's matured. So I think it's quite legitimate, as many people do, to translate prajna as wisdom. So that's something, wisdom is something you cultivate. Report an error in the passage at 55:35 Highlight the passage at 55:35

56:00 You develop through hearing, through thinking, through meditation. You develop it, you refine it. And you perfect it and it turns into the perfection of wisdom. It is developmental. Remember that? It's developmental. You develop wisdom by training, by thinking, meditating, studying, questioning, all of that, meditating. Report an error in the passage at 56:00 Highlight the passage at 56:00

56:24 So she calls him by his first name, wisdom, and by his second name, pristine awareness. Pristine awareness is nothing other than primordial consciousness. So she's calling him by his two names. She's addressing his intelligence, but his intelligence right through his intelligence to his pristine awareness. And that pretty much sums us up. Report an error in the passage at 56:24 Highlight the passage at 56:24

56:46 We develop our intelligence and we discover our pristine awareness. And she is here to help us do both. Dujum Lingba is here to help us do both. And I'm your interpreter. Enjoy your afternoon and see you at five minutes past seven. Report an error in the passage at 56:46 Highlight the passage at 56:46