Dzogchen Retreat 2015 - Realising our true nature (part 21)

0:25 We'll have two sessions, of course, and during the second session I'll give some guidance on another form of meditation, neither shamatha nor vipassanā. It's quite subtle, not complicated at all, but quite subtle. So for the first session I'd like it to be silent and for you simply to choose the method that you find most helpful for bringing about a real mellowness, a softness, lightness, a sense of ease in body and mind. Report an error in the passage at 0:25 Highlight the passage at 0:25

0:53 Without slipping into lethargy. So whatever that is, please do that. And I'll see you, we'll begin again in the second session, and we'll give guidance then. During Report an error in the passage at 0:53 Highlight the passage at 0:53

· · · silence, 28 minutes

28:35 the second session, we'll engage in a practice called non-meditation. One could say it's a practice in response to the question, what can we stop doing so that we no longer perpetuate the cycle of mental afflictions of saṃsāra and so on. Report an error in the passage at 28:35 Highlight the passage at 28:35

29:00 And the answer that comes back, Is stop doing everything. Which means, to the best of your ability, totally deactivate your mind, your dualistic mind, the coarse mind. Report an error in the passage at 29:00 Highlight the passage at 29:00

29:17 Deactivate, if you can, even the subtle grasping, the desire, the craving attachment that occurs when you're resting in the substrate consciousness. So to the best of your ability, simply deactivate your mind, but without letting the Report an error in the passage at 29:17 Highlight the passage at 29:17

29:35 Mental factors of the coarse mind known as laxity and dullness, shroud, veil or obscure awareness. So deactivate your mind but leave awareness intact. So in effect this is a practice of taking the fruition as the path and that is resting in rikma having deactivated the samsaric mind, an ordinary sentient being. Report an error in the passage at 29:35 Highlight the passage at 29:35

30:06 And all that remains is pristine awareness. So this is clearly, homogeneously, 100 % a via negativa, a path of not doing, a path of negation. Report an error in the passage at 30:06 Highlight the passage at 30:06

30:22 So it's very important your body be very relaxed, you can be in the supine position, whatever is most comfortable, set you most deeply at ease in body and mind. Report an error in the passage at 30:22 Highlight the passage at 30:22

· · · silence, 1 minute

31:22 Having settled your body, speech and mind in the natural state, Report an error in the passage at 31:22 Highlight the passage at 31:22

31:28 let your eyes be gently open, rest your awareness vacantly in the space in front of you. Report an error in the passage at 31:28 Highlight the passage at 31:28

31:48 And simply let your awareness rest right where it is, without directing it outwards through the five senses or inwards to the mind, without Report an error in the passage at 31:48 Highlight the passage at 31:48

32:04 focusing on any object and without doing anything at all. Simply be present, mind Report an error in the passage at 32:04 Highlight the passage at 32:04

· · · silence, 1 minute

32:43 by thinking or by deliberately blocking thoughts. Just rest. Report an error in the passage at 32:43 Highlight the passage at 32:43

· · · silence, 1 minute

33:26 Whatever appearances arise to any of your five senses, do not be distracted by them or carried away. Report an error in the passage at 33:26 Highlight the passage at 33:26

33:41 And whatever arises inwardly in the mind, do not grasp onto it or identify with it. Report an error in the passage at 33:41 Highlight the passage at 33:41

· · · silence, 1 minute

34:29 Rest your awareness without desire, Report an error in the passage at 34:29 Highlight the passage at 34:29

34:36 without hope or anticipation. Report an error in the passage at 34:36 Highlight the passage at 34:36

· · · silence, 1 minute

35:48 Rest your awareness without exertion, without striving for anything. Report an error in the passage at 35:48 Highlight the passage at 35:48

· · · silence, 1 minute

36:58 Your awareness without modification, whatever arises, do nothing to alter it, fix it, improve it, let it be. Report an error in the passage at 36:58 Highlight the passage at 36:58

· · · silence, 3 minutes

40:13 Meditating without focusing, not grasping, with no doing. Simply being present, Report an error in the passage at 40:13 Highlight the passage at 40:13

40:27 let's continue in silence. A Report an error in the passage at 40:27 Highlight the passage at 40:27

· · · silence, 16 minutes

56:16 major text on Dzogchen composed by Dujam Lingba is called, Buddhahood without meditation. And this is what it's referring to. It's not that you don't have to meditate at all. It's that you have meditation, you have Buddhahood by way of non-meditation. Report an error in the passage at 56:16 Highlight the passage at 56:16

56:41 Now in pretty much every other kind of practice, because all the other practices entail doing something, there are not many ways of not doing. You're either doing or not doing. If you're not doing, there are no varieties. There are no different flavors of it. It's homogenous. And so in all other kind of practices, I would say probably Buddhist and non-Buddhist, you may be doing them incorrectly. Report an error in the passage at 56:41 Highlight the passage at 56:41

57:07 Like in shamatha, you may be falling into laxity or falling into excitation, in which case you modify. You recognize, oh, I'm tipping into an aboundment. Then you restore the balance. You do something. And that's true as far as I know. For all other types of meditation. Whereas this one, this non-meditation, could it happen while you're practicing non-meditation that your mind just gets carried away and you start ruminating, Report an error in the passage at 57:07 Highlight the passage at 57:07

57:39 in which case you're doing something. But it's not that you're doing the practice incorrectly. You're not doing it at all. Because if you're doing something, then you're not doing nothing. Report an error in the passage at 57:39 Highlight the passage at 57:39

57:52 Now, when you're doing this practice, all the words really sound funny very quickly. But when you're doing this practice, entailing not doing anything, and you recognize that your mind has wandered, then in that moment you recognize you're no longer doing the practice. Report an error in the passage at 57:52 Highlight the passage at 57:52

58:08 So you can continue just mind wandering and give up, in which case you're just sitting there with a wandering mind, you could have stayed at home for that. Or you can deliberately terminate the mind wandering, which is also not doing the practice. Report an error in the passage at 58:08 Highlight the passage at 58:08

58:25 So you're screwed. That's pretty much it. Report an error in the passage at 58:25 Highlight the passage at 58:25

58:32 This is why it's a really good idea to achieve shamatha before you go here. Then you just stop doing it, you stop doing anything and you do it homogenously and then you don't need to fix it and then be in that catch-22 type of situation. Report an error in the passage at 58:32 Highlight the passage at 58:32

58:49 Yeah, so there's no such thing as doing this practice better or fixing it or modifying it because as soon as you are activating the mind of a sentient being, you're no longer doing this practice. Report an error in the passage at 58:49 Highlight the passage at 58:49

59:05 So, as Holiness commented, I can't quote him verbatim. His Holiness commented that the simple not doing is the easiest way, the most straightforward, easiest, simplest way, to manifest Dharmakaya, to have Dharmakaya really be revealed. There's a word, mumbargiva. For the Dharmakaya, your Buddha nature, your pristine awareness, to reveal itself when you're not doing anything at all. He made this statement during the first public teaching on Dzogchen that I ever heard him give. Report an error in the passage at 59:05 Highlight the passage at 59:05

59:41 It was in 1990. In California. And he made that statement. It's the easiest way to realize tamagai. But then he added, but it's not easy. Report an error in the passage at 59:41 Highlight the passage at 59:41

59:54 That's my closest approximation. But it's not easy. It's so wonderful. So completely odd. But of course we are profoundly addicted to doing. Report an error in the passage at 59:54 Highlight the passage at 59:54

1:00:07 And this century, oh my goodness, more addicted than ever before in history to doing. So. Let's return to the text, see what's coming. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:07 Highlight the passage at 1:00:07

1:00:22 So here we are, we're about to begin the second half of the text, here on page 16. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:22 Highlight the passage at 1:00:22

1:00:34 So he just described getting a real taste, a genuine taste of this ground pristine awareness, but also seeing the relationship between the ground pristine awareness and the effulgences, the displays, the appearances that are manifesting from, spontaneously. Again, not from the perspective of pristine awareness. It's not that pristine awareness is the cause and the appearances are the effect, like a motion picture projector casting images on a screen in a causal sequence. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:34 Highlight the passage at 1:00:34

1:01:06 Not like that at all. From the perspective of pristine awareness, these appearances are just self-releasing, self-knowing, self-illuminating and self-dissolving, self-releasing from this perspective. So there's nothing to be done. Because appearances simply arise and they simply dissolve of their own accord. You're viewing reality from a timeless space, from a timeless space. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:06 Highlight the passage at 1:01:06

1:01:32 So from that perspective, you're not seeing things played out in a causal sequence with a before and after, a here and there, simply spontaneously arising. So he got a genuine taste. But now he continues. And this is marvelously autobiographical, straight and very illuminating. Although I practiced in that way, when I encountered even a minor issue, something would come up. Something would come up. Some hassle, some nuisance, just life happens, right? Report an error in the passage at 1:01:32 Highlight the passage at 1:01:32

1:02:02 So when I encountered even a minor issue, just something would perturb me. I would lose my own grounding in the nature of existence and revert to ordinary states. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:02 Highlight the passage at 1:02:02

1:02:14 So we see reflections of this all the way through practice. And that is, we may be just practicing shamatha. And kind of getting into the flow of it, really getting somewhere. And finding the aplomb, the composure, the sense of ease, the clarity. Until somebody shouts at you, move out of the way, asshole! Report an error in the passage at 1:02:14 Highlight the passage at 1:02:14

1:02:37 And then suddenly you don't have any shamatha anymore. And then naturally, I'm not an asshole, you're an asshole. And so we lose the cool, we lose equilibrium, because it's not deep enough yet. It hasn't really gotten grounded. Similar parallel, and I use the profanity because that's the kind of thing that riles us up, right? Similar thing if you're meditating on emptiness. You're sitting in a cushion, quietly, quietly, and you're kind of getting that sense that all appearances are empty, the awareness of these appearances is empty. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:37 Highlight the passage at 1:02:37

1:03:08 And then something, and the mind goes right back into the rut, right back into the groove of tightening up, collapsing, freezing, freezing, going from a relatively fluid state to freezing, locking on. The reification, Report an error in the passage at 1:03:08 Highlight the passage at 1:03:08

1:03:30 because the propensities are still there, just waiting to be triggered, and they can be. So even though the insight was authentic, it's easier to fall off the wagon, and it's like an addiction. It's like being addicted, let's say, to alcohol, and then really seeing the downside of that, it's just disastrous in the 360 degrees, and then really stopping, you're a non-practicing alcoholic, and then... Report an error in the passage at 1:03:30 Highlight the passage at 1:03:30

1:03:56 Something really awful happens and you find it unbearable. And you're just looking, where's some relief? I can't bear this, bear this. You think, I know where relief is. Just one shot. Just one shot. Then back into the same rut. It's the same thing here, but now I'm at perhaps the deepest level. You actually have a genuine taste of this ground awareness. You're actually seeing our appearances arising from that ultimate transcendent ground. But then something comes up. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:56 Highlight the passage at 1:03:56

1:04:26 So parallels all the way through. From the coarsest to the most subtle. So here we are. So what did he do then? I would lose my own grounding in the nature of existence. That is, how do you say, just that nature of existence. Dharma Datu. Proceed from the perspective of pristine awareness and revert to ordinary dualistic grasping, ordinary mind, the whole same old, same old. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:26 Highlight the passage at 1:04:26

1:04:53 So clearly getting a taste doesn't mean you're irreversibly there. It means you get a taste and then you can lose it. For example, he said, when I was alone and naked in the wilderness, if I were to become frightened when various ferocious animals and savages let out terrifying roars, if that were to happen, I'd be no different than an ordinary person. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:53 Highlight the passage at 1:04:53

1:05:15 So that's kind of intense. In Thailand, I don't think they do it anymore, but they used to. Maybe, I don't know, maybe 50 years ago, 100 years ago. So I've heard. I think it's probably true. Probably in Burma as well. The monks who'd really gone deep into practice really gained some profound insight into not-self, not-self, deep equilibrium, real insight. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:15 Highlight the passage at 1:05:15

1:05:38 I've heard it said, and I suspect it's true, that sometimes when they want to kind of push the envelope a bit, see how robust, how durable their insight into non-self was, they'd go out into the jungle by themselves, like at night, and just meditate in the jungle. And then if they're really fortunate, they'd hear tiger. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:38 Highlight the passage at 1:05:38

1:06:00 Tiger growling louder. Tiger growling very nearby. And they would then see. Does any sense of I am possibly about to become dinner? Report an error in the passage at 1:06:00 Highlight the passage at 1:06:00

1:06:15 Any I am arise? Does any self-reification of self, any fear arise? Because fear in this case is always focused around what will become of me. Does it arise or not? And that would be the time they may... They may find, I think it's time to go back to the monastery and try to regroup. So parallels everywhere. So he's giving the same example. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:15 Highlight the passage at 1:06:15

1:06:39 If so, I would be no different than an ordinary person. You slip right back in and you look pretty darn ordinary from the inside. In that case, there would be no way I could be liberated in the intermediate period, the bardo, by way of such meditation. So if I can't handle... If I lock right back into reification, self-grasping during this lifetime by ferocious animals, savages, anything really terrifying, then of course I'm going to fall right back into what I can already predict. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:39 Highlight the passage at 1:06:39

1:07:09 That when I'm in the bardo and really sometimes quite terrifying apparitions are coming up and soothing apparitions, well, if I can't handle terrifying appearances while alive, then I'm probably going to be cooked when I'm in the bardo as well. So, in other words, mission is not yet accomplished. So, he saw this. Here's a problem. He knew that his insight was genuine, but he also saw that he couldn't sustain it. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:09 Highlight the passage at 1:07:09

1:07:37 And he'd fall back into the same old ruts. So, but with heartfelt faith and reverence, I prayed to my guru, the Lakeborn Vajra. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:37 Highlight the passage at 1:07:37

1:07:46 So he doesn't have any human guru that he can go over to the monastery or seek him out or write him a letter or let him get on the internet and Skype. He doesn't have any human being to, so he just prays to the manifestation of Padmasambhava, with whom he has this very strong connection, and he prayed, please grant me right now practical instructions for handling such circumstances. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:46 Highlight the passage at 1:07:46

1:08:07 That's very straightforward. So he made that prayer before he went to sleep, and then sustaining that, he's really falling asleep. There's a wonderful phrase in Tibetan, or a word in Tibetan, it's called zimba. That is, you cultivate bodhicitta, for example. And then let's say you practice mindfulness of breathing with a bodhicitta motivation. It's now a Mahāyāna practice. And as you practice, you really genuinely arouse bodhicitta. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:07 Highlight the passage at 1:08:07

1:08:33 And now you're just focusing, let's say, Theravāda style. Maybe you find that one most helpful. Just sensations of the breath at the nostrils. But it's a bodhisattva practice. But now when you're doing the shamatha practice, are you thinking, oh, I hope I achieve enlightenment and all sentient beings, I'm coming. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:33 Highlight the passage at 1:08:33

1:08:47 I hope I achieve enlightenment and I'm coming. That's just distraction, then you're completely messing up your shamatha practice. Never achieve shamatha that way. So then what happened to your bodhicitta? Did it stop? As soon as you stopped genuinely arousing it and going into a non-conceptual mode, is then your shamatha just something, your bodhicitta, is it simply something of the past? Report an error in the passage at 1:08:47 Highlight the passage at 1:08:47

1:09:06 No. Your shamatha practice, even though it's non-conceptual, may be going very deeply into non-conceptual, with no thought, no explicit thought, may I achieve this, or... We're leaving the suffering of others. There's no thought there at all. But your practice is imbued, and that's the word zimba. Your shamatha practice is imbued with bodhicitta. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:06 Highlight the passage at 1:09:06

1:09:28 It's underlying it. It's a current. It qualifies it. It's the impulse that got you into the practice and is sustaining the practice. But it's implicit, but very real. Very real. So Shantideva addresses this. When bodhicitta arises and is truly arising, In uncontrived, ongoing fashion, then even when you're just resting, even the rest itself is a practice of Dharma. You remember? The bodhicitta carries right through rest time. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:28 Highlight the passage at 1:09:28

1:09:57 And that could be watching, you know, you're a bodhisattva, tired at the end of the day, and you just like to be kind of relaxed a little bit, and you watch some, let's say, some meaningful documentary on the television. Nothing wrong with that. Then watching the documentary is a bodhisattva deed. Even though while you're watching it, you're not thinking, oh, I hope this leads to enlightenment, I hope, you know, there's none of that. It's imbued with. So likewise, meditating on emptiness with a bodhicitta motivation. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:57 Highlight the passage at 1:09:57

1:10:21 And this is all a bit of a tangent, but maybe not irrelevant. So he aroused this very sincere prayer, this aspiration, and then he fell asleep imbued with the same thing. He's falling asleep now. But he's falling asleep imbued with this immense devotion. And with that supplication lingering there as he falls asleep. Falling asleep with immense devotion in a dream, I had a vision of Orgyam Dorje Tolu. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:21 Highlight the passage at 1:10:21

1:10:54 So you can see down below, this is one of the eight archetypal manifestations of Padmasambhava. One can say in this context, it's simply a more ferocious manifestation of his guru. Because he prayed to the Lakeborn Vajra. He didn't dial the wrong number. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:54 Highlight the passage at 1:10:54

1:11:11 It's not like he went to the Lakeborn Vajra and then another one says, he's busy, but can I help? It's not like that. But he's coming in, you'll see, with what follows. A bit of ferocity, or at least one can say intensity. It's really clear in the Tibetan. We'll try to convey it a little bit with the English, but again, it can't be averse. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:11 Highlight the passage at 1:11:11

1:11:31 So this ferocious manifestation of the Lakeborn Vajra appeared, he had a vision of him appearing from an expanse of blazing fire and light. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:31 Highlight the passage at 1:11:31

1:11:44 And he chanted the lyrics of this Hung song. So, I don't know, if we had more time, I'd probably just read it in Tibetan because it's got a real beat. It's got a rhythm. And you just can't do that in English. As far as I know, I can't do it. That I can say with certainty. So here it is in English, but here's what he's saying to him. Hung Hung, Supreme Being, Vajra. I'm not going to try to do cadence. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:44 Highlight the passage at 1:11:44

1:12:15 There isn't any. But hung hung, supreme being, vajra of pristine awareness, hung hung, do you understand the common thread of the three realms of existence? That's desire, form and formless realms. Hung hung, do you have to connect that? Do you understand the common thread of the three realms of saṃsāra, hung hung, as dualistic grasping at the apprehender and the apprehended? Report an error in the passage at 1:12:15 Highlight the passage at 1:12:15

1:12:43 That is, this is what carries through all manifestations of saṃsāra. Dualistic grasping of the apprehender over here and the apprehended over there, the reification of subject, reification of object, and therefore the reification of the bifurcation of the two. Do you understand that? Do you understand both the object and the subject as two thoughts? Each of these is simply conceptually designated and having no existence apart from those thoughts. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:43 Highlight the passage at 1:12:43

1:13:16 Or conceptual designation. Hung Hung, do you understand the joys and sorrows of this life and future lives? Hung Hung, as delusive experiences. Delusive, I tried to choose my words carefully. Delusive means the joys and sorrows themselves delude, they mislead, they cause you to go astray. With a reification and then, oh, that makes me happy. And we start scurrying after that, which gave us joy. And, oh, that gives me sorrow. And we scurry away from or try to conquer or obliterate, subdue, whatever. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:16 Highlight the passage at 1:13:16

1:13:53 And just leaves us into one delusive act after another. So they are delusive experiences. They give rise to, they trigger delusion. Whom, whom do you understand daytime appearances, nighttime appearances, the physical world and its sentient inhabitants? Hung Hung, as experiences of light and dark. Okay, now you might recall experiences of light and dark. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:53 Highlight the passage at 1:13:53

1:14:19 When you look at the manifest nature of the sky during the daytime, nighttime, it changes. It's always changing. Dusk, dawn, noon, cloudy, showery and so forth. So all of these are like experiences of light and dark. They're all manifestations, all appearances. But of course, is there something underlying that? Report an error in the passage at 1:14:19 Highlight the passage at 1:14:19

1:14:39 Hung Hung, do you understand the joys, sorrows, environment and friends of this life? Hung Hung as dream experiences and delusive experiences. Hung Hung, and know that they are all equally unreal. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:39 Highlight the passage at 1:14:39

1:14:58 So he's speaking, of course, and it's enormously important. He's speaking from the perspective of pristine awareness. This is all about now, pristine awareness. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:58 Highlight the passage at 1:14:58

1:15:09 Joys and sorrows, the environment, that's like the whole physical world. And the friends of this life, you understand them as dream experiences. They actually are dream experiences. They're not like dream experiences. They are dream experiences from the perspective of pristine awareness. And they are delusive appearances. Again, like a mirage or illusions created by an illusionist. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:09 Highlight the passage at 1:15:09

1:15:33 And you know that they are equally unreal. None of them exist from their own side, by their own inherent nature. Do you understand? Report an error in the passage at 1:15:33 Highlight the passage at 1:15:33

1:15:41 Hung Hung, as vast as the physical world and its sentient inhabitants are. Hung Hung, they do not extend beyond the expanse of space. So he's going to use this as an analogy. Hung Hung, although space has no periphery or center. Hung Hung, it does not extend beyond the expanse of pristine awareness. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:41 Highlight the passage at 1:15:41

1:16:06 So there's a powerful one. Again, this interrelationship, this parallel between space itself. And pristine awareness. And he is saying that for all the vastness of space, and we can bring this in the 21st century, we have no bigger space now than we had in Dzogchen 150 years ago, that the physical world, that's the entire universe and all its sentient inhabitants from the year 2015 in a hundred billion galaxies. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:06 Highlight the passage at 1:16:06

1:16:34 All of those do not extend outside the expanse of space. And yet space itself does not extend beyond the expanse. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:34 Highlight the passage at 1:16:34

1:16:49 Buddha fields and excellent Buddhas are the face of your own ground, the nature of existence. So the Buddha fields, the excellent Buddhas, these are the face, the display, apparitions, effulgences of your own ground, of your own pristine awareness, indivisible from Dhammadhatu, the nature of existence. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:49 Highlight the passage at 1:16:49

1:17:12 They are not other than, they are not somebody else's. Buddha, somebody else's Buddha fields, all the Buddhas are manifestations, expressions of your own ground. They are the multiple faces, Majjushri, Tara, Samantabhadra, the face of your own guru, all of these are the face of your own ground, not something coming from outside. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:12 Highlight the passage at 1:17:12

1:17:37 Hung Hung, do not mistake the Buddhas as being autonomous, Report an error in the passage at 1:17:37 Highlight the passage at 1:17:37

1:17:44 something other than yourself, something really there. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:44 Highlight the passage at 1:17:44

1:17:50 The very phrase which I totally sympathize with at the same time, feel some hesitancy about, calling the guru from afar. There are a number of prayers with that name. They tend to be beautiful prayers, very sincere, very heartfelt, full of devotion and relatively spot on. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:50 Highlight the passage at 1:17:50

1:18:12 But really how far away is your guru? In Report an error in the passage at 1:18:12 Highlight the passage at 1:18:12

1:18:22 a manner of speaking? Sure. But the guru is nothing other than your own face and expression of your own pristine awareness. So do not mistake the buddhas as being autonomous. Hung Hung, I shall cut off the errors of the maras above. Okay, now what does this mean? He's just referred to the Buddha Fields and Excellent Buddhas. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:22 Highlight the passage at 1:18:22

1:18:44 These are those beings above us, transcendent, divine, lofty, above us, in whom we take refuge, we offer supplications, devotions, reverence and so forth. And so the errors of the maras above, the maras above are looking upwards. To the Guru, the Dharma, the Saṅgha, the Buddhas, the Dakini, the Vedas and so forth and reifying them. That's the Maras above, is reifying them. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:44 Highlight the passage at 1:18:44

1:19:13 And that's an error to view the Buddhas as autonomous. So cut off, I shall cut off the errors, terminate, sever that reification, that grasping to the Buddhas as being other. And Buddha fields, Sukavati, whatever it may be, Tushita, the glorious copper-colored mountain of Padmasambhava, thinking they're really someplace else. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:13 Highlight the passage at 1:19:13

1:19:36 I shall cut off the areas of the Mars above. So there's one direction in which we reify and we delude ourselves by reifying the objects of refuge. Hung, hung, enemies, demons, bad companions and your surroundings, hung, hung, are delusive experiences of conceptual dualistic grasping. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:36 Highlight the passage at 1:19:36

1:19:57 Hung Hung, do not regard them as anything other than reification. Hung Hung, I shall destroy the errors of the Mars below. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:57 Highlight the passage at 1:19:57

1:20:08 So there we have the symmetry. So the enemies, the demons, the bad companions, very difficult surroundings, all of these equally, these are delusive experiences of conceptual dualistic grasping. As are viewing the buddhas, the Buddha fields and so forth above as being autonomous, as being inherently existent. So do not regard the complete symmetry here. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:08 Highlight the passage at 1:20:08

1:20:34 Do not regard the buddhas and Buddha fields above or the enemies, demons and so forth below as being anything other than reification. Hung hung I shall destroy the errors of the maras below. And that is the Māra of course, there's not somebody coming to get you. The Māra is the personification of this tendency, the delusional tendency of reification. And now as we look downwards on those we regard as beneath us or down here in the mundane world, the mundane world of saṃsāra, hung hung, daytime and dream appearances, hung hung are reified and clung to as names and things. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:34 Highlight the passage at 1:20:34

1:21:16 So again a complete homogeneity here. That is, appearances during the daytime, which we consider to be real, because we all agree it's intersubjective, there's a real physical universe out there and so forth. Daytime appearances, but then equally dream appearances, which seem equally real while we're dreaming, and it's only after we've awakened, retrospectively, oh, that wasn't real. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:16 Highlight the passage at 1:21:16

1:21:42 But while we're in the midst of a non-lucid dream, of course, the tendency of revocation is exactly the same. So daytime and dream appearances, hung hung, are reified and clung to as names and things. Whenever we reify something, there is a concept associated, and we usually do have a word for it, and we cling onto that, the fusion, the fusion of the name or the concept with that which is imputed. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:42 Highlight the passage at 1:21:42

1:22:12 We consider they are the same. People say, oh, I hate, and then fill in the blank. Oh, I adore, fill in the blank. There's a name there and they're fusing the name with that which they hate or they adore. And we reify them. We reify them even to the point that we feel they're intrinsically own that name. That that name is theirs. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:12 Highlight the passage at 1:22:12

1:22:36 It's not simply something imputed or designated. They are that. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:36 Highlight the passage at 1:22:36

1:22:42 Hong Hong, even though you know emptiness for yourself. And he has gained that insight. He's already stated so. Even though you know emptiness for yourself, do you understand thoughts as aspects of your own nature? There he goes deeper. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:42 Highlight the passage at 1:22:42

1:23:02 Thoughts as aspects of your own nature, of course, in this context, your own nature, pristine awareness, Buddha nature. Do you understand thoughts themselves as being nothing other than expressions of your own pristine awareness, expressions of Dharmakaya? Regardless of what the thoughts are, whether they're petty thoughts or noble thoughts, Mean spirit or generous, compassionate or malevolent, they're all equally expressions of your own pristine awareness. That's how you see them, if you view them from pristine awareness. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:02 Highlight the passage at 1:23:02

1:23:37 If you're viewing them from the perspective of mind, oh, then you've got all kinds of problems. You don't want these thoughts, these are terrible, they're afflictive, they cause a massive amount of suffering. Oh, you want these thoughts, these are very good, these are helpful, wholesome, benevolent. But from pristine awareness from that perspective. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:37 Highlight the passage at 1:23:37

1:23:54 They are all equally of one taste, creative expressions of your own nature, which is pristine awareness. Hung Hung, while you understand all of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa, Hung Hung, as the primordial expanse of the absolute space of the ground, Hung Hung, do you understand them as non-dual displays of pristine awareness? Report an error in the passage at 1:23:54 Highlight the passage at 1:23:54

1:24:16 So again, the outermost depths of insight, all of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. That covers an enormously broad bandwidth from the most almost inconceivable evil and suffering and misery to the most sublime immutable bliss of nirvāṇa. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:16 Highlight the passage at 1:24:16

1:24:40 Do you see them all equally as non-dual displays of pristine awareness? Do you see that or not? If you don't, very well, you're viewing it from a dualistic mind, in which case you should want to get out of saṃsāra and realize nirvāṇa. That's very reasonable. If you're viewing this from pristine awareness, there's nothing to adopt and nothing to reject because they're of equal purity of one taste. Hung Hung, appearances of these creative expressions slip into the essential nature of uniform pervasiveness. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:40 Highlight the passage at 1:24:40

1:25:15 Hung Hung, releasing themselves into that expanse. So appearances of the whole of saṃsāra nirvāṇa, they arise and they vanish, they release themselves, and where do they go? Remember that earlier investigation of origins, location and destination. Right now from an ultimate perspective, when there's appearances of this or that, whatever this or that may be, when they do dissolve away, when they slip away, where do they go? Report an error in the passage at 1:25:15 Highlight the passage at 1:25:15

1:25:42 And they slip right back into the essential nature of uniform pervasiveness, right back into Dharmadhatu. And they release themselves in that expanse, that open expanse of the absolute space of phenomena. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:42 Highlight the passage at 1:25:42

1:25:56 Hung Hung, do you understand that there is no practice of meditation? So now you have some sense of what that means. From this perspective, there is nothing on which to meditate, nothing to do, nothing to accomplish, nothing to reject or purify. There's nothing to do from the perspective of pristine awareness. Hong Hong, inwardly, there is the bondage of grasping at the eye. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:56 Highlight the passage at 1:25:56

1:26:23 Hong Hong, outwardly, there is grasping and clinging to objects. Hong Hong, meditation in between, is immaterial. Immaterial here means simply, it doesn't mean immaterial as in the sense of insignificant, it means immaterial means not made of matter, it's non-physical, immaterial. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:23 Highlight the passage at 1:26:23

1:26:46 Hong Hong, do you understand that the gateway of Hong Hong, outer and inner conditions, obscure the face, Hong Hong, of the great perfection of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa? Report an error in the passage at 1:26:46 Highlight the passage at 1:26:46

1:27:00 Do you understand that the gateway of outer and inner conditions, the gateway means that very bifurcation, that very duality. Of outer conditions, inner conditions. As soon as we're looking outwards or we're looking inwards, either way, that very turning of attention, that very activation of the dualistic mind obscures the face of the great perfection of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:00 Highlight the passage at 1:27:00

1:27:26 And the great perfection of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa is exactly saṃsāra and nirvāṇa viewed from the perspective of pristine awareness. There's nothing more, nothing less than that. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:26 Highlight the passage at 1:27:26

1:27:42 First, by investigating, understanding will come. So this is where the teachings on Dzogchen are intelligible. They lend themselves to investigation, to analysis, to question, to answer, to really critically analyzing them to see whether they make sense. So understanding arises from hearing, understanding arises, deeper understanding arises from reflection, investigation. And in this way, one can come to a sound understanding, a conceptual understanding of What are the teachings on the great perfection? That will come. So there's first the investigation by way of hearing and thinking. Hong Hong, next by meditating, experiences will come. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:42 Highlight the passage at 1:27:42

1:28:33 That's it, that experience, these are the nyam, the meditative experiences. Stuff will start happening, whether it's bliss, it's luminosity, it's this or that. So things will start to shift. Experiences will start to arise. Hong Hong, finally by resting, realization will come. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:33 Highlight the passage at 1:28:33

1:28:53 So by meditating, he's referring to meditating, he's actually doing something, that doing something, that releasing awareness into space, withdrawing it into the observer, attending closely to the sheer luminosity and non-conceptuality, attending to the thoughts and images arising in the space of the mind as if they were calves and sheep and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:53 Highlight the passage at 1:28:53

1:29:15 Experiences arise. But as for realization and of this kind of realization of rikpa, that comes only when all of the doing has been done. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:15 Highlight the passage at 1:29:15

1:29:25 And the first two phases are not insignificant and in most cases they are absolutely indispensable. It really is important to receive teachings on Dzogchen and not just say, hey, no, I've already heard that the practice is non-meditation. So what do I need to hear about Dzogchen for? Because I already know it. I already know the end of the story. The end of the story is don't meditate or practice not doing. So who needs to receive teachings on Dzogchen or think about Dzogchen or investigate it? Report an error in the passage at 1:29:25 Highlight the passage at 1:29:25

1:29:53 Or to see its relationship between the teachings and emptiness and whether it interfaces well with Mahāyāna or the rest of the Buddha Dharma, I don't need that, I'm just going to practice non-meditation. Well, that's believed many people these days. Who needs all that Dzogchen business? This is the same as. And I had mentioned before, this is bearer attention, this is choiceless awareness, this is the essence of all meditation. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:53 Highlight the passage at 1:29:53

1:30:18 And it's just kind of like not the essence of any meditation at all. Basically, you're still in diapers, just sitting there trying to be present, which is a good way to start. You don't want to remain in diapers forever. It looks embarrassing. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:18 Highlight the passage at 1:30:18

1:30:35 So finally, by resting realization, it's only when through the deactivation of the mind, realization of rikpa actually arises. As long as you're activating the mind or meditating from the perspective of the mind, that obscures rikpa. So this is a ubiquitous truth or theme within Buddhism and that is, especially for all of Indo-Tibetan, that is the whole current of Indian Buddhism from the Vaibhashika, the Satrantika, Chittamatra, Madhyamaka, Mahamudra, Dzogchen and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:35 Highlight the passage at 1:30:35

1:31:10 The theme of there being two truths is ubiquitous, right? And so relative truth, relative truth. Well it's good to know what the term is because I've labored a lot to see whether I wanted to use that term, which is very widely used, and I basically acquiesced to that term, because the alternatives that are more accurate are just too clunky, too awkward. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:10 Highlight the passage at 1:31:10

1:31:34 But then we can go back to the Sanskrit and the Tibetan, and then we see, oh, there's something there that's not indicated by the term relative. It's a good term, but it's not what the Sanskrit says, or the Tibetan. In the Sanskrit it's Samvritya Satya. Sam Vritya Satya, or in Tibetan, Kun Zop Dempa. And Tibetan were really, really, generally very literal in their translations. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:34 Highlight the passage at 1:31:34

1:31:59 So Sam Vritya Satya, Kun Zop Dempa. They nailed it, just piece by piece. Kun, so I'll deal with the language I'm more familiar with. Kun means totally. Zop means to obscure, to veil. And Dempa means a truth or a reality. It means both. Truth, reality. So it's a dimension of reality. That is true. Not a mistake. It's true. It's something true. It's something real. It is a reality. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:59 Highlight the passage at 1:31:59

1:32:30 But that reality totally obscures another reality. And the reality that is totally obscured is ultimate reality. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:30 Highlight the passage at 1:32:30

1:32:45 This is everywhere. When you're resting in the substrate consciousness and all that's appearing to you is just sheer vacuity and absence of appearances, that's the substrate, right? That's the alaya. That's the alaya. Well, That's the reality you're presented with. It's just a sheer vacuity. And it's of the nature of unknowing. And what is unknown? Report an error in the passage at 1:32:45 Highlight the passage at 1:32:45

1:33:11 Dharmadhatu. That the substrate is actually obscuring the Dharmadhatu. The ultimate nature of reality. Absolute space of phenomena. Dharmata, ultimate reality. Shunyata, nirvāṇa. It's kind of like right next door and it obscures it. And one can say comparably. But when you're resting in that bliss, the luminosity, the non-conceptuality of the substrate consciousness, that's good. But of course it's infiltrated with grasping, clinging, liking, preferring. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:11 Highlight the passage at 1:33:11

1:33:47 So it's right next door. If you could just release all the tentacles of grasping to a point of total lack of preference for luminosity versus dullness, for bliss versus unhappiness, for non-conceptuality versus non-conceptuality. If you could rest there and just totally release, go into free fall with no grasping whatsoever, no reification, no grasping at all, then you could just free fall right through it and cut through to pristine awareness. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:47 Highlight the passage at 1:33:47

1:34:20 But that's hard to do because who doesn't like bliss? And so then we say, I want to stay here for a while. My precious. My precious. It's mine. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:20 Highlight the passage at 1:34:20

1:34:39 So the truths that obscure, they're still truths. And this is a crucially important point. When you ascertain ultimate reality, as in Shunyata, or Absolute Space Phenomena, Dhamma Datu, that does not negate relative truths. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:39 Highlight the passage at 1:34:39

1:34:57 And similarly, when you are aware of the this and the that and the people and the suffering and saṃsāra and nivana and all of this, all the differentiations, all of the displays, the myriad differentiations of saṃsāra, that does not negate ultimate reality. Neither one negates the other, neither one trumps the other one to the point of being insignificant, obliterated, any more than wisdom negates skillful means or skillful means obliterates wisdom. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:57 Highlight the passage at 1:34:57

1:35:24 These are very, very important points, crucially important. So here's this point of obscuring the face, the gateways of outer and inner conditions. These are basically everything that happens in saṃsāra. In our phenomenal world, the things around you, that is a... These are relative truths. Everything that happens within you in terms of mental processes, all of these, they have their truth, but they're obscuring the face of the great perfection. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:24 Highlight the passage at 1:35:24

1:35:54 They're obscuring the face of pristine awareness. And then the sequence, and this is how you really come to understand what open presence actually entails. That is not a beginner's practice. It's for someone who has really matured very deeply in the practice. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:54 Highlight the passage at 1:35:54

1:36:16 And that finally by resting, finally, not at the beginning, not as a person who wants Buddhist meditation with no Buddhism, that's just crap. It's really disparaging, ethnocentric, bigoted crap. I really wish nobody had ever said that because it only misleads. Finally by resting, realization will come. Hung Hung, once realization has occurred, it is non-dual with simultaneous liberation. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:16 Highlight the passage at 1:36:16

1:36:46 When that realization occurs, when you actually are viewing reality from the perspective of pristine awareness, you are simultaneously free. There's nothing to be accomplished. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:46 Highlight the passage at 1:36:46

1:36:55 Once you're resting in pristine awareness, there's nothing to be accomplished, nothing to be abandoned, nothing to be purified. Simultaneous liberation. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:55 Highlight the passage at 1:36:55

1:37:06 Hong Hong, objects and subjects together, Hong Hong, are awakened in the mother's space of the great expanse. They reveal their true nature. Objects and subjects together are awakened in the mother's space of the great expanse. So it's an interesting phrase, but not unexpected. If we go to the most classic iconography or symbolism of primordial consciousness, also known as Dharmakaya, Buddha mind, and Dharmadhatu, the absolute space of phenomena. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:06 Highlight the passage at 1:37:06

1:37:48 Emptiness, nirvāṇa. Then the archetypal personification of primordial consciousness is Samadabhadra, male, often depicted solo, just holding the bell, the vajra, deep blue in meditative equipoise. The personification, the archetypal representation, the embodiment of, the symbolic embodiment of pristine awareness. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:48 Highlight the passage at 1:37:48

1:38:16 But of course this pristine awareness is not stand-alone. It is primordially non-dual, or one can say in union with, the absolute space of the Namana, Dharmadhatu. And Dharmadhatu is personified as Samadabhadri, the consort, the consort of Samadabhadra. So we often, in many of the Thangkas, we see the two in union, in sexual union, but it's a primordial union of primordial non-duality in which the female personifies emptiness and the male personifies Awareness, pristine awareness. So that's why it speaks of the mother space of the great expanse of Dharmadhatu. Hung Hung, my emanations and I, Hung Hung, have never been separated. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:16 Highlight the passage at 1:38:16

1:39:08 Dojitollu, Padmasambhava says, my emanations. My refers to Samantabhadra. He's nothing other than Samantabhadra, simply a manifestation of Samantabhadra. So he and his emanations. All the emanations of Samadabhadra, all the emanations of Padmasambhava have never been separated. Again, like the sun and its rays, you can't have one without the other. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:08 Highlight the passage at 1:39:08

1:39:33 They're never separated. Hung Hung, their essential nature, is the illusion of my own creative expressions. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:33 Highlight the passage at 1:39:33

1:39:46 The illusion, again, because they appear to exist from their own side. When people have visions of the Buddha, or Christians have visions of the Virgin Mother, or visions of a saint, Others have visions of Krishna or Vishnu or whoever it may be. They do tend to appear as if they're really there from their own side, arousing great devotion, reverence, adoration and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:46 Highlight the passage at 1:39:46

1:40:10 But they do tend to appear as being there, whereas the supplicant, the person with his pure vision, has a sense generally of being over here. And therefore even the appearances of the divine can be regarded as illusory because they are in fact... Report an error in the passage at 1:40:10 Highlight the passage at 1:40:10

1:40:32 Creative expressions of one's own pristine awareness and to see them as something other is an illusion. Hung Hung, like the dissolution of the apparitions of an illusionist. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:32 Highlight the passage at 1:40:32

1:40:46 Hung Hung, they are non-dual in absolute space. And he finishes with that. They're non-dual in absolute space. They're non-dual with absolute space. With those words he became non-dual with me. So he had this dream in which the Deutsche Tolle... Appeared to him, chanted. This is not sung. I can hear kind of like a really heavy kind of an African beat here. And in the Tibetan, it's very gritty. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:46 Highlight the passage at 1:40:46

1:41:16 It's gritty. It's not melodious like Dakini singing. It's kind of like, you know, like somebody heading out on the warpath. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It's got some real grit to it. No malice, no anger, but definitely some real power there. That's the cadence, so to speak, of the Tibetan. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:16 Highlight the passage at 1:41:16

1:41:36 So, you have to imagine it. It should have been there. So with those worlds, he became non-dual with me. He simply dissolved into Doja Tolu, dissolved into Dujum Lingpa, and an experience arose of my great appearances, of my great appearances, pervading all of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. So he really took it in. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:36 Highlight the passage at 1:41:36

1:42:03 And he's viewing all appearances and seeing all appearances as his own appearances. All appearances as nothing other than effulgences of his own pristine awareness. His own mind, of course, utterly non-dual from that of Patna Sambhava. From that time onward, due to this sign, I knew that these were pith instructions for collapsing the false cave of appearances. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:03 Highlight the passage at 1:42:03

1:42:28 He uses that phrase a lot. Collapsing the false cave of appearances. The false cave is looking at a cave. We've all been in caves. When you look at a cave, there's the hole there and there's the walls of the cave. It looks hard. I mean, you know there's mountain all over the place. It's not cardboard. That's about as solid as it gets. You're inside of a mountain in a cave and you slap on the cave wall. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:28 Highlight the passage at 1:42:28

1:42:54 It's hard to imagine anything more solid than that. That's really there, right? That's the false cave. All appearance seemed to be really out there. And so how do you collapse that false cave? So that the reification and the very appearance of existence from its own side vanishes. That's collapsing the false cave of appearances. So they are no longer delusive. They no longer mislead. And he just received pith instructions on how to do that. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:54 Highlight the passage at 1:42:54

1:43:26 So to expand on this just a little, we'll take a break. Report an error in the passage at 1:43:26 Highlight the passage at 1:43:26

1:43:33 We'll come back at five minutes past four. Report an error in the passage at 1:43:33 Highlight the passage at 1:43:33