Dzogchen

(This morning's ponderings)

The Dalai Lama's book on Dzogchen got me definitely interested, (Dzogchen: The Heart Essence of The Great Perfection, Snow Lion, Ithaca, NY 2002), although as I read into it further, it REALLY gets very technical and, well, academic I guess is the word. The Big D.L.'s years of monastic training begin to peek through. Meanwhile, I found a website
http://www.dzogchen.info.ms/
that has a scrolling list of articles down the right side, and from amongst them I've so far read "Ultimate Dzogchen: An interview with Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche," which includes a really good description of Dzogchen:

"This unity of being empty and cognizant is the state of mind of all sentient beings. There is nothing special about that. A practitioner should encompass that with 'a core of awareness.' That is the path of practice. Again, 'the unity of being empty and cognizant with a core of awareness.' The special feature of Dzogchen is as follows: 'Primordial pure essence is Trekchö, Cutting Through.' This view is actually present in all the nine [lower] vehicles, but the special quality of Dzogchen is what is called 'The spontaneously present nature is Tögal, Direct Crossing.' The unity of these two, Cutting Through and Direct Crossing, Trekchö and Tögal, is the special or unique teaching of Dzogchen. That is how Dzogchen basically is. That's it."

The articles on http://www.dzogchen.info.ms/ also include one by Lama Surya Das titled "Mind-Nature Teachings Concerning the View, Meditation, and Action of Dzogpa Chenpo, the Innate Great Perfection." Whew! Surya Das is a westerner ordained early-on as a lama, and I like the cheerful portraits of him that I've seen.

"So what is to be done to realize the natural Great Perfection. . . if it is free from all concepts, efforts, and representations? The Prajnaparamita Sutra says, 'The perfection of wisdom is beyond thought.' It should not be conceived of, for it is inconceivable and cannot be described. The absolute truth is not something that can be apprehended by the mind of ordinary beings. In order to indicate this to beings, in a relative way, the Buddhas have said that the void nature is like the sky, while its luminous expression is like the sun. But in truth, even a Buddha cannot entirely express the nature of the mind; there are no words or examples to explain it. It is utterly beyond the relative mind of beings. Yet it is not something that did not exist before, like a new thing appearing for the first time.
"When we are free from all conceptualizations and mental fabrications we can see this nature. When Karma Chagme Rinpoche realized the absolute nature, Mahamudra, he said to his friend, 'This is something that has been with me forever. It is something I have known forever. Why didn't you tell me that this was Mahamudra itself?' When we see the true nature within ourselves, there is nothing more to be seen, There is nothing more to be found in the eighty-four thousand teachings."

"The Prajnaparamita Sutra says:
Regarding mind:
"Mind does not exist,
Its expression is luminosity."

Well, for us intrepid veteran hippie adventurers, all of this definitely is something we've sampled with the help of various dietary supplements. But the ultimately question is the old 24/7: "How to STAY THERE ALL THE TIME???" The temptation is to reply, "Well, if mind is nothing, then I don't need to do anything except light up, turn on the CD player and kick back." But it all does comes back to making an effort, darn it, as long as you do not want to have to rely on external boosters. Meditation of some sort is required, but I am happy to report that a combination of smiling, relaxed-eye concentration (if the eyes wander, the mind wanders) relaxing BEHIND the eyes, and swatting away thoughts by blinking, works very well for me.

H.H. the Dalai Lama also quotes a teaching that recommends shouting "PHAT!!!" whenever a thought intrudes:

"First, relax and release your mind,
Neither scattered, nor concentrated, without thoughts.
While resting in this even state, at ease,
Suddenly let out a mind-shattering 'PHAT!',
Fierce, forceful and abrupt. AMAZING!
There is nothing there, transfixed in wonder,
Struck by wonder, and yet all is transparent and clear. "

Of course this might create problems with the neighbors. Sort of putting 'the Phat in the fire'? Could blinking be the 'silent PHAT!' for urban dwellers? The Big D.L. also quotes the Buddha (probably another translation of the one I quoted above):

"The mind is devoid of mind
For the nature of mind is clear light."
Prajnaparamita Sutra

blink-blink-blink!

Enlightenment... if only it came in suppository form. Preparation PHAT!!

Very Easy Path to... you-know-what

I’ve been reading the His Holiness The D.L.'s book “Dzogchen, The Heart of Perfection,” -- a copy that dropped out of the Baltimore County Library system in 2001 -- and he writes:

"One method that is spoken in the Dzogchen tradition is to 'direct your mind into your eyes and direct your eyes toward space.' This is useful because our visual consciousness is so powerful. This doesn't mean you are looking at something in the outside world, but rather that you direct your gaze toward the space between you and external phenomena."

Now I've heard it described many times in Zen to put your awareness a few inches in front of your nose, or things similar, but I've never heard "direct your mind into your eyes and direct your eyes towards space.' Combining this technique with the thought-swatting blinks that I learned from watching HH the D.L. in action (posted previously*), I realized I had come upon a very powerful method for staying in no-thought.

*As I posted earlier but I’ll repeat here, I watched the Dalai Lama (I call him affectionately 'the Big D.L.) on the tube being interviewed, and noticed that he blinks about four times more than I do. So I started blinking every time he blinked, and could see that blinking interrupts the monkey- thoughts. So next time I sat down to center my eyes on an 'object' (if my eyes wander, my thoughts wander), I blinked every time a thought showed up - sort of a 'thought swatter.' It seems to work very well, and you can ‘blink’ even with your eyes shut! Yahoo! No- thought made even easier!
More as I read further into his book.