Dzogchenpa - Not Dzogchen

Note: This is the first of a two part blog, and probably the most abstract piece that I will ever publish on this website. This post describes Dzogchen meditation and what can go wrong for us practitioners if we are not very, very careful. The second part will turn over to why practices like Tibetan yoga are so powerful and can clear the obstacles from self-recognition of our basic nature and why for most of us it is not enough to “leave it as it is”.

It is amazing how things change! In ancient times Dzogchen meditation was an extremely secret practice. A realized master might search their whole life and never encounter a qualified student. Today Dzogchen is everywhere. It's in retreats, books, videos and magazines. It is also commonly presented as “awareness-based practice,” or “Fourth Wheel”. Suddenly mindfulness is passé. Shamatha or “Abiding” meditation isn’t where it’s at. How strange that timeless and profound practices can be subject to cultural trends!

Dzogchen is the practice of total relaxation and freedom. There is no effort to make; nothing to accomplish; no freedom to attain. And besides abandoning dualistic fixation on apparent phenomena and reified thoughts, there is no one there in the form of a subject to do anything anyway. As Longchen Rabjam, or Longchenpa as he is usually known as (see image at the top of this page), an extraordinary 14th century yogi-monk writes in The Precious Treasury of the Basic Space of Phenomena,

Since everything reverts to a state of evenness, with no object whatsoever existing, there is no orderly process,
there are no phenomena, there is no identifiable frame of reference.
The ground collapses, the path collapses, and any sense of a fruition collapses, so you cannot conceive in the slightest of good or bad, loss or injury.
Your experience of evenness is decisive, timelessly so, and you feel certainty about the universe of appearances and possibilities.
The division between samsara and nirvana collapses—not even basic space exists innately.
There is no reference point—no “How is it?” “What is it"?” “It is this!”
What can any of you do? Where is the “I”?

The ultimate practice of Dzogchen is to come to a decision about the nature of reality and “Leave it as it is” - the quintessential instruction of the tradition. The metaphors for the nature of reality come from the natural world:

a crystal: colorless it adopts whatever colors and images are around it;

a snowflake melting into the ocean (water before, water after);

frost melting on grass as the sun rises over it (the frost comes, stays and goes),

The sun: radiant and clear, its light always pure and bright according to its inherent self-nature;

Lastly, the sky. The sky is the most accessible and direct metaphor for the evenness of spacious awareness. The sky allows everything: clouds, storms, tornadoes, day and night, sun moon and stars. The sky judges nothing and embraces all, without ever changing its own nature or deviating from it.
When we recognize the space-like nature of phenomena  we are recognizing the real nature of mind. And when we stabilize awareness, when it becomes unshakeable, that is self-realization and, ultimately, enlightenment.

This is the practice of Dzogchen: it is what we as practitioners aspire to realize. We are never and have never been separated from spaciousness, from pure lucidity. Because nothing ever can be separate from the basic space of phenomena, everything is already perfect. All beings are already Buddhas, yet, we have never recognized this, because ignorance and samsara are also nothing more than the dynamic display of what is. Never having recognized our own awareness because it is so close to us and in the ultimate sense is us, it perpetually eludes us. So lifetime after lifetime we chase appearances. All the beings of the six realms, from the hell realms to the god realms and everything in between, are deluded mind(s). We first are deluded by our discursive thoughts (“I am aware”), and then the flow of consciousnesses (“I am aware of . . .) leads to the formation of subjects, objects, identities and ideologies. Through desire we build a veritable prison house for ourselves and work ceaselessly to bring more and more of the world into the prison with us. Through aversion we push out and exclude the things we don’t want or like, “othering” what repels us. We are ruled by ignorance about how things really are.

The danger of Dzogchen to the practitioner is that it is so easily co-opted by one’s egoic self. Our practice, such as it is, becomes another project to make the self stronger and more grandiose, instead of collapsing it. Succumbing to the tendency to treat Dzogchen like something one can “get” is utterly to miss the point of the teachings. Dzogchen is the highest of all teachings precisely because there is no view beyond or above it, and it itself has no view. A view that ends subject-object relationships can’t be “possessed”, any more than one can catch running water with one’s fingers.

Within the essence of totally pure and awakened mind,
there is no object to view or anything that constitutes a view -
not the slightest sense of anything to look at or anyone looking.
There is no ordinary consciousness meditating or anything to meditate on.

As long as we delude ourselves into thinking that we hold the view of Dzogchen, there is a grasping subject. We think, “I am resting in my nature.” Or, “I am the field of my awareness.” We start to see ourselves as being the highest caliber of practitioner. We are proud to be Dzogchen practitioners and look down on the “lower” teachings of sutra and tantra. And, because everything is already perfect, our pain identities - our desires, aversions, and ignorance - all the conditioned behaviors that frame every part of our lives, are also “perfect”. As a result of this misunderstanding, not only do we become more trapped in our pain identities (since we don’t see any need to improve or change or make any form of effort), but we become even less free, more committed to being who we think we are.

I share this because I have seen the tendency in myself to confuse the view of Dzogchen with me, the unrealized practitioner of Dzogchen. Naked awareness is utterly impersonal. Nothing about it has anything to do with identity, a point of view, or judgements. Me, on the other hand, judges things all the time and places itself at the center of every sensation that comes along. Me wakes up in the morning, sits in meditation (and sometimes it is good and sometimes it isn’t), eats breakfast and checks email. Every moment of every day is more or less all about me. To paraphrase the wonderful kirtan singer Krishna Das, I am the star, director, writer and producer of “The Story of Me”, and it runs 24/7. 

Resting in one’s true nature does not mean that thoughts don’t arise. It doesn’t mean that we don’t feel emotions (even very strong ones). We absolutely do, often even more intensely than we ever could have imagined before beginning to practice. However, in the natural state there is no compulsion to react. We are free to respond, and if it's an expression of wise and compassionate action we will choose to act. But, we move solely from a space of freedom, not out of obligation or necessity or identity. This freedom creates a state of playfulness, even with difficult experiences. And that playfulness, born of infinite freedom, manifests as ultimate bodhicitta (compassion), a non-discriminating concern for the welfare of all sentient beings. What this means from a practical point of view is that like the sky, we find space for everything in the field of our experience. The four immeasurables, love, joy, compassion and equanimity, are the sole drivers of wise and compassionate action for a realized being. The great saint Shardza Rinpoche speaks clearly of this when he says our conduct toward others is the only visible measure of realization. And the yogi-poet Shabkar tells us that our view must be as wide as the sky, but our conduct as fine as barley flour.

Fortunately, Dzogchen itself provides the exact tools we need to reclaim our power to be no one. From Pakmodrupa Dorje Gyalpo’s The Pearl Garland: 

All duality comes from the differentiation of a single ground,
But a unique state free of elaboration abides as enlightened intent . . .
I am mandalas and other developmental processes.
I am phenomena and what manifests as phenomena.
I am stillness and movement.
It manifests as deities, mantras and mudras . . .
Levels of realization and enlightened qualities, moreover, all come from it.
Conduct, meditation, view, and so forth all come from it as well.
All greater and lesser spiritual approaches come from it. 

Lonchenpa tells us that teachings and practice that “involve effort and achievement are given in response to the confusion that occurs adventitiously due to the dynamic energy of awareness. It is a skillful means for engaging those whose acumen requires development through effort.” When we are not able to always abide in the state of great perfection, Dzogchen, skillful means of “effort and achievement” are called for. While it may bruise the ego (a good thing) to acknowledge that one’s “acumen requires development through effort,” the good news is that  since everything arises from and in self-knowing awareness, my obscurations and the tools for their dissolution are the display of the dynamic energy of awareness. If I am experiencing energetic, emotional, or spiritual obstacles, I can apply the antidote of practice. As His Eminence Lopon Tenzin Namdak Rinpoche has said many times, “We must remember that we are Dzogchenpa, not Dzogchen.” The -pa at the end of the word means that we are practicing to realize, and not that we have fully realized. I.e., there is still work to do on the path of spiritual practice to come to a place where there is no longer any effort to make. 

In the next blog I’ll look at how Tibetan Yoga and active meditation are a perfect bridge between the need to apply effort and the attainment of the state of freedom and ease that comes from resting in the nature of mind. Tsa Lung Trul Khor is a practice that creates gaps in, or a disruption of, the conceptual mind so that awareness can shine forth unencumbered. That brief experience, even just an instant of awareness without the framing of the discursive mind, makes all the difference. 

My thanks to Padma Publishing and the Padma Translation Committee for making an exquisite set of teachings by Lonchen Rabjam available in English. It is their translations that I cite on this page. If you are interested in ordering the Precious Treasury of Basic Space or other works by Lonchenpa, or please follow this link.

Rob