Anderson

Are you or anybody the same caliber as Buddha ?

Yes she died apparently.

Rachel Old has died but no word yet of her rainbow body. Just a dead body for now.

This word yeshe gets thrown about all the time by dzogchen scholars but so far i haven't found a satisfactory answer about what exactly is wisdom in the day to day circumstances like when you drink your coffee or when you walk your dog or in cases where you have to choose between this and that and so on... What is wisdom in those circumstances ? If you can't answer this question without terms like "non-arisen", "illusory" "empty of characteristics", "non-inherent" then i am afraid to say that your theoretical grasp of dozgchen view doesn't match your experiential understanding of dzogchen praxis. For me it is fundamental that when you talk like"nothing is inherently real" , "one's nature, is originally pure and self-perfected" ,that you can lay it bare in front of you right now and say " and the experience of that is like this and this and this". I am not satisfied anymore with this kind of formulations and the dozgchen jargon which can give a false impression that someone is very learned when in reality they've only read books and their experience is nada. For me it is of paramount importance that the things that i was taught can be implemented in day to day circumstances.I work with people with challenging behavior where there is always a threat for your safety and these days i am increasingly convinced that to develop the ability to apply dzogchen in these circumstances it remains at the level of a nice ideal.

There is no end to this but wisdom can put an end to it, that is if you have it. I guess wisdom can manifest through moments of clarity, a moment where for example all of a sudden you deeply understand that you like everybody else will have to die at some point. This tiny but very poignant little revelation can increase the wish to practice more and to be involved with the teaching in a more intense way. Just a personal reflection.....

Hi Paul, a criminal defense lawyer to be exact.

oh, there is plenty of that in Kunjed Gyalpo-The supreme source Pure and total consciousness is not subject to quantity and cannot be depicted in any way. However, for the phenomena created by consciousness, multiplicity arises. What is created by consciousness? From the natural condition of consciousness are created the animate and inanimate world, Buddhas and sentient beings. In this way there appears the manifestation of the five elements, of the six classes of beings, and of the two types of emanations of the dimension of form [sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya] that act for their benefit. All of this manifests from the nature of consciousness as multiplicity. [...] The root of all phenomena is pure and total consciousness, the source. All that appears is my nature. All that manifests is my magical display. All sounds and words express only my meaning. From the very beginning, the pure dimensions, the wisdoms and qualities of the Buddhas, the karmic inclinations and bodies of beings, all the things that exist in the animate and inanimate universe, are the nature of pure and total consciousness.

I am the essence of all phenomena; nothing exists that is not my essence. The teachers of the three dimensions are my essence. The Buddhas of the three times are my essence. The Bodhisattvas are my essence. The four types of yogins are my essence. The three worlds, of desire, of form, and without form, too, are my manifestation. The five great elements are my essence. The six classes of beings are my essence. Everything inanimate is my essence. Everything that lives is my essence. All the habitats and the beings living therein are my essence. Nothing exists that is not my essence because I am the universal root: there is nothing that is not contained in me. The unborn, the wonder of birth, and the manifestation of energy are the three aspects of the three teachers: this is their condition. The question is whether the inanimate phenomena possess an individual dharmata .

Just a few words about quotes. Please don't use quotes like they are an extension of your own view. If that is your view you must be able to say a few words yourself about that and how that translates into practical experience. Of course , in a proper debate you have to use quotes but also provide your intellectual understanding about them. If you take the attitude "But the bible says ....." or "My teachers says...." the only thing you will manage is to develop a dogmatic attitude devoid of any practical or experiential understanding. As for what wisdom means i wont say much else since whatever i say is what i think it means and not what it actually means at an experiential level.For a number of years i lived in dzogchen cuckoo land and when i started making efforts in bringing the view down to the level of day to day experience i have realized that there is a total abyss between what i think the view is and what my actual experience of that view is.And in the light of this clarification none of what i've said in the past on these forums should matter or be given much weight since they were all said in a climate of intellectual arrogance devoid of any experiential knowledge.

What the hell is buddhahood ? And what the hell is naturally formed by nature ? (By what "nature" and what is "naturally formed") And what the hell is buddhahood of clear realization. ("Clear realisation" is such a generic term -"Yesterday i had a very clear realisation as to the fact that my dog is not a cat") Tell me how do these expressions relate to your experience right now ? What is "buddhahood" , "naturally formed by nature " and "buddhahood of clear realization" right now , tell me?? I need you to get real and verify if your experience right now has any resemblance to whatever these things mean. I dont need people like Kyle with his scholarly wannabe attitude to come here and litter the place up with quotes written in an alien language.All he does is that he always hides behind very well choreographed answers littered with quotes and written in a jargon that smells from a mile of I-have-my-head-so-far-up-my-ass-that-i-can't-be-bothered-with-ignorants-like-you. Don't you see that he is incapable of giving straight answers , experiential answers , which come from direct experience of the teachings ? People who have had direct experience of the knowledge of dzogchen, when explaining of how it is to rest in nature they don't use language like "i experience the display as non-arisen".What the hell is non-arisen? They use the language of experience which is the language used in the following paragraph taken from "journey to certainty" the book you love: When the ordinary mind meets with the condition of an outer object, an afflictive emotion will arise. If, when the afflictive emotion arises, we rest effortlessly free of concepts on top of its arising, this could be perfect purity, but it is not necessarily so. However, if effort is made on top of the emotion's arising, conceptuality is definitely present. We should examine the phrase on top of that arising. This is an important phrase to understand. However, its meaning is experiential rather than intellectual Or the following from Longchenpa: In the direct encounter between your consciousness and sense ob- jects, you identify consciousness as a bare state of resting naturally. As I indicated earlier, in letting go-by resting imperturbably, resting in the immediacy of perception, resting naturally-you gain natural freedom, the natural state of naked dharmakaya. However your consciousness reacts to the sense objects it perceives, whether indulging in or suppressing them, do not look at the essence of these feelings, meditate on them, or seek some alternative, for by your simply identifying bare awareness, they are free in their true nature. ............... They are free in the sense of being timelessly free once you perceive their timelessly pure essence. They are free in their own place once you rest directly in the natural state of rest. They are free in the sense of being free in your im- mediate perception of them, for they fade away directly in the context in which they manifest. They are free in the sense of being completely free once you have realized they have no basis-there is nothing that is not free. And they are free in the very moment, for they occur in such a way that they are free even as they arise. Regardless of what circumstance manifests-no matter what appears or arises-it is awareness's own manifestation and poses no threat to yogins of the great perfection.

Total gibberish. You couldn't have picked a more obscure and incomprehensible explanation of wisdom.

Think of a lamp which is on. We are always on and that means we are obvious or evident to ourselves while the vicinity is also evident. But the vicinity is only evident because we are turned on. In other words the meaning of emptiness is found in the fact that vicinity is only evident due to us being turned on.

Wisdom is the ability to enjoy the inescapable and ever present display of your own nature.

There probably is a distinct possibility that some people might have experiences where they see trough phenomena but that i don't think is the actual realization of emptiness , since that would imply that emptiness is realized at all sensory and mental levels alike and not just visual conciousness.In which case you would gain the ability to fly in the sky, pass through walls etc.

I dont agree. Looking at something long enough will only make your eyes tired. Visual conciousness is only an aid in getting knowledge about phenomena. If you look at something that means you are maintaining a conceptual focus and that necessarily means that an object has been apprehended. Whereas knowledge about arisings is before isolating something by looking at it. At least that is what the dzogchen teachings tell us that we don't engage with constructs the mind might happen to produce. We rest in the moment before entering analysis which is not the case when we look at something in particular to see their supposed essence.

Of course. Things are truly empty but at the level of experience they do not appear to be empty.

You infer order from an assumption about empty. If things were truly already empty we would be in a perpetual state of liberation and we would constantly see the display of experience as the true nature of phenomena. But i am afraid to say that at the level of experience things are not already empty as you seem to suggest and the experience of eating a solid apple doesn't turn into an empty apple because of an assumption about the empty character of that apple. However if we get down to the nitty gritty of experience and truly investigate what is actually happening we will come to the conclusion that we infer solidity , isolation , singularity from mere sensations , tactile, visual, olfactory, auditory... As soon as something arises , whether be a sound, a visual etc.we immediately are tricked to somehow make it into an object and isolate it from the field of experience and endow it with meaning and assign to it various characteristics , imagined characteristics .

Unfortunately for the most of us the appearances arise simultaneously with ignorance since when we are presented with a cup of tea do we REALLY see the empty aspect ?. I am afraid not. Now you tell me how many decades one has to work until the appearance of a cup is actually seen for what it truly is , empty but apparent, or until the neighbour who barks at you for whatever reason is seen as an apparition , apparent but empty(appearance which is also understood as empty) and as a result of that you don't engender feelings of hatred or aggression which usually are a sign that a detail in your experience has been isolated and grasped at ? Wisdom is the basis ? Really ? That's like saying.. wrhgljnljrhohsd is lwejfljdskfk Incomprehensible.

The question is how can one arrive at illusoriness from the mere experience of vibrancy, radiance,vividness , experiences which usually arise as a result of resting more and more into one's nature. I am asking this since illusoriness is not apparent , is not something one can experience as a matter of course while in the middle of those experiences mentioned above which usually give rather a sense that the display is more concrete and real instead of being more empty or illusory . ​Also illusoriness it seems to me is more related to knowledge and understanding unlike these experiences which arise as byproducts of resting into nature.

Personally, experientially speaking, the display becomes more vivid, intens, radiant and real. But probably this means that the energy of the basis becomes more evident and integration starts happening.

Is that what a practitioner of Ati guru yoga as taught by CNNr will experience ? In other words will they , while resting in contemplation , experience the display in front as being empty like a rainbow, transparent and insubstantial ?

Can you answer the questions please?

Yeah, but when people talk about resting in alaya they refer to a particular type of experiential ignorance which is a neutral , blank fuzzy state which usually arises during practice, formal , intentional practice as opposed to the usual and constant mode of ignorance humans habitually engage in throughout their day and night activities. Personally i have never heard CNNr warn people about the danger of resting in alaya in the context of the intentional formal practice of Ati Guru Yoga or when he introduces the state of contemplation via Ati guru Yoga. Can you tell us what are appearances of the basis specifically ? 1.What are they when you type this message on your keyboard? 2.What exactly are they when you talk to your friends ? 3.What exactly are they when you eat an apple?

Can you explain why these distinctions between alaya and the basis never feature in the teachings of CNNr ? I have never heard him explaining or warning his students about the danger of resting in alaya instead of that clarity he talks about whenever he introduces dzogchen .

Thanks for the recommendation. I cant promise that i'll be reading it. In my life, I have read enough books on the subject. I came to the conclusion that books can confuse you a great deal since teachers have different ways of teaching and different ways of explaining different types of rigpa. However, mindfulness and non distraction is important for any future dzogchen practitioner. Most practitioners can't do rigpa even for a minute, in which case second best is that one tries to be mindful and rest with whatever comes. But even this second best quite often has been proven to be challenging for most humans. So what to do ? At least one has memory, and they can use their memory to remind themselves that they can be mindful.