Dzogchen Practice in Everyday Life
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I know I posted this in the forum before, but coming across this article is really a timely reminder and a clarification on my practice at this point in time.
Especially even in daily life, facing all sorts of conditions. Practice and liberation is possible in daily life. It is not by turning away from any conditions but by fully accepting it, by thoroughly letting go and simply allow actions and feelings and thoughts to arise and pass spontaneously on their own without a separate observer/thinker/doer. Everything simply arise and pass in their own accord and are not resisted but fully experienced in its clarity.
Thought it will be helpful to everyone --
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Dzogchen Practice in Everyday Life
by HH Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
The everyday practice of dzogchen is simply to develop a complete carefree acceptance, an openness to all situations without limit.We should realise openness as the playground of our emotions and relate to people without artificiality, manipulation or strategy.
We should experience everything totally, never withdrawing into ourselves as a marmot hides in its hole. This practice releases
tremendous energy which is usually constricted by the process of maintaining fixed reference points. Referentiality is the process by
which we retreat from the direct experience of everyday life.Being present in the moment may initially trigger fear. But by welcoming the sensation of fear with complete openness, we cut through
the barriers created by habitual emotional patterns.When we engage in the practice of discovering space, we should develop the feeling of opening ourselves out completely to the entire universe. We should open ourselves with absolute simplicity and nakedness of mind. This is the powerful and ordinary practice of dropping the mask of self-protection.
We shouldn't make a division in our meditation between perception and field of perception. We shouldn't become like a cat watching a mouse. We should realise that the purpose of meditation is not to go "deeply into ourselves" or withdraw from the world. Practice should be free and non-conceptual, unconstrained by introspection and concentration.
Vast unoriginated self-luminous wisdom space is the ground of being - the beginning and the end of confusion. The presence of awareness in the primordial state has no bias toward enlightenment or non-enlightenment. This ground of being which is known as pure or original mind is the source from which all phenomena arise. It is known as the great mother, as the womb of potentiality in which all things arise and dissolve in natural self-perfectedness and absolute spontaneity.
All aspects of phenomena are completely clear and lucid. The whole universe is open and unobstructed - everything is mutually interpenetrating.
Seeing all things as naked, clear and free from obscurations, there is nothing to attain or realise. The nature of phenomena appears naturally and is naturally present in time-transcending awareness. Everything is naturally perfect just as it is. All phenomena appear in their uniqueness as part of the continually changing pattern. These patterns are vibrant with meaning and significance at every moment; yet there is no significance to attach to such meanings beyond the moment in which they present themselves.
This is the dance of the five elements in which matter is a symbol of energy and energy a symbol of emptiness. We are a symbol of our own enlightenment. With no effort or practice whatsoever, liberation or enlightenment is already here.
The everyday practice of dzogchen is just everyday life itself. Since the undeveloped state does not exist, there is no need to behave in any special way or attempt to attain anything above and beyond what you actually are. There should be no feeling of striving to reach some "amazing goal" or "advanced state."
To strive for such a state is a neurosis which only conditions us and serves to obstruct the free flow of Mind. We should also avoid thinking of ourselves as worthless persons - we are naturally free and unconditioned. We are intrinsically enlightened and lack nothing.
When engaging in meditation practice, we should feel it to be as natural as eating, breathing and defecating. It should not become a specialised or formal event, bloated with seriousness and solemnity. We should realise that meditation transcends effort, practice, aims, goals and the duality of liberation and non-liberation. Meditation is always ideal; there is no need to correct anything. Since everything that arises is simply the play of mind as such, there is no unsatisfactory meditation and no need to judge thoughts as good or bad.
Therefore we should simply sit. Simply stay in your own place, in your own condition just as it is. Forgetting self-conscious feelings, we do not have to think "I am meditating." Our practice should be without effort, without strain, without attempts to control or force and without trying to become "peaceful."
If we find that we are disturbing ourselves in any of these ways, we stop meditating and simply rest or relax for a while. Then we resume
our meditation. If we have "interesting experiences" either during or after meditation, we should avoid making anything special of them. To spend time thinking about experiences is simply a distraction and an attempt to become unnatural. These experiences are simply signs of practice and should be regarded as transient events. We should not attempt to re-experience them because to do so only serves to distort the natural spontaneity of mind.All phenomena are completely new and fresh, absolutely unique and entirely free from all concepts of past, present and future. They are
experienced in timelessness.The continual stream of new discovery, revelation and inspiration which arises at every moment is the manifestation of our clarity. We should learn to see everyday life as mandala - the luminous fringes of experience which radiate spontaneously from the empty nature of our being. The aspects of our mandala are the day-to-day objects of our life experience moving in the dance or play of the universe. By this symbolism the inner teacher reveals the profound and ultimate significance of being. Therefore we should be natural and spontaneous, accepting and learning from everything. This enables us to see the ironic and amusing side of events that usually irritate us.
In meditation we can see through the illusion of past, present and future - our experience becomes the continuity of nowness. The past is
only an unreliable memory held in the present. The future is only a projection of our present conceptions. The present itself vanishes as
soon as we try to grasp it. So why bother with attempting to establish an illusion of solid ground?We should free ourselves from our past memories and preconceptions of meditation. Each moment of meditation is completely unique and full of potentiality. In such moments, we will be incapable of judging our meditation in terms of past experience, dry theory or hollow rhetoric.
Simply plunging directly into meditation in the moment now, with our whole being, free from hesitation, boredom or excitement, is enlightenment.
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My own personal notes... may not be very relevant to the above post.
Practice is a non-doing... not doing anything to what is arising in our experience, leaving our experiences alone. That means no more resisting, attaching, seeking either... the complete abeyance of the self. When I say 'leave our experience alone', it has nothing to do with 'turning away from our experience', rather it's like a mirror reflecting and being fully present as its reflections while not in anyway resisting, or attaching to its reflections. There's simply reflecting happening.
Even 'surrendering' or 'allowing' as a way of describing isn't completely accurate -- nobody ever allows or surrenders. Allowing or surrendering basically means nondoing. Non-doing is not an activity, it is also not 'stopping' our thoughts, and definitely not control. It just means 'no interference' yet complete embrace.
Not doing anything, all actions, experiences, thoughts can still arise... spontaneously in its own occord, its essence is the same intelligence beating your heart and growing your nails... the 'self' has no relevance or power at all to the entire natural functioning of the universe, because there never was a 'self' in the first place.
We are that luminously intelligent universe in its entirety and the universe is now typing the message on the forum.
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Pardon me if I am being overly cautious about this, yet again.
The more you try to express, describe and conclude about what Dzogchen is, the more baggage you will be adding to yourself and others.
Unless you are an enlightened master who knows exactly what needs to be said or not said at what time and occasion, it is advisable not to discuss, for the benefit of yourself and others. Even in e-sangha, some masters have ordered for the Dzogchen forum to be closed.
My teachers' explanation is that when one hears the wrong information, it is difficult to forget.
Anybody with aspirations to learn Dzogchen should really aspire and pray to meet the right qualified teachers, and for oneself to possess the immense amount of merit. Not by learning from the Internet or books.
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:My own personal notes... may not be very relevant to the above post.
Practice is a non-doing... not doing anything to what is arising in our experience, leaving our experiences alone. That means no more resisting, attaching, seeking either... the complete abeyance of the self. When I say 'leave our experience alone', it has nothing to do with 'turning away from our experience', rather it's like a mirror reflecting and being fully present as its reflections while not in anyway resisting, or attaching to its reflections. There's simply reflecting happening.
Even 'surrendering' or 'allowing' as a way of describing isn't completely accurate -- nobody ever allows or surrenders. Allowing or surrendering basically means nondoing. Non-doing is not an activity, it is also not 'stopping' our thoughts, and definitely not control. It just means 'no interference' yet complete embrace.
Not doing anything, all actions, experiences, thoughts can still arise... spontaneously in its own occord, its essence is the same intelligence beating your heart and growing your nails... the 'self' has no relevance or power at all to the entire natural functioning of the universe, because there never was a 'self' in the first place.
We are that luminously intelligent universe in its entirety and the universe is now typing the message on the forum.
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Originally posted by _wanderer_:
Perhaps I should have been clearer in my earlier post to avoid confusion. Also I think this might not have been the most appropriate topic for that post. My post was not meant to be a comment on the above article or on Dzogchen and does not come from a Dzogchen perspective or teaching.
I also agree that those interested in practicing Dzogchen should seek proper teachers.
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Originally posted by _wanderer_:Even in e-sangha, some masters have ordered for the Dzogchen forum to be closed.
kind of think of it, it has been taken out for quite a while already.
http://www.lioncity.net/buddhism/index.php?showforum=118here's a quote from one of the moderator:
QUOTE(pink_trike @ Aug 9 2008, 09:27 AM)DO NOT ATTEMPT TO PRACTICE DZOGCHEN AFTER READING A BOOK OR TWO. -
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
Perhaps I should have been clearer in my earlier post to avoid confusion. Also I think this might not have been the most appropriate topic for that post. My post was not meant to be a comment on the above article or on Dzogchen and does not come from a Dzogchen perspective or teaching.
I also agree that those interested in practicing Dzogchen should seek proper teachers.
Yup it's good to be clear about that. Cos we wouldn't want to mislead people.Actually since you have shown so much interest in Dzogchen, you should really attend the Dzogchen teachers' teachings. Next year Garchen Rinpoche is likely to come and teach Dzogchen, maybe you can consider attending it.
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Originally posted by sinweiy:
kind of think of it, it has been taken out for quite a while already.
http://www.lioncity.net/buddhism/index.php?showforum=118here's a quote from one of the moderator:
QUOTE(pink_trike @ Aug 9 2008, 09:27 AM)
Yes it was taken out because one of the Dzogchen masters called for it to be closed.
