Jan 06 2008
dzogchen practice
For ordinary individuals, Buddhahood seems very far away indeed. However, for Dzogchen practitioners it is not so very difficult. All other paths, both within and outside of Buddhism, are like the preliminaries for Dzogpa Chenpo, the Peak Vehicle. Dzogpa Chenpo includes all the other ways and teachings and is complete in itself. All other Dharmas find completion in it and lead to it like rivers emptying into the great sea. Other Dharmas have conflicting viewpoints; Dzogchen resolves them all. Dzogpa Chenpo is the extremely short, swift, direct path to total enlightenment in this lifetime. It is without great hardships. Other paths are like roads leading to a distant house; Dzogchen is like being in that house. This amrita-like Dzogchen Mengak Nyengyud of the Vidyadhara (Rigpa-Holding)
Lineage is the most precious and refined essential quintessence of all possible teachings. It allows us to perceive the most subtle levels of how things are and how everything actually manifests and makes it possible for us to swiftly become totally realized, fully awakened, free. If we practice it now, there will certainly be immense benefits for Westerners everywhere in the future.
There are infinite subtle and profound detailed explanations about all the Buddhist teachings and about Dzogchen too, but it all depends on meditation practice. That is the most essential thing.
One must experience the teachings for oneself and present one’s own experience, understanding, or realization to a realized master, one’s own kind teacher, in order to receive the master’s assessment and advice. The teacher cannot simply present realization to you. But an authentic, qualified Dzogchen master can easily guide a suitable disciple in the nyongtri manner to the attainment of supreme accomplishment without many hardships or detailed teachings and intellectual explanations and study. All the teachings will be included in those indispensable personal pith-instructions. Therefore, one should rely totally on that.
Gyalwa Longchenpa says about Dzogpa Chenpo: “It is in perfect accord with all teachings, and is supreme.” It is the purpose of this Dzogchen practice to clearly establish a View that leads directly to realizing that the very nature of one’s own mind is the absolute nature. We must not be satisfied with mere intellectual understanding or knowledge about it. That will not free or liberate us. We must develop great, unshakable, inner certainty concerning that fundamental intrinsic nature. All the various practices are the means to developing, progressing, and stabilizing that certainty.
This simple yet profound practice, connected with trekchod (cutting through) meditation, is explained in Patrul Rinpoche’s Tsiksum Nedek (Three Vital Points Which Strike the Essence).
Even if Gyalwa Longchenpa or the primordial Buddha Kuntuzangpo were to appear suddenly before us in a marvelous vision of rainbow light, that would be nothing compared to having before us Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche and Chatral Rinpoche, living Buddhas like Padma Sambhava himself, who can speak Dzogpa Chenpo directly into our ears. These great teachers are the peerless living lineage-holders embodying all the deities, teachers, and teachings.