Background & 5 Key Practices

This can be a sensible, non-technical introduction to Dzogchen meditation that you should use to start training it as we speak.

I’d like to indicate gratitude my instructor Lama Surya Das for passing on his knowledge and these 5 meditation practices. The data right here comes from a mix of his work, the Dalai Lama’s e book on Dzogchen, and my very own expertise.

Background to Dzogchen Meditation

Dzogchen is the top path of the Nyinmga college of Tibetan Buddhism. It’s an historical oral custom that got here to Tibet from India within the seventh century AD.

Although all contemplative Buddhist apply in the end results in the identical clear mild, Dzogchen meditation is particular. It factors on to enlightenment, to our Buddha nature, to Kuntuzangpo.

It’s a direct non-dual path that works top-down, swooping down from above, quite than increase from the bottom, like most different Buddhist traditions. It’s not about creating by means of phases, however recognising our inherent pure presence and Buddhaness. Because of this, Dzogchen meditation is known as “the top of all autos”. It’s the sister apply of Mahamudra, which is a down-up method.

There are three varieties of Dzogchen teachings: Semde, Longde and Menngagde directions. Pith is the range that goes proper to the purpose. These secret oral, esoteric, non-dual teachings kind the premise of the meditations you’ll study on this article.

Dzogchen means Pure Nice Perfection, and that is the view that underlies the complete custom and all its practices. From this perspective, the whole lot in our physique, thoughts and senses is impermanent; like bubbles, or a candle within the wind, like a dream. All the pieces inside us can be equally divine, even the 5 poisons or obscuring feelings (greed, hatred, delusion, delight and jealousy) are nothing however mild, arisings in knowledge consciousness.

Since Dzogchen is a direct path, the whole lot is seen within the mild of Perfection. The 5 Perfections element this: that is the right time, the right place, excellent instructor, excellent educating, and the right pupil.

It’s about going from right here to really right here; we’re there whereas we get there. We awaken from the dreamlike daze of the Default Mode Community and our restricted, selfish notion. We go from attachment and aversion, from blindness to true imaginative and prescient.

And we see the Buddha in everybody and the whole lot. We’re all Buddhas, however all of us want tuning up! And Dzogchen meditation is how we tune up.

Dzogchen Meditation: View, Meditation & Motion

The bottom for all of the phenomena of samsara and nirvana is the elemental innate thoughts of clear mild, and these phenomena are its radiance or show.

The 14th Dalai Lama

In Dzogchen, the triad View, Meditation and Motion give us the bottom, apply and results of Dzogchen multi functional.

Our View is quick, open, just like the sky, as it’s, all-inclusive. There isn’t a inside or out, no starting or finish. There isn’t a path to enlightenment, but we additionally don’t overidealise enlightenment or postpone it. We merely look into the mirror of bare consciousness and see our innate Buddhaness, or tathāgatagarbha. We stroll the trail whereas already resting within the fruit, and at all times maintaining in thoughts this View.

Our Meditation is pure meditation – we loosen up, stay open, permit, convey readability and perception, and see the ownerless of the whole lot we expertise. We’re a mountain, unchanged by circumstances.

Pure Meditation, or non-meditation, is the baseline meditation for all others, whether or not it’s trekchö, tögal, skygazing, or Kuntuzangpo. We depend on Pure Breath, Pure Physique and Pure Thoughts.

There isn’t a want for particular asanas, and we don’t attempt to focus the thoughts on a single object. We aren’t attempting to kill the ego, however contact pure, empty presence, luminous, open Nowness.

Dzogchen meditation isn’t about phases of focus of absorption or realisation, in contrast to different programs. I’ve discovered the focus is there, however it’s not on a single object: it contains all attainable objects.

The fruit of the apply, our Motion on this planet, displays our View and our Meditation. It as is required, responsive, undriven, pure.

Dzogchen Meditation: 5 Foremost Practices

Let’s get to the 5 major practices of Dzogchen.

First, it’s helpful to know that there are three phases in every meditation session in Tibetan Buddhism:

• Starting: we sit, arrive, breathe, loosen up the physique, and switch inwards. Take just a few deep breaths and use the “Ah” syllable as you breathe out. Really feel your respiratory, your pulse, your physique contacting the seat and the bottom. This lasts a couple of minutes.
• Center: that is after we intensify our apply and go into the primary approach. This lasts so long as you want.
• Finish: we launch effort and simply sit for a couple of minutes. We ship goodwill and compassion to ourselves and to humanity.

You should utilize these phases to construction your meditation. Now, let’s transfer on to the 5 major Dzogchen practices.

Pure Meditation: The Spine or Basis

Dzogchen Pure Meditation, or non-meditation, is the spine of all the opposite types.

The essential directions are:

• Simply Sitting: there’s no want for a particular asana, or to pressure the physique, or to attempt to get someplace. Simply sit comfortably.
• Simply Respiratory: concentrate on your respiratory because it causes your abdomen and chest to develop and contract.
• Simply Being: discover what’s occurring in your physique and thoughts, with out attempting to change it in any manner. Remember, be current.

Trekchö

In Trekchö, we start with Pure Meditation then go deeper. Trekchö means seeing by means of, being by means of. As phenomena come and go in our consciousness, we see by means of them, convey beautiful consideration to them, penetrate them, see their illusoriness. We be by means of them, feeling them absolutely, realising they’re not separate from our very identification.

I wish to categorise phenomena utilizing Shinzen Younger’s taxonomy:

• Psychological photographs
• Psychological sounds
• Emotional physique sensations
• Bodily physique sensations
• Sights within the setting
• Sounds within the setting
• or any mixture of the above.

It’s my understanding that in Trekchö we are able to work with any and all of those phenomena. By doing so, we uncover that they’re impermanent, fleeting, and that there’s no one experiencing them. They’re additionally a manner for us to find Kuntuzangpo, since all phenomena come up and disappear into uncooked, bare consciousness or pure presence, and we’re that pure presence. Experiencing that is known as Dharmakaya consciousness.

For an exquisite rationalization of Trekchö, come up with The Particular Instructing of the Smart and Superb King by Patrul Rinpoche. That is among the many most revered texts in Tibetan Buddhism.

Kuntuzangpo

See my article on Kuntuzangpo for an in depth description of each the state of Kuntuzangpo and the meditation. As I say there:

Now contact the fullness in all of your senses, past mild and darkish, ache and pleasure, excellent and imperfect, inside and outside, me and different. In each blink, in each breath, your physique and senses comprise the whole lot.
Watch all phenomena – sights, sounds, ideas, feelings – go by on the stream of consciousness as the fundamental background stays unchanged. Radiate consciousness outward, and embrace the whole lot.

Skygazing

The aim of skygazing is to attach us with the “outer infinite”: the Pure Nice Perfection because it seems round us. We apply with eyes open.

Although you’ll be able to apply this whereas trying on the sky, the title itself doesn’t actually imply staring on the sky. It means holding open consciousness with eyes open. You possibly can apply it wherever you might be and no matter is round you, whether or not it contains the sky or not. That stated, pure expanses just like the sky, lakes and rolling hills could be conducive to this meditation, and provide a nice visible sight.

After the Starting section, the place we arrive, get comfy and domesticate fundamental presence, we open our eyes and gaze softly at a stage peak. Zoom out in your senses and maintain open, spacious consciousness.

Embrace the whole lot that seems in your senses, and attempt to expertise it abruptly. Lose observe of distance, time and reference factors. Don’t maintain on to something. Strive to concentrate on the complete Pure Nice Perfection, the complete parade of interior and outer expertise because it rises and falls.

All the pieces comes and goes inside you. Not little you, however the Kuntuzangpo You. This vessel is oceanic, expansive, clear, clear. It’s limitless, groundless, one past one. It’s the bottom of all dualities, the one which liberates all.

Simply relaxation on this pure open consciousness as you retain your eyes open and gaze out. That is skygazing.

Tögal: The Pinnacle

Tögal is the top Dzogchen apply, but it’s difficult to search out clear directions on it as a result of it’s a part of the key teachings. Let’s hear what Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche says about it:

“Trekchö is to easily acknowledge that one’s innate essence is empty. Tögal is to acknowledge that the pure show is spontaneously current. They don’t seem to be our creation; they don’t seem to be produced by apply. There isn’t a imagining of something in both trekchö or tögal.

“With out reducing by means of with trekchö, you’ll be able to’t instantly cross with tögal.”

Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche

Take a look at the Tibetan Buddhist Encylopedia web page on Togal for extra info.

In apply it takes a number of meditation expertise to easily relaxation in tögal, and I like to recommend you’re employed with the opposite Dzogchen practices beforehand.