Comments on: Early Dzogchen III: The origin of Dzogchen?

By: Jamyang Norbu

Jamyang Norbu — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:39:28 +0000

Thanks for your efforts in fleshing out this early phase of Tibetan history.

In light of your discovery of the frequency of mentions to the guhyasamaja in the Dunhuang texts, have you ever looked into Stephen Hodges assertion that there is an evolutionary thread of tantric development from:

sarvatathagatatattvasangraha -> guhyagarbha -> guhyasamaja

? And the fact that in these 3 tantras, as well as in Dzogchen we find the adhibuddha depicted as Samantabhadra?

All the best,
T

By: earlytibet

earlytibet — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:22:26 +0000

Dear Jack,

Thanks for your points. Let me just point out that my statements are purely historical. I don’t have a view, nor any authority to say what Dzogchen is or how it ought to be applied. I leave that to qualified teachers. I have only tried to write about how the presentation of Dzogchen that we find in the texts of the 8th-10th centuries.

By: Jack

Jack — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 22:28:42 +0000

It is wonderful that this kind of discussion is happening as this is actually an ongoing discussion and has been proberly since Garab Dorje (the first Buddhist master to teach Dzogchen).

I have written to comment on your view.
From the point of view of Dzogchen (and from the perspective that Dzogchen is the unsurpassed and most essential teaching)
All the yanas are indirectly ‘trying’ to get to the primordial state.
the practitioner of Dzogchen by the simple power of recognition, realizes his nature to be perfection and relaxes all internal phenomena that oppose that realization and they are liberated by the power of the view alone.
Tantric practitioners, unable to relax personal effort (or without teachings) use effort as a path. By means of visualization, they overcome obstacles related to their impure vision( the activity of non-recognition of primordial perfection)
Dzogchen is simply a state.
If one needs visualization and wind yoga to realize it then one would do so.
This does not mean that Dzogchen is simply a view to be applied in tantra. Dzogchen has many methods of its own to recognize the state and they are generally more essential than tantric methods.
Garab Dorje’s 3 statements on Dzogchen (before he died) were:
1 – The disciple receives introduction to the nature of awareness

2- one should o longer remain in any doubt as to what that is

3- then the disciple continues in that state

This is the essence
as you can see there is no mention that the practitioner should visualize, control or recite anything
they are done ONLY if there is an obstacle.
Views like ‘Dzogchen is a view to be used in tantra’, come from and irrational fear of the the essence of the Dharma.
and many to this day refuse to see and believe the simplicity of the Great Perfection.

Thanks

Jack