Dzogchen practice advice

I’m a little more than half-way through Wisdom Eccentrics by Ngakpa Chögyam (aka Ngak’chang Rinpoche, or NCR for short). While reading it this morning, I came across a fantastic Dzogchen teaching by Künzang Dorje Rinpoche , as recounted by NCR. I liked it so much that I knew immediately that I would share it with you all.

“The most important thing with Dzogchen is presence of awareness. There are all kinds of obstacles to presence of awareness. The first is the obstacle of laziness and the second is forgetfulness. Even having received pointing-out instruction – we tend to forget. The third obstacle is depression. Depression means blocking thought – the state where thought no longer arises. In this state, it is not possible to identify experiences. This state is one of total blankness. Another form of depression is agitation – when concepts move too quickly. If you see a person like this, they may appear to be sitting perfectly – but internally, they’re exhausted by travelling everywhere at once.

“As to how we should meditate – it’s important to break sitting into short sessions. Meditation doesn’t require sitting for long stretches – as if there were value merely in not moving. It’s better to meditate for short periods – rather than long sessions that have no result. When drops of water accumulate they gather momentum – but each drop is separate. Each drop is unique. Meditation sessions should accumulate in the same way.

“There should be no obsession with presence of awareness – as this merely leads to saturating mind with concepts about presence of awareness. The opposite is as bad – paying no heed to presence of awareness and letting your attention blow like litter in an Indian town.

“Don’t indulge in sensitivity … or allow yourselves to be assaulted by the weapon of emotions. If you become a victim of your own emotions … meditation is meaningless."

This seems to clear up some common misconceptions about Dzogchen practice. I’ve been reading about the role that Romantic Idealism has greatly influenced Western interpretations of nondual teachings. While Dzogchen does entail a certain deconstruction of unhelpful views and social constraints, it is not – in my understanding – a call to regress to a state of erratic emotionality and impulse driven desire fulfillment. In other words, “just be natural” does not mean “just be reckless and stupid.”

Please share any reactions to Künzang Dorje Rinpoche’s teaching, or my less-profound commentary

Reference:

Chögyam, Ngakpa. (2011). Wisdom eccentrics: Rumors of realization as told by Künzang Dorje Rinpoche with additional tales of the unexpected. Ramsey, NJ: Aro Books.

I must have missed the trend where people thought Dzogchen was about "letting it all hang out".

I always thought it was pretty much the "allow everything to be just as it is" type of focus in meditation. <<---super-oversimplified pointer I used per my teacher's instructions, and he was influenced by dzogchen teachings.

In other words, not grasping, not resisting, but accepting what is, just as it is, without trying to change it.

However, I think this type of practice works best *after* one has cleared away some of the mental rubbish via preliminary training, otherwise one tends to fall into the "let it all hang out" school of simply indulging in whatever comes to mind? You can't "allow everything to be just as it is" if your mind is a shitstorm of fantasies, imaginations, emotional tangents, grasping at ideas, etc.

I should add that book to my reading list.

I would definitely add it to your reading list. Kate directed us to it in another thread. The Kindle version is only $4.00.

I think even a simple phrase like "allow everything to be as it is" can be mis-interpreted to mean "don't restrain your impulses." I'm not saying this is how it is always, or even most-often interpreted, but it definitely shows up. Crazy Wisdom is also interpreted through such a lens at times, and ends up being more of a dionysian exression rather than an empty wisdom display.

Also, I also think is part of why some Buddhist-types think Tantra is dangerous. In some ways it could be, I guess. Anyway, letting go of the egoic restraints on the passions/emotional energies is only part of the process. Metaphorically speaking, if people don't deal with their reactive patters, the energy can feed into them and make them worse. Thus the importance of view, as well as appropriate, helpful guidance and instruction.

Yes. I think Magick, as a sort of Western tantra, can be just a kind of self-indulgent or escapist practice for a lot of people, too. Most perhaps, if I judge by the people I encounter irl and online. The number interested in discipline, insight and wisdom is miniscule vs. the number interested in some kind of metaphysical party or cool superpowers.

There's good reason most esoteric traditions traditionally kept those teachings behind a firewall, only teaching them after students had gone through years of more austere, disciplined preparatory practices. That way you either work through the self-indulgence/escapism tendencies, or you cut those people from the training.

Of course that's an ideal, and wasn't always necessarily followed. But I think there's a lot of validity to it. I don't know if it is helpful or harmful or simply irrelevant that many such teachings are fairly easy to find now. Probably irrelevant, really, in that those who are stuck in self-indulgence/escapism will go through that in any case, in one form or another.

“As to how we should meditate – it’s important to break sitting into short sessions. Meditation doesn’t require sitting for long stretches – as if there were value merely in not moving. It’s better to meditate for short periods – rather than long sessions that have no result. When drops of water accumulate they gather momentum – but each drop is separate. Each drop is unique. Meditation sessions should accumulate in the same way."

I found this quote quite interesting. This has been my emerging approach to meditation lately, which I am really liking a lot. I am curious what others think about this.

i wonder what the author thought of by short or long? i think of short as up to 30 minutes, long anything over that. maybe to him short was six hours? anyway, i always did short sesseions, usually 30 minutes. when i was being ridiculous i did 4-6 sits a day. it seemed to work well enough.

nice to see your smiling face here, john.

I think the idea is to stay natural. Sitting for long stretches isn't natural. It can also cause unnecessary strain and fatigue.

Using other Dzogchen readings as a context, short can mean as little as 5 minutes. It can be useful to take time out of one's day to simply notice the nature of Mind is spontaneously spacious, vivid, and clear. Attempting to cling to Mind serves to muddy one's perception. Allowing spontaneous glimpses to increase in duration naturally, rather than trying to manufacture stability and brightness, is the crucial point as I understand it.

The instruction NCR has given in public teachings, about 'finding the presence of awareness' seems to me to indicate that-- especially at first-- the practice is extremely brief. It is very much like the 'Doh!' moment of finding/remembering where you left your 'lost' car keys, glasses, or whatever.

My guess is that this is to get around the notion that 'meditation' is adopting some special physical or mental [static] posture. Interestingly enough, I just read the section of the book where Kunzang Dorje explains that version of meditation as a kind of depression. True, a posture-- mental or physical-- can facilitate that little jolting moment of clarity. But to make an absolute correlation of the two traps you into an absolute divide between most of your life and meditation. And that IS depressing!

Thanks for joining the conversation, Kate!

Yes - as far as flashes or moments of rigpa are concerned, "practice" periods can be (and usually are, for most practitioners) quite brief.

That reminds me very much of the workshops I went to with Loch Kelly last year, where he used different stories, exercises, questions and pointers to try to help people find just that flicker of a moment of openness, resting, peace, silence, etc. I remember him saying he offered the diversity of stories, etc. because each person might find a different one provided the right "door" so to speak to recognize those moments. It was an interesting approach I hadn't really been familiar with in any detail. According to his bio "He has also studied the non-dual traditions of Dzogchen with Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche in Nepal and Advaita in India." And he practices "non dual psychotherapy" which sounds intriguing.