A Glimpse of the Great Perfection
A Glimpse of the Great Perfection
David Paul Boaz
The nature of mind is the unity of awareness and emptiness...
The nature of mind is clear light.
In order to lead living beings to understanding I taught all the different yanas.
—Shakyamuni Buddha (Lankavatara Sutra)
Dharma in a cold climate: the supreme teaching. In the ancient Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism the traditional Three Vehicles of Buddhahood—Hinayana/Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana are viewed as the nine vehicles to liberation/enlightenment. According to H. H. The Dalai Lama the first eight vehicles utilize our ordinary obstructed mind as the causal path to enlightenment and ultimately Buddhahood. Such renunciation and transformation takes many lifetimes. However, in the Fruitional Vehicle the mind itself is primordially pure and always already Buddha from the very beginning. This subtlest and
most direct vehicle, the Ati Yoga of Dzoghen, the Great Perfection utilizes our already present dynamic intrinsic Primordial Awareness Wisdom as the path. This path is considered by most Buddhist masters to be the pinnacle of all of the Buddhist vehicles to liberation and may, under the most auspicious circumstances, be accomplished in a single lifetime. This wisdom is the “unchanging rigpa awareness” that is no other than Samantabhadra (Kuntazangpo), the primordialDharmakaya (perfect body of truth, empty in essence and the very nature of mind) Adi Buddha who is our pristine fundamental original nature, our “innate mind of clear light,” primordially pure and utterly untainted by the
karmic winds of conceptual thought and negative emotion (Longchen Rabjam 2007). This numinous luminous presence of vidya/rigpa awareness wisdom is inherently present in all human beings. Indeed, all the arising phenomena of ordinary mind always are this pristine primordial wisdom awareness. That is the actual nature of all phenomena. And that is the supreme identity of human beings, without exception.
The most important way to understand the Great Perfection is in terms of essence, nature and compassionate energy according to which the essence is primordial purity and the nature is spontaneous presence... all the phenomena of samsara, nirvana and the path are, by their very nature, the rigpa awareness that is the primordial buddha Samantabhadra, and they are never outside of the primordial expanse of buddhahood... This the fundamental innate mind of clear light.
—H. H. The Dalai Lama in Longchen Rabjam 2007 p.
78 According to Sogyal Rinpoche (1992), Dzogchen is “the primordial state, the state of total awakening that is the heart-essence of all the Buddhas and all spiritual paths, and the summit of an individual's spiritual evolution.” Therefore the practice of Dzogchen is the recognition, then realization of our always present inherent Buddha Nature, which is who we actually are from the very beginning.
Buddha cognition. According to H. H. The Dalai Lama, the subtlest view of the Nyingma lineage's tantric Buddhist teaching isAti Dzogchen (Dzogpachenpo, Mahasandhi) the Great Perfection. And the Essence Mahamundra of the Kagyu School, and the Madhyamaka of the Definitive Meaning are essentially the same as Dzogchen as to the View and the fruit or result, namely Buddhahood. On the Dzogchen view the realm of Relative Truth (samvriti satya)—form (objective reality) and formless form (mental and subjective experience)—arises
from its primordial energy (jnana prana) within the perfectly subjective pristine cognition of the vast expanse of Reality Itself (dharmadhatujnana/chos byings yeshe). According to His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche (1991) this unity of the absolute space of arising phenomena (dharmadhatu/chos byings) with primordial consciousness itself, is the luminosity of clearlight primordial awareness wisdom (gnosis/jnana/yeshe), utterly free of conceptual elaboration and negative emotion. This is the perfect sphere of Dzogchen. This Ultimate Reality (dharmata/cho nyid) is the Madhyamaka luminous emptiness (shunyata) that is the inherent nature of relative spacetime phenomena (dharma/chos) whose apparitional or illusory face (dharmin/cho can) emerges from its primordial purity (kadag) of the emptiness base (gzhi) as the limited consciousness of sentient beings who perceive, then reify,
then conceptually designate (maya/ignorance/ajnana/marigpa) these appearances as the seemingly substantial phenomena of a reified, imputed, permanent, absolute and substantial everyday intersubjective relative-conventional reality . Yet all such instantiation of phenomenal consciousness is “always already” illumined by the radiant original face of this primordial awareness wisdom (jnana/yeshe) that is their (our) intrinsic actual nature, the very nature of mind (cittata/sems nyid). And That (Tat/Sat) is not other than the perfect sphere of Dzogchen, the Great Perfection.
In this profound and subtle “practice of Ati Yoga, which is also secret such that only the fortunate can understand it,” Buddhahood (Buddha-nature/buddhadhatu) is accomplished, according to His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche, when the fundamental, primal intrinsic awareness (vidya/rigpa) of the Buddha Body of Reality Itself (dharmakaya/chos-ku) is liberated, exactly as it is, directly here and now through the continuity of recognition—”brief moments many times”—realization and perfection of the primordially pure body of Samantabhadra (Kuntazangpo), the Dharmakaya Buddha, who is none other than the pristine cognition of the supreme reality that is dharmadhatu, the vast Absolute Space of all phenomena, beyond belief, always already present as whatever arises in this very moment now, here in this very human body of light (rang rig/rang rigpa). In the words of great 14th century Nyingma master Longchen Rabjam (Longchenpa):
“Naturally occurring timeless awareness—utterly lucid awakened mind— is something marvelous and superb, primordially and spontaneously present. It is the treasury from which comes the universe of appearances and possibilities, whether samsara or nirvana. Homage to the unwavering state, free of elaboration.”
—Longchen Rabjam (2001)
This clearlight (‘od gsal) absolute space (chos byings) of phenomena that is Ultimate Truth (paramartha satya) must not be conflated with the material, contingent relative dimension of spacetime that arises within and through it. The prior unity of these conceptual “Two Truths” that is the nonconceptual all-embracing one truth, the perfect nondual sphere of Dzogchen, is ontologically prior, subsuming, transcending yet embracing and pervading the physical and mental spacetime dimension, including the “space particles” of the ground state of the quasiphysical Unified Quantum Vacuum. The great paradoxical (to concept-mind) conclusion then is this: ultimately there is no difference! In the pristine cognition of equality—Buddha cognition (samatajnana/nyam-nyid yeshe—the Two Truths are equal. One and the same. An ontic prior unity. The primal duality of the conceptual binary that is the Two Truths is resolved in this one great, conceptually ineffable but not contemplatively ineffable nondual truth. “There is not the slightest difference between samsara and nirvana” (Nagarjuna).
The Unified Quantum Vacuum and the Great Perfection. Thus, from this ultimate view, the Zero Point Energy of the Unified Quantum Vacuum arises from the alayavijnana, the substrate consciousness that arises from the primordial wisdom consciousness (jnana/yeshe) that is not other than the emptiness base (gzhi), the Trikaya of the Base. And from this Quantum Vacuum arises citta/sems, the human bodymind along with the kosmic gift that is the entire spacetime mansion of Relative Truth (samvriti satya). These are the three
consciousness dimensions—citta, alaya and jnana—of the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist view. O wonder of wonders, all beings are Buddha, samsara and nirvana are One! And all this, always here, now outshines perfectly just as it is, the natural state, ordinary “natural mind” the very nature of your (our) mind. So, as we surrender (wu-wei, pistis/faith) and relax into it, great joy (mahasuka). Nothing special (wu shin). As we begin to see this post-transcendental, post-metaphysical, “ordinary mind” as the vast numinous primordial nature
of reality—the very Nature of Mind—we wake up. “Now we spontaneously generate the love that is truly a refuge for all living beings.” (Vimalakirti).
Again the great omniscient master Longchenpa transmits to us this supreme primordial wisdom (gnosis, jnana, yeshe) that is this very nature of mind (citatta, sems nyid), of Kosmos, of the vast infinite expanse of Reality Itself (dharmata, cho nyid).
Self arising wisdom is rigpa that is empty, clear and free from all
elaboration, like an immaculate sphere of crystal... It does not analyze objects... By simply identifying that non-conceptual, pristine, naked rigpa, you realize there is
nothing other than this nature. This is non-dual selfarising wisdom. Like a reflection in a mirror, when objects and perceptions manifest to rigpa, that pristine and naked awareness which does not proliferate into thought is called the inner power (tsal), the responsiveness that is the ground (gzhi) for all the arising of things... For a yogin who realizes the naked meaning of Dzogpachenpo, rigpa is fresh, pure and naked, and objects may manifest and appear within rigpa, but it does not lose itself externally to those objects.
—Longchen Rabjam, The Treasury of the Dharmadhatu (Commentary), Adzom Chogar edition (quoted in H. H. the Dalai Lama, Dzogchen, 2000)
Basic Principles. According to recent Tibetan Dzogchen rime master Tulku Urgen Rinpoche, the two innermost principles of Dzogchen are Basic Space (dharmadhatu/chos byings) and Awareness (vidya/rigpa). This Basic Space is pregnant luminous emptiness, the unity of emptiness (shunyata) and the clearlight luminosity (‘od gsal). In Dzogchen, the innermost secret realization of Basic Space is klong, the infinite “vast expanse” of Reality Itself, transcending all conceptual elaboration, judgement and bias, beyond even the subtlest subject-object duality, beyond objective and subjective emptiness, beyond ground and path luminosity (Boaz, 2004).
As space pervades, so awareness pervades. like space, rigpa is allencompassing. Just as beings are all pervaded by space, rigpa pervades the minds of beings. Basic space is the absence of mental constructs, while awareness is the knowing of this absence of constructs, recognizing the complete emptiness of mind essence. The ultimate dharma is the realization of the indivisibility of basic space and awareness [that is] Samantabhadra.
—Tulku Urgyen (As It is, Vol. I, 1999 and Rainbow Painting, 1995)
So Basic Space and Primordial Awareness Wisdom are a prior ontological unity. Emptiness and the clear light are a unity. According to the Third Dodrupchen Jigme Tenpe Nyima “the rigpa taught in the Nyingma Dzogchen approach and the wisdom of clear light (Mahamudra/Anuttara-yoga-tantra) are one and the same.”
In Dzogchen, on the basis of the clear light itself, the way in which the clear light abides is made vivid and certain by the aspect of rigpa or knowing. That is free from any overlay of delusion and from any corrupting effect due to conceptual thoughts, that will inhibit the experience of clear light. It is not accomplished as something new, as a result of circumstances and conditions, but is present from the very outset. . .an awareness that can clearly perceive the way in which basic space and wisdom are present. On the basis of that key point, the realization of clear light radiates in splendor, becoming clearer and clearer, like a hundred million suns. Here the aware aspect of clear light or effulgent rigpa (which arises from essential rigpa) is stripped bare and you penetrate further into the depths of clear light. even as objects seem to arise. It is on the basis of this that you train.
—Third Dodrupchen Jigme Tenpe Nyima (quoted in H. H. The Dalai Lama, Dzogchen, 2000.)
The Supreme Source. A primary Dzogchen tantra, The Kunjed Gyalpo (The Supreme Source), must surely be considered one of humankind's great spiritual treasures. According to Dzogchen master Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, this prehistorical supreme nondual teaching has been transmitted from master to disciple directly, heartmind to heartmind, for thousands of years. However, historical Dzogchen wisdom dates from the teaching of Garab Dorje (b. 55 CE). The Kunjed Gyalpo tantra arises in the 8th Century and is the fundamental tantra of the Dzogchen semde (mind) teaching series. This reading of the great nondual primordial Dzogchen teaching is derived from Buddhist sutra and tantra understanding of the ultimate Nature of Mind, yet its truth essence runs, like a golden thread through the grand tapestry of humankind's primordial Great Wisdom Tradition. Kunjed Gyalpo, The Wise and Glorious King is Samantabhadra (clarity) and Samantabhadri (emptiness) in inseparable yabyum embrace—androgynous skylike primordial Adi Buddha—the union of clarity and emptiness that is none other than our original Buddha Nature, Supreme Source, Basis, primordial womb of everything.
Sambantabhadra, this Dharmakaya Buddha speaks to the Logos, Vajrasattva, Sambhogakaya Buddha:
The essence of all the Buddhas exists prior to samsara and nirvana... it transcends the four conceptual limits and is intrinsically pure; this original condition is the uncreated nature of existence that always existed, the ultimate nature of all phenomena. It is utterly free of the defects of dualistic thought which is only capable of referring to an object other than itself. it is the base of primordial purity. Similar to space it pervades all beings. The inseparability of the two truths, absolute and relative is called the ‘primordial Buddha'. If at the moment the energy of the base manifests, one does not consider it something other than oneself. it self-liberates. Understanding the essence. one finds oneself always in this state . . .dwelling in the fourth time, beyond past, present and future. the infinite space of self-perfection. pure dharmakaya, the essence of the vajra of clear light.
—Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, The Supreme Source (Kunjed Gyalpo), 1999
Thus do the sutras and the tantras of Buddha's teaching and the bivalent dualities of the path—objective and subjective, self and other, observer and data, true and false, relative and ultimate—abide in the prior unity of the dependently arisen perfect sphere of Dzogchen, the Great Perfection, ultimate mind nature, luminous innate clearlight mind that is always already the unity of awareness and emptiness, and of clarity and emptiness. Who is it, that I am? All the masters of the three times have told it. This infinite vast expanse of the primordial awareness wisdom continuum is who we actually are. Tat tvam ami. That, I Am! That is our supreme identity, great perfection of our always present Buddha Nature, deep heartseed presence of ultimate happiness that is both origin and aim of all our seeking.
H. H. Dudjom Rinpoche's Comments on Garab Dorje's Three Vajra Verses or The Three Essential Statements that are the Dzogchen View, Meditation and Conduct (translated by John Reynolds):
Verse I: Recognize your own true nature (The Base and View) “This fresh immediate awareness of the present moment, transcending all thoughts related to the three times (past, present, future), is itself that primordial awareness or knowledge (yeshe) that is self-originated intrinsic awareness (rig pa).” From this View arises the Semde teaching cycle.
Verse II: Choose the state of presence, beyond doubt (The Path and Meditation) “Whatever phenomena of samsara or nirvana may manifest, all of them represent the play of the creative energy or potentiality of one's own immediate intrinsic awareness (rig pa'i rtsal). One must decide upon this unique state for oneself and know that there exists nothing other than this.” From The Path and Meditation arises the Longde teaching cycle.
Verse III: Continue in the state with confidence in liberation (The Fruit and Conduct) “Whatever gross or subtle thoughts may arise, by merely recognizing their nature, they arise and self-liberate simultaneously in the vast expanse of Dharmakaya, where Emptiness and Awareness are inseparable (gsal stong gnyis med).” From the Fruit and the Conduct arises the Secret Upadesha (Mengagde), or heart essence (nyingthig) teaching cycle.
The Six Vajra Verses of Vairochana
These Three Essential Points (The Three Vajra Verses) of the essence, nature and energy of the Base, and of the Path and Fruition of it is contained in Vairochana's early Dzogchen tantra, the Six Vajra Verses, or “Cuckoo of the State of Presence” (Rig-pa'I khu-byug), the luminous presence of intrinsic awareness (rig pa) that each one is. The cuckoo is the sacred bird of the Bonpo founder Shenrab Miwo and is considered in the aboriginal Bon tradition as the king of birds, harbinger of spring and bearer of wisdom from the vast empty space. These early Six Vajra Verses of Vairochana and all of the hundreds of Dzogchen tantras and texts that followed are but commentaries on Garab Dorje's Three Vajra Verses or The Three Essential Statements (or points).
The Six Vajra Verses (translated by Chogyal Namkhai Norbu):
Verse 1 & 2: The Base (View): The nature of phenomena is non-dual (gnyis med), but each one, its own state, is beyond the limits of the mind (semde, mind meditation series).
Verse 3 & 4: The Path, Way of Practice (Meditation): There is no concept that can define the condition of “what is,” but vision nevertheless manifests: all is good (longde, space meditation series).
Verse 5 & 6: The Fruit, Result, Way of Being in Action (Conduct): Everything has already been accomplished, and so, having overcome the sickness of effort (spiritual seeking), one finds oneself in the self-perfected state: this is the meditation, mengagde/upasheda, secret essence meditation series.
And from Jigme Lingpa, author of the Longchen Nyingthig Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse, on the nondual Dzogchen view at play in the world:
No Buddhas, no beings, beyond existence and non-existence Intrinsic Awareness Itself is absolute Guru, Ultimate Truth. By resting naturally, beyond fixaton in that inherently free perfect innate Bodhi-mind, I take refuge and actualize Bodhicitta.
-Jigme Lingpa, Longchen Nyingthig
“The perfect explanation of Dzogchen," according to Chogyal Namkhai Norbu is voiced in these profound words of Gautama Shakyamuni, our historical Nirmanakaya Buddha: All that arises is essentially no more real than a reflection, transparently pure and clear, beyond all definition or logical explanation. Yet the seeds of past action, karma, continue to cause further arising. Even so, know that all that exists is ultimately void of self-nature, utterly nondual!
A Brief History of the Dzogchen Transmission
The nature of mind is Buddha from the beginning.
In Uddiyana (Orgyen) in the second century CE, Garab Dorje (b. 55 CE), the human historical founder of Dzogchen, in his Sambhogakaya form, transmitted the great Dzogchen teaching to his heart son Manjushrimitra (The Three Essential Statements or Three Vajra Verses) who then classified these texts (the Dzogchen Nyingthig) and transmitted them to Srisimha who then transmitted them to Jnanasutra, Guru Padmasambhava, (the Khandro Nyingthig), Vimalamitra (the Vima Nyingthig), and Vairochana (The Cuckoo of the State of
Presence). Vimalamitra and Padmasambhava then brought the teaching from Uddiyana to Tibet in the 8th century CE, at the invitation of King Trisong Detsen. In the 14th century they were synthesized by Longchenpa (Longchen Rabjam 1308-1364) as the Seven Treasuries (Dzodun), The Trilogy of Finding Comfort and Ease, The Trilogy of Natural Freedom, and The Three Inner Essences. In the 18th century Jigme Ling Pa (1730-1798) rediscovered the complete Dzogchen Nyingthig, including the above works, as a root mind terma (gong ter)
and condensed its essence as the Yonten Dzod which is now known as the Longchen Nyingthig and is generally considered the authoritative expression of the Nyingma School's great Dzogchen tradition. Nyingthig means heartmind essence. Esoterically, the Longchen Nyingthig, the Heart Essence of the Infinite Expanse contains the precious heart essence of Dzogchen. It contains the innermost secret pith instructions, the upadesha (mengagde) and is transmitted from master to individual disciple directly, from heartmind to heartmind. The student prepares for this ultimate teaching by completing the foundational practices (ngondro) before entering the secret pith instruction of the mengagde that includes the Trekcho and Togal teaching cycles.
The Nirmanakaya Buddha Garab Dorje initially received the Dzogchen teaching as a direct transmission from the Dharmakaya Buddha Samantabhadra (Kuntuzangpo), the primoridial Adi Buddhi, through the Sambhogakaya Buddha Vajrasattva, from whom emanates all spacetime historical (Nirmanakaya) Buddhas. Indeed, it is taught by some Dzogchen masters (Tulku Urgyen) that the ancient Dzogchen teaching was transmitted to Garab Dorje by the historical Buddha Shakyamuni (usually 563-483 BCE), the twelfth of the twelve great Dzogchen masters, in his Sambhogakaya form as Buddha Vajrasattva (Tulku Urgyen, 1995).
From a relative doxographic and historiographic view early historical Nyingma Dzogchen was formatively influenced primarily by the Indian Buddhist trantras, but also by Taoist Ch'an, indigenous Tibetan Bon, Tibetan Nestorian Christianity and Kashmiri Shivaism (Chogyal Namkhai Norbu 1996, Reynolds 1996).
The preceding is historiographic evidence based upon extant texts from the 8th through 10th centuries CE, and from recently discovered texts at Tun Huang, China (the Rig Pa'i khu byug and the Bas Pa'i rgum chung). However, according to certain Dzogchen tantras the Dozgchen lineage includes “the Twelve Teachers of Dzogchen” (Dodrupchen Rinpoche, Tantric Doctrine According to the Nyingmapa School). Not all of these masters were of the spacetime human realm. Some of these prehistoric teachers pre-date even the ancient
Nirmanakaya Bon Dzogchen master Shenrab Miwoche (Tonpa Shenrab Miwo) who taught Dzogchen in Olmo Lung ring (Central Asia) circa 1600 BCE, long before the incarnation of the Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha (Namkhai Norbu, in Reynolds 1996). From there the teaching spread to Orgyen/Zhang Zhung and then Tibet. Indeed, the Grathal gyur tantra, and other texts teach that the great nondual primordial Ati Dzogchen teaching, by whatever name, has appeared in inhabited star systems throughout the kosmos for many kalpas, long before the appearance of our solar system, and will continue long after its death.
Thus it is, for the Nyingmapa, and many other Buddhists, and non-Buddhists, the nondual primordial Dzogchen teaching is the pinnacle of all spiritual teaching, and its view is therefore most relevant to the task of unifying the two seemingly incommensurable paradigms—Science and Spirit/spirituality—as we embark upon the new Noetic Revolution in religion, science and culture.
