Meditation people roll call!

Dzogchen teachings go beyond conventional moral codes - including the principle of karma. The idea is that karma is not a mechanistic system of cause and effect but in reality an illusory manifestation of perception and response.

I'm sympathetic to this and I think it's in accord with that Doreen Virtue meditation I was talking about before - allowing one to release karma. The principle difference still seems to me to be that the dzogchen philosophy is still proferred within the Buddhist principle of not acting and thus not accruing the karma (whether it's illusory or not) in the first place.

the Buddhist principle that advocates not acting, I should say

I've never heard of Doreen Virtue. I'll have to check that out.

Maybe bookmark for some time when you really got a lot of time on your hands :)
http://www.mandala.hr/1/groundpathfruit.html
There is some information on nonaction under the heading "Ground, Path and Fruition."

Uh... I didn't notice that "Ground, Path and Fruition" also happens to be the title of the full article. I meant, scroll down about halfway and there's another section with the same header title.

here's a simple one. sit somewhere quiet, in a comfortable poistion. close your eyes, and try to turn your brain off for two minutes. do not have a single thought for two minutes. If you can do this, you're pretty damn good. a trick that might help is to concentrate on a subtle physical feeling you might have, like your arm resting on your leg, or something like that. It's amazing how long 2 minutes can be (when you're not on ILX, hehehehehe)

are you really "experiencing the mind for what it really is" (let's disregard the tangled mess that "what it really is" is), or are you just *thinking* you are?

-- Granny Dainger, Thursday, July 19, 2007 11:50 PM

What I'm really driving at here is that we can play the "are you really ... or are you just THINKING ..." game all day. When one is really awake, though, it can't be expressed in words (or thoughts).

MONK: What is the living meaning of Zen?
ROSHI: The cypress tree in the courtyard.

The Prajnaparamita Sutra says:
Regarding mind:
Mind does not exist,
Its expression is luminosity.

I just started doing this. Granted I'm in the total beginning stages, i.e. "shut up for five minutes", so I'm not feeling that enlightened yet, but it is fun to imagine breathing through your forehead.

What I'm really driving at here is that we can play the "are you really ... or are you just THINKING ..." game all day. When one is really awake, though, it can't be expressed in words (or thoughts).

My point (if I have one at all. I'm not really as dogmatic about this as it may appear) is that "are you really" and "are you just THINKING" are identical. You can try to use your mind in different ways, to process sensation differently, but you'll always be bound to it. Of course perception is a mental process, how can it not be? Any experience that feels otherwise is an illusion (I don't get the har hars upthread in response to the brain playing a trick on itself. Perception is nothing but this!). There's something to be said for meditation, and if it helps you in anyway, I'm glad. I just don't think there needs to be any mystical energy field this pure experience that quasi-religious gobbledygook thrown on top of it.

Nobody should doubt perception is a mental process. In my post Granny originally responded to, I said that mind and nature of mind were inextricably linked (interdependent) and only to be separated for examination. Now, the question remains, "what is 'thinking?'" And how does examination of this question relate to the passage from the prajnaparamita:
Regarding mind:
Mind does not exist,
Its expression is luminosity.

Taken in conjunction with my comments on 'the mirror' above, this means that the mind's expression is nothing more than the reflection of things, which are all interdependent expression of the void. As all things do not exist in and of themselves, but as interdependent unity, Mind itself is the illusion of selfhood which buddhism denies. Try to explain what the mind is, what thinking is, and you wind up with empty definitions ad infinitum, a series of assumptions based on definitions for convenience which sum up the delusion of duality. Mind is invisible, clear and luminous like a mirror, which gives rise to reflection. This is the nature of mind. "Mind does not exist. Its expression is luminosity."

Mind itself is the illusion of selfhood which buddhism denies

This should really say "Mind gives rise to the illusion of selfhood..." Examining Mind and Nature of Mind in this way, gives rise to Nondual Awareness which eliminates the illusion of selfhood and is beyond thinking. GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SOHA is the Mantra of Wisdom of the Heart Sutra: "Gone, gone, gone to the Other Shore, attained the Other Shore having never left" or "Gone, Gone, Gone Beyond, Gone Completely Beyond, Awakened. So Be It."

I just don't think there needs to be any mystical energy field this pure experience that quasi-religious gobbledygook thrown on top of it.

-- Granny Dainger, Friday, July 20, 2007 5:16 AM

We're in agreement, then!

I don't even know what that means.

HOOS OTM tho - where is this dominant part of the mind that is fooling all the other parts

the cerebral cortex.

lolz - consciousness does not have a physical center. the brain is a dynamic system with no central processor.

is there anything you aren't an expert on? all advance thought occurs in the forebrain is allz i was saying. lolz!

sorry dean, i'll try to put it in words you'll understand:
the lone lizard in the house of peace extends his vision to the noble warrior.

haha, that's funny.

The part I didn't get was this bit: just don't think there needs to be any mystical energy field this pure experience

I thought that's what reality was, scientifically speaking (a mystical energy field we only understand through experience).

...or maybe you'd like to rephrase that into a ludicrous strawman?

all advance thought occurs in the forebrain is allz i was saying.

I'm not a neurobiologist or anything but I have read enough to know that this kind of blanket generalization is not accurate and does not really describe how the brain functions. No single part of the brain functions independently of all the others.

what I'm getting at is that brain functions can't be compartmentalized as simply as that - for any given thought process, a bunch of different parts of the brain are going to be involved, even when some parts are playing a more dominant or central role. Current science has only the dimmest notion of how various brain functions are interrelated.

I just don't think there needs to be any mystical energy field this pure experience that quasi-religious gobbledygook thrown on top of it.

-- Granny Dainger, Friday, July 20, 2007 5:16 AM

1. Reality exists.
2. Every moment we make decisions to ignore and escape from reality (that which is physically in front of us) and run into a little world in our heads. Rather than "he raised his voice at me," in our little imaginary world "he hates me and I keep doing this thing wrong, why oh why etc"
3. Zazen (that is, sitting on your ass and simply Sitting On Your Goddamn Ass, allowing thoughts to arise and disappear without following their Byzantine pathways) is a way of training the mind to focus on the present moment rather than scurrying away into safe and familiar imaginary corners. It's called "practice" because it's practice for applying that kind of focus and non-judgment to every moment in our daily lives.

Better?

kinda lacks the poetry of "the lone lizard in the house of peace" though

Yeah I gotta meet that lizard. I hear he's got great weed.

http://x53.xanga.com/5fbd957a67d33136696461/w100291663.jpg

Better?

Yeah, that was better. Who was talking about lizards and whatever?

Dzogchen meditation is actually called "contemplation" and does not resort to any reality escapage. It is regularly lived life with arising thoughts, existing reality and everything else lived in the state of rigpa.

A lot of people compare Zen and Dzogchen, like Thich Nhat Hanh, for example because they seem to be saying the exact same thing. There is a major difference between Zen and Dzogchen, though, which is lost on Zen practitioners.

I've seen Thich Nhat Hanh's books on Dzogchen before, but I'm not terribly familiar with the practice. What is the major difference? Put me in that minority of Zennos that almost kinda knows what he's talking about.

oh and re: lizard

sorry dean, i'll try to put it in words you'll understand:
the lone lizard in the house of peace extends his vision to the noble warrior.

-- Granny Dainger, Friday, July 20, 2007 7:26 PM

Well, for starters, Zazen dudes stare at a wall and Dzogchen dudes gaze at the sky. ;-) Dzogchen has direct introduction to the natural state by a guru. Dzogchen meditation calls for the senses to be left in their natural state. Dzogchen has primordial reality. The differences go pretty deep and are hard to explain.

I wouldn't mind starting with a phonetic description of how to pronounce "Dzogchen"

The d and g are almost silent and it is dZog’ CHen (rhymes with the last name "OLDman" emphasis on the first syllable.)

Almost like tZojinn

what I'm getting at is that brain functions can't be compartmentalized as simply as that - for any given thought process, a bunch of different parts of the brain are going to be involved, even when some parts are playing a more dominant or central role. Current science has only the dimmest notion of how various brain functions are interrelated.

As simply as what? Obv different parts of the brain are interconnected! You seem to be arguing against something that you think I meant, but didn't actually say. (fwiw, I'm not a neurobiologist either, but I was a psych major and took several courses in neurobio. not like i remember much of it now though! But I don't think you'd get much argument from any respected neurobiologists that the what we consider higher thought is the exclusive domain of the forebrain, even though yeah, it gets input from all other parts. as well as sends output to the less "developed" parts. But this is all pretty much irrelevant, since i was just making a pithy wiseass respone to your pithy wise ass response)

It's called "practice" because it's practice for applying that kind of focus and non-judgment to every moment in our daily lives.

Doesn't seem like a goal worth attaining. Would be nice to have a switch you could turn off and on, though.

Well, if you stop to consider that judgment is the source of all dissatisfaction, it's pretty worthwhile investment. But, not if you don't give a shit to begin with, obv.

Doesn't seem like a goal worth attaining.

It seems we have some fundamental disagreements, then.

Thanks for the conversation, though.

xpost

If you start with the lesser vehicles, what Shakyamuni Buddha taught, you learn that "all is dukkha," (dissatisfaction) but in the greatest vehicle (the 9th), Dzogchen or Ati Yoga, you learn "all is good." Big difference! Shakyamuni started with what he knew people could relate to. People look for answers because they're dissatisfied, but their dissatisfied because of how their minds are wired. It's almost like that "jouney into pain" that was discussed above. The Buddha said everything is dissatisfaction and then proceeded to give ascetic practices generally thought to be pretty dissatisfying. And through this practice, we don't generally find a lot of dissatisfied monks. No, they're smiling their asses off, very natural and spontaneous, in my experience.

Well, if you stop to consider that judgment is the source of all dissatisfaction

see, this is the sort of quasi-religious, unprovable "fact" that turns me off the whole thing. i guess i don't like how that aspect of it has more or less turned so many people off of something which could be beneficial to people individually and as a whole.

It's not quasi-religious, it's fact. If you make the decision you like some things and not other things, you create dissatisfaction. And when the new wears off the things you like, you create more dissatisfaction.

that's called being human! i wouldn't want to be a robot who smiled perpetually and was just as content walking on a pile of broken glass as they were hugging their loved ones. trees are nice to look at, but i wouldn't want to be one.

You figured out the secret goal of buddhism: to be a smiling robot. And it only took, what, 2 days posting on a message board?

guys guys guys can't you tell we are clearly in the presence of an enlightened one

personally I would totally dig being a tree

btw, sorry everyone for temporarily turning this into a buddhism/dzogchen discussion. I know it's about all meditation styles and so I shut up now. :-)

that's called being human! i wouldn't want to be a robot who smiled perpetually and was just as content walking on a pile of broken glass as they were hugging their loved ones. trees are nice to look at, but i wouldn't want to be one.

-- Granny Dainger, Friday, July 20, 2007 9:03 PM

I'd like to respond, but I honestly don't know what to say to this.

(not trying to imply your response is faulty or that you are dumb, just truly don't know where to begin)

Granny sees value in suffering, considers it essential to being "human" etc. This isn't really a new or unusual position.

(although in my experience usually the people making that argument are deeply religious)

most people I've met tend to be happy when they discover a new appreciation for something they thought they hated

guys guys guys can't you tell we are clearly in the presence of an enlightened one

no no, it's you man. tell me more about how the brain works, the economy of brazil, and who should die a painful death.

also please to not try to say what you think i believe. that's the my #1 pet peeve of ilx.