The Heart Sutra & Dzogchen – Teachings from The Caves of Tso Pema

As requested, these teachings are Dzgochen. Some of you I have been working with in the past, in Mahamudra, Chagchen teachings. Some of you in Dzogchen teachings, Maha Ati, and some of you are quite new and I have not worked with for that long in the past. So, don’t those of you who’ve been around a while be going and thinking “oh I had that text before. Already heard it. Not interested. Gimme a NEW bit. Gimme something new”. Except for you Tibetans who – we’ve got only one Tibetan – who’ll be quite happy to hear an old thing.

It’s a cultural difference. We like the new stuff so much in the West. But I will tell you honestly, it took over a 1000 hearings before it made sense to me. I traveled with my teacher as a translator doing simultaneous translation for 20 or 30 years all over the world; and he taught Dzogchen. And, I translated Dzogchen. But, I didn’t get Dzogchen. I finally gave up. “I’m not gonna get this. So all I’m going to do is work on my language and translating it to the best of my ability and maybe somebody’ll get it.” That worked. And it wasn’t on purpose. Something I realized from that experience: grabbing it don’t work!

How many of you are chasing enlightenment? If you chase it, it’s gonna run! The paramitas, the 6 paramitas, are a really, really good map. The paramita of generosity. Generosity of body is the simplest maybe it’s just give away stuff.Everybody’s got extra stuff. Pass it on. In fact, Onalayah, that roll of cotton?

O: Right at the end by the door

LL: Would somebody hold it up? Pick it up? Can we have it? Pass it up this way. Each of you who are making butter lamps, take out the wad you need as it comes your way. This is my offering to all of you today. Butter lamp wick cotton. There’s always an opportunity to do that; it’s the easiest one. Generosity of speech is harder. Generosity of mind is the big thing. And the hardest. Wish well to those who trouble you and irritate you. That’s hard. And yet that’s generosity of mind. Without being foolish in your actions and behavior — such as leaving your valuables lying around somewhere — nonetheless assume the best of others. 

Can you find the balance here? Don’t be stupid and sabotage yourself in thinking the best of others by setting them up to do something bad. That’s not kind. An iPhone sitting around somewhere? Yeah you won’t see it again. If you follow the map in your practice of sutra, tantra, and Dzogchen, the map of the Six Paramitas – which I am not going to teach in depth at this time. I will at other times, and in fact I think there may be some in-depth teachings online by me. And there are many in-depth teachings on line by others. But, use that as your “How To Practice” guideline. Practice generously. Practice morally. Practice patiently; don’t get upset if you didn’t get it yet. “It’s not working!” Well you’ve been at it for two days. Years guys, years. Practice with perseverance. Practice by meditating. Allow wisdom to naturally arise without faking it too soon. You know that one we do, “I got it! I got it!” It goes with the other one. I accept emails from my students, you know what the most commonest question boils down to? “Mom are we there yet?”

Some of you I have taught separately one of the Dzogchen ngondros which is the inner mind rushen – Nang sem Rushen, from the text Yeshe Lama. If you have been doing that, it will make the rest of this go in more easily. If you have not, we will do a little bit as part of the teaching. It’s an important practice.

Student: Yeah, but I wanted guidance today so that was my question.

LL: It’ll come up.

Dzogchen is not based on the historical Buddha, Guru Shakyamuni, alone. As Guru Shakyamuni himself has said, our entire universe is nothing but the grain, is nothing but a single pollen grain on the stem of a lotus flower held by another Buddha in a greater, bigger universe. This is the dimension of big and small. Throughout time (which is infinite) and space within this universe (which is infinite), there have been thousands upon thousands of Buddhas. And regardless of the teaching style which will fit the species and culture being taught, every teaching points directly to completion stage, which is Dzogchen. There remains Dzogchen from the Bön, a single lineage still alive. It was again taught by the buddha in the form of the heart sutra. This is Dzogchen. Many people who do not understand the pointing of the heart sutra, instead recite it at length again and again. This is helpful. Keeps it from being forgotten; but, to look at where it points, is important. This is lineage, which is really important for you to understand – how this comes from the buddha, before the buddha, exists in other buddhas — Dzogchen is not located in a particular time or a particular place. It is beyond time and space. It is completion stage. It is inherent in all sentient beings. It is simply pointing this out. But lineage is important, for if there is no lineage, there’s nobody to tell you about it.

The Buddha himself in teaching the Heart Sutra, did not actually utter the words.

“Thus did I hear at one time: The Bhagavan was sitting at the Mass of Vultures Mountain in Rajagriha together with a great community of monks and a great community of bodhisattvas. At that time, the Bhagavan was absorbed in the concentration on the categories of phenomena called “Profound Perception.”

He was resting in open awareness of Dzogchen. You can name it lots of things. I have occasionally referred to it as George. It doesn’t change it in the least. You can call me George, and I’m still here just like I was.

At that time, the bodhisattva mahasattva arya Avalokiteshvara looked upon the very practice of the profound perfection of wisdom and beheld those five aggregates also as empty of inherent nature.

Then, through the power of Buddha, (through the power of the pattern, through the power of dzogchen, the power of karma, the power of the 4 times… there’s many levels of explaining this) the venerable Shariputra (who’s very useful for asking questions, because he was like that) said this to the bodhisattva mahasattva arya Avalokiteshvara: “How should any son (or daughter) of the lineage train who wishes to practice the activity of the profound perfection of wisdom?”

He said that and the bodhisattva mahasattva arya Avalokiteshvara said this to the venerable Sharadvatiputra. “Shariputra, any son of the lineage or daughter of the lineage who wishes to practice the activity of the profound perfection of wisdom (dzogchen, completion stage) should look upon it like this, correctly and repeatedly beholding those five aggregates also as empty of inherent nature.”

Aggregates, heaps, skandhas, piles, clumps. To discuss the aggregates, many people see them as linear, however, they are not. They are not spherical or circular either. They are like a web. Can you see this? It’s a really good pattern. Is that visible to those at home?

Pepijn: No, cuz it just went off because the connection breaks and I have to start it again.

LL: They’re all each interconnected with each other. Perception is a good place to start. How do you see the world? How do you perceive the world? Look at something with your eyes. Touch something with your fingertips. Smell something (smells armpit)

Taste something.

Feel how you do this. You have a sensation, but it is not alone. In the moment of the sensation arising, there is an interpretation of the sensation that occurs. This is often called the ignorance which accompanies each perception. The moment I see something or touch something, I think of “what is it?” Water, wood. This thought is almost, is so together with me feeling the sensation, that I can’t even separate out the sensation and the name of what I’m feeling. And this is happening by karma. What you sense and what you name it.

This. What do you see? Hello?

Group: Bottle of water

LL: A bottle of water. If you had the karma to be a god, a thlah, a worldly god at this time. You would not perceive a bottle of water. You would perceive a gorgeous pitcher of glass full of amrita, not a plastic water bottle. What makes it a plastic water bottle? You have seen plastic water bottles before. You associate the visual sensation with all of your past experiences and so, you interpret this as a bottle of water. A god interprets it as a carafe of amrita, and a hungry ghost, the same object, seeing it, sees a puddle of sludge. So what happens? Once you have done or experienced a perception. Not even experienced, let’s say once a perception arises, which is a sensation with a name. Sensation and interpretation together make up perception. And you can’t get em apart. Close your eyes and then turn your head and open your eyes. Everything you see, you see it together with an interpretation. That’s a perception. Perception leads to feeling “I like it” or “I don’t like it”. It also leads to more thoughts that go with the feeling of why I like it or don’t like. “It’ too hot, it’s too cold, it’s too salty, it’s too sour”. So here you have a sensation embroidered with a name, tangled up in a liking, disliking, or ignoring (not relevant to me, I don’t have to pay attention to this). Which is why, when you walked in here you have no idea what’s hanging on that post on the other side. You can’t see it now. Because you saw it, you have the visual sensation, your interpretation occurred simultaneously, “oh it’s just some stuff hanging there”. And your feeling of “irrelevant to me” occurred so you didn’t retain that. If it had been a demon or a god, a monster, something relevant to you, that might eat you, or a chocolate cake, something relevant to you that you might eat, you would’ve retained that. Cuz you had desire or aversion rather than “it doesn’t matter”.

These three feelings, desire, aversion, ignorance, get tangled up with a story, thought, assessment, form (what it is, where it came from) and volition (what you’re gonna do with it). All of this arises consciousness. You can’t be conscious without an object of awareness in our normal day-to-day consciousness. So there you have a thing that you’ve just made up. You had a sensation and you turned it into a whole thing with a story and a history by making it up. And you have feelings about what you made up about it. And you think you’re separate from it so you’re going to do something about it ‘cause it’s not quite perfect. You’re gonna move it a few inches. You’re gonna fix it. You’re creating more karma, you’re maintaining your individuality consciousness in this way. See how we do this? Every one of us? Create the universe we inhabit.

So these are the five skandhas we’re talking about. The automatic occurrences of being alive and interacting with phenomena. Being a phenomena our selves. The interconnected, interpenetrated-ness of phenomena and consciousness. This is how we do that. We create form. Name it. Believe in it. Think its’ real. Act on it. Try to change it. Constantly surrounding ourselves with all sorts of karmic creations, realities, belief systems which we then trip over. Hopes, fears. “I want, I don’t want”. Form is emptiness. Form is made out of this. You made it up. You create it with your mind as your mind. You create yourself, You create the form that yourself perceives. You create the separation out of the innate emptiness of phenomena.

“Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. Emptiness is not other than form; form is also not other than emptiness. In the same way, feeling, discriminations, compositional factors, and consciousness are empty.”

All these skandhas, this occurrence, it’s not a thing. It’s piles stuck together, moving. There is no solidity in your reality perception. Notice how you create your world by your belief systems.

“Shariputra, likewise, all phenomena are emptiness; without characteristic; unproduced, unceased; stainless, not without stain; not deficient, not fulfilled.

“Shariputra, therefore, in emptiness there is no form, no feeling, no discrimination, no compositional factors, no consciousness; no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind; no visual form, no sound, no odor, no taste, no object of touch, and no phenomenon. There is no eye element and so on up to and including no mind element, and no mental consciousness element. There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so on up to and including no aging and death and no extinction of aging and death. Similarly, there is no suffering, origination, cessation, and path. There is no exalted wisdom, no attainment, and also no nonattainment.

This is dzogchen. Is it not? Those of you who have studied it for some time?

“Shariputra, therefore, because there is no attainment, bodhisattvas rely on and dwell in the perfection of wisdom, the mind without obstruction and without fear. Having completely passed beyond error, they reach the end-point of nirvana. All buddhas who dwell in the three times also manifestly, completely awaken to the unsurpassable, perfect, complete enlightenment in reliance on the perfection of wisdom. Therefore, the mantra of the perfection of wisdom, the mantra of great knowledge, the unsurpassed mantra, the mantra equal to the unequaled, the mantra that thoroughly pacifies all suffering, should be known as truth, since it is not false.

TADYATHA [OM] GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SOHA

So it is that. Gone, gone beyond, gone beyond the beyond. So be it.”

Not someday, not “you’re gonna be good enough to get there some when”. Right NOW. In every now. In all the infinite simultaneous nows of each moment.

“Shariputra, the bodhisattva mahasattva should train in the profound perfection of wisdom like this.”

Then the Bhagavan arose from that concentration and commended the bodhisattva mahasattva arya Avalokiteshvara saying: “Well said, son of the lineage, it is like that. It is exactly like that; one should practice the profound perfection of wisdom (paramita of wisdom) just as you have indicated; and even the tathagatas (the gone beyond ones) shall rejoice.”

From just this, it may be that one fully understands. But if that does not occur, the buddha and the great siddhas in their great wisdom, have given us methods to assist us in coming to directly perceive the gone beyond wisdom, which is not an attainment, which is not somewhen, which is not out there someplace that you have to chase after and scrabble towards. Which is there underneath each moment you experience. it is the underlying innate awareness, kadakh, primordially pure, utterly unfuckupable, that permeates each moment of awareness. it is that very awareness which is experiencing the moments. You don’t have to go and get it, it’s right there. Right here, right now, at all times, and on all occasions. The text that we among the Nyingmas consider the root text, the basic text for the teaching of Dzogchen is The 3 Words that strike the heart. The 3 words that go to the heart of the matter, by the teacher Garab Dorje. He is also, and it is thought by many scholars that it’s the same person, a member of the Bön lineage. So he is within the Bön lineage tree. And the founder of the dzogchen lineage of the nyingmas among humans. The Bon lineage tree starts with the buddha before this one. Tongpa Miwo?

O: Sherab

LL: Tongpa Sherab. (I’m not well trained in Bon). And continues by the 3rd member it begins to reach homo sapiens. Starts with a Lha as the 1st holder and then a Lhu. Goes through many people. Goes through Garab Dorje and descends on. And yet Garab Dorje – according to his story – received it from Vajrasattva. Sambhogakaya nature of mind. But look at how your perceptions and your stories arise. You think history’s any different? All the stories, all the histories. It’s not like there is one real reality that you can eventually figure out which one it is. There’s no one here among us who knows what’s real from what is not. As my first teacher, Lama Thubten Yeshe used to say of the debate about whether or not there was a real relative reality somewhere, “the nature of any such thing as a real relative reality is such that no one can perceive it. No one ever has, except perhaps buddhas, perceived a real relative reality, and no one ever can. We only perceive our take on reality, our limited point of view. Since no one can perceive it, who cares if its’ there or not?” End of debate. He was a pretty good teacher.

So in this text, (excuse me while I make a minor adjustment of the legs… that’s better).

It begins with homage to the master. Please understand that guru yoga, which is not separate from bodhichitta, is the heart of Dzogchen practice. This is because Dzogchen cannot be shown in words. Words can be used as a carrier wave, to assist a teacher in directing your attention. But because the essence of dzogchen is inconceivable it can only truly be communicate telepathically. Words won’t do it. in order to receive that transmission. You have to be able to open your heart, or it won’t go in. If you’re too afraid that somebody’s gonna poke you or something, it won’t go in. 

So guru yoga, which is trusting someone enough to let them in on that level, is really important. Guru yoga is a very complex thing for westerners to understand. Because it is not in our culture and yet, without it the transmission is less likely. Very rare. If you cannot have guru yoga to a living, walking, talking human being who, you know, is kinda weird in their own way, then pick an archetype such as Vajrasattva, such as Guru Rinpoche, such as Tsongkhapa, such as the 3rd Karmapa, and visualize them. 

When I started this teaching, the first thing I did was call on all buddhas of the 4 times through the lineages, for the transmission to pass here and out. Not because I can do something scary, remarkable, amazing. But because I’m willing to stand here and let that happen, because I trust them. Because I trust my root teacher Wangdor Rimpoche and the lineage which came to him unbroken from person to person from Garab Dorje on down. He received these teachings from a number of teachers. Among them, Khunu Lama from Khenor, Thuksey Rimpoche in Mahamudra, Zigar Rinpoche (the previous, not the one who’s down at the statue at the moment), and many, many others. 

Lineage is vitally important. In the west we have a habit of making up new stuff, cause we really like new stuff and then spreading it around in seminars. Mindfulness, anybody? Mindfulness is a tool in the original. But, it seems to help some people. Ok. 

My feeling is that you need the old lineage and you need the transmission through the lineage from person to person, living person to living person, in order to be able to really trust it enough to let go and look. And it doesn’t mean the personality of the transmitter needs to be perfect. No! I don’t wanna! You’ll never catch me trying to be perfect. It’s itchy like a girdle. 

Fortunately, my personality is irrelevant for this. This is why the first line of this and every text is homage to the teacher, not this personality. I’m just standing in for something. All the lineage back through time, to Vajrasattva, to primordial great mother ocean of dharmakaya itself, inseparable from all life in the universe. 

The view is longchen rabjam, infinite vast expanse, and here you better learn a new word. Tawa. You see when we use the word view, we think of like looking out a window. We’re here and there’s a view out there. Tawa is not that kind of view. Tawa is a perception experience. But it’s not out there other than you. It’s not inside your body or outside your body. Tawa is the seeing of your own innate mind. And it is vitally important for this. Gom khense oser ng. The meditation is rays of illuminated love.

Remember that mani practice I taught you all where your heart blooms into elongated rays? Those rays of love symbolize/are (the difference between symbolize and “is” is not really a difference here) the innate aliveness of the universe. The view is infinite vast openness and that openness is not just a big dead ol’ nothing. it’s alive, vital, luminous, lucid. [reads tibetan]

The action is the spontaneous manifestation of Bodhichitta. It is what is automatically arising. Automatically dissolving as the dance of wisdom. It is the shimmer and the sparkle of the inherent luminous clarity of infinite open awareness. It’s what’s looking out from your own eyes in this very moment. Gaze into your own eyes, metaphorically speaking, to see it. To one who practices in this way, the certainty of enlightenment in this very life. But even if not, great joy and happiness, A la la!

As or the view, to introduce you directly to the face of awareness itself, understand awareness, we say Rigpa. Literally the see-er. Look out from behind your own eyes. Without the “at” you’re looking at. Without the individuality of the look-er. Just the looking, that’s rigpa. Can you feel it? You are rigpa. Awareness. The view, tawa, is when rigpa centers into itself. 

Right now, when we are looking out from our eyes, we see stuff. With all the arising of the five skandhas involved in the seeing of stuff. The stories about the stuff, the thoughts, the reality we’re creating, do we like it or not? That bilblah, that tangle of crap. Take that away, but the see-er is still there seeing itself. That’s the view. But to understand it is futile! It needs to go past being an understanding, into being a feeling, past being a feeling, into being a perception, and past being a perception into being an isness-of-course. So let’s look at the first couple of steps involved in getting there.

Many of us are visual. So let’s visualize an image. How about an umbrella. Can you arise the picture of an umbrella in your mind’s eye? By definition your mind’s eye is part of your mind, right? So using the tool of imagination, you’re going to arise the picture of an umbrella in your mind’s eye in your mind. The idea of this is to find your mind spatially. This is easy to do if you arise a picture, ‘cause then you have something to look for that is seemingly specific. 

So that picture of an umbrella, where is it? It’s too big to fit between your ears. Where is it? Try with your channels in proper alignment, cuz that makes it ever so much easier, to find your mind with your mind. You can change your picture to something else. But where is it?

In the seeking the picture with your attention, not with your intellect. Feel around for it. Your intellect is a screwdriver. Ever try to get a bolt loose with a screwdriver? You just bark your knuckles. It doesn’t’ work. Put down the screwdriver of intellect. Stop trying to think about where the picture is happening. Feel around for it. This will be easiest if you follow the previously given instructions for relaxing the muscles that control the lens of your eyeball taking off your glasses to make it easier (glasses wearers, you have an advantage). .

Where’s your mind? Find your mind with your mind. Some people do better to imagine the sensation of touch. And find where the sensation is, since it’s done with the imagination and the imagination is part of the mind. It is obviously the mind.

Relax. Relax your mind. If you do this pointing like a bird dog, it won’t go there. 

Relaaaaax. Without being distracted, following different ideas. Without concentrating intensely. Without thinking about it and trying to figure it out with your intellect. Rest evenly, mind-mind looking. Longchen Rabjam. Infinitely open. Even the very idea of center or edge cannot apply to this. Vast, indescribable. As far as your imagination extends, your mind extends. This infinite openness, Longchen Rabjam, infinite vast expanse.

Rest here. And suddenly, while resting in this clear and even state. Suddenly let out a mind-shattering “Phat!“. Fiercely, forcefully, and suddenly, Emaho!

And in that moment of breaking your concentration on the mind-made perception of infinite open awareness; when you pop that perception, what is left? Before you build up an edifice around it, before you throw the cloak of belief systems over it. In that very moment of nakedness, there is no “thing” there. That’s tawa. 

In the beginning, as you begin to perceive tawa, you will perceive the subtle idea of tawa. You will perceive tawa. Now we all know that perceptions are changeable. It’s not the real tawa. It’s an overlay, a simulacrum, a similarity but not the real thing. But the real thing is right behind it; cuz you’re going in the right direction you’re just having a meditative experience of tawa. And you know damn well, experiences come and go. Tawa doesn’t. Not the real one. so when you have a clear, luminous, vital experience of mind, and it had a beginning means it’s gonna have an end. It’s a come-and-go. 

Pop it. break it. Phat! 

You are using the letters of method and wisdom combined. Pa, which is similar in English to the -er suffix (doer, doing), is a letter of method. Tra, is a letter of wisdom. When you bring them together they spell phat. Give one a try, I wanna hear you all do it.

Now remember when you use this, if you make the noise and you’re not looking at that moment, when you make that sound, directly at your experience of nature of mind, all you’re gonna do is startle your fleas.

That’s a quote from Wangdor Rimpoche. But it’s true. There’s two parts to this practice of breaking the nyam, the experience. Experiences come and go. You want real naked awareness, not the experiential overlay of the experience of naked awareness, which you can’t keep. It comes and goes; it gets away, it ends. 

So you gotta pop it while staring at it, cuz you’ve only got a moment there. And if you’re not looking, you’re gonna miss it. And right behind it is the real thing. Now don’t grab it. Don’t try to stabilize it, don’t try to hang onto it. Recognize it as your own true nature and relax. It’s there whether you’re lookin’ at it or not. No sweat. Relax. It’s you, it’s the look-er. Your own mind. The one that’s looking out from behind your own eyes. That’s all it is. And it’s always there. Doesn’t come and go. You can’t lose it; you don’t have to gain it.

Fiercefully, forcefully, and abrupt. That’s the way. You gotta sort of sneak up on yourself with this phat. Phat is used in other practices such as chöd, other things, you know, “phaaaaat” [soft, long] won’t work. Not for this. It’s gotta be fierce. It’s gotta be sudden. It’s gotta thwap. And in that moment that you pop the experience of open awareness; there’s nothing there. transfixed in the wonder of no thing.

Struck by the wonder of it, yet it is all transparent and clear.

Fresh, pure, sudden, undescribable, ungraspable. This is the pure awareness of the dharmakaya. This doesn’t come and go. This is not part of the time space continuum. This is not separate from the time-space continuum. This does not exist in a now or a then. This is you. Who you really are. The totality of your own nature. This is tawa.

The first vital point is to recognize tawa. Don’t grab it. Don’t try to maintain it. Don’t do anything to it. Every time you try to mess with it, what you’re messin with is some kind of thingy, and tawa’s not a thingy. So if you feel to mess with it, it’s not it. It is the mess-er.

Are there questions on the first word, tawa?

Student: so the one which looks from, at least in my experience, the one that looks through my eyes, that feels trapped inside my body and head, especially, is this the one that manipulates or tries to grab or tries to hang on…

LL: This is a very limited perception of the one that tries to hang on. You have the experience of being trapped inside your head.

Student: True.

LL: therefore, in seeking an antidote to that. In seeking where is the perceiver, is to visualize something a lot bigger than your head. Such as a lake, or even the ocean with you in a little boat in the middle of it, and it’s all around you. And then try to find where that is. Continue doing this as the inner mind rushen (which, for further information can be found in the text Yeshe Lama) until there is a really clear feeling, perception, of a vastness, of being a vastness. Not of being in a little bitty head and seeing a vastness out there, but of being that vastness. Once that happens, that’s what you pop. Because that experience of being a vastness is an experience. And we have to get past experiencing, experiencer, experienced, all that stuff. So that’s why you don’t pop anything until that happens. A lot of sitting there looking. Usually this first stage – usually I would break here and we would come back in a month or two, having spent the first month looking and popping, looking and popping. Looking, thinking we found something and popping it. But because of the time constraints of you all visiting here, we’re going to be going a little faster.

Shall we take a break for about 5 minutes? and then we’ll go on.

So feel free to stand up. Don’t wait for me. I’m very slow at standing up at the moment.