[Lama Lena] Good morning.
I have noticed over time the there is a lot of interest in Dzogchen, but a lot of unclarity on exactly what that might be. I think people have heard that it is the last teaching or the highest teaching, which is true. And therefor that is the one they want.
So I thought maybe to take an afternoon, morning, as the case may be where you are, and clarify a bit what this is that yo think you want. To begin with, as in all teachings and all practices, we begin by arising Bodhicitta. We begin by taking refuge. These two come together in guru yoga, which is why I use this particular mon-lam; to remind us of that.
[lineage prayer]Chuku kundu zong bo gompa yiDorje Sempa Garab Dorje dang
Shere Singhi bardu shinlap de
De dang mab zong tata tu sum chi
Dzogchen ju pe lama la solwa deb
Urgen pema juney la solwa deb
Dorje Chang, Che, Tilo, Naro dang
Marpa Mila Gompo tsa tsa pa
Na ha Pu pa dang palden drugpa so
Kagyu lama nam la sol wa deb
O chen lama nam la sol wa deb
Drub chen lama nam la sol wa deb
Chak chen lama nam la sol wa deb
Yong drun dang nyen lo lam la sol wa deb
Pal kon du zong dang yer me pa
Gon garab dorje zhin trag pa
Je ti dang nyi su me pa’i
Pa lama nom che ten ter chong
04:04
The words: dzog-chen [rdzogs chen;Wylie]; dzog: completion; chen: great; the great completion.
What is complete. Complete means all done. Yes, when you have completed the doing of something, you are then “done”.
When you bake a cake and your timer rings, and you take the cake out of the oven and you look and you take a little straw and you poke it in the middle and take it out and you look at the straw; and if the straw is covered with smudge, your cake is not done, you put it back in the oven. If the straw come out clean or close to clean, your cake is done and you take it out of the oven.
Dzogchen is the practice of “done”. There is no Dzogchen practice; practice is a doing, a getting better at something. Once you’re done, there is no doing.
Don’t be like a cake, taken out of the oven too soon, that falls in the middle and is still goo there, does not come nicely out of the pan and tastes raw when you go to eat it.
So, how do you know when you are done. Can I stick a straw in you and see if it comes out clean. That is a good analogy. You’re done when I poke you, or the universe pokes you and nothing grabs on.
We always grab on to a believe system, such as the Dharma, such as philosophy, such as whatever you believe is true about medicine, such as all of that. And when you get poked, you grab on; so, before I can talk about “being done”, I need to talk a little bit about the doing and why you do. Why would you practice Dharma.
First of all, in order to practice Dharma, you need to be fully human. Doesn’t mean homo sapiens; there is lots of homo sapiens who, due through external or internal circumstances, are not yet fully human and ready to look beyond – the end of their nose.
You see, most people in this world, either due to external hardships such as being in a war zone, such as being a young mother with three kids under five, or with a sick baby, such as being stricken by poverty or in some kind of financial crisis, there is no space there to seek beyond, to busy staying alive. And internally; perhaps you are simply uninterested in looking beyond. Many people are primarily interested in finding food and getting laid. This is animal realms; this is what all the birds and the bugs and the beasties are in to: finding food, finding shelter, getting laid. It is only when these base things are from outside not so very difficult.
Dharma didn’t arise until there was a middle class. That time in India, when Dharma began to flourish, that time in ancient times of Zhang-Zhung when Dharma was flourishing. These occurred because there was leisure. After achieving food and shelter, sufficient on to one’s needs, there was still some energy left to look beyond.
If your life is not currently in a condition for you to have that energy left, whether due to outer circumstances, such as being in a war zone, it is…you’re to busy staying alive to look beyond, or having a severe depression or terrible anxiety, to busy dealing with that to look beyond, or simply so caught up in your personal hopes and fears that you have no inclination to look beyond; it is said that you have not achieved full humanity yet.
10:36
It is always there as a possibility for you. But the inner inclination and the outer circumstances of an opportunity and a desire to look beyond the end of your nose, your next meal, finding a lover, finding what you want, getting your house paid off, whatever it is you’re involved in, requires a gap. And that gap is the difference between not quite fully human – we call it precious human rebirth, but it refers of a state of having time and energy to look beyond the end of your nose, to look beyond the the next thing you need to acquire in life, getting your pieces done, passing the next exam, getting the promotion, becoming a partner in the firm, scrabble, scrabble, scrabble, like mice in the cupboards. Once you are fully human and you begin looking beyond, you need to notice your own mortality. You will die.
Everything you have achieved will be lost than, of not before. Senility, sickness, old age, death; you will experience these things. You’re mortal, notice it.
12:54
Lama Lena
The third thing about being fully open is to notice just how much trouble you give yourself reasserting [?13:09 ]your patterns. How often you make the same decision that leads to the same problems that you can’t get away from. How often misfortune occurs.
Everything you fear is chasing you. And you running as fast as you can to catch everything you want. This will block you from looking beyond. Without understanding how you block yourself by pursuing goals and fleeing your own demons, you will not be able to take advantage, should you even be fully human.
Understand, you don’t have to be homo sapiens to be human; human realm includes all those living beings who are able to communicate abstract concepts through a language. Would be the height of hubris to think only homo sapiens can do that. It is a big universe out there.
Once you have noticed how much life can hurt, you need to notice why it does that.
How the push-pull of action and reaction across time functions. Understanding these things, being fully human, recognizing your own impermanence, noticing that shit hurts, life hurts, you cannot have a life that do not hurt, and beginning to get an inkling of how the push-pull across time happens, and how decisions that you make have results, deeds that you do have results later. If you know these things you can practice, you can begin; and you won’t be done unless you start. That great pile of laundry over there, it won’t be done until you start the loads, now, will it.
And Dzogchen is done, the done, the great completion. So, first you have to be in a position having these four to begin, and then you actually have to go through the process. Now, that process is different for each person. There is no particular way that process has to work. You need to follow the map from where you are standing, exactly where you are standing, to where you want to go, which is done.
So, there’s a first step and a second step. But since you’re all standing in different places, you all have different karma, different personalities, different languages, different cultural matrixes, different circumstances and situations, so you’re all starting from a different point. Therefore the map you need to follow is subtly different.
Sutrayana, intellectual understanding through reading and studying. Vajrayana including the tantras, shifting the unconscious patterns through use of symbolism and repetition; this is Mantrayana, Vajrayana, Tantrayana.
Direct meditation, which is coming to recognize your own nature, the totality of yourself as well as the totality of phenomena, the stuff all around you, the people, the places, the “all of it”, the stars in the sky, and the doing of what we call meditation until you’re done; great completion until you are complete.
In Dzogchen there is no practice. In Dzogchen there are neither concepts nor words. No, wrong way to say it. Dzogchen, as the totality, contains concepts and words, but is not limited by them.
Most of us, since we are still in the realms of “needing to understand with thought and explain it to ourselves with words” are caught in ke-rim, path of accomplishment. We are caught there by that need. I really need to understand what’s going on. Yeah? If I don’t understand what’s going on, how will I make decisions about what I should do? Yeah?Path of accomplishment, tool use. Mantra, archetype, comprehension reading of texts, understanding in language, goes just up to the edge of Dzogchen. But it is not Dzogchen.
20:29
I brought you here under false pretenses. I said I would explain to you what Dzogchen is. I can’t. No one can. Dzogchen, the great completion is not explainable.
Look, the words we’re using, I am currently speaking to you in English. Possibly someone is translating for you my words into Spanish or Russian or some other language, doesn’t matter. It still won’t reach Dzogchen.
Words are limited. Some of you are bi- or trilingual. If so, you are aware that there are things that you can say very well in one language, that you can’t quite say in another. Even if you speak eighty-four thousand languages, there’ll be still another one somewhere with words of things you cannot say.
Dzogchen will not fit in any of these words. Words are concepts, concepts arise in mind and dissolve in mind, yes. Your mind is the thinker of thoughts, the thoughts are in your mind. Whether you think they are puffs of chi going through cricks in your energy channels, or you think that they are chemical neurotransmitters being sent between neurons in your brain; however, you wish to explain it to yourself, the explanation is limited. It is this or that. It makes you think that thoughts are either little puffs of chi moving through cricks in your channels, or neurotransmitters. Without realizing that both those descriptions are analogies, and that even thoughts are beyond description, let alone where they be happening.
Dzogchen is about discovering. No, actualizing. Ke-rim is part of discovering. Dzogchen is actualizing the totality of your mind. Ke-rim has many methods that allow you to access more and more of the totality of your mind. But when you access the whole thing, it is complete. And that’s Dzogchen, the great completion.
I have had people say to me: “I only want to practice Dzogchen”. No, you do not. There is no practice of Dzogchen. It is complete. What you want to practice is ke-rim aiming for Dzogchen. We have words for that: trek-chö, cutting through; it cuts through the crap that adheres you or distracts you from the nature of Dzogchen, but isn’t the real Dzogchen.
Even the text in Nyingma, the Three Words of Garab Dorje, which is your basic Dzogchen text, and in Bön, the Twenty-one nails, which is your basic Dzogchen text, may be approached with a “how to”; you will not fully understand either one of them until completion. Where as ta-wa, gom-pa and so-pa, the Three Words of Garab Dorje are recognized as a singularity, not a triad; where all twenty-one nails obviously point at the same thing, from twenty-one different sides; until such time there is only practice.
And the practice is easy. Not hard.
26:24
What may be hard is giving up the protection of entertainment. And yet, if you have noticed your dissatisfaction with this – when I was young, baby boomer, we’re talking 1960s or 70s, those years, we all were dissatisfied with the life of our parents in the 50s. They chased the American dream. A nice house in the suburbs. A lovely kitchen, maybe playing Bridge on Tuesdays. A lawn without dandelions. Two cars in the garage. And most of them obtained that, and they were not actually happy. And we saw our fate in front of us as teenagers, expected to chase the same things as our parents: get a good education, find a good job, buy a house, pay the mortgage, have some kids, grow old and die. And it wasn’t enough. Turn on, tune in, drop out; Timothy Leary dropped lots of acid, looking for it there. I will say this for the times. We had enough space and security. Most of my entire generation went looking outside the box, went looking in a lot of different directions. Some died. A lot of us looked in drugs. Maybe there’s a drug that will free us, that will show us something new. Take enough acid, you might believe that’s the one. It wears off. Even if you take lots of it every day for months, it still wears off eventually. And there you are: still dissatisfied. Unless you are dissatisfied, which is the third point I make, I made: noticing not just that you’re mortal, but that this is not enough. You have a life, you get a bunch of toys and then you die. No, that’s not enough for me. Probably isn’t for you either, if you’re interested enough to be listening to this.
That itch, that dissatisfaction with yourself and your environment. Some of you project it outwards: “Oh, everything would be fine if I just had a lover, house, kids, no kids”. Others of you will project it inwards: “Oh, everything would be fine if I was just a better person, saner, less depressed, jee maybe there’s a pill that’ll fix it”. It might help with a depression, but everything won’t be fine: you’ll still be dissatisfied.
So where will you strive when you notice that there is something missing. That this, as it is right now isn’t quite enough, that you could be better, fiercer, kinder, stronger, more together. How much time can you spend trying to get your shit together with, before you notice that it’s just gonna come apart again. A life of piling shit?
31:39
That dissatisfaction, that feeling that something is missing, underlying all of it, whether you project that to be missing in you: “I’m not good enough” or missing in your environment: “Nobody loves me”, these are not different things; it’s that underlined subtle sense of dissatisfaction. You aren’t done until that is satisfied.
Check my microphone settings.
[Nyondo] Yeah, you should be…
[Lama Lena] Somebody saying they can’t hear me when I lower my voice, and I’ve got this. I can raise it a bit.
[Nyondo] Yeah, make sure it isn’t covered by your zen,
[lama Lena] Isn’t
[Nyondo] Okay. I am just looking, make sure that, yeah that’s on.
[Lama Lena] And it’s pretty close to my throat.
[Nyondo] Yeah. So best I can do guys. You want to turn on closed caption.
[Nyondo] shouldn’t be on already.
Okay, figuring out the microphone distracted me. Aren’t we all distractible?
When Guru Rinpoche own teacher kept sending him off to practice, and when ever they met again, the teacher always had one question for him: “Are you satisfied?”
Mostly. It’s not Dzogchen. You’re not done. Back in the oven with you. Don’t fool yourself. But you are done. You’re still practicing the last stages of ke-rim, aiming for Dzogchen.
But true Dzogchen has no practice.
I don’t think it will take you beyond that. And I’m pretty sure it can’t take you into completion stage, full completion; simply because it has a cause and a beginning. And as you will have noticed, anything with a beginning has an end. Can you think of anything with a beginning that has no end?
Next question.
[Nyondo] Is it a skillful means to view emotions like non dualistic flavors?[Lama Lena]Mmmmyeah….it’s not the most skillful means, but perhaps it’ll help you a bit to keep from, you know, having road rage and smashing your car. But you see, when you view things in a certain way, you’re imposing an idea on them. Feelings are actually stronger than thoughts. They will overcome your intellect. So when you think of them this way, and that way, rather than experiencing them as pure energy – to think of them as pure energy and going to get you diddly squat. Really, it’s a thought. When you’re in the throes of an intense emotions such as anger, or grief, or terror, you’re not going to remember to think of them like that. You’re too busy in the throes of the emotion, it’s intense.No, you have to feel them as the pure vitality of the Sambhogakaya.
But in order to do that, you need to practice doing that with little-ens, and bigger-ens and bigger-ens. Until that’s how they feel to you. Viewing them this way or that way is really quite pointless.
Now, there is a practice in Sutrayana, where, when you experience anger you meditate on patience. When you experience lust, you meditate on renunciation. In fact, there’s a teaching given to teenage monks, about how disgusting cunts are. There’s a teaching given to teenage nuns about that about the nasty things found under foreskins. These teachings are equivalent. They’re supposed to keep them from chasing each other. It doesn’t work all that well. The instincts tend to overcome the thoughts and the belief systems.
Next question.
[Nyondo] You said you’re done when the universe pokes you and nothing grabs on? Does that mean you have no reaction? Or does it mean you let your reaction be and dissolve?39:08
[Lama Lena] Not grabbing on is not a lack of a reaction. It’s a lack of attempting to stabilize anything. It’s a lack of attempting to stabilize the moving. The moving is always gonna move. You can’t stop it. What is the moving? – it is a Mahamudra term – The moving is phenomena, both inner and outer. Your thoughts and feelings which are called inner, and stuff which is called outer. It moves, it changes.We are trying always to get happiness to arise and stay there. And it doesn’t do that, it’s moving. We are trying to find a real belief system or a true thought that we can rely on. They’re all made of the same “not-thing”. Doesn’t work. We would like to find some phenomena that we can trust to always be there. But even the sun, our personal star will grow old and go out. Won’t work
When you do not grab on to a belief system, or an entertainment in the process of the moving phenomena dancing around you, not seeking anything to stabilize, to achieve, or to avoid – which is not quite what you said – that’s not grabbing.
We will grab on to even misery to entertain our minds and distract ourselves from that underlined sensation of lack, of dissatisfaction, of something missing; and even the Dharma can be used as an entertainment.
Next question
[Nyondo] How are practices of rainbow body related to Dzogchen? I still chase new practices, such as tö-gal [thod rgal;Wylie] and secret practices. It seems to interfere a lot with transcending everything.[Lama Lena] That’s because you’re not done yet. That’s what sticking to your straw, goop. You want more practices. Tö-gal, leaping over, is a method of working with phenomena, external phenomena. And until you have really….well, no, tö-gal is suitable, doable when you no longer differentiate between internal and external phenomena; it’s all just phenomena. Where you have at least come to the point where you don’t believe they are separate.The cut..the leap-over, what you leap over in tö-gal is the last of the sticking to a reality.
Your last grasp of reality; up-down, table-chair,
For it to work for you, or have any effect other than becoming one more entertainment doing, which is really not what it’s for, you need to be pretty damn sure that you’re mostly satisfied. Are you satisfied?
Or is that hole still bothering you? The one at the core of yourself that you want to fill with a new practice, a new entertainment, so that you can be an even better yogi. Self-improvement anyone?
You kind of need to be over the needing to make yourself perfect by some old childhood concept of what you think perfect is by the time you attempt those practices, or they simply won’t work and will be just a waste of time and will actually or could be counterproductive; they will entertain you and keep you from what might be a more effective practice for you.
Anything more coming up?
46:18
[Nyondo] Oh yeah, there’s a number of questions.[Lama Lena] Keep going, there’s so little you can say about Dzogchen.[Nyondo] Okay. Um. Can we practice Dzogchen after having received pointing-out instructions via your YouTube videos?[Lama Lena] You practice trek-chö. It is not yet complete, it is practice. Yes, it is within the category of Dzogchen, but it’s not yet complete. You’re still in the oven, which is fine. All of the rushens and the practice of trek-chö and to-gal point to Dzogchen, lead into the true completion, which is beyond time and space; therefore, cannot be caused or done.Next question.
[Nyondo] In lieu of having direct access to a teacher that teaches practices aiming toward Dzogchen, is there anything that a practitioner can do to guide themselves?[Lama Lena] Sutrayana. Read and intellectually learn. But even for the practice of tantra you need an initiations, you need teachings and explanations. You need teachers.And you will fool yourself without such.
There are ways you can find a teacher, teachers, spiritual friends, those who can assist you avoiding fooling yourself.
When you are clinging on to the last cliff for dear life, somebody’s got to kick your fingers loose. Because no one in their right mind would let go. And if you’re in your run mind it won’t work.
What was it Trungpa said: “I have good news and bad news for you. The bad news is that we have fallen from a cliff. The good news is that there’s no bottom to hit”.
That free-fall is Dzogchen. Where the Three Jewels are one; Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, Nirmanakaya. The innately vital awaken aware infinite vast expanse, which sparkles with playfulness of creativity.
Come here, get off the text, and off the text onto the table. There you go. [Lama Lena talking to the cat] Next question.
[Nyondo] What is the difference between Dzogchen and Advaita Vedanta?[Lama Lena] Damned if I know. I haven’t studied Hindu- practices. And I don’t speak Sanskrit. I think those are words, but I don’t know what the latter means, Advaita Vedanta.Go ask a scholar.
Next question[Nyondo] Do you have any advice for those with ADHD or OCD in preparing for practices like trek-chö and Dzogchen?[Lama Lena] Okay, it’s slightly different, unless you’ve got both of those; in which case both advices. With OCD focus your OCD on your altar. If you must have something perfect, go ahead and play with getting that perfect. It’ll do you some good. Focus your OCD on learning the mudras and making them graceful – of your tantric practice.
With ADD simplify your environment and your life. Since you are easily distracted, remove the distractions physically, outer-ly, the outer ones. With ADD I recommend Dzogchen rather than Mahamudra. And creating habit patterns that will support your practice; body memories, changes in how your channels lie, by repetition. Use a bell, use a timer.
If you have both, ADD and OCD, sometimes you can get them to cancel each other out. Sometimes. By obsessing on doing the practice.
Problem with ADD is you’ll get going on one practice, and then you’ll decide to do a different practice, and then a different practice. So, you better write them down make the choice what ones you’re going to do for a month, in what order and at what time of day, and then just stick to that. And don’t let yourself choose a different one for a month. Each moon cycle you can switch it up if you want to; takes about a month to get … actually takes about three months to get good at a practice, but if you’re ADD I’m not sure you can keep going on the same thing for three months. So, one month we’ll do, with the hope of eventually going to a three month cycle.
Try and see if those things work. If not, let me know in group and I’ll see what else we can figure out for you.
Next question,
54:12
[Nyondo] How do I recognize if I am able to practice Dzogchen or if I should stay with Sutrayana or Mantrayana? Is it okay to just try and see if it works?[Lama Lena] Yeah, try and see it. Actually, the sign we look for to see if someone is ready for Dzogchen is that they like it. Not because somebody said it was the highest practice and they want the best piece.But for what it is…so, in my lineage – and this varies, completely different in Chagdud Tulku’s lineage [? 54:55 ] how this is done, order of operation – but with my teacher, you teach the highest teaching first; trek-chö, cutting through. If they get it, great!
If not, you teach them the higher Tantra; Mahana Tara Tantra or such as that. If they get it, great! If not, go back another and you teach them some Kriya Tantras. Or even step back to Yoga Tantra. If they get it, great! If not, take them back further from the Tantras to Sutrayana and put them there for a while. Until they get that. And then try again.
It saves a lot of time. Rather than running everybody through everything from the beginning. Because of a lot of people are old. They don’t have fifty years to practice. So there’s some hope that they can start in the middle or near the end.
Even some of the young ones.
So, try Dzogchen; the practices of, not the completion of. Try trek-chö, cutting through; see if ya like it, because that’s the sign that you’re ready. You will like it and then you will do it. You won’t do a practice you don’t like, not for long, not for long enough for it to work.
So, the sign of it being the right practice for you is that you like that practice.
And as I’ve said before: you get… most people can focus themselves on not more than three things at once. So, let’s say your main practice is trek-chö. You can have a secondary tantric practice. And with perhaps a third bit of Dream Yoga or Sutrayana texts, your intellect likes to be scratched; whatever works for you. But you can’t be doing more than three at once. You will spread yourself too thin and none of them are going to work.
Next question.
57:52
[Nyondo] What practice does a complete beginner start with, in order to achieve the minimum amount of progress and maintain the motivation to continue practice?[Lama Lena] Lo-dok nam-shyi [blo ldog rnam bzhi;Wylie], called “Four turning minds”; what it means to be fully human, that you are mortal, that you are dissatisfied, and how the push-pull of action and reaction works. These four things. Understand them.There are many texts that will help you understand them. “Words of my Precious Teacher” is a very expanded text. I’m going to have hopefully this month, but we’re working on scheduling, a young Lama Palga Rinpoche from Ladakh, come on this channel and teach those to people. He’s very good at that. And his English is excellent.
So, these are really important things that you kinda have to have to be the full human that it takes to practice. So, come to these understandings. And then let’s see how you do with trek-chö. If you like it or not. It’s okay to not like it. Be honest with yourself. If you don’t like it, let’s see what you do like. I’ll take you from there. Because the one ya like is the one you’re gonna do. And they only work if you do them. That’s how you get done. If you never put the cake in the oven, you’re never gonna get a cake, you’re just going to have goo. You got to bake.
Next question
[Nyondo] Can you elaborate on how it is said that trek-chö produces so much ge-wa.[Lama Lena] Hmm, to elaborate on this I need to discuss what is ge-wa. It is a word used to refer to good karma; actions which will have pleasant outcome is what is meant by good karma, outcome that will be liked.
Now, to understand how this works, you need to understand that you yourself are an ecology, not an individual. You and your biome, okay. You’re full of living critters. You’re not just a singular, you’re a multiple. Just like Gaia, the Earth, has an ecology; she’s sick at the moment, running a fever. Perhaps the fever will wipe out enough of the germs, that she will recover.
You are also continuously being changed by your experiences. This is called growth. You grow by having experiences. What are your experiences. They are generally interactions with other sentient beings. When your cat comes and loves you, you feel a certain way – or your dog. And because of that feeling of ease and comfort of having your dog hug you, you will be in a better mood for a while; yes, dogs can cheer you up, even when you’re down because you lost your job or something something happened. Or you’re just in a funk that day.
In all of this, as it happens, you change. You’re constantly interacting with others. Through TV you are interacting; even if you just watch a TV show, bits of those actors are affecting you. The parts they play, the story that’s told, the book you read, the philosophy that seems to be shown by the characters in the play, in the movie, in the book. All of this changes you just a little bit. You’re not the same person you were when you were fourteen. Hopefully, that was a hard year. Hopefully you have matured, you have grown. So, in all of this interaction, bits of their ideas come into you.
Not only that, but when people or other sentient beings are in the same room with you you exchange biome. You know, my cat sticks its asshole in my face; obviously some of its biome is now stuck on my nose. Now it’s on my hand. [Lama Lena was referring to the cat who stood on the table and and while saying this she touched her nose with her hand]
There’s a constant interaction, interchange, interconnection interpenetrating with other sentient beings of your Mandala all the time; and of course their Mandala, although it overlaps yours, also extends out. My cat does things out on the kitty freeway with the other cats, exchanging biome and getting new ideas. Right. Your friends have other friends that aren’t your friends. They have relatives that aren’t your relatives. They’re affected affects you. It’s all this interpenetrating interaction between sentient beings.
So, you’re not singular. You’re not as separate as you think you are.
Read me that question again. I may have strayed a little bit, but there’s a point I’m making,
1:05:30
[Nyondo] it was about trek-chö generating ge-wa..[Lama Lena] So, when your dog leans on you, the dog hug, and you feel better, you may smile at a stranger and they feel better. Actions which cause “feeling better” are ge-wa. Your dog performed ge-wa by hugging you. This is simple analogy.Now, when you sit in trek-chö, if it is done properly, with your mind in complete relaxation into the innate and natural openness, vast beyond knowing, so big there is not even a center or an edge, just concepts arising within it and dissolving within it; when you’re awake, alive awareness relaxes itself into that infinitude, without suppressing its innate playfulness and sparkle, that creates a field which manifests outward as across time and space, as occurrences, results, which are enjoyed by whosoever they occur upon.
There is chin-lap [byin brlabs;Wylie] in sitting in trek-chö, vast amounts of chinlap.
Chin-lap translates often is blessings, but sometimes as power; there’s a lot of chin-lap in this old Dorje, because it is old and has been used a lot. It soaks up the chin-lap, so that if I wish to provide chin-lap to someone I can touch their head with this Dorje and they will feel the chin-lap, and they will relax just a little bit.
Dig-pa causes stress. What is the word for the opposite of stress. Relaxation, perhaps. Ge-wa is relaxation. It creates cause for lack of stress. Not just to the one sitting in it, but because of this interpenetrate of interaction that’s going on continuously among the assorted clumps of biome that occupies the ecology of this world. That lack of stress created by trek-chö, when done properly as a relaxation, spreads as ge-wa; it will create the cause for further relaxation to all those beings involved in the experience, or in the mandala of the experiencer, or the mandala of those who…it spreads, relaxation spreads.
Stress spreads; when a driver is stressed and honking his horn behind you, you feel stressed too. He shared it. When you are relaxed, that shares to in subtle ways that you may not be directly aware of. But our energy fields are…there is no singularity, it’s all interwoven. So, trek-chö is the big relaxation. When trek-chö is complete it is Dzogchen, which is the total relaxation into your own true nature.
Dzogchen is self secret. That is: I could shout it from the rooftops, nobody’d hear me. “Oh, crazy lady shouting on the rooftop.” Wouldn’t matter.
It is…it would be dig-pa for me to withhold Dzogchen, which is all about one’s own true nature. How could I choose to withhold a man’s own true nature from him. That’s not my secret to keep. This was actually said to me by Lopön-la, my Bön teacher.
It is self secret. Those who are not ready for it won’t understand the word you’re saying. True. So I share it freely with you. When you have relaxed totally into your own true nature, which is euphemistically called “The Three Jewels, Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, Nirmanakaya”, you – but all of you, not just the limited point that you hold yourself tightly in by continuous entertainment – big you, relaxed you, that. Beyond knowing, that total relaxation is the completion. We’re only baking the cake until the batter relaxes, all the way. You know when it’s done. Its springy.
Relaxation is not limpness. The spontaneous arising of action in non-doing is not refraining from deeds. When you have relaxed your little safe boundaries enough that the entire vastness of the multiverse in all its nine dimensions, relax into that; the infinite vast – Longchen Rabjam, infinite vastness of the Dharmakaya – not empty, not a big void, a big dark nothing. It’s alive. Awake, aware, because it’s you. It’s all of us. We’re all In this together. The very awakeness awareness that you feel in this moment, I, that’s part of it, that is it, that is the nature of the openness, to be awake and aware; you cannot separate the vastness from the awareness.
It is the awareness that is vast, and it is the nature of awareness to continuously dance throughout infinite openness with thoughts, feelings and perceptions; the dance of phenomena.
1:15:57
The dancer, the dance; there is no separation, for the awareness…there is nothing other than the awareness of which phenomena may be made.
“Mind” we say, which is aware, which is infinite and in which all phenomena arises and and dissolves, leaving no trace. Trackless like the path of a bird through the sky. All the analogies that you’ve heard, like that, but not that.
This is a bell. This is a finger pointing at a bell, it doesn’t ring. Think if it points to the bell longer, it’ll ring?
The words I am giving you are fingers. Don’t stare at the finger. Look where it’s pointing.
Trek-chö is all about learning to relax. Sometimes, when it is very hard for someone to relax, we have them do something very tight and focused like visualizing a whole bunch of things; “and the lights come in, and the lights go out, and this happens and that happens, and…all of this symbolism goes into the unconscious mind and relaxes it from there, while you keep the conscious mind very busy entertaining itself with pictures; and when you get to the end of it…into a seed syllable, gone. And then you do trek-chö.
Don’t be trying to stabilize trek-chö. Cutting through is a continuity, not a stillness. It cuts through the belief – feeling – perception systems, so that they are not stale. Trek-chö is continuous, stable and fresh in each moment. It’s not a dichotomy, in trek-chö.
So ge-wa, when there’s enough of it, when you have created enough of it – and it’s not something you keep, it’s something you create and spread – when enough of it fills your mandala and the universe by your creation, you and those close to you become more and more relaxed, more and more capable of trek-chö.
And then it can complete itself into complete relaxation, which is Dzogchen. It’s not made, it’s not created, it’s not done! You’re not going to get it from somewhere, something you didn’t have before. If it was it would go away again.
It is simply the ability to let go of it all and totally relax into your own true nature, and not scrabble on.
Next question
1:20:59
[Nyondo] Is trek-chö the best Dzogchen practice for the Kaliyuga? Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche said it was very important and I’m trying to understand?[Lama Lena] Well give that up. It doesn’t belong in Dzogchen, understanding. Start relying on understanding, and you’re just gonna tense yourself up again.Yes, trek-chö is…trek-chö is the essence of Dzogchen. There are many other, more active Dzogchen practices. We consider them Ngöndro’s, Rushens. Helpful. They are generally prescribed like a medicine. As you’re doing trek-chö, you get caught on things, hang ups, with holdings.
I had lunch with a friend yesterday, very close friend. And we talked about the last entertainment, which is perhaps that lack and dissatisfaction itself, and how we will hang on to it as unpleasant as it is, to avoid letting go.
I don’t know why sentient beings resist enlightenment.
But that’s what makes them sentient beings; they won’t, can’t, don’t wanna let go.
Next question.
[Nyondo] What is the relationship between chöd and Dzogchen. I feel they really complement my practice.[Lama Lena] Oh, they do! Chöd it is really good at helping you let go, because you go out there into a scary wild place, and you call forth your fears, and you face them. And you let go of attempting to survive them. Chöd symbolically destroys the survival instinct. When you cut the top of your own head off with a drigu, that’s counter-survival right? When you make soup in your own skull out of your bones and your flesh, and offer it to your fears, you are directly impacting the survival reflex. Which is one of the reflexes that’s in your way in Dzogchen. No, Dzogchen doesn’t make you not-survive. It just sometimes you start thinking it might, and then you tense up of course. And that’s dig-pa, under those circumstances.Next question.
1:24:37
[Nyondo] One of our Spanish viewers asks: Could you explain what the mind’s eye is and how it differs from the attention?[Lama Lena] That is a turn of phrase, used in English, that I am not sure extends in Spanish.When you imagine the house you grew up in, you kind of see images in your mind as you imagine that, as you remember it, pictures sort of. We say: “We see those with our mind’s eye” in English. Doesn’t necessarily translate to Spanish or Russian. But it means: “To imagine an image that is not currently present is to see it with your mind’s eye”. That’s just linguistics.
Attention: you can pay attention to an image you are imagining, such as the image of the house you grew up in, or you can pay attention to your cup of coffee, or to something else. Attention, it moves, it’s not still, you cannot forever hold your attention still. It is the nature of attention to move. You will learn to relax the focus of your attention in trek-chö.
It’s another relaxing. But even that is a method to relax the eyes, to relax the attention so that you’re not in point focus. This is a method, tab [thabs;Wylie] of relaxing, because focusing is the opposite of relaxing.
Next question.
1:27:30
[Lama Lena] Are we coming to the end of them?[Nyondo] No, there are many questions have been popping up since. Is there a particular aspect you want me to look for a question on, because they’re all over and out?[Lama Lena] No
[Nyondo] Okay. How do we know if we are in rigpa or in a state of mindfulness?[Lama Lena] You’re never not in rigpa, awareness. You’re never not aware. How could you not be in a state of rigpa?
Distraction. You could be so tight that you are not aware of being aware. So distracted, so tightly focused on something, a book, a movie, a situation. How do you know…..when awareness focuses on itself, in an open way, when awareness relaxes into itself…..nothing is precluded, left out; totality of phenomena. You cannot point focus on the totality of phenomena. But if you allow your awareness to relax into its natural expansiveness, there is room, space, for the totality of phenomena to arise there in.
Did that answer your question?
Next[Nyondo] Is Dzogchen kind of like the Zen of Tibetan Buddhism? Both are so simple or empty. And I’ve seen Zen and Chan used interchangeably.[Lama Lena] Yes, I would say of the Japanese lineages, to the best of my knowledge, Zen compares well with Dzogchen. If you are familiar with the nine bowls, that is a picture of the Dzogchen path. If you are not, there’s a nice book called “Zen flesh, Zen bones” that shows them; or actually, they’re a really common picture of the map in Zen Buddhism.
Next question
[Nyondo] Okay, give me a moment to find. Something to do about…[Lama Lena] You. There. Who are listening to this and haven’t yet gotten bored and wandered off. Your very own awareness, which you do not own, it’s big; and the more you relax you’re paying attention to “this-es and that’s”, generally entertainments, the bigger you will feel it to be. Keep relaxing your focus of attention until it reaches infinity; for only at infinity will the infinite variety of phenomena have room to dance. You are infinite. You are both multiple and singular. You are no thing and the infinite variety of phenomena.You. Kuntuzangpo, Kuntuzangmo. Even time and space arise by paying attention to them.
Let go.
Any more questions?
[Nyondo] Oh yeah. How many more would you like?[Lama Lena] Oh, a few.
[Nyondo] Oh, okay.
[Lama Lena] After which we’re just beating words on something that won’t…[Nyondo] Yeah. One question. In trek-chö, is it the view of ta-wa that cuts through or the exclamation of “phet”? Do we have to do “phet”?[Lama Lena] You only do “phet” if you need it. It is the view of ta-wa that cuts through. You only do “phet” when your view of ta-wa gets hooked on a sensation, such as bliss or grouchiness, or clarity, or thought free states. You only hit it with “phet” if it’s stuck. Sometimes it gets stuck as you attempt trek-chö. You get all blissed out. Or you get into a zone where time doesn’t pass, like you’re a really good strong hit of acid, where time is both infinite and momentary. Realities happening without drugs too. Those are the things you hit with “phet”. Experiences that have beginnings, that get stuck.
But it’s not enough just to make the sound guys. It’s not enough to even just make the sound properly, which is sudden, sharp and fierce. You have to sneak up on yourself with it. You have to be looking right at the experience of bliss, of clarity, of thought free; your attention has to be focused right on the experience when you hit it with “phet”. Behind the experience. Pay attention to that.
Next
1:36:00
[Nyondo] What are the signs of accomplishment through Tantrayana that signifies I’m ready to proceed to Dzogchen, when am I ready?[Lama Lena] When you like Dzogchen. Now, we’re not looking for signs in Tantrayana that you’re ready for Dzogchen, we’re looking for signs in Dzogchen that you’re ready for Dzogchen. You’ve tried it and like it now. It doesn’t irritate you. When, at the end of your sadhana in Tantrayana, the relaxation part after the absorption of the seed-syllable, when you like that rest, and you are able to allow that rest to extend longer than just a moment that you’ll jump over, that would be a sign that you’re ready, because that rest is trek-chö.So when you like that rest, you’re ready. Like it well enough to prolong it a bit.
Next question.
[Nyondo] Does the shyi-né practice supplement trek-chö?[Lama Lena] No. The shyi-né practices are preliminary to trek-chö. Once you are capable of trek-chö – in Mahamudra you will have already accomplished good shyi-né – no shyi-né is something you hit with “phet” in trek-chö, you want to get over it.Next question. Think we’ll take one or two more, so what’s good?
[Nyondo] What do we have…Oh, wait, there was an earlier…there was a different question, I’m sorry. Someone wanted some clarification on what you mean when you talk about being full human.[Lama Lena] You have the inner and outer opportunity and inclination to look beyond finding food and getting laid, making money; to look beyond the mundane.The inclination? Well, if you’re not interested in looking beyond, that’s fine. Most animals aren’t. And the opportunity: enough leisure that you’re not so busy scrabbling for survival. People who are currently living in war zones do not have leisure. Survival is too difficult. It’s only when you are in a place where you feel safe enough, physically, to consider there must be something more than this, this isn’t enough; of eating and sleeping in a comfortable place and having all your toys around you, this isn’t enough, I’m still dissatisfied.
That’s what we mean by fully human: having the inner and the outer. The outer is just a little bit of space and leisure. I said “A young single mother with three kids under five, ain’t she got time to even look beyond feeding the kids and what has to be done. A person who is so caught in their own ambition, worldly ambition, that they have no interest in looking beyond; they’re completely busy trying to get a whatever their next thing is. That’s what we talk about as not fully human. Homo sapiens, with the potential at any moment to become fully human. Just a matter of a sudden, some shift. Maybe the guy who’s so busy with his ambition, and he’s a lawyer and winning the cases, and winning and losing, and all of this, making partner in the firm, and his money, and his investments. And then he almost gets screamed by a Sammy in traffic 1:41:34 ?], and suddenly his whole life flashes before him and he reassesses, and he suddenly thinks to himself: “there might be…there must be something more than this. This is not enough. I have everything I’ve ever wanted, and I’m not satisfied. Ah, he just became fully human in that moment.
That’s what I mean. But for more details and a more traditional explanation, please see Palga Rinpoche’s teachings, which will be coming up hopefully later this month; we’re trying to schedule, we’re working on it, it will suddenly appear on the schedule. And it’s called “The four turning minds”. Look for that by Palga Rinpoche. He has been kind enough to agree to teach that for me in the traditional way.
One more and then I’m going to call it quits for today.
We’ve been for a while.
“It is formless wisdom beyond form, shape and color. It is inexpressible wisdom beyond letters, words and names. It is non conceptual wisdom beyond the concepts of discernment and the intellect. Stop trying to understand it”.
That was from “Twenty-one Nails”, a Bön text. Stop trying to understand it. You can’t. Besides, why would you want to.
For example, a pizza. Do you really want to understand the pizza? Or do you want to eat the pizza? I mean, if you’re hungry, no matter how well you understand how pizzas are made, and who makes them, and where they come from, and what they’re made out of, and all of this, will that satisfy your hunger. Eat the damn thing. You’ll feel better.
The same can be said for trek-chö and Dzogchen. Don’t try to understand it. Do the doing until you’re done
ge wa di nyur du dag
de yi sa la go par shog
Thank you for joining me today. I’ll see you around next time. We are complete.
1:45:53
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