Discover/ Dzogchen Teachings
|
"When I left Tibet and settled in the west, I realized that the Dzogchen Teaching was a vast body of knowledge that could help us to live in our condition better, beyond any cultural context, allowing for a natural spiritual and social evolution."
Chögyal Namkhai Norbu |
Excerpts from 'The Crystal and the Way of Light'
|
“The teaching of Dzogchen is in essence a teaching concerning the primordial state that is each individual’s own intrinsic nature from the very beginning. To enter this state is to experience oneself as one is, as the center of the universe though not in the ordinary ego sense. …To discover this primordial state is to understand the teaching of Dzogchen, and the function of the transmission of the teaching of Dzogchen is to communicate this state from one who has realized, or become established in it, to those who remain caught up in the dualistic condition. Even the name Dzogchen, which means ‘Great Perfection’, refers to the self-perfectedness of this state, fundamentally pure from the beginning, with nothing to reject or accept.
“Many people...think that all religion is based on faith, which they regard as little better than superstition, with no relevance to the modern world. But Dzogchen shouldn’t be regarded as a religion, and it doesn’t ask anyone to believe in anything. On the contrary, it suggests that the individual observe him or herself and discover for themselves what their actual condition is. “In Dzogchen teachings, the individual is regarded as functioning at three interdependent levels, of body, voice or energy, and mind. Even someone who says they don’t believe in anything cannot say they don’t believe in their own body! It’s basic to their existence, and the limits and problems of the body are clearly tangible. We feel cold and hunger, we suffer pain and loneliness, and we spend much of our lives in an attempt to overcome our physical suffering… “…To deal with these problems of body, voice, and mind, the Dzogchen teachings present practices that work with each of these three levels of the individual, practices that can be integrated with the individual’s daily life and which can thus change our whole life experience from one of tension and confusion to one of wisdom and true freedom. The teachings are not merely theoretical, they are practical; and though the Dzogchen teachings are extremely ancient, because the nature of the body, voice, and mind of the individual has not changed, these teachings remain as relevant to the human situation of today as they were to that of yesterday.” Chögyal Namkhai Norbu The Crystal and the Way of Light: Sutra, Tantra and Dzogchen - Teachings of Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, 2000: 31-34. Compiled and edited by John Shane |