Right now, I am in Merida, in the Yucatan of Mexico, attending a ten-day transmission from Dzongar Jamyang Khintse Rinpoche, a highly respected Tibetan Buddhist lama as well as an author and film director. I wanted to participate in this and, also, I hoped to get some relief from the asthma that grips me during the New York winter and doesn’t let go. So here I am, very happy to be back in warm, soulful Mexico again.
I knew almost nothing about Dzongar Rinpoche before coming here. I knew he was an important tulku, and that he was reading aloud an entire esoteric text on Dzoghen from the 14th Century Tibetan master, Longchenpa, with minimal commentary. Some friends, who were attending, told me about the event and made it easy for me to participate. I have been fascinated by Tibetan Buddhism for decades. In my twenties, inspired by vibrant mandala-like patterns encountered in my early mushroom trips, I visited Tibetan monasteries in Kathmandu and attended a teaching by the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala. High up in the Himalayan mountains, Dharamsala is the Indian capital of the Tibetan Buddhist government in exile.
Most of each day, Dzongar reads from a scroll in sonorous Tibetan. We don’t have an English translation of the text, unfortunately, outside of some fragments. It is rumored that even hearing this text, read in this way, will speed up the cycle of rebirths needed before one attains liberation/realization, to a maximum of seven future lives. That is certainly worth a shot. 1,200 people have come for this, sitting under a massive tent to listen to this incantatory expression in a language the vast majority do not know.
As Dzongar proceeds, I have been reading other works by Longchenpa, Finding Rest in the Nature of Mind and Finding Rest in the Illusion, on my phone. I can only assume they explore similar themes even if the emphasis is different.
I must say: As soon as I settle down to read primary Tibetan dharma texts, something good happens to my nervous system. I get this feeling of profound relaxation, like I am mentally swimming in a warm and familiar ocean that is true and authentic. Everything else seems profoundly stupid, remote, and unimportant in comparison. It is like a deep perspectival shift. This experience is intensified by listening to such a text spoken, live, in its original language.
Dzoghen has fascinated me for a long time. A friend who was a Dzoghen student once described it to me (I may not have remembered this exactly accurately) as: “the taste of shit before you know what it is.” In other words, the realized state of Dzogchen is said to be one of pure primal awareness without conceptualization, hence also beyond language. Dzochgen is a level of consciousness that is undisturbed and imperturbable, once you attain it. You then have no need to set aside a special time to meditate or do any practice, as you are always in this primordial awareness, which the Tibetans say is the mind’s natural state.
I thought I would give my initial journal-like reactions to reading Longchenpa and my experience at this event. At the same time, I’m reviewing some works of Chogyal Namkai Norbu on Dzogchen, including Primordial Experience, which presents verses of Manjusrimitra, an 8th Century Tibetan scholar and Dzoghen master, with commentary. Manjusrimitra describes the sought-after state:
The mind is not engaged in seeking nor is it directed towards anything. One is free from knowing and not knowing.
There is neither picking out nor attending to (aids to meditation). Delight in acceptance and rejection are alike in not existing. Not objectifying (anything), and
Remaining with the (understanding of) this alikeness, there is no creation of duality; one is beyond the realm of speech; there is neither activity nor inactivity; there is no accumulation (of merit) or diminution (of faults), etc.
One's mind is not engaged in seeking anything. One is not disturbed by anything, knowing the fundamental alikeness (of everything); and
There is no fear of intoxication by objects or attachment to anything. One does not avoid nor dwell on (anything).
The ways of overcoming (limitations), the facets (of pure and total presence), the four forms of ever- fresh awareness of the alikeness (of everything), which are undisturbed (by negative conditions), are known in this (practice).
Cultivating the all-encompassing field of experience (is) this path; if one has cultivated otherwise, the transparent clarity (of the field) will not come about.
The realization includes the awareness of the inherent emptiness of all phenomena, the inherent sameness of all that presents itself as perception, thought, subject, object, other, or self. Everything is understood to be exactly like a dream or a mirage, emanating from perturbations in the primordial field of consciousness or Mind. But even the perturbations that create samsaric existence are actually non-existent, just as waves on the ocean are made of water and not different from the ocean itself. Longchenpa often uses the metaphor of a mirror, which reflects whatever is put in front of it, while this has no effect on the mirror itself. Samsaric existence is the result of “impurities” and “defilements,” habits and tendencies, which can be overcome through dedication and discipline.
As a result of his practice, Longchenpa attained realization of the primordial nature of the mind, the dream-like nature of reality, and the total equivalence or sameness of all experience, beyond conceptualization or idea. He describes the state he attained in Finding Rest in the Nature of Mind:
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Daniel Pinchbeck’s Newsletter to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.