Fwd: Great Perfection

[Guest guest]

This is a real gem.

 

May peace and peace and peace be everywhere.

 

Love,

 

Victor

 

 

dzogchen , "Lance Caspary" <KCRAW@I...> wrote:

Directly discover your state.

Don't remain in doubt.

Gain confidence in self-liberation.

-Garab Dorje

 

Self liberation is not a "technique." You cannot "do" or "make" self

liberation for yourself or for another. That phenomenon are released

in their nature: self liberating, is a statement of the fundamental

condition. Self liberation is not something you can add or take away.

You cannot make it into an activity. As close as one could come to

making self liberation an activity would be to look at it as some form

of the verb "to be." But even understood as "being" would be flawed.

The fundamental condition is beyond notions of being and non-being.

Self liberation is beyond hope and fear.

 

To say that self liberation abandons compassion is just confusion.

Knowing that all beings, like ourselves, want happiness and to avoid

suffering yet continue to suffer while the means of their release is

at hand is the very beginning of the nexus where genuine compassion

and emptiness reveal themselves as a unity.

 

To say that "suffering is perfect" is certainly confusing but much

would have to depend on the context of what you meant when saying it.

I suspect this is more uncertainty about the nature of that coiled

thing there in the shadows.

 

If you asked someone in the throes of suffering if it was perfect, no

doubt they would say that it is exactly imperfect. A rope is not a

snake and will not serve the functions of one. But whether one finds

oneself in a gulag made by men or merely the prison of cyclic

existence...chains made even of the finest gold are chains

nonetheless.

 

If by "suffering is perfect" you meant that karma is unerring;...well,

there really are no mistakes in this business. Karma, for all its

impenetrable complexity is exact. One doesn't get apples by planting

oranges but what we do get for all our well laid plans...oh my!!!! But

what do we as Buddhists who have met with the Dharma know about any

phenomenon that is caused by itself, by another, by both or by

neither, that ordinary beings do not know? What do Buddhists know

about any phenomenon that arises through causes and conditions, or

possesses pieces and parts? It won't do at all for someone to just

tell you. You have to look for yourself again and again until the

habit of confusion is broken. Look high and low. Leave no stone

unturned. This is where searching and not finding is the best of

seeing. Don't remain in doubt. Directly discover your state.

 

If when the teacher makes the introduction all one sees is the finger

pointing, that's OK. There's 84 gadzillion practices in the Buddha

Dharma. The path of meditation that is beyond either following a path

or not following a path; beyond meditating and not meditating is not

for everybody anymore than the rest of them are one size fits

all...that's O.K.. Before liberation chopping wood and carrying water.

After liberation, chopping wood and carrying water. It's O.K.. Follow

the instructions of your teacher.

 

If by "suffering is perfect" you are making some statement about

suchness then I'd have to say while your syntax may still need a bit

of work your insight into the meaning of the discourses is complete.

The dakas and dakinis are singing and dancing in celebration. Gain

confidence in self-liberation.

 

"Ultimately, there is no establishment as subject and object in regard

to any phenomenon whatsoever. From the beginning, appearance and mind

(object and subject) abide as a self-liberating unity (meaning that

appearance and mind are ultimately one; they are pure- beginninglessly

free of impurity or obstructions)."

"See the moon rising in a clear sky:

Its reflection appears in a clear lake,

But the moon itself is not in the water.

Understand all phenomenon in this way."

-King of Meditative Stabilization Sutra

 

"The nature of appearance is without production;

And the nature of cyclic existence is without foundation.

The nature of the mind is the unity of appearance and emptiness."

-Naropa

 

"You must understand that appearance and mind are simply a unity; and

you must understand that conceptual thought is itself the basic mind."

"Whatever elaborations arise from the mind,

These are the nature of the Truth Body.

Are the water and the waves different?

No, they are equally like the sky."

-Saraha

 

"The Truth Body, which is the ultimate fruition,

Is none other than the afflictions.

Wisdom and ignorance are not two, but one.

Ignorance is the great wisdom."

 

"Products are without production, like space.

Nonproducts are without production, like space.

The Truth Body is without production, like space."

-Jigten Sumgon

"Practice is sustained through appearance itself, through neither

accepting nor rejecting what appears. Whatever appears, whatever you

see, that itself is empty; emptiness is not something apart from the

ordinary phenomena that appear to you. These are the quintessential

instructions."

 

"The combination of emptiness and appearance allows for a path of

purification to a state of dynamic altruism, bringing about the

welfare of others on an otherwise unimaginable scale. The foundation

of the path is the recognition that emptiness negates not objects but

an imagined status of objects. The realization of emptiness is not a

vapid withdrawal from objects but eventually a dynamic, altruistically

directed engagement with objects."

 

Gain confidence in self-liberation.

--- End forwarded message ---