Dharma Wheel

Fa Dao wrote:I have always been curious as to why some masters require ngondro prior to Dzogchen teachings/pointing out and others do not. One of my old masters from many years ago required it, Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche. During that time though after reading Master Namkhai Norbu's books it appeared that he did not require it. (Loved his books by the way)

adinatha wrote:Believe it or not, in the Drikung Kagyu tradition, there is pointing out and the "ngondro" come after as a way to fully recognize it, particularly guru yoga, vajrasattva and mandala. Here the practice is to be in the state of mahamudra while you do these practices and one's mind becomes much more vivid and relaxed. Namkai Norbu also says that doing a practice like vajrasattva can increase clarity after a pointing out or direct intro.

Namdrol wrote: The question however was why our teacher in the Dzogchen Community does not approach ngondro the way it is done in other dharma communities. So when we do Vajrasattva practice, for example, or the Longsal preliminary practice which is connected with Vajrasattva and the purification of the six lokas

SMS was originally designed as a teacher training program. According to Rinpoche, to be able to give lungs, one must complete a major deity retreat in a proper way, very precisely.

Pero wrote:
This is something I haven't quite understood. Is it that upon completion of a major deity retreat one can give lungs of any kind? Or is it just of that deity?

Namdrol wrote:

Pero wrote:
This is something I haven't quite understood. Is it that upon completion of a major deity retreat one can give lungs of any kind? Or is it just of that deity?

Lungs of any kind that you have received.

username wrote:! Ngondro is good for grinding runaway egos, for example those who talk big all the time so freely specially about other lineages' practitioners and major tertons they might have breezed through and left or not. Ngondro is also good for eradicating coarse harmful clarity such as too much sensory inputs, ideations, imagined visuals and other fantasies. Ngondro might be good for some in our Judeo-Greco society with it's recent Logical Positivist of the Vienna Circle variety that is self admittedly illogical and baseless though they don't bother brainwashed undergrads hellbent on conquering the world with such trivial proven details.

-What are you talking about?

Namdrol's posts stated the main points and they should be read again. A few other points. For specific tantric practices, Green Tara Ozer Chenma etc., ChNNR is very traditional and insists on retreat conditions and duration anything from days to weeks depending, in order for them to work. He also emphasizes adequate saddhana mantra recitations in very large relevant numbers before accumulating large numbers of action mantras. He states accumulating such mantras from a Rigpa POV is more effective in the meanwhile than doing large numbers of action mantras when one has not accomplished that practice yet. Also any practice including Ngondro should ideally be done similarly from a Rigpa POV. And many of us following ChNNR are doing Ngondros of various terma cycles or as main practice too. Also many masters cut Ngondros short if they deem the disciple fit to progress. So the usual rookie black and white slogans can stop.
-

-There is no rookie black and white slogans going on here.. I am just saying people who say Ngondro doesn't lead to Dzogchen clearly don't have any clue what they are talking about.. Do you think CHatral Rinpoche did Ngondro 8 times to prepare - b/c he didn't know what the cho nyi was even though Khenpo Ngagchung (who was one of the incarnations of Vimalamitra) declared that he had the same realization as him. I don't think there is any "one" approach for everyone- therefore am in favor of many approaches.. But all approaches are still relative.

The best ngondro is after Dzogchen Direct Introduction when gradually all of day and night turns into presence and daily glimpses of instant presence or rigpa and after some years into constant rigpa or most of the time as taught and achieved by rare living mahagurus such as ChNNR and their diligent older disciples.

Namdrol wrote:

adinatha wrote:Believe it or not, in the Drikung Kagyu tradition, there is pointing out and the "ngondro" come after as a way to fully recognize it, particularly guru yoga, vajrasattva and mandala. Here the practice is to be in the state of mahamudra while you do these practices and one's mind becomes much more vivid and relaxed. Namkai Norbu also says that doing a practice like vajrasattva can increase clarity after a pointing out or direct intro.

Any practice one does can increase clarity after receiving transmission.

The question however was why our teacher in the Dzogchen Community does not approach ngondro the way it is done in other dharma communities. So when we do Vajrasattva practice, for example, or the Longsal preliminary practice which is connected with Vajrasattva and the purification of the six lokas there is never any idea that we have to accumulate a certain number or do it for a certain length of time. Same thing applies to deity yoga -- there is never any suggestion that it is important to do one hundred thousand per syllable of a given mantra, for example. What it is important is connecting with one's primordial state. If there is a yidam in Dzogchen Community, it is that. So therefore, reciting a certain number of mantras to finish a deity retreat as in Tantric practice is not the principle in our community because our teacher approaches the teachings differently than do other teachers.

There are certain exceptions to this related to SMS training. But SMS is an option, not a requirement. SMS was originally designed as a teacher training program. According to Rinpoche, to be able to give lungs, one must complete a major deity retreat in a proper way, very precisely. So in SMS there is a very modified tantric ngondro, as well as a three roots requirement.

N

tamdrin wrote:I wonder if people who use the term "instant presence" have a clue what they are talking about... I don't even know what Tibetan word that is supposed to be a translation of..

Pero wrote:

tamdrin wrote:I wonder if people who use the term "instant presence" have a clue what they are talking about... I don't even know what Tibetan word that is supposed to be a translation of..

That's pretty funny considering "instant presence" is the translation Chogyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche uses for rig pa. Same could be said for all other translations of rig pa too you know.

Though I guess you're just trolling a little hehe.

tamdrin wrote:I guess although I don't know how he came up with instant presence?, with all due respect.. although just awareness, or intrinsic awareness or primordial awareness are some of the translations I am more familiar with..

Pero wrote:

tamdrin wrote:I guess although I don't know how he came up with instant presence?, with all due respect.. although just awareness, or intrinsic awareness or primordial awareness are some of the translations I am more familiar with..

I have no idea. Perhaps he didn't come up with it on his own.
Yes I know those translations (although primordial awareness is ye shes). Awareness for me personally is probably the worst translation. The dog outside has awareness too but I doubt he has any clue about rig pa. To be fair, I actually don't like instant presence that much either. But at least it's not such an oft used common word like awareness and so is more easily distinguishable.