Dzogchenpa by Accident?

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mint
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Dzogchenpa by Accident?

Post by mint »

Paul wrote:You've met with Dzogchen so you have incredible merit. It doesn't happen by accident.
I copied and pasted this quote from the "Neurotic Zen of Mint" thread.

How does meeting with Dzogchen not happen by accident?

What part of it doesn't happen by accident - simply hearing about it, or actually receiving transmission and becoming a practitioner?
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ronnewmexico
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Re: Dzogchenpa by Accident?

Post by ronnewmexico »

This seems a pretty open ended question not just limited to dzoghen...one by compassionate effect has a karmic result of a good thing, which is exposure to dzogchen.

I would not necessarily say this is always the situation however. If one in a past life has exposure to dzogchen then this may be a continuance.
Compassionte effect generally has good result of the spiritual sort.
In some regards peoples may perform good works which may be considered of the same beneficial sort as doing mantra or prostrations....two other things that produce karmic effect.

Does anything happen by accident.....I find nothing does. But perhaps one feels things do in that manner.
"This order considers that progress can be achieved more rapidly during a single month of self-transformation through terrifying conditions in rough terrain and in "the abode of harmful forces" than through meditating for a period of three years in towns and monasteries"....Takpo Tashi Namgyal.
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Re: Dzogchenpa by Accident?

Post by MrDistracted »

Not a useful answer to your question, but it struck me that "The Accidental Dzogchenpa" would make a brilliant title for an autobiography.
I'd snap it up whilst you have the chance.....
All the best
:smile:
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Re: Dzogchenpa by Accident?

Post by Sönam »

If you have understood cause and effect, you cannot believe than something happens by accident ... even the fly turning around you does not do it "by accident".

Sönam
By understanding everything you perceive from the perspective of the view, you are freed from the constraints of philosophical beliefs.
By understanding that any and all mental activity is meditation, you are freed from arbitrary divisions between formal sessions and postmeditation activity.
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Re: Dzogchenpa by Accident?

Post by Mr. G »

mint wrote:
Paul wrote:You've met with Dzogchen so you have incredible merit. It doesn't happen by accident.
I copied and pasted this quote from the "Neurotic Zen of Mint" thread.

How does meeting with Dzogchen not happen by accident?
Because you've accumulated a tremendous amount of merit in past lives, and perhaps were a former Dzogchenpa.
What part of it doesn't happen by accident - simply hearing about it, or actually receiving transmission and becoming a practitioner?
Both.
  • How foolish you are,
    grasping the letter of the text and ignoring its intention!
    - Vasubandhu
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mint
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Re: Dzogchenpa by Accident?

Post by mint »

Mr. G wrote:
mint wrote: How does meeting with Dzogchen not happen by accident?
Because you've accumulated a tremendous amount of merit in past lives, and perhaps were a former Dzogchenpa.
What part of it doesn't happen by accident - simply hearing about it, or actually receiving transmission and becoming a practitioner?
Both.
So, does simply hearing about it imply less merit than becoming a practitioner?
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Re: Dzogchenpa by Accident?

Post by Sönam »

mint wrote:
Mr. G wrote:
mint wrote: How does meeting with Dzogchen not happen by accident?
Because you've accumulated a tremendous amount of merit in past lives, and perhaps were a former Dzogchenpa.
What part of it doesn't happen by accident - simply hearing about it, or actually receiving transmission and becoming a practitioner?
Both.
So, does simply hearing about it imply less merit than becoming a practitioner?
Yes, but it's already important.
About accumulating merits, one has to considere that it has been accumulated by a previous owner of the continuum you have inheritated (being the new body of that continuum), therefore there is no reason to be (too much) proud of that, only fortunate. And if there would be a jugement, it would not been made regarding the already accumulated merits, but about the merits you presently accumulate (or that you do not regress) ...

Sönam
By understanding everything you perceive from the perspective of the view, you are freed from the constraints of philosophical beliefs.
By understanding that any and all mental activity is meditation, you are freed from arbitrary divisions between formal sessions and postmeditation activity.
- Longchen Rabjam -
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Re: Dzogchenpa by Accident?

Post by Mr. G »

mint wrote: So, does simply hearing about it imply less merit than becoming a practitioner?
I infer so. It is reminiscent of a teaching I heard from ChNN where he told a story that if you come into contact with Green Tara practice, you had a relationship with Green Tara at one point....whether that relationship is good or bad would be unknown to the average person, but one could create a positive relationship with Tara by doing her practice.
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Re: Dzogchenpa by Accident?

Post by Terma »

I think that just trying to contemplate these kinds of things can help to spur on our practice some, especially when it may seems to need it. I'm not sure if I could ever explain these things correctly, but during a teaching it was said that merit is the ripening of positive karma. This is certainly pretty simplistic, but it was based on the audience for that teaching I guess. But based on this idea, yes- we have all planted some pretty good karmic seeds and based on this we are able to practice what it is each of us practice.

Ever wonder why we end up a student of a certain teacher, or lineage when it may not seem the obvious choice? For example, just because there is a center or a teacher (even a really good one) just down the street, we may not have the karmic connection with that particular teacher or lineage. Many times, one's teacher is quite far away and there is a lot that they must go through to see them.

In a more simplistic way of looking at these things, I always like to kind of work backwards a little. I have the great fortune (merit) to practice the dharma. Let's not even mention animals and other beings who do not have the fortune to even hear or understand dharma. In this human realm, I happen to live in such a place where dharma is easily accessible to me, I have the conditions to have some money- ie. the means to travel, receive teachings, etc., I have a decent mind that can comprehend at least some of these teachings- and on, and on...Now compare that to someone who lives in a war torn place, a place where dharma is not practiced. Or one who has the conditions to practice, but has no view- meaning they live in the mundane world and though they either seem happy or think they can continuously gain happiness, they may never truly understand the suffering nature of samsara.

The list can go on and on, and on. Fact is, we have the various conditions to practice dharma- and for many of us not just dharma- Vajrayana/Dzogchen! How much merit must we have accumulated to be in this situation? The danger is not taking advantage of this precious situation we have found ourselves in. All and all a good motivator when contemplating all of this kind of stuff...Makes we wanna go and practice right now!

So yes mint, as others have suggested- you must have a great deal of merit, don't ever forget it- and don't rest on that either though- all good merit will be exhausted at some point! So we need to take advantage of it and practice well.

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mint
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Re: Dzogchenpa by Accident?

Post by mint »

Mr. G wrote:
mint wrote: So, does simply hearing about it imply less merit than becoming a practitioner?
I infer so. It is reminiscent of a teaching I heard from ChNN where he told a story that if you come into contact with Green Tara practice, you had a relationship with Green Tara at one point....whether that relationship is good or bad would be unknown to the average person, but one could create a positive relationship with Tara by doing her practice.
What makes this so incredible is that, as a social being, every person I mention Dzogchen to, must have great merit, and every person they mention Dzogchen to must also have great merit, etc.. It grows exponentially until everyone has heard about Dzogchen. Not a bad thing, but it just calls the issue of merit into question, I think.

Plus, I wonder how well these "rules" of merit apply in an age of increasing technology and ease of access to information. I know I would not have heard of Dzogchen had it not been for the internet.

Is it merit if the History Channel does a special on Tibetan Buddhism and Tantra and happens to mention Dzogchen?
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Re: Dzogchenpa by Accident?

Post by Malcolm »

mint wrote:
What makes this so incredible is that, as a social being, every person I mention Dzogchen to, must have great merit, and every person they mention Dzogchen to must also have great merit, etc.. It grows exponentially until everyone has heard about Dzogchen. Not a bad thing, but it just calls the issue of merit into question, I think.

And even more so those who practice Dzogchen...
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Re: Dzogchenpa by Accident?

Post by wisdom »

mint wrote:
What makes this so incredible is that, as a social being, every person I mention Dzogchen to, must have great merit, and every person they mention Dzogchen to must also have great merit, etc.. It grows exponentially until everyone has heard about Dzogchen. Not a bad thing, but it just calls the issue of merit into question, I think.

Plus, I wonder how well these "rules" of merit apply in an age of increasing technology and ease of access to information. I know I would not have heard of Dzogchen had it not been for the internet.

Is it merit if the History Channel does a special on Tibetan Buddhism and Tantra and happens to mention Dzogchen?
The difference is that all those social interactions don't produce anything in those individuals. What a person is not ready to perceive, they will not really hear. They will block it out. They will think about laundry, or they will feign interest to be polite and forget about it as soon as possible afterwards. In your case you heard about Dzogchen, didn't block it out, took interest in it, took further interest in it and sought transmission, encountered some struggles, continued being interested despite this, and so forth.

Despite being online since I was 15, it still took me 10 years of study before I ever heard of Dzogchen, and the pre-requisite was that I had already discovered Buddhism. Granted for me it was within a week. I was still reading my first book on Buddhism called "The Wings to Awakening", a good read, and told a friend I hadn't talked to for months that I was reading it and really liking what I was reading, he was also into studying esoteric/spiritual subjects. He was like "Thats great! Let me send you these 10 books on Dzogchen!" and that was that. He probably even mentioned Dzogchen before and I was just like "Buddhism, it works for some people..." despite knowing nothing about it.

There are many people introduced to Buddhism who never take interest. There are others like this girl I met at "My Reincarnation" who is a Christian but nevertheless finds herself hanging out with a group of Dzogchen practitioners, and who only recently developed an interest in Buddhism. There are those who heard of Buddhism and use it as an excuse to have a religion that lets them get high all day, because Buddhists don't condemn the individual for it, thinking drugs are making them Enlightened. There are those who heard of Buddhism and become ordained monks, living an orthodox lifestyle, devoting their lives to practice but never are introduced to Vajrayana or Dzogchen.

My point is that not everyone finds Dzogchen immediately, and even if you hear of it, it doesn't mean it will fruition into actually receiving transmission and studying the subject. Most people will block it (and anything else that might change their worldview) out, thats just psychology. So the question is, does such a person really "hear" about Dzogchen?
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Re: Dzogchenpa by Accident?

Post by Dechen Norbu »

mint wrote: What makes this so incredible is that, as a social being, every person I mention Dzogchen to, must have great merit, and every person they mention Dzogchen to must also have great merit, etc.. It grows exponentially until everyone has heard about Dzogchen. Not a bad thing, but it just calls the issue of merit into question, I think.

Plus, I wonder how well these "rules" of merit apply in an age of increasing technology and ease of access to information. I know I would not have heard of Dzogchen had it not been for the internet.

Is it merit if the History Channel does a special on Tibetan Buddhism and Tantra and happens to mention Dzogchen?
They at least have a connection. If you compare the number of people to whom you refer Dzogchen to the number of those who will never hear about it and died without doing so, you'll get an idea.
If you compare then those who hear about it and criticize or hear about it and don't care or don't have any interest, you also get another idea.
Then ponder the difference between those who hear about it and have interest but lack the conditions to practice and do nothing about it, to those who actually make something to put the teachings in practice. Then, you have the difference between those who actually learn effectively how to practice and progress and those who mistake themselves, although having interest and practicing, going astray (by thinking they have accomplished something they haven't for instance).
It's bad...

Well, see the word more searched in Google: sex.
If we were to get the compared statistics about searches for Dzogchen and searches for sex, they would be a like grain of sand when compared to a beach.

Your proximity to this subject creates this illusion. It's like those guys who start to play a card game and suddenly think pretty much everyone else is doing it, when if fact they are still an insignificant minority.

What grew is your perception of the number of people who know about Dzogchen. You didn't know what it was, so you didn't know who knew about it.
Sadly, we are but a few, if compared to those who never heard and never will hear about the word Dzogchen, let alone practice it. 50 years ago, not even Buddhists knew what Dzogchen was and even inside Tibet not many were familiarized with it.

Now Tibet was emptied, millions killed, practice being hindered under the oppressive regime of China. Tibet is an illegally occupied country. There's no freedom under a dictatorship.
Guess we had to take rebirth somewhere, didn't we? :lol:
Might as well be where our practice is less hindered by politics and society. The West seems a suitable choice, since it's a part of the world in which we have this nice thing called freedom of religion and many Dzogchen masters come or live here, Chogyal Namkhai Norbu among them.
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Re: Dzogchenpa by Accident?

Post by Malcolm »

wisdom wrote:
The difference is that all those social interactions don't produce anything in those individuals.

Sure it does. It creates a trace.

This is why I put འ༔ ཨ༔ ཤ༔ ས༔ མ༔ ཧ༔ in my signature. These are the representation of the six munis in the six lokas in the form of syllables. The syllables enter the eye of the person who sees them and this creates the connection for them to be liberated.

N
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Re: Dzogchenpa by Accident?

Post by mint »

Dechen Norbu wrote:If you compare the number of people to whom you refer Dzogchen to the number of those who will never hear about it and died without doing so, you'll get an idea.
If you compare then those who hear about it and criticize or hear about it and don't care or don't have any interest, you also get another idea.
Then ponder the difference between those who hear about it and have interest but lack the conditions to practice and do nothing about it, to those who actually make something to put the teachings in practice. Then, you have the difference between those who actually learn effectively how to practice and progress and those who mistake themselves, although having interest and practicing, going astray (by thinking they have accomplished something they haven't for instance).
It's bad...
No doubt, you're right. It's sort of like Jesus' parable of the sower:

Listen! Imagine a sower going out to sow. Now it happened that, as he sowed, some of the seed fell on the edge of the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some seed fell on rocky ground where it found little soil and at once sprang up, because there was no depth of earth; and when the sun came up it was scorched and, not having any roots, it withered away. Some seed fell into thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it produced no crop. And some seeds fell into rich soil, grew tall and strong, and produced a good crop; the yield was thirty, sixty, even a hundredfold.'
Now Tibet was emptied, millions killed, practice being hindered under the oppressive regime of China. Tibet is an illegally occupied country. There's no freedom under a dictatorship.
Guess we had to take rebirth somewhere, didn't we? :lol:
Might as well be where our practice is less hindered by politics and society. The West seems a suitable choice, since it's a part of the world in which we have this nice thing called freedom of religion and many Dzogchen masters come or live here, Chogyal Namkhai Norbu among them.
Are you suggesting that those people who become Dzogchenpas are incarnations of former Tibetans??

Do you not think that other people who have spent their spiritual lives seeking for the truth will become Dzogchenpas?
Namdrol wrote:This is why I put འ༔ ཨ༔ ཤ༔ ས༔ མ༔ ཧ༔ in my signature. These are the representation of the six munis in the six lokas in the form of syllables. The syllables enter the eye of the person who sees them and this creates the connection for them to be liberated.
So, mentioning Dzogchen and speaking about it as often as possible is a compassionate act because it creates the seed?
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Re: Dzogchenpa by Accident?

Post by Terma »

mint wrote:
Plus, I wonder how well these "rules" of merit apply in an age of increasing technology and ease of access to information. I know I would not have heard of Dzogchen had it not been for the internet.

Is it merit if the History Channel does a special on Tibetan Buddhism and Tantra and happens to mention Dzogchen?
Explaining merit can be a little tricky sometimes. A real life example is when one time I was trying to explain a bit about dharma and dhrama practice to someone who seemed interested. every time the conversation was going somewhere, something would happen- someone would interrupt our discussion, the other persons phone would ring, all sorts of things. To me it was clear that she didn't quite have enough merit to hear these things at that moment.

You have the mind towards dharma. this information is just as accessible to anyone else, remember. So ask yourself why you found it while many others do not?

I would answer your second question in a different way perhaps. It was fortuitous for that special to be playing, but it was your merit that would have allowed you to see it, let alone understand bits of it. Many things could happen, in which case you would not have been able to see the program. A power outage; and emergency phone call pulling you away; all sorts of infinite things! but somehow you were able to view the program with no obstacles.

I think merit comes down to understanding and having some faith in cause, condition and effect. As it is said, if there is a cause, and no obstacles you will have the corresponding result.

Perhaps someone a little more versed in these things can put it all a little more succinctly.

Terma
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Re: Dzogchenpa by Accident?

Post by Terma »

Namdrol wrote:

Sure it does. It creates a trace.

This is why I put འ༔ ཨ༔ ཤ༔ ས༔ མ༔ ཧ༔ in my signature. These are the representation of the six munis in the six lokas in the form of syllables. The syllables enter the eye of the person who sees them and this creates the connection for them to be liberated.

N
Skillful means. I love it

:namaste:

Terma
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Post by florin »

when a teacher says that we have connection to dzogchen because we came across it in past lives does that mean that we -all who are westerners in the present-have been Asians in our past lives?
Or was dzogchen also taught in what we call today "west" or western world, in a very very distant past?

Or is it possible that we have established a connection to dzogchen in different world systems?
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Re: Dzogchenpa by Accident?

Post by Virgo »

Terma wrote: Skillful means. I love it

:namaste:

Terma
There is no time to pussyfoot around. You have to force people into situations that help cause them to be liberated. If not there is not point in being a bodhisattva.

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Re: Dzogchenpa by Accident?

Post by Dechen Norbu »

Who knows these things? :smile:
Better practice while we can, having been Asian or Alien! :lol:
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