The Dzogchen contingent on DW is quite strong. Others of us, like me, have no knowledge of Dzogchen. My position is that wherever we find ourselves in Buddhadharma, it is a reflection of our karma. But the method of Buddhadharma is to generate favorable karma, which means our path can branch.
When I expressed my personal preference for step-wise, lam rim, training, Malcolm recommended that I might gain an introduction to Dzogchen with Longchenpa’s Great Chariot. I’m about 2/3 through it now, and it is very interesting with its variations on the lam rim I’ve learned previously.
As it happens, I ran across Alan Wallace’s podcasts from a 2016, 8-week retreat in Italy. In #13, he gives what is to me a revelatory perspective on Dzogchen.
I know this post is way too long, but in case anyone is interested, I wanted to share it. I’ve summarized the lead in from the Four Immeasurables to the Four Greats (the topic is specifically, Compassion to Great Compassion). Then I’ve transcribed what I consider the relevant passages from his talk.
After cultivating equanimity and the other immeasurables, we come to a “continental divide”, where it is possible to cross over from an altruistic aspiration (immeasurable compassion) to an altruistic intention (great compassion). The aspiration, or wish to see all sentient beings freed from suffering and its causes does not imply sustained action. Wallace compares it to thinking it would be nice to win the lottery, even though he has no intention of putting the causes together that could make it possible. Immeasurable compassion is quite commensurate with the intention to attain one’s own, personal liberation – which is a noble goal in its own right. But the Mahayana is about transforming that mere aspiration into an intention. It’s a commitment that includes the activities to bring it about.
Transcript:
Alan Wallace wrote:[13:20] The cultivation of the great compassion, maha karuna, begins with a question. A very juicy question that is not a rhetorical question. And that is, [Tibetan]. “Why couldn’t all sentient beings be free of suffering and the causes of suffering?”
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[16:40] The question is there and it’s not just something glossed over. In Tibetan Buddhism we turn over a lot of things that are very deep meditation, we turn them into liturgy. Phssst! We’re finished with them in ten seconds. Too bad. So it starts with that question, [Tibetan]. And then, if you have some intuition, there’s no reason why all sentient beings couldn’t be free of suffering and its causes.
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[17:33] If [everyone has buddhanature], in principle then, every single sentient being could, given enough time, given the appropriate causes and conditions coming together, if each one could be free, then the next phrase of the liturgy goes, [Tibetan], “may we be free”. May it be so. Now this aspiration answers the question.
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[18:13] Good. So far so good. But that’s still right there in the realm of immeasurable compassion. Same same. Now here’s where we cross the continental divide. … And it’s a phenomenal statement. That on the one hand it sounds ridiculous, and on the other hand it sounds awesome. [Tibetan] “I shall free us. I shall free us all.”
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[18:56] It’s an intention. Like, I shall buy, oh we need some eggs, or you have a dirty shirt, I will wash it. So Mary Kate washed one of my shirts, thank you. But she said, “I’ll do it.” She took an intention. And lo and behold, I have a clean shirt. So, are you ready Mary Kate? Are you ready to, “liberate all sentient beings throughout space from all suffering and the causes of suffering”? It’s an intention, just like offering to wash somebody’s shirt. That means you’re actually going to do it. She did it in one day; all sentient beings – longer than one day. … [The phrase] is, “this great bodhicitta awakens or arouses” If you have somebody who is slumbering and you’re going to shake them by the shoulder, [Tibetan], it’s awakening, arousing them. Because, like, [snores], that this great bodhicitta [Tibetan], awakens, arouses your buddhanature. As if it’s sleeping. As if it’s dormant. As if it’s hibernating. As if it’s inactive.
[22:36] And so here we are very active as sentient beings, identifying with our own personal history and all of that business. And then wanting this, wanting to avoid that, proceeding on life’s path. Being activated, acting, as a sentient being. And from that perspective, then buddhanature seems to be a potential. Something I don’t see, I believe in. There have been buddhas of the past. I’m not a total different kind of entity entirely. And therefore, the Buddha Shakyamuni manifested his potential, I have the potential, if I bring all the causes and conditions together, I can manifest my potential buddhanature, and then I can manifestly become a buddha.
So from a sentient being’s perspective, buddhanature seems like a potential, a possibility, a capacity. Like holding a seed that has the capacity to turn into an oak tree. But it’s not an oak tree. That’s the thing. An acorn is not an oak tree. No guaranteeing that it will become an oak tree. But with causes and conditions it could germinate into an oak tree. Like that. Like a seed, like a potential.
And for twenty years that’s all I heard, buddhanature is a potential, potential, potential. And then Dzogchen/Mahamudra comes in and says, “yeah, but, how about you shift your perspective?” Instead of looking at buddhanature from the perspective of who you’re familiar with, yourself as a sentient being, which is a perfectly good – well not perfectly good but at least an adequate – perspective. It’s an authentic perspective. We are sentient beings. Instead of that, how about if you shift your perspective? If you could shift perspective and view reality from your buddhanature? And from that perspective look upon yourself as a sentient being.
Then you as a sentient being look like an illusion. And your identity as a buddha is real. Primordially, timelessly, ultimately real. And this phantasm, this image, this hallucination of being a sentient being is like a psychedelic trip. Just an image. And so when we arouse this aspiration we can actually do it authentically. I shall liberate all sentient beings from suffering and the causes of suffering. Very simple. If it’s sincere, and it’s not an expression of megalomania, narcissism, or shear, flat out psychosis. Thinking that this sentient being, known as Alan Wallace, who’ll be dead in a relatively short time, that I shall liberate all sentient beings from suffering and the causes of suffering – that’s crazy talk. That’s crazy talk, friend. I mean, I’ve got maybe minutes, maybe years, maybe a couple of decades to live. And then no more. Alan Wallace will not exist anywhere. I mean nowhere at all, right? So if that’s my point of identity, if that’s my perspective, from this guy from California, “I shall…”, that’s crazy talk. That’s crazy talk.
[23:49] And so we’re not invited to go crazy. We bring our craziness to it, but there's no need to find more craziness in Buddhadharma. Then if I should cut through that very ephemeral sense of identity as being this man, who has a matter of decades, but not centuries, we all know the human lifespan, and we should cut through that to this "ground of becoming", the [Tibetan], or the substrate consciousness, the subtle continuum of mental consciousness, from which this short story emerges, this chapter emerges, called “My Life”, uh, if we tap into that, that continuum, there’s no beginning, no end. Then that is still within samsara. We can ask, well how about, how does this, how does that match? How does that fit? From the perspective of my own individual continuum of subtle mental consciousness, to then call out to the emigres, “I shall liberate all sentient beings from suffering and the causes of suffering?” And the universe might call back, “have you freed yourself?”
It’s like saying, I will liberate everybody from all their debt. By the way, how are you doing? Oh, my credit card’s killing me. I’m totally maxed out all my Visa cards and my American Express. But I’m going to deliver all you from debt. And you might say, you might want to pay off your credit cards first before, you know, big talk. And so it doesn’t really make any sense, still. Even [unintelligible] infinitely longer continuum, and that sort of snapshot called a human life.
So it’s kind of obvious. There is only one perspective from which this intention actually makes any sense at all. It’s not just crazy talk. And it is only from the perspective of your buddhanature, pristine awareness, primordial consciousness, the innate mind of clear light. From that perspective, which is dharmakaya, which is nothing other than dharmakaya, from that perspective, this timeless, all pervasive, transcendent, infinitely compassionate, infinitely wise, vastly, vastly capable dimension of consciousness – the buddha mind. From that perspective, identifying with that perspective, identifying with that mind, and saying, “I shall liberate all sentient beings from suffering and its causes”, the answer is, “Well, of course. That’s your job.” Isn’t it? That’s the job. That’s the buddha’s job. From the Mahayana perspective, that’s your job description. They just said it [in the liturgy]. You are here for as long a space remains, for as long as time remains, as long as a sentient being remains, you are here to manifest as your full wisdom, compassion, and power to liberate all sentient beings.
So, yeah, of course. But from our perspective, if we arouse that intention, then it stirs something. Either we’re just going cuckoo, thinking, I Alan Wallace, or I, my [Tibetan], am going to do that, which is just silly. Or you just drop down, you drop down and stir something in your existential depths. The depths of your own buddhanature. And you stir it. And that can be a bit silly, like, “You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me?” You know, Buddhanature up to Alan Wallace, floating on the surface in the pond scum: “You talkin’ to me?” Totally silly, I know. But it kind of wakes it up because that’s the only perspective from which this makes any sense. And so you stir your own buddhanature. You arouse, you awaken. And then you say, “Oh, that’s my mission.” But then, in other words, this actually makes sense with no timeline on it. This makes ultimate sense. This is ultimate meaning.
And then the liturgy comes to an end.
