Notes From "Natural Perfection, Longchenpa's Radical Dzogchen"

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From "Natural Perfection, Longchenpa's Radical Dzogchen" ........Translation and Commentary by Keith Dowman...Published in 2010 (Wisdom Publications Boston)

"The actual essence, pristine rigpa,cannot be improved on, so virtue is profitless,and it cannot be impaired, so vice is harmless;on its absence of karma there is no ripening of pleasure or pain;in its absence of judgement, no preference for samsara or nirvana;in its absence of articulation, it has no dimension;in its absence of past and future, rebirth is an empty notion:who is there to transmigrate? and how to wander?what is karma and how can it mature?Contemplate the reality that is like the clear sky!"(Page 23)

"Purity of karma, putative rebirth, degree of meditation-concentration, facility in visualization, levels of attainment, and so on, are all issues pertinent to acceptance and success within a hierarchical cult....but to the formless experience of Dzogchen, such considerations have no relevance...any kind of preparation or fore-practice muddies the waters..."....(p. 7)

"It is an error of interpretation, however, to believe that Dzogchen requires rejection of religious devotions or ritual practice. The sacred and the profane have the same weight in the Dzogchen view, and the temple or church and the beer-hall or gymnasium are equal.....no Buddhist conditioning, ritual worship, or lifestyle, nor Christian or Jewish devotions, provides any more or less fertile ground for recognition of the nature of mind than the lifestyle of an agnostic professional or a self-indulgent hedonist...."(p. 7-8)

"Enchanted by the play of illusion, children who do not know their own minds, are bewitched. They take the show to be real and become attached to it, enwrapped in their own imagination. Old people, on the other hand, who know the story, cannot get caught by such fascination. Likewise fools who never question the validity of their experience and impute identity to those vividly appearing, enchanting, empty images, take the show to be real and restrict themselves to cyclical patterns of transmigration. Ati-yogins and yoginis, however, understanding that everything is unreal, are aware of the ZING of reality (de bzhin nyid), and their minds are released into the nameless matrix that is beyond both bondage and liberation." ...Page 89

....."The Dzogchen practitioner is such insofar as he or she is free of spiritual identity or belief in any dogma. This natural freedom is intrinsic to doing nothing and allowing moment by moment autonomous deconstruction of his or her identity, both personal and spiritual.....

Ordinary people, non-Buddhists, and Buddhist followers of the eight lower approaches (monastic, solitary ascetic, altruistic householders, tantric practitioners, atheists, hedonists and monotheistic eternalists....)....are identical in that they do not realize natural perfection.....In this important sense, every path is a dead end..."p.94

From "Natural Perfection, Longchenpa's Radical Dzogchen" ........Translation and Commentary by Keith Dowman...Published in 2010 (Wisdom Publications Boston)

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

July 2012

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

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