| | Nikolai and others,
http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/study/comparison_buddhist_traditions/tibetan_traditions/nonconceptual_cognition_voidness.html
The following is from: http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/advanced/dzogchen/basic_points/major_facets_dzogchen.html
Rigpa Dzogchen practice emphasizes accessing rigpa (rig-pa, pure awareness), the subtlest level of mental activity. Rigpa is an unaffected phenomenon (‘ dus-ma-byed), not in the sense of being static, but in the sense of not being contrived or made up as something temporary and new. It is primordially present, continuous, and everlasting. It is unstained by fleeting ordinary mental activity – in other words, rigpa is devoid of them.
Rigpa is complete with all the good qualities (yon-tan) of a Buddha, such as understanding and compassion. They are innate (lhan-skyes) to rigpa, which means that they arise simultaneously with each moment of rigpa, and primordial (gnyugs-ma), in the sense of having no beginning.
We do not need to create good qualities anew from nothing or just from potentials. Like the innate quality of a mirror to reflect, which is there even when dust totally obscures the surface of the mirror, we do not need to add anything for rigpa’s good qualities to function. We need merely to remove the fleeting stains, the dust. Before enlightenment, however, even when rigpa is manifest, its good qualities are not all equally prominent simultaneously.
Among the innate qualities of rigpa is self-arising deep awareness (rang-byung ye-shes), also known as reflexive deep awareness (rang-rig ye-shes). This is awareness of rigpa’s own face (rang-ngo shes-pa) as the face of Samantabhadra (Kun-tu bzang-po, the Totally Excellent One endowed with all good qualities). When reflexive deep awareness is not manifest, due to the automatically arising factor of dumbfoundedness (rmongs-cha, stupidity, bedazzlement) that obscures rigpa’s knowing of its own nature, mental activity becomes sem (sems, limited awareness) and no longer rigpa.
The fleeting factor of dumbfoundedness is another name for automatically arising unawareness (lhan-skyes ma-rig-pa) regarding phenomena. It is not an actual disturbing attitude, but only a nominal one (nyon-mongs-kyi ming-btags-pa), since it falls in the category of obscurations regarding all knowables, and which prevent omniscience (shes-sgrib).
Moreover, unawareness (ignorance), here,
is not in the sense of inverted cognition and grasping of the cognitive appearance of things (phyin-ci-log-par ‘dzin-pa) – perceiving them to exist in a manner that does not correspond to their actuality and grasping for them to truly exist in that manner. Nor is it unawareness in the sense of not knowing (mi-shes-pa) that dualistic appearances are false. Rather, it is unawareness in the sense of not knowing its own nature. It does not “recognize its own face.”
No one on this message board is recognizing rigpa. |