I came across this paper from "The Rose & Croix Journal" about Dzogchen and practices relating to "The Great Perfection". It contains some interesting parallels between certain Tibetan concepts and Western models, mainly Kabbalah, which I thought may be of interest to a few DhO-ers. The site itself looks worth a read too, I've bookmarked it and intend to go through it and see if there's anything else useful on there, but in the meantime here's the link to the relevant paper:

Practices Supporting Dzogchen - The Great Perfection of Tibetan Buddhism

Thanks for posting that Tommy. Here's another link, a short essay by Dilgo Khyentse that I've found interesting, and have wanted to post it - guess this is as good a time as any.

Nice one, it's a well written and really practical article. Cheers John!

You can find quite a lot of dzogchen manuals and books on the net. Here is a short and concise set of instructions from which seems to sum it all up for me. The instructions to see all the 'disturbances' like thoughts feelings etc as part and parcel of that primordial awareness I find to be one of the best ways of co-opting them into allies as opposed to demonising them and setting up that duality of good and bad that can seep into other approaches.

When they are seen to be part and parcel of that pure awareness, they are immediately stripped of the quality that made them a 'disturbance'. That quality was what fueled their fabrication and arising so without the fuel, they self-liberate without any need to apply a technique to them so that they change or morph into a 'bridge' to get back to that purity of pure presence (pure sense contact awareness sans concepts). They simply arise and pass right then and there apperceptively perceived, thus no fuel is given to them at all, and that arising and passing is seen to be part and parcel of that purity.

I must say i was scepticial of this before, but have found it to be a much superior manner of dealing with that which 'interrupts' apperception. Apperception is happening all the time until fuel is given to that which then defines the interruption...fuel. Without the fuel, there is no interruption. Fuel = aversion and craving. But craving and aversion for what....an 'object' conceived from what is apperceived, to then pull consciousness to land on it, thus ignoring other sense contact. But if the 'disturbances' are stripped of the status of 'object' for consciousness to land on, which is what a 'disturbance' or 'interruption' is, it is seen as part and parcel of the pure concept-free apperception. You bypass it all by simply changing the way sanna evaluates those formerly known 'disturbances'.

It is by Patrul Rinpoche, the teacher of the rinpoche I went to get taught dzogchen instructions. I read this last night and realised he had tricked many of the students in the class into that concept-free, object-free awareness via his use of the loud sound, PHAT.

Nick