THE MIRROR The Newspaper of the International Dzogchen Community Issue 26 On Collaboration in the Dzogchen Community IN THIS ISSUE A Talk by Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche April 6th, 1994, Bermagui, Australia TEACHING I want to say a few words about The Base in our Community. Community means practitioners. Practitioners mean Dzogchen people who are living in the same Chögyal Namkhai Norbu transmission, in the same boat, page2 travelling towards realisation in the same way. That means then that we must know how to collaborate with A Clarification of each other because if we don'tknow how to collaborate with each other, the Two Truths or if we are not collaborating well, Ontul Rinpoche we can have problems with the page 10 transmission and with the guardians. So we try to be aware. NEWS Also, we have the responsibility of the teaching and the transm ission. Meeting the Master That is not solely the responsibility of the teacher. People always think in Mongolia that the transmission and the page 3 teaching mean being taken care of by the teachers. But what is a teacher really? I am a practitioner. Now you A Company within are a student, but maybe tomorrow you will also be a teacher. You are Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche with the Australian Community the Community also on the path and you have that page 4 responsibility. For that reason we their problems. They are thinking "The Mirror" is expensive because circulate actively there, and practitioners collaborate with each only of themselves and that is there is little support. If there were sometimes not even that many. In other and that is called community. egoistic. It is very important that we more support from the people in the other countries at a retreat with Australian Retreat collaborate and think also of each Dzogchen Community all over the maybe one hundred people present, Community means: if a boat is other. world, "The Mirror" would cost when I ask how many people are and Land Update crossing a very big river, and if there little. active during the year, such as in pageS were no other means to cross that I always ask people to subscribe doing collective practise.the answer river, then everybody in that boat to "The Mirror" because in that way If I am doing a retreat somewhere is from twelve to twenty. forms a kind of community. The you can have news of our then hundreds of people come. In People do not care very much Singapore Retreat Community is in the boat to travel Community, you can know what is Italy, when I do a retreat in Merigar because they do not understand how page 6 beyond the river, so if we create going on and what we are doing. at Christmas or Easter or in the essential the role of collaboration is. problems on board we are not You can write and communicate summertime, then there are always I feel that collaboration is very collaborating and then we can't get and then if you are interested in from five hundred to seven hundred important, because there is no way E mail safely to the other shore. So, for doing something with me you can partecipants. But when I am absent, we can continue the Dzogchen practitioners it is very important to receive information.Thenewspaper then only sixty or seventy people continued on pag 8 page 6 collaborate. This means also that for is very important for comm unication Community people who are in in our Community; this is a bridge different places it is very important that we have. We have no other The Temple of the Great Liberation FEATURES to collaborate with each other. It is organisation. not always necessary to be in one Director Meet place. There are many ways of Centres with a hierarchical Director collaborating. system have a number one centre, page 9 and then lower ranking numbers two, Given that our Community has three, four, etc.; and they send each no hierarchical kind of organisation, other envoys, formal letters of Health, a we have a means of communicating communication, and the like. This through our newspaper, "The system does not really correspond Practitioner's Mirror". I receive many letters from with the principle of the Dzogchen practitioners in different countries. teachings, so we do not do it this Perspective They write to me because they want way, but we do want to collaborate. Elio Guarisco to know something.They send letters So if we are really travelling towards page 11 to Merigar in Italy and from there realisation and we need this they are sent to me. But when they collaboration until total realisation, write they believe that I am in Italy. then we must continue and we must An Interview with They don't know where I am or find a solution. what I am doing, because they do Khandro Rinpoche not read our newspaper, "The This solution is the main reason Padmasamhava, Yeshe Tsògyal and Mandarava painted by Tsering Gerd Marniseli Mirror".Their sole interest seems to for "The Mirror". Some people say Wangchuck, master thangka painter, in the gonpa at Merigar. a e be learning from me how to solve "The Mirror" is too expensive, but "Shading the Gonpa" : new phase of work begins. P g 7 page 12 APRIL-MAY 1994 ISSUE 26 2 The Base in Dzogchen Chögyal Namkhai Norbu An excerpt from a teaching given in goal in Madhyamika. Intellect can go scholars asked, for example, how someone is arguing and discussing, the mirror and we call this mode of Kathmandu, Nepal, the morning of no further. seeds of future karmic payment, establishing a point of view, then you manifesting energy rolpa. Rolpa December 27th, 1993 But Dzogchen knowledge is not caused by our actions, mature; how must answer appropriately. One means manifesting in its own analysis and Dzogchen is not an today is connected with that moment person asks, another replies. You dimension. This manifestation occurs Today I want to clarify the zhi intellectual path. A Dzogchen teacher in the future when the karmic result cannot respond with a history of your because the secondary cause presents (gzhi), what in the Dzogchen teaching introduces methods which you use to manifests; how the seed is preserved spiritual experiences. itself. For example, if a dog stands in we call the base, because it is very have meditative experiences. and why it does not change or lose its However, a teaching like front of mirror then that dog is important For example, a teacher Through these experiences you capacity. To answer these questions, Dzogchen, and also the principle of reflected, if there is a statueof Buddha, who is introducing a student to discover the real sense of Dzogchen. the Yogachara scholars posited the Tantrism, are related to the then a statue of the Buddha appears. knowledge is introducing the base, People who adhere to the ideas of kunzhi, the "base of all" where the individual's contemplative or For the mirror there is no difference. what we have since the beginning, su tra do not accept that process. In the karma-producing seeds, as meditative experience. Those who Reflections appear because secondary our potentiality. That is what the zhi real sense this is not negative.because potentiality, are maintained. They deny Dzogchen are simply following causes are present the mirror is not is. If we d o not understand the zhi, we sutra always aims for the considered that the base exists for a system of logic, thinking and creating the Buddha or the dog. Ifyou cannot know what introduction understanding or knowledge of this purpose. judging. This attitude does not understand that distinction, you will means. The Dzogchen teaching is a shunyata. Nagarjuna rebutted the Yogachara correspond to the real sense of the comprehend why the base in very important and very essential How can you reach realisation if concept of kunzhi, and never accepted teaching, since you cannot realise Dzogchen has nothing in common teaching. A Dzogchen master gives you arenot going tohaveexperiences? it. He could not understand the yourself through intellect. Thus you with the base in Yogachara. an introduction to the natural state Madhyamika explains with the four Dzogchen view of the base and thus mustdistinguishclearlybetween these A number of narrow-minded and people receive the introduction "beyond "concepts, which are hisMadhy amika philosophy rejected two very different approaches, the scholars, Kagyiipas in ancient times, and perhaps enter into that knowledge. something neither exists, nor does that as well. Specifically, logical and the experiential. You can and more recently, some Gelugpas, This is the Dzogchen point of view. reject Dzogchen in many books, However, in Buddhism, one finds which, if ever translated, you might numerous schools and traditions, and come across some day. Their it is useful to learn the important arguments might cause you to think, distinctions in their varying "Oh, something is wrong with viewpoints. In the su tra teachings of Dzogchen."Their principal assertion India, many currents, like the is that the base as conceived in Madhyamika and the Yogachara Dzogchen does not exist. They further schools, have flourished, and also in declare that the Dzogchen point of Tibet among the traditions of Tannic view and texts were late and spurious Buddhism differences exist Thus Tibetan inventions, negating the the Dzogchen definition of the base, Dharmakaya origin recorded in the what we understand to be the Dzogchen tantras. They thus claim underlying reality, is not universally that the " Kunjed Gyalpo" itself, root accepted. It is important to know that, tantra of Dzogchen, is a false creation, to avoid being perplexed should you not a primordial manifestation.