Dzogchen and Buddha-Nature
~ Yangthang Rinpoche, Introduction to the Nature of Mind, 1994
What can we add here?
Yeah I'm pretty stumped here. I'm starting to think that maybe what we want to bring into the fold here would be more along the lines of masters / teachers talking about the ultimate way of understanding Buddha-nature, i.e. from the point of view of the highest vehicle (dzogchen / mahamudra). But then we're talking about something else than what Sean was commenting on: the lack of textual sources for Tantra / Terma (?).What else...
- Video / Audio teachings merging the topics?
- Relevant Books?
- Songs of realization: Shabkar?
- I'm assuming we don't want to add all dzogchen books that mention BN to the site, so if we were to quote The Life of Shabkar here, would we just refer/link to the publisher page for it? Just a citation? This would be the first instance of referring to a work without having a page for that work here on BN.
- Excerpts from books and papers on
- Doug Buddha nature paper mentions Longchenpa.
From the Masters
Shechen Gyaltsap Gyurme Pema Namgyal
Buddha-nature is immaculate. It is profound, serene, unfabricated suchness, an uncompounded expanse of luminosity; nonarising, unceasing, primordial peace, spontaneously present nirvana.~ The Great Medicine: Steps in Meditation on the Enlightened Mind by Shechen Rabjam p. 4
Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
Empty cognizance is our nature. We cannot separate aspect of it from the other. Empty one aspect of it from the other. Empty means “not made out of anything whatsoever”; our nature has always been this way. Yet, while being empty, it has the capacity to cognize, to experience, to perceive. It’s not so difficult to comprehend this; to get the theory that this empty cognizance is buddha nature, self-existing wakefulness. But to leave it at that is the same as looking at the buffet and not eating anything. Being told about buddha nature but never really making it our personal experience will not help anything. It’s like staying hungry. Once we put the food in our mouth, we discover what the food tastes like. This illustrates the dividing line between idea and experience.
[...]
We must grow up, just like a new-born baby. The infant born today and the adult 25 years later is essentially the same person, isn’t he? He is not someone else. Right now, our nature is the buddha nature. When fully enlightened, it will also be the buddha nature. Our nature is unfabricated naturalness. It is this way by itself: like space, it does not need to be manufactured. But we do need to allow the experience of buddha nature to continue through unfabricated naturalness.~ As the Clouds Vanish, Tricycle, Winter 1999 [1]
Yangthang_Rinpoche
In our present circumstances we can also consider, first, that the mind of all sentient beings is buddha, that all sentient beings possess the buddha nature, which is their very essence, and second, that we have all obtained the precious human rebirth. With these two things together the teachings are allowed to be transmitted and received.
[...]
The "mind nature teaching", the "practice experience", and the "meditation" are all different names for the same thing, which essentially is that all sentient beings possess the foundational buddha nature. How is it that they have come to possess this buddha nature, which is, in fact, their innate presence, their inherent essence? How is it that this is the fundamental nature of all living beings? This is what the lama reveals to the disciples in what is called the "sem tri", which is an introduction to the mind's nature. After receiving this introduction, through training and through one's ability to naturally comprehend, when one ascertains the nature as it is, this ascertainment is called "the view". The view is then the primary practice. Maintaining the view for months and years, with enthusiastic effort, is called "meditation". While one is engaged in meditation, the unfailing ability to observe one's behavior according to cause and result is called the "conduct". When view, meditation, and conduct reach their resultant stage through the effort of the practitioner, then in dependence upon the capabilities of the practitioner—be they superior, mediocre, or inferior—the corresponding result will occur. In the superior case the result will be the dharmakaya realization, in the mediocre case realization will occur at the moment of death, and so forth. The threefold practice of view, meditation, and conduct, and the results achieved thereby, are the subject of this type of mind nature teaching.~ Introduction to the Nature of Mind, Yeshe Melong Publications, 1994
