Longchenpa's 30 Pieces of Sincere Advice (Stanzas 3 & 4): On Being a Very Important Person

[Bill Gardner]

Too bad! You've built up a large following, one way or another.
You look after a large institution where all the right conditions are present.
But it's all just a basis for conflict and ideas like "This is mine."
Live alone - that's my sincere advice.

In public ceremonies you heal children or subdue demons.
You give your capabilities away to the crowd.
Because you really want food and money, your own needs cloud your judgment.
Tame your own mind - that's my sincere advice.

[Loren Enders]

"Too bad! You've built up a large following, one way or another.
You look after a large institution where all the right conditions are present.
But it's all just a basis for conflict and ideas like 'This is mine.'
Live alone - that's my sincere advice."

When I read this I cannot help but think that
this is upaya and the mud the lotus springs forth from;
it is not-mine and so all the more needs attention.

To let go

[Bill Gardner]

This is close to home. I look after a small part of a large institution that heals children.

In stanza 4, the person being addressed is apparently self-interested, but he or she is healing children and subduing demons, which are good things. So what's the big deal? In stanza 3, we have an institution "where all the right conditions are met." Unless this is meant as irony, I imagine he is describing a monastery that is actually helping people practice. This is what one wants, no?

But L was looking for pure and total presence, the "vast expanse without center or border". Unfortunately, you can't maintain practice centers or support doctors without organization, fund raising, hierarchy, and so on. And these resources lead to conflict. Even friendly competition, even the allocation of responsibilities creates boundaries and leads to distinctions between center and periphery, pulling us away from presence.

Longchenpa was a prodigious child scholar, ordained at 11 in a great monastery. In his late 20s, after a vision of Padmasambhava and his Yeshe Tsogyal, he left the monastery and began to follow the travelling teacher Kumaraja. Is that what we should be doing?

[Jonathan Gaines]

My sense of this stanza is;

Longchempa Rinpoche, the foremost practitioner of Dzogchen, was beyond looking for 'Pure and Total Presence', he was accomplished and utterly stable in this state.

The "vast expanse without center or border" refers to the Nature of the Mind, aka Buddha Mind which is beyond any and all limits. It does not refer to organizations.

The Karma Yoga work of helping / healing children is wonderful, so necessary... the path of a Boddhisattva. In no way would Longchempa suggest giving up this career work, nor becoming a hermit.....the idea is just be present in awareness where ever, what ever you are engaged in. On the job competitions, conflicts, ego tripping, turf battles etc. that might distract one from 'Presence', these moments are experienced in the mind and as such can serve to strengthen the ability to remain aware. If we have experience with the state, and this is rather a must, we still might slip and take awhile to wake up to the fact we 'lost it' and then return to our practice.

What we should be doing is what ever we are doing, with awareness, gradually with total pure presence in awareness. When the fruit is ripe it will be known.

Dzogchen ain't easy, not for this pilgrim, yet the difficulty notwithstanding I do my best and offer the same encouragement to all practitioners.

[Janet]

Live alone and tame your own mind. That's the advice Longchenpa gives. But does it mean Longchempa thinks everyone should become a recluse? I don't think so.

It feels to me that we are being advised to not look to our social status or our good deeds as a refuge. The meaning is not literally to drop out and start wearing sackcloth in a cave, but to see the fictional quality in identities we've developed about. We are each born alone, and die alone. Yet we live as though our roles, our reputation and our needs actually provide us with safety and permanence. We tend to forget that our lives that aren't fundamentally defined by (or made secure by) what roles we have occupied. We also easily forget that each life is unique and in a deep sense, alone.

Uchiyama Roshi speaks to the uniqueness and aloneness eloquently in How to Cook Your Life:

"My true Self lives in reality, and the world I experience is one that I alone can experience, and not one anyone else can experience along with me. To express this as precisely as possible, when I am born, I simultaneously give birth to the world I experience; I live out my life along with that world, and at my death the world I experience also dies."

[Bill Gardner]

Janet & Jonathan,
Perhaps L is not requiring us to become hermits; and in any event it isn't an option for me at this time. But I think his advice would be at least that jobs, houses, professions and so on can be obstacles. This is why we have retreats.

[Jonathan Gaines]

Bill.

In Dzogchen we go to the teacher and if we decide he or she is authentic vs. half baked we decide to continue. During this retreat the explanations of Dzogchen are elucidated and at some point the master will say, now let us practice. This is the point where the teacher will enter into the non-dual state of pure and total presence and we students will make an effort to do the same. This is the famous Transmission' as explained by the first human teacher of Dzogchen, Garab Dorje.

Perhaps during our contemplation practice the master will strike at our conceptualizing awareness with a shouted Phat! that cuts directly through, shatters our subtly mental conceptualization, leaving us in startled awareness...this is the transmission of Dzogchen. Now we know what is is, not as a concept, as an authentic experience and now we know what our practice is. Having even a glimmer, a mini taste is enough to continue with. Not having that we are still immersed in the idea only.

Practicing on our own when and wherever we can, or maybe with other students in group practice matures the experience and we reach the point where we need to learn to 'Integrate' the non-dual state in, with thought process. We know emptiness and we know clarity and they are the same.

Practitioners usually do this without leaving home to be hermits. We use the circumstances of everyday life as our environment for practice. We practice Deoty Yoga such as Tara, Vajrasattva, Singhamuka, Vajrapani to have experience of 'enlightenment, again even a momentary taste. We also practice Dream Yoga as the night takes up so much of our span of life. Gradually gradually we discover when we are distracted from primordial awareness and when we are fully awake in this state.

What we can do to support practice is to toss out the T.V., skip the social chit chat, spend more time alone such as in the early morning hours when we are refreshed and the world is quiet....some practice at night before sleeping really helps.....Many opportunities are available if we commit to practice.

All the above I learned from my master, Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche....and work at in my life. I read and re-read his books, commentaries, transcriptions from retreats I was not able to attend, etc....above all I go by myself someplace quiet, at home, outside perhaps, where undisturbed , I can have an hour or more to do at least a Guru Yoga and sing the Song of Vajra.

I share this so you may believe Dzogchen is not so difficult....maybe more a matter of making effort which we can surly do. Explanation, Transmission, Integration. (Study, Experience, Result)...the word Rigpa describes to result better than I can.

If this is for you, there will be no doubt about it, if not, there is no problem at all.

Bye for now.

Jon

P,S,...(Recommending the 'Three Golden Letters' translated by John Reynolds for deeper understanding of Garab Dorje and transmission).

[Bill Gardner]

Jon,
Thanks! I've taken refuge with a Kagyu teacher, and my path is not heading in this precise direction. But I am learning a lot from this discussion, and I particularly appreciate your optimism about our ability to find primordial awareness.

[Ann Braun]

Because you really want food and money, your own needs cloud your judgment.

This is the line that hit me the hardest. And it's not only food and money -- other needs also cloud judgement. Recently I had a strong intuition that a client was motivated by desire to rise in the organisation, at the expense of others, as necessary. A need arose in me to defend the underdog, and this threw off my judgement in very major ways. I ended up struggling to deliver an acceptable piece of work.

It feels to me like Longchenpa is suggesting that taming my own mind might well involve taking time out (living alone) for this from whatever responsibilities press upon me.

[Greg]

I have been wondering how these verses would be interpreted by the group.

There is a bit of a leap in the third stanza since the meaning is originally addressed to a holder of a monastic estate, i.e. a lama or khenpo, who through various skilful means have attracted a following. From this center of attraction inflation can ensue, others vie for privilege under the holder of power and the holder of the estate can become infatuated with their position and in turn possession of that which belongs rightfully to the three jewels.

How should one step out of this? The advice is to live alone. There is nothing said about going off on retreat. Nothing said about renouncing this or that. Nothing said about the great expanse or atiyoga. It is simply that living alone lacks many of the conditions that support ego gratification and inflation for holders of power and priviledge.

The leap for us is how does this translate into our lives? Mostly we are not heads of institutions where we have danger falling into the center of power with an attendant circle of acolytes.

Living alone is not an option for many due to responsibilities, commitments, needs and so forth. So how is this relevant?

Personally for me the meaning is remain alone, not in a sense of aloofness or disengagement, but come to see ego's game of reassurance through holding power or court, as the case may be. There is a certain aloneness and inner reliance that dispenses with the need of reassurance from power and attention. This does not disengage me from others, accepting that I am not alone is support for compassion. I live alone, though my work and activities are very full and complex, there is a simplicity that makes living easier.

On the other hand it would be fair to say Longchenpa is suggesting to certain lamas and rinpoches [keeping in mind the context contemporaneous to L] that are feeding and becoming bloated off of their circumstance of privilege, to go into the wild mountains and become a yogini or yogi. Go tame your mind. I think that advice still holds true today in the spiritual teaching community.

[Bill Gardner]

Greg,
This is great advice. The next question is, how do I dispense with the need of reassurance from power and attention? Some power and attention are built into my professional role. I teach, research, and initiate change; if I don't use power and attract attention I'm not doing my job. Nor do I think that power and attention are bad in themselves; they are tools that can be used for better or worse purposes. But they are dangerous, because they so powerfully reinforce the illusions of self. And I would lying if I claimed that I am not attached to these things.

My sense is that what I need to do is to learn to notice my attachment to power and attention when it arises, to see where that attachment comes from, and to ask "who is attached?". Not sure that's enough.

[Margaret]

My sense is that what I need to do is to learn to notice my attachment to power and attention when it arises, to see where that attachment comes from, and to ask "who is attached?". Not sure that's enough.

Heck of a start, though, Bill!

(Good to see you back and leading this discussion. Thanks.)

[Greg]

Bill,

My sense is that what I need to do is to learn to notice my attachment to power and attention when it arises, to see where that attachment comes from, and to ask "who is attached?". Not sure that's enough.

I am glad you found some resonance in my post. Longchenpa's advice relates to ways of countering behavior that are obstacles to joining with the lineage of accomplishment. Since it is so easy to lead a life that is meaningless, why waste time with pursuits that do not lead to that accomplishment.

It is a stew of perceptions isn't it?. Some activities have virtue, some do not. At an inner level self-deception is the king or queen's joker. The wild card is that ultimately meaning is transient, meaning today is folly tomorrow. I know that one well!

What to do about it? As you suggest Bill, it begins with recognition of our feelings arising in those circumstances. This is mindfulness. Watch the mind with knowledge of the nature of thought. We can then make a choice through volition that counters our habits and reactive behaviors. This is like the simile, like an old man watching children play.

At first I used the technique who is there, answering, nobody. We are so clever that it really doesn't work that well. Subtly we become, I am no one home, reifying another idea. I traveled that approach for a while. Then comes along just looking at the thought. What is this thought, rather than there is no one home to have this thought.

A thought comes: This praise I am receiving feels great. What is the nature of this feeling? Pffft...it is gone. A thought comes: This person is being a real jerk and slamming me. What is the nature of this thought? Pfft...it is gone. This is practice in the moment of arising, but it takes training. We all know this and we try as best we can. That's the main thing.

After some time watching the play of mind and exerting effort [fourth paramita] we become a little more tame. With that, if some taste of our clear nature has been felt, then mere recognition of thoughts that are useless and detrimental are recognized, as they are, in their place. No attendent question or antidote is necessary. This is like seeing the face of someone familiar. We recognize the thought as no different than our clear nature and it is liberated. Some effort is needed.

As we become free and spacious, thoughts arise and are self liberated without effort. This is like the simile of a snake uncoiling itself.

Finally, when deep decisive trust comes that all phenomena are the natural play of awareness itself, they come and go without leaving traces of benefit or harm. This is like a thief entering an empty house, nothing left to steal.

G