Duality in Buddhism

[jonesboy]

From Chogyal Norbu - Collected Talks Vol. 3

In the Dzogchen teaching, all this which presents itself
as vision, as possible contact, is part of our own energy. If
that's so, if this is our own energy, how is it possible that
it is presented in a situation of subject and object? This is
the condition that we say arises from dualism. And we
understand this through the example or illustration of the
mirror. Let's take the mirror which is defined by its
capacity to reflect. And this, therefore, this capacity, is
an inherent characteristic or qualification of the mirror as
such. And through that qualification, through that
characteristic which makes it a mirror, it reflects ugly
things or beautiful things.

The mirror reflects because before it there is some, let
us say, object. The object being reflected and the reflection
of that object are what we call interdependent. For us, there
is some kind of consideration like "that's real" and "that's
not real", because we think of the object as being real and
the reflection as not being real. But that very object which
is being reflected is also a reflection. It's a reflection of
our famous karma. Therefore, it is called our karmic vision.

Every individual has accumulated many different passions
and where there's a cause, there will be an effect, and that's
how karmic vision arises. And there are many different ways
of being, each of which has its own karmic vision. Karmic
vision of the universe of a dog doesn't correspond to that of
a human being. What is called the vision of a preta, a hungry
ghost, doesn't correspond to the vision of the universe of a
human being. Each kind of being has its concrete kind of
vision. But that vision, that concrete surrounding universe,
exists concretely for that being only as long as it remains
that being, as long as it has that karmic vision.

[jonesboy]

But karma is not considered simply that when one is born,
one has accumulated certain karmic causes. It's not
considered that one's karma is only since one's birth. There
are people who ask "Now, I've never harmed anybody, but I'm
always in trouble. I'm always having a hell of a time. How
is that explained?" We don't consider that all the
difficulties that a person has, or the problems they run into,
are the results of karma. In such a case, one has to
understand very clearly what is meant by karma.

But also there's not merely the karma of this life,
there's also karma that's been accumulated in preceeding time.
It's not that our human birth is our ultimate origin. Because
being a human being is itself a karmic vision. So, that
implies necessarily that one has acquired a preceeding karma.
One doesn't know when one enters human vision whether one has
not perhaps had another prior existence in another karmic
vision. We don't know what those prior lives have been.

We don't know how many karmic causes are operating in
each of us. In any case, you can be quite sure that every
individual has many, many karmic causes accumulated, above
all, karma which has a capacity to produce some consequence
through our passions, above all, through what are called our
four or five passions. Certainly it's not being said that
there's only the passions and that's all. It's not being said
that those are the only passions. On the contrary, they speak
of 85,000 passions. But this is simply a way of saying the
plural, that there are many, many. It's a way of giving
emphasis to how many there are. Because we don't know, when
we think of the universe, how many types of being, how many
types of passions, might exist. So, it's not so easy to
define a precise number.

What we know in general are our principal passions. And
all of them have some similarity. All of us have some
similarity. Take anybody, any person, you go up to him and
punch him in the face. He gets mad. You take a club and
sneak up behind a horse and swat it. It'll give you a kick.
So it's not just the human being. Also animals get angry.
So, rage is one of the passions, and as we know, all of us,
more or less similarly, have this passion. The same is true
of attachment; the human being or the animal, we all have it.
So, we can say that there are common passions, similar
passions, for all.

[jonesboy]

But not only this also that we accumulate. Every
individual between morning and evening gets mad anyway four or
five times, two or three times during the course of the day
feels pangs of jealousy, a bit of attachment. In short, every
day we accumulate some of these passions. If we only
accumulate one of these passions once a day, by the end of the
year we've accumulated a great deal. So it takes no effort at
all to accumulate passions all one's life. And for these
reasons, our karma of passions becomes very, very strong. And
when there are these causes, certainly they correspond to
certain karmic visions. And this karmic vision always begins
just as a trace. But when one has accumulated a great deal of
it, it becomes heavier and heavier, even if one knows very
well that the principle at work is not some concreteness which
actually exists.

In the Mahayana Sutras of Buddhism, they speak constantly
of the illusory nature of everything. Illusion is illusion.
Why? Because this is a karmic vision. It's not real. If one
has purified the causes, this vision dissolves, disappears.
The cause takes with it the vision. But if one doesn't purify
it, one keeps accumulating. Then this karmic vision becomes
ever stronger, ever heavier. And so, our karmic vision is a
little like water that solidifies into ice. While it's water,
one can enter into it, one can bathe in it, one can move
through it, or make use of it. But when the water has become
ice, it's become something hard. You want to dive into the
ice, BOOM, and you break your head. Because it' s become
something concrete. So, in that way, our illusory vision has
become for us something quite concrete.

So, our dualistic vision, our sense of subject and
object, at this point has become something extremely dense and
resistant. But when one understands that, when one lives in
knowledge, then there's also a way of dissolving the ice.
There's a way of transcending or overcoming this karmic
vision. To melt the ice, to dissolve it back into water, the
most powerful means is contemplation. But until you succeed
in doing contemplation, it's best to slowly transform or to
prevent water from turning into ice.

[jonesboy]

That is, there are many, many methods and means. And
these are called the teachings. This means that, above all,
that one has understood the base and understood how the energy
of the base works. And then there's a way of working with
that. So, for this reason, one has to understand that in the
teaching of Dzogchen, the explanation and understanding of how
the energy of the individual manifests is something very
important. If one doesn't understand how energy manifests,
then there's no way one can reintegrate.

Thus, when one enters into a teaching, one always at
first practices in a very dualistic way, with a dualistic
understanding. First of all one thinks "Now, this teaching,
what god or divinity does it offer? What kind of prayer do I
have to say? And what's the way I have to pray?" Everybody
learns in that fashion. That means you're still very, very
far from the teaching. That doesn't mean if you say a prayer
that it won't work. There are prayers and divinities and the
like, and there are always possibilities of using them.
But in the teaching of Dzogchen, one who pursues that
kind of path is still very far from the primordial state.

[jonesboy]

When an individual is not aware, and the secondary causes
present themselves, he can have his karmas ripen. But if one
says "Ah well, that was my karma. It just had to mature or be
used up. There was nothing to be done", that means that the
individual is ignorant, or neglectful, of secondary causes and
how to cope with them. If I'm conscious about secondary
causes, I can very easily block karma from ripening. To
impede karma from ripening, to prevent its maturation, doesn't
mean that it's gone. Karma is still there.

But here comes another step. If the individual is
conscious, he can also completely remove this cause. To
remove the cause, to remove karmic causes, one must perform
purification. In this case, there are many, many ways of
doing purification. There is a Sutric system, for example,
where one largely works with the material, physical, body,
like Milarepa building the tower for Marpa, and like many
practicers who do many, many prostrations. There are many
practicers who went all the way from Eastern Tibet to Central
'l'ibet by prostrations. So there are ways at this level of
conducting purification and accumulating positive causes.

But then there are also methods of purification that
make use of slightly greater capacity of the individual. In
Tantrism, for example at the Yogatantra level, there is
visualization that enables one to prepare oneself to receive
and then to obtain purification through Vajrasattva, for
example. Visualizing Vajrasattva and then emerging from him a
nectar which purifies and washes away all impediments and
obstacles. This is a very widely used method for purification
because the Yogatantra and the Kriyatantra employ methods that
are based above all on purification.

But there are still higher methods, as in the higher
Tantras, the Anuttaratantra. For example, purification
through visualization of the channels and chakras and through
breathing practice, what's called reciting a mantra, whether
it be aloud by the voice, or through breathing it, and through
working more with one's energy. Thus there exists
purification working more with concentration such as the one
we've just spoken of, the purification of the six lokas. So
there are many, many ways to do purification.

[Phaelyn]

Are we allowed to post large excerpts from books here? I'd love to do it but then the rules posted in first thread here say:

Copy-Paste: One or two lines at most of relevant text of material from other sites or sources and a link to the relevant text for further reading is allowed on the condition that the author is credited and the source linked is not a commercial site (promoting or selling goods or services). Quotes of religious texts such as the Bible or Quran must also be no more than one or two lines. Posts that quote or copy-paste more than one or two short lines of text will be removed or edited. Repeatedly breaching this rule will lead to warnings and possible Disciplinary Action

[Phaelyn]

I searched on :Chogyal Norbu - Collected Talks Vol. 3, and could not find any free versions online.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Phaelyn

Are we allowed to post large excerpts from books here? I'd love to do it but then the rules posted in first thread here say:



Am I allowed to post book excepts from authors I like here?

Maybe some are allowed to be copied and pasted here like the Chogyal Norbu - Collected Talks posted here and maybe not others? I'm not sure how I would find out whats allowed though so I don't do it.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander, I suppose?

[jonesboy]

I have asked for permission... years ago.