THE SNOW LION NEWSLETTER

Introduction The Tibetan Buddhist perception of time has always been greatly divergent from that of the West. Tibetan Buddhists view time as a cycle called a "kalpa," or "eon," in which the Buddhist Teachings, as well as people's good qualities and their ability to put the Teachings into practice, are impermanent. The modern era is viewed as the end of a cycle of Teachings, or a "degenerate" time as it is translated from Tibetan. Traditionally, this is thought to mean that the purity of the Teachings, as well as people's ability to put them into practice, is at risk of declining. In order to safeguard the purity of the Teachings for as long as possible, many realized yogis and emanations of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who lived in India and Tibet made prophecies about what this period would be like. To establish the groundwork for a discussion of the Union of Dzogchen and Bodhichitta, I would first like to discuss three of the prophecies that were made about the modern era.

Anyen Rinpoche

The first prophecy said that during the degenerate age, the Teachings of Dzogchen (a method for realizing the nature of mind) would be known to many, while the practice of generating Bodhichitta (the determination to gain ultimate realization for oneself for the sake of benefiting all sentient beings) would be known by only a few. In Tibet, the practices of taking Bodhichitta as the method aspect of the path and Dzogchen as the wisdom aspect of the path have always been practiced as indivisible components of one path. If we examine the history of Vajrayana Buddhism, we will find that this has been consistently the case throughout the ages. Even the great yogis responsible for maintaining the Teachings in India and Tibet, such as Garab Dorje, Shri Simha, and Padmasambhava, meditated on the Outer, Inner, and Secret Teachings in union. It is often said by Tibetans that to practice the Secret Teachings divorced from the Outer and Inner Teachings would be like trying to build a house on a block of ice.

This brings us to the second prophecy. Both Buddha Shakyamuni and Padmasambhava prophesied that one day the Buddhist Teachings would pervade the world and that the Teachings would even be practiced in countries that had not traditionally been Buddhist. Personally, this prophecy has always given me great hope, for it is only through spiritual awakening that we will find peace not only on a personal level, but also on a global scale. Indeed, these days there are thousands of new Buddhist practitioners throughout the world, and a vast redirecting of energy towards spirituality.

Finally, these first two prophecies intersect with yet a third. It was said that even in this degenerate time, many people would be able to attain realization from the Vajrayana Teachings if they were put into practice properly. Of course, the word "properly" leaves much room for interpretation. In a time when Tibetan Buddhism can no longer rely upon its traditional context to shape the way in which the Teachings are practiced, it may seem unclear exactly how we are supposed to practice and apply the Teachings in our lives today.

In fact, many of my students have come to me with such concerns weighing on their minds. They have read about the history of Vajrayana Buddhism and examined the instructions laid out by the foundational texts, but they often tell me that they feel unsure about or even discouraged by them. They cannot spend their lives in retreat like the great yogis of the past. And they do not understand how to bring the nonmaterialistic Teachings of the Dharma into their lives, whose circumstances are necessarily conditioned by the modern culture of materialism and the established "system." I try to assure students that there is no need to worry; there are innumerable ways to put the wisdom of the Buddhist Teachings into practice in their everyday lives. But one thing is for certain: there is great confusion about how to merge contemporary Western life with the Dharma.

The Union of Dzogchen and Bodhichitta
The approach I take to Dharma practice is very simple, yet this approach should not be taken to undermine the profundity of the Buddhadharma. This approach is based on the instructions I received from my own root Lama, Khenchen Tsara Dharmakirti Rinpoche, the experiences I have had in my life, and many long years of study and solitary retreat. It is my conclusion that the style of Dharma practice that the great yogis and practitioners of India and Tibet have relied upon up until now has been holistic in nature, and I believe that this approach is still the best one to take today. Logically speaking, the Outer, Inner, and Secret Teachings are fundamentally interconnected and should be adopted and practiced as one path. In fact, they are so fundamentally interconnected that it is actually difficult to give Teachings on one without including the others. This interconnection—along with the "Union" which is the perfect, uncontrived view and the "Union" which is the nature of mind itself—is what I like to call the Union of Dzogchen and Bodhichitta.

Often, when people hear the words "Outer, Inner, and Secret Teachings," they want to associate them with one concept or another, such as the three vehicles of the Hinayana, the Mahayana, and the Vajrayana. When translated from Sanskrit, the words Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana mean the "lesser, great, and indestructible vehicles," and "vehicle" refers to the method or the path used to cross the ocean of samsara. But associating the Outer, Inner, and Secret Teachings with distinct concepts is not what I have in mind. In fact, associating the Teachings with concepts is precisely what can lead us away from putting them into practice properly. This is because as soon as we begin to talk about the Dharma in terms of duality, it becomes exclusive, such that one necessary component can easily be dismissed, ignored, or subordinated in terms of importance to practice. This suggests that the Dharma is not holistic in nature, but instead that each practitioner may be selective about what they study and practice, thus putting some Teachings into practice while neglecting others, on the basis of assumptions made about the importance of different aspects of the Dharma.

The same thing has happened since the introduction of the Buddhist Teachings into Western pop culture. Many of the more subtle ideas of Buddhist thought, whose understanding requires deep explanations and years of contemplative experience, have been reduced to sound bites and images: simple ideas that are easy to digest and seem easy to realize if we could just remember them. These packaged ideas appear to be spiritual in nature but have lost the essential meaning conveyed by the Teachings as a whole. One example of this is the commonly spoken idea that "Everything is One." This idea has its basis in the nature of "suchness," or reality "as it is," which is quite a profound state of realization. However, it has been taken out of context and oversimplified. It is like a beautiful, empty shell that is not capable of pointing us in the right direction or providing us with the means for realization.

In order to truly understand the Union of Dzogchen and Bodhichitta, the Dharma as we have come to know it in the West has to be fundamentally reconsidered. The Union of Dzogchen and Bodhichitta is the path in its totality, a synthesis of the Teachings without losing any of the meaning. Although it is useful in other situations, for this particular discussion, associating the Teachings with dualistic concepts would only distract us from their essential meaning. We must take up the entire path as an interconnected entity of which every single part is given equal importance. This is actually the true meaning of the word "Dzogchen," which can be translated literally as "the great perfection." Some people interpret this to mean that the nature of mind is perfect, or that the realization gained from the Teachings is perfect, and these things may also be true. But actually, Dzogchen is perfect because it is all-inclusive; it is the totality of the path that leads one to realization.

Rather than present the Dharma as a linear path as is often done in many foundational texts, I would instead like to present it here as three facets of an interrelated system whose parts must be practiced simultaneously if they are to lead to the perfect result. These three facets are the Outer, Inner, and Secret Teachings, which are distinguished as separate elements only by the cognitive construct of words, and which completely encompass the wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism.

Anyen Rinpoche, a tulku from Amdo, is a Tibetan master of Dzogchen as well as a seasoned scholar. He has taught extensively in Tibet, China, Japan, North America, and Southeast Asia, and now lives near Denver.

To read more about Anyen Rinpoche, visit:   www.snowlionpub.com/pages/Anyen_Rinpoche.html