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THE SNOW LION BUDDHIST NEWS & CATALOG
Lama Surya Das
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Catching Dzogchen: An Interview with Lama Surya Das
"Dzogchen can't be taught, but it can be caught," says top-selling author and teacher Surya Das, of the Tibetan path of directly seeing the empty, luminous nature of Buddha Mind. In this interview, he talks about the transmission from his own root guru, Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche—teacher of Dzogchen texts to many great masters, including H.H. the Dalai Lama and Sogyal Rinpoche.
Christine Cox: Let's talk about the possibility of a direct awakening into what already is. Dzogchen and Mahamudra focus on it, as do many of the Zen traditions.
Surya Das: Mahamudra and Dzogchen naked awareness practices are very integrative—in the sense that you can use them at any time, in any position, without esoteric initiations and mantras, tantras, yantras and so on. They're meditation with one's eyes open!
CC: The practices used to be somewhat secret, weren't they?
SD: They used to be held as esoteric teachings for initiates only. But Nyoshul Rinpoche and Dudjom Rinpoche and others said, really, anyone can understand this, especially people with acute faculties and high acumen. Chokyi Nyima's father would say "Bring me the scientists—they can understand Dzogchen." He meant that if you can understand the principle of Occam's Razor—that the simplest and most elegant explanation is often the closest to the heart of the matter—you can get Dzogchen.
That's why I wrote Natural Great Perfection, gathering Nyoshul Khen's very potent teachings because they are such a direct way to introduce us to who we truly are: the enlightened Buddha Nature that is within all of us. Not just Buddhists, not just humans, but all beings.
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CC: It's an encouraging thought: that people can be awakened by reading something at the right moment.
SD: I hope that people would get the transmission of the awakened mind from it—that's the purpose of this kind of book. I know it's possible! People can get startled into a new way of seeing and being.
Really, Dzogchen can't be taught, but it can be caught. And actually people do catch on. And when they catch on, they wake up, and they have an insight of their own Buddha Nature and their inseparability from the Buddha Mind.
CC: Which is your favorite piece in the book?
SD: The one I always use in the first days of the intensive meditation retreats that I run is The Vajra Mirror of Mindfulness. Nyoshul Rinpoche wrote it with a magic marker on a roll of paper towels, because he couldn't find paper, and tacked it on the inside of the gate at a three-year retreat center. It's a pivotal teaching about the importance of awareness that we bring to everything—washing the dishes or being in retreat.
Awareness is curative. Awareness is the essence of Buddhist practice, which is not just meditation with our legs crossed, and our fingers crossed, hoping to get enlightened. Without it, we're just parroting prayers.
CC: Somewhere you mentioned "the koan of everyday life," referring to the the mind-opening puzzlers—what is the sound of one hand clapping?—that Zen masters presented to their students. I like the idea that all life is like that.
SD: If I could further formulate it, it's "What is the Buddha in everyday life?" Talking right now on the phone, having an interview. Where is the Buddha now? The koan of daily life is formulated by whatever you're experiencing this moment. That is a very wonderful and vast and profound koan that we're all working out all the time. But often we don't hold it as a koan, so we don't go beyond the conceptual level to make a leap to a different way of seeing and being—a breakthrough, an awakening.
CC: It has similarities to Dzogchen practice.
SD: It does. It's about how to realize your Buddha Nature whatever you're doing. Driving your car. Or arguing with your wife [laughs].
CC: Nyoshul Khen was a widely acknowledged teacher of Longchen Nyingthig—the heart of Dzogchen. And, of course, he presents a lot of that material in the book you did together. I heard that he gave some of these teachings to HH the Dalai Lama?
SD: He taught the Dalai Lama several times. Sogyal was very devoted to him and brought him to his students. The great lamas raved about his Dzogchen teachings, because they were so experiential. He was such a gifted teacher—and not every lama is.
CC: What was the high point of your relationship?
SD: It was all a high point, really. I don't know how pungent you want to get, but even carrying his piss-pot was a high point. He was such a crazy wisdom master. Just to be in his presence was joy.
CC: That joy erupted into his vajra songs. What makes such songs so potent as teaching tools?
SD: It's because they're condensed—an elixir of the wisdom mind of the enlightened yogis. They come forth spontaneously. Vajra songs are like fresh wisdom, the moist breath of the dakinis in a present generation.
Nagarajuna, Milarepa, Gampopa, Karmapa, and Yeshe Tsogyal all sang vajra songs as the inspiration of enlightenment.
CC: And have you been moved to sing such songs?
SD: Yes.
CC: What is the inner experience of that?
SD: It feels like it's not me doing it; it just comes through. It's in the spirit of the moment—a combination of the moment, whoever's there, the teaching, the students, the situation.
It's a naked spiritual spontaneous arising. It's a delight. And it's a delight not to be in one's head all the time, to let things happen as they happen. Like sumi-e (one-stroke) brush painting, it's a great practice also. Many of the yogis and masters practice this, without taking it too seriously—you don't have to do 100,000 songs. But people, including myself, get a lot out of it.
CC: You've had quite a trajectory—from self-described New York jock to best-selling author and singer of vajra songs.
SD: When I was 19 my best friend's girlfriend, Allison Krause, was killed at Kent State by the National Guard while protesting the secret bombings in Cambodia. That really turned my head around.
But I was always a big questioner—I was a skeptical New Yorker! Kalu Rinpoche, my refuge lama, nicknamed me—in Tibetan—"The Ocean of Questions."
And my message has always been: If I can do it, you can do it.
CC: It's clear in your work how much you care about making the teachings accessible for Western students.
SD: I was happy to hear the 17th Karmapa recently speak of the importance of both preservation AND adaptation. We all have to be a bridge to the next generation. Bridges need to be walked over; that's the hard part sometimes, but it's to support others, which is the bodhisattva way.
The bodhisattva knows how to practice being there while getting there, every step of the way. That's the joy of the path. That's what I love about Dzogchen.
As I always say, Dzogchen is more fun. Light. Joyous. It's marvelous. I love it.
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More about Lama Surya Das . . .
Lama Surya Das is an author, meditation teacher, poet, and founder of the Dzogchen Meditation Center. He is an American-born lama trained in the Tibetan tradition, and author of Buddha is As Buddha Does, Awakening the Buddha Within, and others.
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Books by Lama Surya Das
Lama Surya Das is the author/contributor to several books and recordings, including:
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