Comments on “No holiness—vastness!”

The confusing thing here is that the Dzogchen and Tantric ngondros are completely different.

A ngondro takes you from wherever you are to the base of a yana. The Tantric ngondro brings you to the base of Tantra, namely emptiness. The Dzogchen ngondro brings you to the base of of Dzogchen, namely rigpa.

The first phase of the Dzogchen ngondro (shi-ne) is equivalent in function to Sutra: its result is the realization of emptiness. (So it is also equivalent in function to the entire Tantric ngondro, although obviously its method is utterly different.)

The second and third phases of the Dzogchen ngondro (lhatong and nyimed) are together equivalent in function to Tantra itself: their result is the realization of non-duality (rigpa).

How long it takes to accomplish any of these things is up to the individual.

This is a thoughtful comment, to which I’m not sure I’ll be able to give an adequate response, at least not immediately. It concerns the nature of the teacher-student relationship in the Aro tradition, which is a subtle matter. Follow-up questions might be useful.

There’s two models of the teacher-student relationship one might have in mind. One is the Western university model; the other is an Eastern guru-disciple model. The Aro model is maybe somewhere inbetween.

In the Western model, the student in theory should challenge the teacher. “No, you are wrong—why should I believe that—it’s stupid.” (In practice, you’re likely to be punished if you do much of this, even when you are right, but never mind that.) In the Eastern model, the student should not question the teacher. “Whatever you say is the ultimate truth—if it seems wrong, I must be stupid/impure.”

The Aro teachers are open to any amount of questioning, so long as it is questioning. That is, as long it is motivated by a genuine desire to understand. Challenge is motivated by the desire to gain or maintain territory and engage in personal power dynamics. The Aro teachers are not willing to play those games.

If you want to ask about cowboy hats, or the function of mantra, the Aro teachers will be happy to explain in as much detail as you like. (Unless it’s at a public occasion where it would be off-topic.) In fact, I think they’d be delighted to talk for hours about those things, as long as you keep asking more questions.

If you come in with an attitude of “cowboy hats are ugly/stupid/not Buddhist/weird/whatever—prove I’m wrong”, they’ll say “it’s fine you feel that way—so you’ll probably be happier somewhere else, because we like them.”

I don’t know you well, but I think you may have a good insight about yourself there: that challenging orthodoxies may have become a fixed point of your identity. As fixed points go, it’s a good one, in my opinion; it’s frequently a useful function. But if it’s a compulsion—if you can’t let an orthodoxy go without wanting to comment on it—then it limits you.

“Content with whatever is now” is an essential Buddhist message, as I’m sure you know.

Rinpoche and I were once standing looking out over a sea cliff, and after a long silence, he said “At a certain point in life, you realize that there is nothing better than staring at the ocean.”

an accomplished person should be able to stare at a pile of rotting bodies from a battle and feel the same. Or does neither Duality nor Non-Duality insight bring one back to liking Ocean views just like the average Joe?

Yes to both. The Vajrayana view is that enlightenment does not extinguish preferences, so one might prefer to stare at the sea, other things being equal. But one also should enjoy staring at rotting corpses. And one can practice toward that.

It’s interesting that you chose this example, because sitting at night in an open charnel ground (in which corpses were abandoned to rot or be eaten) is a central Tantric practice. It’s hard to find a proper charnel ground nowadays, unfortunately. A hospital emergency ward is a decent substitute, I have heard. Aro students have practiced at the burning ghats in Varanasi, where corpses are burned on open pyres. Not as good as an exhumed mass grave after a banana republic atrocity, but one has to work with the opportunities that are available.

This practice is woven all through Buddhism for Vampires. There’s not much there on the topic yet, but you might find interesting “Disgust as Buddhist Practice“. Disgust is closely related to horror, and is part of what I expect one would feel staring at a pile of rotting corpses from a battle. And I do start out talking about the taste of rotting human bodies…

I don’t know of any mention of the ox-herding pictures by Aro teachers. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, whose view is similar in many respects, did write a commentary on them. I don’t recall where, I’m afraid.

I know much less about Zen than about Vajrayana. However, I gather it describes itself as going beyond Sutra (whose end-point is emptiness). That seems to be the point of the last three pictures: the return to form from emptiness. A related Zen saying is “first there is a mountain; then there is no mountain; then again there is a mountain.”

“Return to form” isn’t an Aro thing—it’s characteristic of all Vajrayana.

The following analogy should NOT be taken seriously; it’s impressionistic, misleading in some ways, and based on my very sketchy knowledge of Zen.

Sometimes Hina, Maha, and Tantra yana are likened to an ox cart, a school bus, and a zillion-dollar sports car. Hinayana is plodding and utilitarian, but eventually gets you there. Mahayana is a bit faster, and you take a slew of other people with you. Tantra is fast, flashy, and dangerous. If you don’t know what you are doing, you’ll crash and die (and maybe take a slew of other people with you).

Let’s say “ordinary vision” is a flat plain. At the edge of the plain a mountain range rises: the mountains of emptiness. Sutra takes you to the foot of the mountains. You gaze at them and are considered enlightened.

Zen, Tantra, and Dzogchen all take you into the wilderness land beyond. But they have quite different approaches.

What lies beyond emptiness? And how do you get there?

Zen says: Ah, that is a great mystery. Climb the mountain, grasshopper, and you will know. To say more would be sacreligious. Enlightenment is ineffable.

Tantra is impatient with that. You could wander around on foot, get lost, almost certainly get nowhere. Tantra gives you a fast car and a detailed road atlas. You zoom off through the mountain pass, and follow the map precisely to get to a well-defined destination. If you deviate from the prescribed route, you hurtle over a cliff and are never heard from again.

Dzogchen says: that misses the point. There is nowhere special to get to. The point is to enjoy the walk and the scenery. If you’re driving so fast, you’ll miss seeing the landscape, because you are paying attention to the road instead, and you are concentrating on the supposed future destination, not the strange and wonderful rocks and flora and fauna.

Dzogchen gives you a sketch map with some major points of interest, and a big bag of tools you’ll find useful when walking in the wilderness. (Unlike Zen, which doesn’t seem to give you much in the way of resources or guidance beyond the foothills of emptiness.) Then you’re off, heading in whatever direction takes your fancy.

No; what did I write that gave you that misimpression?

Oh, I see! Thank you very much for explaining.

By “they may do something you think no holy person ever should,” the emphasis is on “holy.” The Aro gTér teachers are unlikely to do anything that would be considered immoral by mainstream Western standards for regular people. In particular, the lineage places a very high value on monogamy, and there have been no cases of sexual misconduct by teachers that I know of, or that ever been publicly alleged.

The Lamas are likely to do things that might be considered shocking for priests.

They may have political/social/cultural opinions you would find offensive. There is a diversity of political/social/cultural opinions among the group; some are on the left, and some on the right. They do not find political disagreement to be a problem. If you a strongly committed to either the left or the right being exclusively “right,” their attitude that disagreement is a non-problem will be a problem for you.

They are generally enthusiastic about sex (within the bounds of a monogamous relationship). They drink alcohol with gusto. Many own guns and enjoy shooting them at paper targets. They eat meat and might kill their own dinner.

The Aro lineage is not a “safe place.” It’s challenging and difficult and there are some risks. However, the standard ones (sexual and financial exploitation) are not among them.

I re-read the post, which I hadn’t done in ages. I wrote it more than a decade ago, partly addressing particular circumstances that aren’t relevant any more. I’m not really happy with it now; I’d like to revise it, but that doesn’t seem the most important thing.

It was only meant to be about purity and impurity, which have some unique issues around them. Good and bad are a bit different, although similar enough that probably somewhat similar things could be said. On the other hand, note my comment above, also from more than a decade ago:

The Vajrayana view is that enlightenment does not extinguish preferences, so one might prefer to stare at the sea, other things being equal. But one also should enjoy staring at rotting corpses.