|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SPIRITUALITY AND RELIGION PAGE 2
Dzogchen (Tibetan Buddhist) practices of dream yoga and clear light are discussed. Four Hindu yoga paths are examined: karma, bhakti, jnana and raja. Christian and Judaic teachings of compassion and monotheism are also explored.
Practically speaking, Dzogchen is essentially a rather esoteric form of Tibetan Buddhism. In this context, it represents the meeting of Tantric (Vajrayana) Buddhism—which traces its roots to ancient India and Hinduism—and Bon, a tradition of native Tibetan shamanism. Dzogchen is often called, in fact, Highest Yoga Tantra, its practices belonging within the highest level of the Vajrayana hierarchy. Practitioners of Dzogchen, however, emphasize that this discipline is a unique teaching unto itself. To illustrate Dzogchen's relation to other Buddhist teachings, we can borrow a passage from Build A Better Buddha:
|
BOOK EXCERPT |
|
All these schools agree on the self-evident fact that desire is the root of suffering, but one of the fundamental ways in which these schools differ is in their particular approach to working with desire. THERAVADA AND MAHAYANA In the Theravada and Mahayana teachings, desire is basically a hot potato. Theravada is known as the "Path of Renunciation" because the practitioner systematically renounces, or gives up, negative habits and tendencies. For this reason, there are all sorts of rules and regulating vows in the sutras (scriptures based on the Buddha’s teaching), making it a rather ascetic path. VAJRAYANA (TANTRA)
DZOGCHEN In Dzogchen, the hot potato is handled just as it is. It is neither avoided nor cooled down. The desires are not purified in Dzogchen, they are simply allowed to run their natural course and "self-liberate." Unlike in the other Buddhist schools, there is nothing to reject or transform in Dzogchen, no formal vows or commitments required of the practitioner. Sex is not particularly utilized for spiritual purposes—nor is it particularly avoided. |
In addition to its unique handling—or not really handling—of desire, Dzogchen claims its teaching manifest in a highly esoteric form.
|
SUTRA teachings are scriptures which purport to be direct accounts of the Buddha's words, the various teachings, sermons, etc., he gave in his lifetime. |
|
TANTRIC teachings supposedly manifest on the astral plane where they can be read and later transmitted by highly evolved practitioners. |
|
Although DZOGCHEN teachings purportedly manifest in a similar way, their essence is somehow fundamentally different. In many ways, the Dzogchen teachings are not so much specific teachings as they are the mold for all spiritual teachings. As such, they are said to be present from the beginning of time—before the beginning even. |
Unlike Sutric and Tantric teachings, Dzogchen teachings can't exactly be discovered, nor can the be lost or forgotten, because they are somehow omnipresent, conveyed through both "pure" and "impure" means without the need for refinement, translation, etc.
Another of Dzogchen's most singular aspects is its claims that enlightenment can be attained in a single lifetime. Although there are many, and varyingly complex layers, to this claim, there are two primary aspects which seem to contribute to Dzogchen's efficiency or directness:
|
DREAM AND SLEEP PRACTICE |
|
This is a complex system of practices which are sometimes referred to as sleep or dream yoga. In such practices, the sleep or dream yogi learns to maintain a kind of waking consciousness in these states. In doing so, he or she learns to experience the direct nature of liberation, the incredibly subtle essence of enlightenment itself. With sufficient practice and spiritual maturity, the Dzogchen practitioner can realize the clear light state—the primordial source or base of all consciousness or awareness—in a relatively short time. |
The Tibetans often speak of bardo states, or "in-between" states. When we drift into sleep each night, for example, we enter the bardo between waking consciousness. We essentially lose ourselves from one day to the next, our experience of the self being discontinuous due to our lack of conscious presence in sleep. Similarly, say the Tibetans, death is a bardo state. It represents a murky loss of awareness in between separate incarnations or lives. In learning to maintain our awareness in the bardo of sleep and dream, then, we are ultimately preparing ourselves to remain conscious throughout the bardo of death. Somehow maintaining our individual presence in this state, we can attain ultimate liberation or, at the very least, consciously choose a favorable rebirth for ourselves.
View James' upcoming lectures and seminars on lucid dreaming
To address this paradoxical aspect of Dzogchen, we turn, once again, to Build A Better Buddha:
|
BOOK EXCERPT |
|
After exploring a variety of Eastern spiritual systems including Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and many others, I came across the Tibetans. I was amazed to find an incredibly detailed account in Tibetan literature describing the clear light experience. The literature spoke of the sound, rays, and light manifesting as one cohesive experience of flowing mandalas and so forth—the exact phenomenon I had first witnessed as a child. According to the Tibetans, such experiences, which can arise both in meditation and in sleeping states, were a kind of direct peek into the natural mind. The experience is typically illustrated as a cloudy sky clearing so that we can see the sun, which has been shining the whole time; which brings us to the moral of the story: the complete naturalness of the individual’s relation to the whole, or One Self.
The essence of Dzogchen is that of spontaneous self-perfection. The bowling ball is already rolling down the hill, says Dzogchen, so what else is there to do but sit back and watch as it reaches its ultimate, perfectly harmonious destination? Imagine a caterpillar gradually transforming into a butterfly. Does the caterpillar work to make this happen? Not exactly—not unless you want to consider a caterpillar just being a caterpillar work. Such is the paradoxical "method" of Dzogchen. If you simply be who you are, do what you do, then you are already well on the way to realizing your caterpillar self as a butterfly. CLOSER THAN CLOSE Dzogchen is already so close to us, it is said, that we tend to overlook it. The best meditation, according to Dzogchen, is no meditation. Here is where a lot of us are likely to get confused. Dzogchen, like Zen and Taoism—and all other spiritual paths at their most genuine, esoteric core—tends to be so elusive because it sounds too good to be true. The idea of "practice makes perfect" is so deeply ingrained in our collective psyches that we are very suspicious when someone comes along and says, "Hey! Guess what! Being makes perfect, not practice." It is amazingly simple. Want to discover what your most effective "meditation" or "practice" is? You need only look to those things in your life that you already enjoy. Look to those things you do just because. You also have to look to those things we don’t enjoy, look to those things we do because it seems like we have no other choice. Pleasant or unpleasant, desirable or undesirable, it’s all living, all being. There is only one possible direction along the spiritual path, that is to say: onward, forever closer to total Christ-consciousness or complete self-liberation. |
Hinduism is, some would say, the world's most ancient and sprawling religion. Its scriptures and teachings are voluminous and wide-ranging, addressing everything from science and history to philosophy, art and, of course, spirituality. Comparatively speaking, the Hindu teachings are uniquely inclusive rather than exclusive. One of its early Vedas (a body of Hindu scriptures) openly recognizes the universality of the spiritual path: "Truth is one; sages call it by different names."
|
The deepest layers of the Hindu teachings are in fundamental agreement with those of Buddhism, which later sprang from a relatively degraded form of Hinduism. As in Buddhism, Hinduism stresses the necessity of letting go our compulsive attachment to, and fascination with, the ego or the self, so that we can realize The Self, or selflessness—what Hindus call the Atman or Brahman. |
The deepest layers of the Hindu teachings are in fundamental agreement with those of Buddhism, which later sprang from a relatively degraded form of Hinduism. As in Buddhism, Hinduism stresses the necessity of letting go our compulsive attachment to, and fascination with, the ego or the self, so that we can realize The Self, or selflessness—what Hindus call the Atman or Brahman.
At more surface layers, however, Hinduism sharply contrasts with traditional Buddhism in that it fancies ornate ritual and iconography. If Buddhists are the Protestants of Eastern religion, Hindus are the Catholics.
One of the most unique aspects of Hinduism is its emphasis on four distinct paths, or yogas, toward realization. Yoga, it should be emphasized, does not necessarily refer to the system of physical exercises with which Westerners are familiar—what the Hindus refer to as hatha yoga. Rather, yoga loosely refers to any systematic path of spiritual practice. The four Hindu yogas are:
|
This is the path to realization through knowledge. In this context, however, knowledge does not refer to academic learning or intelligence. Rather, jnana refers to direct experience of The Self through a kind of self-evident introspection. It is not exactly meditation, not exactly study. Being the most direct—and therefore most loosely structured and difficult to articulate—jnana yoga is typically considered the most difficult path to realization. |
|
This is the path of love and devotion. It emphasizes the recognition of the divine in our fellow beings and, thereby, encourages a path of selfless service. In this respect, bhakti yoga is very similar to the Christian path. Moreover, bhakti yoga centers around a seeker's devotional relationship with a sat guru, a fully-realized individual. |
|
This is the path of work, the path of resolving personal conflicts and unfinished business within the external world. When we work to mend interpersonal relationships, for example, we are practicing karma yoga—"doing unto others," as Jesus said, "as we would have them do unto us." Our vocations, family circumstances and all other life situations are also a part of this karma yoga. To the degree that we resolve our karma—an accomplishment which is often misunderstood as accumulating positive karma—the Hindus believe we will achieve higher and higher successive incarnations, each more facilitating of spiritual progress than the last. The ultimate goal of karma yoga, then, is to resolve all karma—a state which no longer requires rebirth but allows one to finally dissolve into, and identify with, the formless Self, or Brahman. |
|
This is the path of meditation. It includes certain physical considerations such as maintaining a proper diet, regulated sleeping patterns and hatha yoga—those physical exercises most Westerners think of as simply "yoga." In addition to disciplining the body, raja yoga also facilitates the disciplining of the mind. Various forms of concentration and contemplation meditation are practiced, ultimately seeking to dissolve all boundaries between mind, body and spirit, or I, Other and God. |
Approximately one out three individuals worldwide identify themselves as Christians. This makes Christianity the largest and most widespread of the world's religions. As the vast majority of Westerners are familiar with the basic tenets of the Christian teachings, they will not be discussed in any detail here. Rather, the focus will be on Christianity's relationship to the other traditions examined on this page. Unfortunately, due to cultural and historical bias, simple ignorance and a multitude of other complex factors, both East and West often overlook the fundamental similarities among the teachings of Christ and those of other profound spiritual teachers and founders of various metaphysical paths. Although there are, without a doubt, many differences among the world's great religions, most of these differences, on closer inspection, boil down more to a mater of emphasis than they do essential disagreement. With this in mind, the following excerpt from Build A Better Buddha examines the core relationship between Buddhism and Christianity:
|
BOOK EXCERPT |
|
When we study a variety of metaphysical belief systems in earnest, from the ancient Upanishads to contemporary New Age works, we begin to notice that they all emphasize the same essential messages over and over: direct perception and compassion. Although all genuine spiritual paths necessitate a healthy balance of both these elements, most traditions tend to emphasize one more than the other. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism, for example, tend to emphasize direct perception as the "highest" path to self-liberation. Similarly, contemporary science, psychology, philosophy, and Native American belief systems typically center on this approach. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, on the other hand, tend to place more emphasis on the path of compassion and selfless service, as do contemporary humanitarian movements and secular charitable organizations. Unfortunately, these seemingly different approaches to the universally shared goal of total enlightenment or Christ consciousness often lead to considerable confusion and misunderstanding among followers of the various disciplines. Properly understood, direct perception and compassion, however contrasting they may appear at various stages along their respective paths, are in no ways mutually exclusive. Rather, when viewed from a larger perspective, perfect, direct perception is compassion. Perfect compassion is direct perception.Philosophical intricacies and metaphysical details aside, the key to all paths of genuine self-knowledge and freedom is contained in a few, incredibly simple words—the most basic, self-evident teachings of the historical Buddha and Christ. Contained therein is the original well, the purest, crystal-clear source, from which all other metaphysical streams continue to bubble and gurgle to this day. . . .
The emphasis of Christ’s message is, however, different from that of Buddha’s. Although all spiritual seekers share the goal of perfect self-knowledge and liberation, the methods taught by Buddha and Christ describe unique paths. Typically, the Buddhist cultivates direct perception, or bare awareness, through meditation and other solitary, inwardly-directed acts of focus and contemplation. The Christian path, by contrast, tends to be more externalized; the follower of Christ’s teachings makes acts of service and unconditional love his or her meditation. In striving to love one another with perfect, Christ-like compassion and understanding, we naturally grow to know one another as we really are, begin to encounter the divine presence the Christians call the "Holy Spirit" living deep within every being. As we merge with one another in love, we begin to see past our own desires, to directly experience the spontaneously perfected "other" person that once was hidden behind our own projections of prejudice, envy, and judgment. Consequently, in following Christ’s teaching of love, we begin to perceive our own, divine nature reflected back to us everywhere we look—in Buddhist terms, an act of direct perception of Chuang Tzu’s mysterious "source." |
|
To join James Robbins' free online newsletter, subscribe using box provided at left of page |
By 3000 B.C.E (the Jewish people prefer Before Common Era to Before Christ), Egypt and Sumer were already highly advanced and formidable world empires. Their Jewish contemporaries, however, were a tiny, inconsequential band of nomads wandering the Arabian desert. At this stage in history, that is to say, the Jewish people were far from significant in terms of population and land holdings. Nonetheless, the Hebrew culture went on to become the incredibly fertile springboard for both Christianity and Islam, two of the world's most populous, influential and fastest growing religions. To this day, the influence of the Hebrew intellectual, moral and artistic traditions is pervasive throughout the world, the Western world in particular. It might be said that, in terms of population, there has been—and continues to be—a significantly disproportionate number of Jewish individuals at the forefront of science, philosophy and the arts. Interestingly, upon a close analysis of Hebrew socio-political history, there is no one single event or group of events that readily explains how this tiny, relatively overlooked cultural minority could have such an enormous influence on world, and specifically religious and intellectual, history.
|
In many ways, the Hebrew culture is founded less upon ideas than it is actions. Whereas similar Western religions such as Christianity articulate a rather official "creed," the Jewish faith has resisted doing so, consistently favoring ritual, ethics and rich cultural tradition rather than abstract beliefs. |
One of the primary uniting elements of the Jewish faith, in fact, seems to be its emphasis on ritualized ceremonies for deeply cultural events such as birthdays, weddings and funerals. In this way, the Hebrew tradition has much in common with Eastern traditions such as Hinduism and certain varieties of Buddhism, which likewise de-emphasize official belief systems in favor of concrete, and often elaborate and highly specialized, cultural behaviors, idiosyncrasies and activities. The Hebrew influence on Western culture, then, is at once familiar, pervasive and somehow exotic and "old world."
CLICK HERE to view related upcoming events in your area
Even so, the most accessible facets of the Jewish faith to non-Jewish peoples are likely its rather loose conglomeration of core religious ideas, a few of which are as follows:
|
"Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One." This passage, Deuteronomy 6:4, is known as the shema by the Jews, and is perhaps the single most fundamental statement of the Jewish faith. |
Historically speaking, the Egyptians, Syrians, Babylonians and other Mediterranean peoples worshiped a variety of Gods, each of which held some distinct power over a certain facet of nature. There were a multitude of sun gods, sea gods and so forth, which were essentially amoral and indifferent to the human predicament. In Yahweh, however, the Jews found what they believed to be the original source of all gods, the God above all other deities. Moreover, Yahweh was a moral god, a kind and just god who was personally involved in human endeavors. It is this unique "invention" of monotheism, perhaps, which has allowed the Jewish people to maintain a seemingly unshakeable solidarity in the face of countless historical injustices, misfortunes and political disadvantages.
|
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth ... everything that he made ... it was very good." This excerpt from the first chapter of Genesis describe the core Jewish perspective on the material world—namely, that is is good. |
Whereas the Hindus believe all aspects of the material world to be maya, or illusion, the Jewish people make use of the material world—being a direct manifestation of God's will—as a very real means to worship and celebrate the divine. Consequently, there is not the same rigid delineation between sacred and profane, spiritual and physical found in the Hebrew tradition as in many other wisdom traditions. In this context, Judaism has much in common with Taoism, a tradition which likewise honors nature as a uniquely direct spiritual "teaching."
Similarly, Judaism posits a unique trust in the "way of things," the seemingly brutal, impersonal and unfair happenings of the physical universe included therein. Adversity manifests, says the Jewish faith, not out of some imperfection in God's creation, but out of a failure for the individual to properly connect to, or harmonize with, this creation. This, in essence, is the Jewish definition of sin: a failure to honor God's perfect creation. For this reason, as in the Ten Commandments, Hebrew ethics and mores generally emphasize those behavioral restrictions most overtly necessary for harmonious communal living. There are various prohibitions against violence, disrespect of other's property and sexual infidelity—all of such "sins" placing fundamental strain on any tightly-knit society and generally making a confused mess of the material world. As in Taoism, when one is properly respectful of one's surroundings, says Judaism—meaning, first and foremost, when one acts ethically and morally—one's environment is experienced as perfectly harmonious, a direct manifestation of God's grace.
|
Closely intertwined with the above, Hebrew tradition emphasizes the importance of historical happenings. When, collectively speaking, the Jewish people fail to maintain a proper moral and ethical balance among themselves and their environment, they supposedly suffer exile, enslavement and various other social and political difficulties. |
Eden, the Flood, the enslavement by the Egyptians—each of these figures prominently in Jewish history and religion as it is believed to represent a direct intervention by God, a punishment for disharmonious tendencies and behaviors. Inversely, believe the Jews, such adverse situations allow for unique learning opportunities for God's "chosen"—chosen, that is, to be both uniquely challenged and uniquely cared for.
|
If, as was just discussed, the Jewish people believe their political and historical circumstances to be direct reflections of their collective state of morality, moral perfection would theoretically be signaled externally by a time of political freedom and earthly bliss. Such a time, Hebrew tradition asserts, is to be heralded by the coming of a Messiah, or liberator. |
For some Jews, this Messiah is thought to be more or less metaphorical—a symbol for the day when the Jewish culture has finally healed and empowered itself, politically, morally and spiritually. For others, this Messiah is believed to be more literal, an individual similar in role to the Christians' Jesus of Nazareth, a divine teacher and leader who will bring about spiritual and/or political freedom and perfection. Although the Jewish faith is not altogether unified as to the specifics of this Messiah, it is an archetypal figure, nonetheless, a figure which represents ultimate hope and optimism, a deep trust in good things to come.
-
Eknath Easwaran, trans.,
12. Easwaran,
13. Easwaran,
14. Easwaran,
15. Ibid.
16. Quoted in Easwaran,
Sigmund Freud,