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    Thread: Dzogchen Clear Light Yoga!!!

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      Hungry Dannon Oneironaut's Avatar
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      Dzogchen Clear Light Yoga!!!

      Hellow folks, it is good to be back. I haven't been here for a couple years and a lot has happened to me since I've been gone. How has it been going here? I am curious to how my dreamviews friends have been.

      I learned a lot since I've been gone and I want this to be the Dzogchen Clear Light Yoga thread.
      The whispered tradition.

      So if anybody wants to share what they know about Dzogchen Clear Light Yoga feel free to share. I am going to change my password and do some things and check back in and begin!!!

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      Hungry Dannon Oneironaut's Avatar
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      Dzogchen is translated as "The Great Perfection".
      It is the pathless path that unveils your unborn undying Buddha nature. It isn't that somewhere deep beneath all your thoughts and obscurations there is some core of Buddha nature. No. Rather, the sum total of our existence is the obscurations that float by like clouds in the infinite sky of your Buddha nature.

      So you see, there is nothing to be attained, nothing to fabricate, nothing to transform. The awareness that is reading this sentence right now is the Buddha nature, and it is not limited to space, time, etc...

      The object is to abide in lucidity all the time, 24/7. This is the first part of Dzogchen. To not do anything to your awareness, not try to change it, not try to do this or that or to make it silent or peaceful or anything. This awareness as it is, that is lucidity, if you recognize it. Really, we are aware 24/7.

      The second part of Dzogchen is how to turn this waking life experience into a dream itself. Dreams and waking life are the same. The second part of dzogchen is how to experience this, and then you have transcended the laws of physics.
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      Sleeping Dragon juroara's Avatar
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      In your first part, are you talking about achieving all day awareness? I'm always consistently running into the same problem - work! I work in customer service and once that phone rings I gotta give the customer my mental attention. I gotta figure out whats wrong, how to help them and do it fast so I can stop talking to them.

      I've even had dreams about it. The dreams feel exactly like work or work feels exactly like the dream. Is anyone else in the customer service department running into the same issue (it accounts for the majority of working americans)? Is it even possible to maintain that clear lucidity while doing that job, or are some activities that mentally draining?

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      Hungry Dannon Oneironaut's Avatar
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      Quote Originally Posted by juroara View Post
      In your first part, are you talking about achieving all day awareness? I'm always consistently running into the same problem - work! I work in customer service and once that phone rings I gotta give the customer my mental attention. I gotta figure out whats wrong, how to help them and do it fast so I can stop talking to them.

      I've even had dreams about it. The dreams feel exactly like work or work feels exactly like the dream. Is anyone else in the customer service department running into the same issue (it accounts for the majority of working americans)? Is it even possible to maintain that clear lucidity while doing that job, or are some activities that mentally draining?

      The thing about lucidity, is that it cannot be fabricated, created, or imagined. That is counterfeit lucidity. If it involves effort, tension, etc. it is not real lucidity. Real lucidity is already the case. The awareness that is reading this sentence right now is already lucid. When you are working, are you in a drunken blackout or sleep walking? No you are aware.

      Awareness takes no effort. It is not created by you. There is no you to create it. That is the whole point! You are as real as a dream character in your dreams. We all are just dream characters. Unreal. If you can see that you running around at your job being a customer service person is just a dream character who thinks she is real, then you will realize that dream character has nothing to do with this lucid awareness that is reading this sentence right now. You will realize that this awareness is always lucid. The dream character is never lucid, not having any awareness of its own.

      Do you get paid overtime to work in your dreams?

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      Hungry Dannon Oneironaut's Avatar
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      In the the traditions of Dzogchen and Zen there is a method of "pointing out" the true nature of the mind through utilizing the example of a crystal ball or sphere. In Dzogchen the master will actually have and hold up a crystal ball for his explanation and direct introduction to the true nature of mind.

      Ii is explained and shown that when one holds up a colored object behind or beneath the crystal ball, it will seem the color of the object will have colored the crystal sphere. If it was a red object it will seem the interior of the crystal ball is now red. But when the object is removed we see the color red never actually applied to the crystal ball at all. This is the same with a mirror where the reflections have never in any way "colored" or changed the clear glass of the mirror.

      Through this analogy it is pointed out that likewise, various thoughts, karma, vasanas, mental images, feelings, sensations, emotions or perceptions have never "colored" or modified the unchanging clear light nature of mind. It is as though you are this crystal sphere of clear light awareness but that a day dream arose within your mind like reflections that appear in a mirror. When either the day dream ends or the mind recognizes its unchanging clear light nature, the unchanging quality of awareness is once more realized to be one's unchanging condition.

      It is through this demonstration and explanation that the master hopes a sudden shift in consciousness will occur. Identity will shift suddenly from being the character in the day dream to being the unchanging clear light sphere in which all day dreams and experiences arise and appear. The day dream disappears along with the imaginary self and a powerful wisdom arises that clarifies once and for all the true nature of the mind and being. Identity has shifted from the relative "self" to the absolute nature of the Buddha Mind, that has always been present as the context in which all content appears. At that moment one is astonished to realize that one's true nature has been here and perfectly intact all along. It also seems bizarre to one that this insight was not seen directly before as it is so obvious and so intimate to one's direct experience in each moment. In Dzogchen this sudden insight or self-knowledge is called rigpa, it belongs solely to the "mirror" and not to the character as the seeker in the mind's day dream. Its a complete and sudden shift in identity from the relative, imagined self to recognizing oneself to be a Buddha.

      I have (not) included a picture of water droplets that give a sense of this pure sphere of awareness as it arises from the ground of being. This is the first phase of presence within a dimension as an "individual" Buddha. Then within this clear sphere of awareness the day dream arises and the dreamed self. Either the true nature of clear light awareness is recognized or if not, the day dream goes on and on... There is nothing stopping you from recognizing the clear light nature as the context of your immediate experience today other than the mind's continued belief in the validity of the day dream along with its imagined identity of self.

      This style of introduction has been used for over a thousand years in Dzogchen to great success. It may be worth pondering...
      Last edited by Dannon Oneironaut; 02-16-2013 at 12:07 PM.
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      There are five elements (states of matter: Solid, liquid, plasma, gaseous, space). In their karmic state, dependent on deluded awareness, they appear as material reality. With pure vision, they appear as the five pure colors. This is the beginning of the teaching of the rainbow body.
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      After the mind has become clear and radiant through the self-recognition of Pure Awareness, the Clear Light Mind will naturally gravitate towards the heart, its Origin. If we lay in bed when about to fall asleep, remaining in this Clear Light Awareness and let ourselves completely relax yet clear without images, we can experience consciousness moving into the heart. You may notice if you wake up from a very deep dreamless sleep that you may feel a sense of peace, freshness and contentment. Notice at this moment that your consciousness feels centered in your heart. As we wake up and begin our day, our consciousness moves back into our "head" as thinking and planning begin. This whole cycle usually goes unnoticed by most.

      The Clarity Awareness called "rigpa" in Tibetan, resides in the head and is associated with thought processes, sensory perception and wisdom. The Ground of Being resides in the heart and is associated with profound peace, stillness, contentment, devotion, compassion, unconditional love and joy. In many traditions the focus is not upon developing wisdom and clarity but rather on surrendering ourselves to the infinite depths of the heart. One time when I was at a Dzogchen retreat, I had a discussion regarding my practice with a Dzogchen teacher there. I described how vivid, clear and transparent my awareness had become, so much so that it seemed my entire head was transparent like crystal. She explained that this was due to the Clear Light rising from the heart into the head and light channels there also associated with the eyes. She said this was good but that now I should direct the Clear Light Awareness downwards into the heart. And so I added that subtle guidance into my practice.

      We move beyond the interest in conceptual topics and efforts to reach the clarity of realization as that phase now expands into the heart, the actual Ground of Being. As our consciousness moves into the heart we find peace and contentment in just being. We simply rest as Being. Ah, what complete relief and joy to know and experience the changeless nature of that peace... to know its our refuge that is always available when the mind comes to stillness as no longer being entertained and distracted into its endless stories. This is the real beginning of the spiritual path. From this beginning grows the natural fruit of compassion and unconditional love that prompts action without regard for personal benefit. If we failed to discover the emptiness of self in our quest for clarity, that lack of seeing the truth of "no self" will block true selfless compassion from arising. So our initial search for truth and clarity certainly has its value.

      Once consciousness enters the heart, gently keep your attention and focus on the heart. You may sense a sensation of an "opening" or dilation within the heart. That's a profound sign that needs to be nurtured through feeling love in your heart as much as possible. Avoid excessive ventures into thought and worry. Relax completely into your heart and nurture that loving glow with acts of kindness throughout each moment of your day. The Guru within, as the empowerment of love will guide you the rest of the way...
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      Hungry Dannon Oneironaut's Avatar
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      Its interesting to investigate how our sense of self appears in our dreams at night. In the dream we have a body, five senses, feelings, emotions and thoughts. It seems all of those factors are a "given" as though they were established facets of some pre-existing personality and entity. But when we wake up all of those aspects of the dreamed identity vanish and may have little or no relationship to our immediate "waking" identity.

      We know that the scenery we experience in the dream is a projection of our subconscious mind. We have no conscious or volitional input as to what appears in our dream world. But we also have no conscious input as to what appears as our dreamed identity or self either. The dream arises from the subconscious milieu of conditioning, memories and anticipated events. The subconscious mind establishes our self-identity from that same database of information.

      The thoughts we have in each moment of the dream are choreographed by the inter-play of these subconscious forces and dynamics within the total database of experience. There are no random occurrences within the dream as the dream is a complete vignette determined by our subconscious mental content. In other words, we have no free-will or free-choice in the dream. Even in what is called "lucid dreaming" during the apparent moment of greater free-will regarding what appears in the dream, that sense of "lucid free-will" is just another aspect of the subconscious dream projection.

      We somehow think that our "waking" self is a self-determining entity that has free-will and the power of choice. We don't notice that the choices that are made in waking life also arise from the same database that all of our conditioning, memories and thoughts of expectation do, just like in our dreams.

      The subconscious mind projects your "waking life" identity in the same way. But in waking life the current input of information coming from the five senses is an additional factor that gets added to the mix that hopefully keeps the projected self-identity coherently in-step with its environment. We know from current studies in neuro-science that the world we see and actually experience is a 3D virtual image within our brain or mind. We don't see an "outside world" at any time. We only know the internal image that is produced from all of the sensory input signals that are received through the five senses. But the brain/mind is not just creating a simulation of what it thinks is "out there" but it also creates the "observer" in the middle of that virtual image or movie that is the one experiencing those images and sensory experiences. So both the subject and the objects are projections of the mind.

      The projected subject or self is constructed from thoughts and images. There is no actual entity "in there" that is the real self. There actually is no self other than the one projected by the brain/mind made up of only thoughts and images. The concept of "self-image" is most appropriate because that's all it is.

      Its also interesting to perceive that all the actions of this imagined self are programmed through thought. The thought "arises" to do this or do that. Actions then arise from those thoughts. In this way we can see that all of our actions are based fundamentally upon our prior conditioning, memories and expectations: all being just thoughts that arise without any effort on "our" part.

      Thoughts just happen. Actions just happen based on those thoughts. The thought "I did that" also is just a thought that arises on its own. Thoughts arise based on dependent origination or cause and effect conditioning, but nowhere can we find the "thinker" as an independent entity called "me".

      This can all be seen clearly outside the realm of "cause and effect" thought processes. There can be a direct and powerful insight into this entire dream-like sense of "me" and its world. It is seen that all this is just made up of thoughts and images, the stuff of dreams. But that which knows this and recognizes this is not a projection of the conditioning, memories and expectations that makes up the subconscious database of experiential information. It is something beyond concepts and images. By taking the position of just "observing" or "knowing" all that is arising in the mind, this "sense of self" can be fully known by that which is without a self and is always without a self-identity.

      By recognizing that pure and unconditioned aspect within our immediate consciousness that is fully aware and knowing in each moment, the mind's projections will cease during that "recognition". It is the "non-recognition" of our Pure Awareness from moment to moment that causes the subconscious dream to arise. That "non-recognition" is the ignorance that begins the cycle of dependent origination, the wheel of karma that our minds remain trapped within until the "recognition" of our actual condition as Pure Awareness.

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      Hungry Dannon Oneironaut's Avatar
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      Here are some experiments of direct experience to get you started investigating the sense of self.

      Close your eyes and touch a rug or carpet. Pay attention to the sensation. Doesn't it feel like your finger tip is fuzzy?
      Now dip it in the water. Does it feel like your finger becomes water?

      This is how direct experience works. We take away all thoughts, all theories, all explanations, all beliefs, and just describe the actual reality of experience as a new born baby would describe if it could talk. Hopefully these two examples give you an idea of how sensations appear in awareness much the same in waking life as they do in a dream.

      Here are some that question the sense of self. Usually we think that there is a self that controls this body, thinks thoughts, and has freewill. But the Buddha says otherwise. So let us investigate:

      Close your eyes and have your hands on your lap. On the count of three raise either your right or your left hand. Observe the decision making process. Do you actually have control over which hand you decide to raise? Or do you already know before you consciously choose? Observe closely.

      Do you know what your next thought is going to be?

      This is a self portrait of an artist who knew about direct experience. What I like about this picture is that it is the best self portrait I have ever seen! This is a drawing of his own soul, not his physical body.

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      “The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.”

      Meister Eckhart , Sermons of Meister Eckhart
      Pay attention to your eyes and the act of seeing. Look at looking. Bring vitality and light to the pupils of your eyes. Any sense of self in the head project to the pupils. See effortlessly. There is a kind of a-perception that happens, when your eyes are wide open as you scan the environment, but you are not paying attention to the objects. No, your attention is on the pupils of your eyes and the nature of seeing itself.

      The illusion of duality is that there is a self that is separate from the rest of the world. This is the subject/object duality. Normally, in dualistic awareness, we experience a sense of self and an object that exists independent from that sense of self. In direct experience, the object depends on the awareness of it. Awareness and the object are not two things. This is true in waking life and in dreams if we use direct experience. When we get the balance of a-perception right and the awareness in the pupils so we can feel the textures of light with our pupils, it may feel like the head becomes transparent and disappears, the peripheral vision opens up and widens, there are empty sensations in the temples and sinuses of the head, etc.

      One note to make: If you have a vast spacious transcendent timeless awareness behind your eyes, you are doing it wrong. Project that awareness to your pupils. Have the vision of your environment appear effortlessly with no desire to try to understand what you are seeing or get your mind involved in any way. Just see what is prior to conceptualization. Stay one step ahead of your conceptual mind by being in the instant of the present moment as it displays itself. Realize that there is just this dream, and this knowing lucid awareness, with not trace of a self. It may seem as if you can look into the sky and see a thought coming from a mile away and it simply self-liberates back into primordial awareness when you look at it. Pay attention to the sense of a thought about to arise. You can feel a thought coming and can just... let it go.

      WHen the head is disappeared, you may be aware of sensations in your chest, in your heart. Take a deep breath and relax. You will feel a tug in your heart. That is the sense of self in your heart. Allow it to relax in trust and empathy. Notice if it feels sad or happy or loving or lonely, or all of the above. If it feels lonely, become that loneliness and give it all the love it craves and needs to be fulfilled every moment. If it feels happy and loving, shine that love as fast as it can accumulate so that your desire to love is fulfilled every moment. In this way, the heart can relax, the knot untie itself, and it feels like falling in love. You are falling into the bottomless heart of clear light. This love is clear light, this clear light is love, shine it out your eyes. Look at the trees and the sky and shine this love out.

      RECOGNIZE THIS AWARENESS AS THE FACE OF THE BUDDHA. THE BUDDHA NATURE. THE ENLIGHTENED MIND OF THE BUDDHA. THE NATURAL MIND. THE UNCONDITIONED MIND. THE BRIGHT MIND. THE MIND OF CLEAR LIGHT. TIMELESS AWARENESS. YOUR ORIGINAL FACE. SOME MAY CALL IT GOD.

      Then you will say "Oh my! I am it! The whole time! How obvious! How come I never thought to check the most obvious place? I was always seeking!" It really is the funniest thing in the world. It is the greatest joke. The awareness at the top of your nose is the Buddha. The Buddha is looking out your eyes. How obvious! Duh! Everybody has been trying to tell me for countless lifetimes! It is just like becoming lucid in a dream, only infinitely better. The bliss is never ending. All of a sudden you remember all the secrets of the universe, but you cannot put them into words. Every time you try, it comes out like this: "We are all one!" and you want to kick yourself for sounding so cliche and platitudinous.
      Last edited by Dannon Oneironaut; 02-16-2013 at 01:56 PM.
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    11. #11
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      if you want you may check this Education in the Nature of the Mind | Balanced View

      they provide teachings dzogchen-like, altough they dont talk about spirituality at all. The people teaching their videos seem so balanced and assured.

      instead of Buddha nature or primordial awareness they use Ŧ open intelligence ŧ


      i was curious to see if they have something to say about dreams, and i found this on page 39 http://www.balancedview.org/images/b...n_identity.pdf

      OPEN INTELLIGENCE IN DREAMS AND SLEEP
      Just like with dreaming or sleep where we might feel we lose control of open
      intelligence—sexual feelings are very powerful domains in which to practice
      open intelligence. If we practice open intelligence in our sexual experience
      and also when we‘re asleep and dreaming, and we get a strong sense of
      open intelligence—real continuous open intelligence coming alive in those
      domains—then we don‘t feel threatened by things any longer. We have
      thought either subtly or overtly that there were things beyond our control,
      like our sexual impulses or dreaming and sleeping. ―Oh, when I go to sleep I
      have no control whatsoever,‖ or, ―When I have those dreams, they‘re so
      scary. I‘m there but I don‘t have any control.‖
      While falling asleep, maintain open intelligence; it‘s as simple as that. You
      get to a place where everything sort of blanks out; it‘s impossible to have a
      thought even if you want to. That‘s called a thought-free state, and even
      though it doesn‘t have any thoughts, it has a name—―thought-free state‖—
      but that‘s just another datum. By the power of extracting open intelligence
      in that thought-free state while going to sleep, open intelligence is seen as
      the basis of all the data associated with dreaming and sleeping, just as it is
      the basis for all data occurring during the daytime.
      If you just check this out, you will get a sense of it, but don‘t try too hard,
      because that‘s not the point. Just by the practice of open intelligence, it will
      come alive in your dreams and sleep. Any of these real life issues such as
      sexuality, dreaming and sleeping are fostered so very powerfully and
      potently in community with other people who are practicing open
      intelligence. Just that connection alone is totally powerful, totally powerful in
      an inexpressible way.
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      Check your memory, did any suprising event happpen ? does the present make sense ? visualize what you will do when lucid, and how. Reality check as reminder of your intention to lucid dream tonight. Sleep as good as you can; when going to sleep, relax and invite whatever comes with curiosity. Grab your dream journal immediately as you awake and write everything you can recall (if only when you wake up for good). Keep calm, positive and persistent, and don't forget to have fun along the way

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      Ha how funny! That is rewording of dzogchen teaching! Thought free state is the clear light. Open intelligence is Rigpa. Thanks for that!

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      That's a lot of really interesting information, thank you for sharing. I admit, I've just skimmed it now but will read it in more detail.

      I encountered the topic of Clear Light sleep in the book The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep over a year ago. The author describes lucid dreaming and Clear Light sleep as complementary practices toward no-self. In lucid dreaming, we experiment with "different selfs." We can fly or become a tiger or become multiple people at once. This practice is fun and also allows us to experience the concept of "self" but outside our normal waking sense-of-self which is so ingrained in our mind. In this way, one can begin to let go of the illusion of having "one-self." Clear Light sleep is, as you describe, a state of pure awareness without form or action. It is "no-self." The scientist in me wants to say that lucid dreaming happens in REM sleep while Clear Light happens in NREM, but maybe that's a naive model.

      I followed the practice for a while and I think, just once, I experienced something like Clear Light sleep. It's hard to describe. Subjectively, it's like I was conscious while asleep without thought, time or space. It was a sense of peace, but without conceptualizing "peace" or thinking of the word "peace". It's only in retrospect that I would use the word "peace" as the best approximation of what I experienced. Or to borrow from another branch of Buddhism, I made a connection to the idea of "Big Mind" during sleep.

      The author also describes how this fits into Tibetan tradition of samsara. Samara is the circle of reincarnation. In between incarnations, we inhabit a state called bardo, which is something like sleep. To compare it to other traditions, bardo is somewhat like purgatory. By becoming familiar with the depths of sleep, especially Clear Light sleep, we prepare for bardo. If we become "awakened" to no-self in bardo, then we reach nirvana. If not fully awakened but still more aware in bardo, then the next incarnation will be a higher life form, moving us closer to enlightenment.

      I found that interesting. I've read countless books that talk about samsara, but this was the only one to explore the idea of bardo in depth. I interpret it metaphorically rather than literally. To me, samsara is the cycle of endless unfulfilled desire that recurs throughout our days and lives, and in the relationships between people, and between our mind and illusions. It is almost synonymous with dukkha. Dukkha is the experience of craving ("to suffer") and samsara is the prolonged process of craving ("suffering"). I don't think it's taught exactly that way, but that's how it makes sense to me. And by analogy, bardo is like sleep or unconsciousness or any period (most of our lives) spent in a superficially conscious but unaware state ("Small Mind"). So to me, lucid dreaming, Clear Light sleep, daytime awareness, and meditation practices all fit together as a holistic lifestyle throughout day and night.
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      Cool you have a pretty good grasp of the fundamentals. A few points: the clear light is easiest to experience in sleep and death because there are not other competing sensations. But in reality, the clear light is what everything is made of at all times. To think you are alive and this is real is an illusion, nothing has ever happened, this is all a dream arising from the clear light. A bardo is a transition stage. If you are not consciously experiencing the clear light, you are in bardo, or dream. Bardos are dreams of existing as a sentient being or seeking rebirth as a sentient being.

      Nirvana, nothing can be known of it until it is experienced, it is beyond all concepts and understandings. Don't even try to understand it, any understanding is a mental fabrication and is not nearly accurate.

      Yes the author of Dream Yoga and the practice of natural light is Chogyam Namkhai Norbu, a contemporary Dzogchen master. I really appreciate him opening up dzogchen to the world after being secret forever. I wonder how this will effect the future of the world, we shall see how the next generation makes use of these teachings as they spread and become common maybe.
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      I like to read as many books and articles as I can. I think it is a challenge to translate these concepts into English words effectively. So the more I read, the better I can become acquainted with the ideas behind the words instead of getting hung up on the words themselves. I'm afraid "Clear Light" is one of those translations that belies the depth and complexity of the topic.

      I'm fond of the practice of prefixing concepts with "no" or "non". Like no-self, no-mind, non-dual, non-doing, non-violence. It emphasize the fact that, for example, "no-self" is not a separate concept. A word like "selfless" has other meanings so it's a distraction. We don't need a new idea that builds on top of "self". "Self" is the idea, the illusion. We instead let go of the "self" illusion and what's left after you remove the illusion is "no-self".

      So, looking at the analogy of the crystal or mirror reflecting light. The "clear" in "Clear Light" is a bit confusing at first. I initially interpret "clear" as something like "bright" or "clean" or "transparent" or "piercing." And I don't think those words are necessarily wrong. But what sounds closer to me is something like "no-light" or "non-color".

      EDIT: And when I say the topic is deep and complex, what I really mean is that it is entirely obvious and simple. The complexity is the preconceived notions and associations that we bring to the topic. When you dig through all that junk, what's left is very simple.
      Last edited by sisyphus; 02-16-2013 at 04:46 PM.
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    16. #16
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      Very nice presentation. Dannon Oneironaut; thanks for sharing!

      I truly hope this thread gets many, many unique reads and that someone pays attention...
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      Yes it is entirely simple! Too simple to even talk about.

      like you said, we have to be getting rid of ideas, not making new ideas. I agree with the clear light statements. It is invisible light. But it manifests as all the light and color that we can see. But by itself it is invisible shimmers. But it comes from a Tibetan word which means luminosity. In the east this means cognitive awareness. Lucidity is a great translation of clear light. That is what the word enlighten means. It is associating light with awareness. Luc= light.

      So many people have a hard time understanding how simple dzogchen is. Lucid dreamers are especially lucky to have first-hand experience of the basic principles of awareness.
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      If I understand right, Clear Light is sleep yoga - not dream yoga, right? It ocurrs during deep NREM sleep and there are no dreams - just a steady awareness throughout sleep. And the masters can maintain it all through their sleep - meaning no dreams and no lucid dreams - is this right?

      I gotta say it - while this is doubtless a more advanced level than lucid dreaming if you're interested in enlightenment, personally I want to have cool lucid dreams! Just wanted to say this so people understand you're not really talking about lucid dreams. Or would you still be able to have lucid dreams after learning this? From what I read it sounded like once you learn Clear Light the lucid dreams are pretty much done. So there should definitely be a warning sign if this is a one-way trip.

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      Maybe going a bit off-topic but this challenge of language and translation interests me so much. Language is such a double edged sword. It's an essentially tool for communication but at times it can be a barrier.

      For example, Dukkha is commonly translated as "suffering" and that caused me to make many associations around that idea with a very negative connotation. The translation of the first Noble Truth as "Life is suffering" was very poignant in my mind. Then I saw another suggestion to translate it as "craving" and that opened up my understanding to a more practical and reasonable understanding of Dukkha. Finally, I read another author suggest the translation as something like "thirst." That really opened up my understand to something that is neither good nor bad, but merely instinctive. It was one of those ah-ha moments when something I thought I knew before took on a more subtle and instinctive character. "Life is thirst," while not as provocative as "suffering," has a very subtle and understandable quality. Now, I just use the word Dukkha and accept that it has it's own meaning that doesn't perfectly translate to any English word.

      Another example is the perception of time. In modern Western culture, we conceptualize time as linear. Like a computer number that constantly increases or as the axis of a chart. But prior to modernity and especially in the east, time was conceptualized as circular. Sundials and analog clocks turn around a circle. Days, lunar months, seasons, years, and human life were all conceptualized as cyclical. Time did not "move forward." Instead, time rotated. That was another ah-ha moment when I realized that my concepts are all constructed. Underneath the concepts is a natural truth that transcends language and models.

      So I think Clear Light is like that. It is so natural and instinctive, yet so unknowable. It defies language. We can only approximate it with language. It requires first-hand experience to grasp it on the instinctive level.
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      Hi Darkmatters! Nice to be talking with you again!
      You have a good question here. It will take quite a lot of words for me to shed some light on this simple point!

      All those posts above I copied and pasted I am not sure if I spoke of the teachings of the three kayas. Kaya means body/universe. The kayas are the dimensions in which a Buddha manifests in.

      1. Dharmakaya Body/dimension of absolute truth. The mind of the Buddha. Clear light. Lucid awareness without content. Symbolized by empty space with a naked dark blue Buddha with no ornaments. No ornaments on him, naked, because the dharmakaya is naked. Just empty space and lucid awareness.

      2. Sambhogakaya The enjoyment realm. The speech of the Buddha. Pure enlightened sensations. Not deluded sensations in which they are seen as separate phenomena that exist as object of awareness. These sensations arise out of the clear light of the dharmakaya. This is the dream world. Phenomena continually manifest in vivid technicolor. Knowing this as the display of your true nature is lucid dreams and sambhogakaya.

      3. Nirmanakaya The physical body of the Buddha. This is the so-called material world, but as it appears to a Buddha, not to a deluded person. Matter itself is seen to be a manifestation of your own intrinsic nature, the clear light.

      The three kayas are inseparable. They are three aspects of one reality. Body, speech, and mind. Enlightenment can happen in day to day life, or in dreams, or in deep sleep. But whenever enlightenment happens, all three kayas are realized at once.
      This may sound way more complicated than it really is.

      So we have the clear light in its purity as lucid non-dual awareness, this is the dharmakaya, the mind of the buddha. But appearances and sensations arise within it continuously as a stream of ever changing sensations in which no moment is identical to the previous one. When these sensations are recognized to also be the display of the clear light, this is the sambhogakaya. The sensations are no longer a sense of confusion, they are rather now wisdom.

      Dreams are caused by karma. When the karma that causes dreams is exhausted, no more dreams. However, clear light dreams can still manifest. By dreams I mean sensations. Contents of awareness. But these are not objects and neither is the clear light the subject. There is no subject/object duality. Clear light dreams usually have no dream characters including yourself in them.

      Only a Buddha would not have karmaic dreams. But he has something better than dreams. He has the trikaya, the three timeless indestructible inseparable bodies/dimensions of reality without any delusion. It is all a manifestation of infinite qualities of enlightenment. The union of bliss and emptiness. It is way cooler than lucid dreams. And lucid dreams are a manifestation of clarity as well. If you think of a spectrum with normal un-lucid dreams on one side, and Buddhahood on the other side, lucid dreams are somewhere in between those two. So what makes lucid dreams so much better than normal dreams is what makes enlightenment so much better than lucid dreams.

      It is similar to meditation. A Buddha doesn't meditate. He has transcended meditation. It is better than meditation! When people meditate they are trying to do what the Buddha already is. When people lucid dream they are trying to recognize the clear light. Lucidity is the same thing as the clear light.

      A Buddha can dream if he wants to. But it would only manifest out of his infinite wisdom. Many teachers actually teach in dreams. So don't worry about losing the ability to dream. Something better arises, like the ultimate lucid dream that is just bliss and emptiness. It isn't so much a dream, because it is the true nature of reality itself, something we rarely experience directly. We only experience it for a split second when we sneeze, when we have an orgasm, when we sleep and when we die. Naked clear light without phenomena.
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    21. #21
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      Quote Originally Posted by sisyphus View Post
      Maybe going a bit off-topic but this challenge of language and translation interests me so much. Language is such a double edged sword. It's an essentially tool for communication but at times it can be a barrier.

      For example, Dukkha is commonly translated as "suffering" and that caused me to make many associations around that idea with a very negative connotation. The translation of the first Noble Truth as "Life is suffering" was very poignant in my mind. Then I saw another suggestion to translate it as "craving" and that opened up my understanding to a more practical and reasonable understanding of Dukkha. Finally, I read another author suggest the translation as something like "thirst." That really opened up my understand to something that is neither good nor bad, but merely instinctive. It was one of those ah-ha moments when something I thought I knew before took on a more subtle and instinctive character. "Life is thirst," while not as provocative as "suffering," has a very subtle and understandable quality. Now, I just use the word Dukkha and accept that it has it's own meaning that doesn't perfectly translate to any English word.

      Another example is the perception of time. In modern Western culture, we conceptualize time as linear. Like a computer number that constantly increases or as the axis of a chart. But prior to modernity and especially in the east, time was conceptualized as circular. Sundials and analog clocks turn around a circle. Days, lunar months, seasons, years, and human life were all conceptualized as cyclical. Time did not "move forward." Instead, time rotated. That was another ah-ha moment when I realized that my concepts are all constructed. Underneath the concepts is a natural truth that transcends language and models.

      So I think Clear Light is like that. It is so natural and instinctive, yet so unknowable. It defies language. We can only approximate it with language. It requires first-hand experience to grasp it on the instinctive level.
      Very very true.

      I think the best translation of Dukkha is "unsatisfactoriness". No matter what we do to be happy, it is unsatisfactory. It isn't that we are always actively suffering, but nothing seems to quench our 'thirst'. Pleasure makes us feel good, but it is unsatisfactory. All the things we have ever done to be happy are good, but not good enough. Nothing can quench this thirst if we feel like we are separate beings. If we don't realize that we are only dream characters, nothing will be satisfactory.

      The word that usually gets translated into "desire" is better to call "thirst".
      The first 2 of Buddha's 4 noble truths:

      1. Existence is Dukkha (unsatisfactoriness)
      2. Dukkha is caused by desire (thirst)

      These are 'Noble' truths because they are just goddamned true. If anybody argues with this they are fools lacking in insight. Lol. People say "Oh Buddhism is so gloomy. I don't think existence is suffering. And without suffering we wouldn't have any happiness." This is a shallow insight that rationalizes attachment to the cause of unsatisfactoriness: thirst. It is like somebody eating shit and saying it tastes good. Yes there is much happiness in life, and that is great. Nobody is saying to give up happiness. But the well of happiness is poisoned by our attachment and craving and even our happiness won't be satisfactory.

      Oh Darkmatters: The reason the clear light is said to dawn before and after dreams is that is a good time to recognize it because it exists nakedly without any manifestations, but it is the ground of being, always timelessly present. Right here and right now it is what is reading this sentence and it is manifesting as this computer screen and these letters you are seeing. The whole realm of experience is a manifestation of it. Without recognizing it, the world is samsara. Recognizing it, the world is Nirvana. But the clear light is the source of both samsara and nirvana.

    22. #22
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      Agreed. Some of the English words commonly used to translate Buddhist concepts are "clear", "subtle," "noble," "precious," "infinite", "transcendent," and "enduring." We can understand these words in there common sense but they have an ambiguous and open-ended quality. These are the best words we can find to approximate something that is much more profound. Ultimately, pure awareness exists at a level that transcends language. Language consists of concepts and is useful for so many common things. But awareness is a higher understanding. I can't think, in my limited mind, of any better words to describe it besides "subtle" and "transcendent."
      I am sure about illusion. I am not so sure about reality.

    23. #23
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      Quote Originally Posted by Dannon Oneironaut View Post
      Hi Darkmatters! Nice to be talking with you again!
      Definitely - great to have you back on the board!

      Your response was confusing me at first, but after a while I started to see the point you're making. So basically, there's no way to achieve Clear Light until after a long time (maybe nearly a lifetime?) of intense practice, which would involve lots of lucid dreams along the way? And in order to get there you need to be focused on achieving enlightenment, so it wouldn't be like "Aw MAN!!! No more lucid troll battles!!"

    24. #24
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      So I would like to talk about the philosophical concept of emptiness. Emptiness is central to all Buddhist philosophy no matter what sect.
      Emptiness doesn't mean void, empty space, or hollowness. It means empty of intrinsic separate permanent reality. In this universe, everything is dependent on everything else. EVERYTHING. Even awareness. Everything is in a process of changing and becoming something else. Nothing stands apart as a real permanent thing. Everything is in flux. My Buddhist friends and I play a game where we try to come up with something, anything that is not empty. We finally stopped playing the game when even emptiness itself was found to be empty.

      The Buddha taught emptiness as central to his teaching. But Nagarjuna was the scientist of emptiness. You can look up Nagarjuna and the Madhyamaka text. If we realize that everything in the universe is empty, including the Buddha dharma, including any point of view, we realize that there is no absolute reality, no objective reality that is inherently "real" and that subjective reality is also not inherently "real". Everything is dependent on everything else. Pick an object, like a cup: A cup depends on clay to make it (if it is ceramic). It depends on somebody to make it. What makes it a cup is that it is intended and used as a cup, rather than a paperweight or a weapon. It depends on liquid to put in it to be used as a cup. It depends on the person using it as a cup. Emptiness is also empty. Emptiness depends on things being empty. The emptiness of the cup depends on the cup.

      You can have all kinds of fun exploring emptiness. And the beautiful thing is that once you become confident that every single thing is empty, you realize that all your beliefs are empty, all your knowledge is empty, all your memories are empty, all your likes are empty, all your dislikes are empty, you are empty, your sense of self is an empty sensation, and so on and so forth.

      However, this can lead to nihilism, which is a misunderstanding of the emptiness teachings. Even though meaning is empty, emptiness doesn't mean that nothing exists in a relative sense. Emptiness itself is also empty. Emptiness is a antidote to both essentialism and nihilism. Essentialism is the view that there is some substance that is real, that is unborn and undying, that is transcendentally 'real'. Emptiness happens to be 'full' of infinite enlightened qualities.

      This seems very paradoxical. But that is the result of trying to understand it intellectually. So start at the basics, and understand that sensations are empty.

      How is awareness empty? Isn't awareness a transcendental substance that is independent of anything, never changing?
      No.
      Awareness is dependent on sensations. Look at awareness. Point to it. Grab a hold of it. Where is it? Haha. Every time you try to find awareness you are just finding a transient sensation, or a thought. Hahahaha!!!! Awareness is a quality of sensations like wetness is a quality of water. Wetness depends on water. Awareness and sensations are inseparable. This is the inseparability of the dharmakaya and the sambhogakaya.

      So for fun, let us play the game of trying to find something that is not empty.
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      So emptiness is basically relativity - Buddha was an ancient Einstein.

      Just saw a show last night - I think it was Nova (?) about weather patterns and how everything in nature is totally interrelated - even wildfires are necessary for the growth of all things. It made me realize that each moment we're experiencing constantly fluctuating weather, humidity temperature, etc - it's not that there are 4 distinct seasons, but each moment of each day everything is moving through their interrelated cycles and at certain times there are more major and noticeable changes that we mark as seasonal changes. ONce you've seen that in relation to weather it's easy to carry it further - to identity, solid form etc.

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