Longsal Ati’i Gongpa NgotrodBarcelona,
SpainThursday October 26, 2006
ByChögyal Namkhai Norbu
Dzogchen Upadesha is related with all our manifestations:
- pure and impure - because when we are in the real knowledge it means we are discovering our real nature and that means we have the capacity to integrate in that state. We integrate both pure and impure vision.
If you have real knowledge and understanding of the Dzogchen teaching, the solution is your realization.
The solution is not that you escape from samsara or impure vision.
This is not the Dzogchen way.
You integrate; there is always the possibility of integrating.
In order to integrate, first of all you need knowledge.
Having knowledge doesn’t mean going to school, following lessons or doing analyses. In the Dzogchen teaching, having knowledge means you discover your real nature and your real condition completely. Dzogchen is not the name of teaching, school or tradition. Real Dzogchen is our real condition. Everyone has Dzogchen, but we are ignorant of it. For that reason we need to follow the Dzogchen teaching. Through Dzogchen, we discover firstly that we all have that qualification, secondly we learn methods and we can discover, and when we discover then we can get in the real nature. When we get in our real nature, all our condition is pure vision and then we can integrate in that state.
The method used to integrate in your real nature is the teaching of Dzogchen Upadesha. Upadesha is Sanskrit. In Tibetan upadesha is man ngag, man means negative and ngag means voice. It means ‘no voice’; ‘no voice’ does not mean that the teacher is not explaining this teaching. That is not the principle. ‘No voice’ means that sometimes the teacher can’t teach or explain because people are not seriously interested, or sometimes the teacher can’t explain because people do not have the capacity to apply. When we say integrating, it means you need to have discovered the state in order to integrate something, so you should discover your real nature and then you can have that precise knowledge for discovering your real nature. When you have discovered your real nature, then you can integrate.
In this case you need methods of integrating if you have not discovered your real nature. If you only have some intellectual understanding and you are thinking, “Oh this is discovering the real nature of Dzogchen”, then when you follow upadesha teachings it becomes an obstacle because you are missing the base. For that reason it is called upadesha; many upadesha methods are experiences of important teachers.
The most important Dzogchen teacher in our time is Garab Dorje. In the Vajrayana teaching in Tibet, the most important teacher is Guru Padmasambhava. There are so many realized beings, not only Garab Dorje and Guru Padmasambhava, and they all have their experiences. They discovered experiences for realizing and methods of integration. They taught these methods to their students and then these students wrote down the teachings and taught them to their students. All these series of teachings are called upadesha.
