Baker, Ian A. (Author)
The Great Perfection or Dzogchen (rdzogs chen) teachings of Tibet are upheld as revealing the ultimate unconditioned nature of human consciousness without recourse to the transformational rites and practices that characterise the tantric, or Vajray na, form of Buddhism from which it arose. While Dzogchen is commonly perceived, and presented, as pertaining principally to the reflexive `self-liberating' potential of the mind, its practice is traditionally infused by physical exercises that push the body---and thereby consciousness---beyond conventional limits and constraints. Dzogchen's body-oriented approach to the realisation of habitually dormant perceptual and existential capacities is vividly portrayed in a series of late seventeenth-century murals in a once secret meditation chamber in Lhasa conceived during the reign of the Fifth Dalai Lama. The wall paintings illustrate a Dzogchen `treasure text' (gter ma) revealed two centuries earlier by Terton Orgyen Pema Lingpa (1450--1521) and ascribed to Padmasambhava, the `Lotus Born' sage credited with having established Dzogchen in Tibet in the eighth century. Embellished with illuminating passages from Pema Lingpa's `Compendium of Enlightened Spontaneity' (Rdzogs chen kun bzang dgongs 'dus), the Lukhang murals clearly portray the pro-somatic practices (rtsa rlung 'khrul 'khor) held to facilitate realisation of the mind's inherent `Buddha Nature' (de gshegs snying po, Skt: tath gatagarbha). Illustrated with details of the Lukhang murals, this article presents an overview of Dzogchen's core practices in an attempt to demonstrate that while the `innate perfection' of Dzogchen can, as tradition upholds, be directly cognised without any modification of mind or body, it is more commonly a consequence of intensive qigong and ha hayoga-like practices, fused with Dzogchen's signature `view' of non-duality ( gnyis med ). A key chapter of Pema Lingpa's Dzogchen `treasure text' is appended to the article, further illuminating the fundamental dynamics of mind and body at the heart of the Dzogchen tradition and the ways in which primordial unitary awareness (rig pa) arises vibrantly and unconditionally in response to physiology and perception pushed beyond their accustomed limits, whether in states of waking, sleeping, dreaming, or near-death experiences.
...More
Chapter
Brian Rappert;
Catelijne Coopmans;
Giovanna Colombetti;
(2016)
The (Non)-Conveying of the Experiential in Scientific Accounts of Buddhist Meditation
(/isis/citation/CBB745870408/)
Article
Salguero, C. Pierce;
(2014)
“Treating Illness”: Translation of a Chapter from a Medieval Chinese Buddhist Meditation Manual by Zhiyi (538--597)
(/isis/citation/CBB001450745/)
Article
Ngar-sze Lau;
(2017)
Desire for Self-healing
(/isis/citation/CBB341925229/)
Article
Matthew Drage;
(2018)
Of Mountains, Lakes and Essences: John Teasdale and the Transmission of Mindfulness
(/isis/citation/CBB022102119/)
Thesis
Sokhyo Jo;
(2016)
Topics on the History of Tibetan Astronomy with a Focus on Background Knowledge of Eclipse Calculations in the 18th Century
(/isis/citation/CBB041789676/)
Article
Yoeli-Tlalim, Ronit;
(2010)
Tibetan “Wind” and “Wind” Illnesses: Towards a Multicultural Approach to Health and Illness
(/isis/citation/CBB001023969/)
Book
Pollock, Sheldon I.;
(2011)
Forms of Knowledge in Early Modern Asia: Explorations in the Intellectual History of India and Tibet, 1500--1800
(/isis/citation/CBB001251294/)
Article
Garrett, Frances;
(2010)
Tapping the Body's Nectar: Gastronomy and Incorporation in Tibetan Literature
(/isis/citation/CBB001030693/)
Article
Anna Sehnalova;
(2017)
Tibetan Bonpo Mendrup: The Precious Formula’s Transmission
(/isis/citation/CBB502904878/)
Book
Akasoy, Anna;
(2011)
Islam and Tibet: Interactions along the Musk Routes
(/isis/citation/CBB001450738/)
Chapter
Schaeffer, Kurtis R.;
(2011)
New Scholarship in Tibet, 1650--1700
(/isis/citation/CBB001251380/)
Book
Gyatso, Janet;
(2015)
Being Human in a Buddhist World: An Intellectual History of Medicine in Early Modern Tibet
(/isis/citation/CBB001551090/)
Thesis
Loizzo, Joseph John;
(2001)
Candrakirti and the moon-flower of Nalanda: Objectivity and self-correction in India's central therapeutic philosophy of language
(/isis/citation/CBB001562617/)
Article
Cuomu, Mingji;
(2011)
Sexual Differentiation in Tibetan Medical and Buddhist Perspectives
(/isis/citation/CBB001450724/)
Book
Sienna R. Craig;
(2012)
Healing Elements: Efficacy and the Social Ecologies of Tibetan Medicine
(/isis/citation/CBB385245192/)
Article
William A. McGrath;
(2017)
Origin Narratives of the Tibetan Medical Tradition
(/isis/citation/CBB145568341/)
Book
Eric Huntington;
K. Sivaramakrishnan;
Anand A. Yang;
Padma Kaimal;
(2019)
Creating the Universe: Depictions of the Cosmos in Himalayan Buddhism
(/isis/citation/CBB919100211/)
Chapter
Gyatso, Janet;
(2011)
Experience, Empiricism, and the Fortunes of Authority: Tibetan Medicine and Buddhism on the Eve of Modernity
(/isis/citation/CBB001251381/)
Article
Rolf Scheuermann;
(2018)
«One Will Quickly Die!». Predictions of Death in Three Tibetan Buddhist Divination Manuals
(/isis/citation/CBB172974747/)
Article
Chou, Wen-shing;
(2014)
Reimagining the Buddhist Universe: Pilgrimage and Cosmography in the Court of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama (1876--1933)
(/isis/citation/CBB001450400/)
Be the first to comment!