Practice Makes Perfect: Common Grounds in the Practice
Paths of Chuan Chen Tao and Dzog Chen Dharma
By Daniel Reid
As modern Western civilization continues to deteriorate
and its conventional cultural institutions, particularly organized
religions, become ever more meaningless to serious seekers of truth
and spiritual understanding, a bewildering plethora of ancient
Eastern teachings have suddenly appeared to fill the growing theosophic
void in the Western world. Contending for the attention of new
Western adherents, some of these old Eastern sects promise the
same short-cuts to salvation made by the monotheistic religions
of the West: “follow our rules, observe our rituals, worship
our deities, and everything will be fine forever.”
In order to avoid stumbling into the same old
religious rut of promised salvation later in exchange for blind
faith now, Western seekers must learn how to cultivate awareness
and discover the truth themselves through personal practice and
direct experience, utilizing their own energies and their own minds
as a basis. To do this, one must practice effective methods taught
by self-perfected masters, rather than relying on scriptural dogma
preached from the pulpit.
Among the many Eastern traditions currently vying
for attention in the Western spiritual marketplace, the two that
place the greatest emphasis on intuitive discovery through personal
practice are the nontheistic spiritual sciences of Buddhism and
Taoism. Within these grand traditions and all their myriad schools
and sub-sects, there are two practice lineages that provide sincere
and diligent seekers a concrete, viable path that leads practicioners
to direct, intuitive understanding of “Complete Reality” and
an effective method for cultivating the “Great Perfection” of
enlightened awareness. This is a path of practice that transcends
all doctrinaire debates, eliminates all factional doubts, and awakens
the practicioner to his or her own original State of primordial
awareness, the State “that is not born and does not die,” the
Way “that has no name.” This path is known in Taoism
as Chuan Chen (“Complete Reality”) and in Buddhism as
Dzog Chen (“Great Perfection”).
Two hundred years ago, the accomplished Taoist
adept and writer, Liu I-ming, declared, “When you recognize
that the principles of the sages are the same, you will realize
that Taoism and Buddhism are alike. If you do not understand this
and seek elsewhere, you will get involved in sidetracks, wasting
your life in vain imagining.” So let’s elucidate this
point by first defining the most basic principle in Buddhism and
Taoism, the principle that links the two and constitutes the basis
for practice in both.
In Buddhism, the ultimate goal of practice is
to attain “enlightenment” by experiencing bodhicitta – the
immutable, immortal State of primordial awareness – and thereby “becoming
a buddha,” or “awakened one” (cheng fuo). In Taoism,
the goal is precisely the same, but the term is to attain “immortality” – to
return to that pure and perfect State of primordial (“pre-natal”)
awareness that “is not born and does not die” – and
thereby “become an immortal” (cheng hsien), one who has
awakened to the Way things really are, always have been, and forever
shall be, i.e. the Tao. These goals, though couched in different
cultural terms, are one and the same and can only be reached by
the path of diligent practice and continuous self-cultivation.
The goal here is not to worship and obey a “supreme being,” separate
and superior to oneself, but rather to discover a supreme state
of being, a state of pure and perfect awareness that resides within
oneself and must be directly experienced be known and utilized
in life. This is the path of Complete Reality and Great Perfection,
the path in which “practice makes perfect” and results
depend entirely on the diligence and perserverence of the practicioner,
and the time and energy he or she devotes to self-cultivation.
The essence of the Dzog Chen teachings is summarized
in the famous “Three Statements of Garab Dorje,” the
enlightened master who founded this ancient pracitce lineage in
northern India two thousand years ago. The first principle is “direct
introduction,” whereby the master introduces the student directly
to the real nature, or “State,” of his or her own mind – the
wide open, brilliantly luminous, infinitely potential energy of
primordial awareness. This is the preliminary learning stage, and
it requires the direct guidance of a realized master who is qualified
to transmit the essence of the State and teach the methods of practice.
The
second principle is to “eliminate doubt” through
actual experience of the State in the student’s own personal
practice, utilizing the methods taught by the master. These methods
enable the student to discover his or her own real condition in
actual practice, thereby eliminating any lingering doubts about
the truth of the teachings.
The third and final stage of practice is “integration,” which
means extending the knowledge and experience of awareness – the “fruit” of
the practice – into every activity of daily life. It means
remaining present in the State of awareness as much as possible
at all times, not only during formal meditation sessions and practice
retreats, and always conducting oneself on the basis of that condition.
The Three Statements of Garab Dorje accord well
with the traditional guidelines of practice in the Chuan Chen lineage
of Taoism, the “mountain men” (and women) who strove
to embody the immortal Tao in every deed, word, and thought of
their daily lives. In the Complete Reality path of Taoist self-cultivation,
every adept begins the quest for truth through a fortuitous encounter
with an enlightened sage, “a man of Tao” who transmits
the essence of the Way and teaches its methods of realization.
The aspiring adept then retires from the world for a period of
time and goes into seclusion in the mountains to practice the teachings
to self-perfection, a process known as hsiou tao (“cultivating
the Way”). Finally, when the “complete reality” of
Tao has been realized, the adept “returns to the towns and
markets” to apply the Way in all the myriad activities of
daily life “among ordinary people” (ren jian).
Using these three stages of cultivation as a
guideline, let’s take a closer look at some of the common
grounds traversed by the practice paths of Chuan Chen Tao and Dzog
Chen Dharma.
Direct Introduction: The Base
In Dzog Chen tradition, the ground of spiritual
practice is known as the “base.” That ground is bodhicitta,
the pure and perfect nature of mind, the original State of primordial
awareness that shines in the heart of each and every individual.
In Chuan Chen terminology, the primordial State is variously refered
to as the “precious pearl,” the “pre-natal mind,” the “triplex
unity of essence, energy, and spirit,” or simply the “Way.” Direct
experience of this pure and perfect State is the goal of practice
in both traditions.
The ground of primordial awareness has two fundamental
features – stillness and movement – and both are as natural
to the terrain of mind as mountains and water are to landscapes.
The more conventional schools of Buddhist and Taoist meditation
place preferential emphasis on the stillness aspect of mind, discounting
the movement of mind as a distraction to be avoided. The result
of such partial practice is that the practicioner never learns
how to recognize and regulate the manifold facets and functions
of his or her own energy. Energy (movement) is as natural a quality
of mind as emptiness (stillness), and the spontaneous movement
of energy accounts for all the thoughts and feelings, emotions
and desires, functions and processes we experience in life. Energy
also fuels all the forms and functions of nature, from which the
energy of mind is never separate. Learning how to recognize the
energy of mind at work, and how to handle its natural movement
in meditation and in life, is therefore as vital a step on the
path of primordial awareness as is the discovery of the essential
emptiness of mind.
In Taoist tradition, the still and moving aspects
of mind are known as Yin and Yang – the passive and creative,
dark and light, empty and full. Both facets are ever-present and
mutually co-emergent, like waves rising and falling on the sea,
or wind stirring the air. “It’s real description,” writes
the 18th century Taoist commentator Liu I-ming, “would be
a stateless state. Tranquil and unstirring, yet sensitive and effective – call
on it and it responds [movement], in quietude it is clear [still].” In
Tibetan Buddhist iconography, the essential emptiness and natural
movement of mind are symbolized in yab yum–the male and female
aspects of buddhas locked in sexual union–and they are cultivated
as the sources of wisdom and compassion respectively.
“When we are in meditation,” explains
contemporary Dzog Chen master Namkhai Norbu, “we should not
rest with the idea that the calm state is something to build up
or to accept while movement is something to turn away … The
ultimate aim of meditation in Dzog Chen consists simply in maintaining
presence of both the calm state and movement.” Therefore,
as thoughts arise, we simply recognize them as the natural movement
of mind’s energy, like wind rustling in the trees, and try
not to get distracted by them, or treat them as something special.
Learning how to deal with our energy is a vital
aspect of training in both Chuan Chen and Dzog Chen tradition.
That’s why both lineages teach forms of “moving meditation” in
addition to still sitting forms – to familiarize the practicioner
with the movement of energy in body as well as mind, and show the
adept how to control the external manifestations of energy while
simultaneously remaining in a calm state of stillness inside. Thus
in Taoist practice we have Tai Chi Chuan, the Eight Pieces of Brocade,
and other moving chi-gung forms, while in Dzog Chen there is Yantra
Yoga and the Vajra Dance. All of these practices engage the three
human vehicles of body, breath, and mind in a unified and rhythmic
manifestation of energy that allows the practicioner to experience
the primordial unity of essence, energy, and spirit (jing, chi,
shen) and grow familiar with both the still and moving nature of
mind.
Another common foundation in Dzog Chen and Chuan
Chen is the primary importance of receiving direct transmission
from an accomplished, self-perfected master. The central role of
the guru is a well known feature in Tibetan Buddhism, and in Dzog
Chen, guru-yoga is one of the most basic practices. This does not
mean worshiping the master, but rather trying one’s best to
enter the State of awareness which the master has introduced and
remain therein as much as possible in meditation as well as in
daily life. The reason that the State can only be introduced by
a realized master is that it is a living experience, an actual
presence of mind, not a theoretical concept than can be gleaned
from a book or video. As the master orally instructs the student,
much more than just his words is being transmitted. The very presence
of the master conveys the essence of the State on an intuitive
level, imparting the radiant energy of enlightened awareness directly
from master to student and implanting its potent seed in the energy
field of the student. In this way, the luminous energy of the master’s
awareness flows into the student’s mindstream along with the
oral lesson, and together they form the basis of the student’s
subsequent practice. The energy of the master’s presence transmits
the essential seed of awareness, while his words introduce the
methods whereby the student may cultivate the seed to fruition
in practice.
The same principle applies in Chuan Chen Taoist
tradition. A master appears and transmits the essence of the Way
in a chance encounter, inspiring the student to embark upon the
path by virtue of the master’s enlightening presence of mind.
Taoist lore is rich in stories of such fortuitous encounters. For
example, in Shi Jing’s vignette of Liu Hai-chan in the Summer
2001 issue of The Dragon’s Mouth, we read how Liu Hai-chan,
a worldly man of fame and fortune, receives his waking call from
a wandering Taoist sage who visits his home and demonstrates his
mastery of mind. Thereafter, “Liu realized his folly and resigned
as prime minister so that he could travel to the mountains to study
the Tao.” In a passage entitled “Witnessing the Tao,” Liu
I-ming explains the importance of finding an enlightened guide:
The Tao must be witnessed … Though you
may awake to essence on your own, this is not to be relied on;
the science of life, transmitted by teachers, must be ascertained
through experience. Innate knowledge must be completed by learned
knowledge; if you have real material, you still look for a master
craftsman to make sure. It is a pity that people who consider
themselves intelligent get involved in twisted byways because
they act impulsively on random guesswork … This is something
you cannot guess on your own – the instruction of an enlightened
guide is necessary.
What the master introduces to the student is
nothing more or less than the student’s own innate enlightened
nature, the treasure trove of truth within, not a mysterious formula
or magic elixir from external sources. As Namkhai Norbu puts it, “What
is of real value is in ourselves, in our own original state: this
is our wealth. Until we discover it, we are like the beggar, always
seeking something from others but remaining in poverty … If
we turn outwards, nothing has any value.” Liu I-ming agrees
precisely on this point: “The Tao is a treasure … This
has nothing to do with material alchemy. It is utterly simple,
utterly easy … It is completely spiritual, true goodness.
The ridiculous thing is that foolish people seek mysterious marvels,
when they do not know enough to preserve the mysterious marvel
that is actually present.” In order to discover the marvel
of this inner treasure and learn how to appreciate the value of
its purity and perfection, we must dispense with wishful thinking,
simplfiy our lives, and commit ourselves to concrete practice.
Eliminating Doubt: The Path of Practice
Unless you are willing to devote time and energy
to practice, there is little point in embarking upon the quest
for truth and self-perfection. So many people today claim, “I
don’t have time to practice. I’m too busy.” Or else
they say, “Meditation is only for monks, not for ordinary
people like me.” So instead they content themselves to read
a few books, donate some money to worthy causes, and affiliate
themselves with a prominent group or popular master, without ever
taking the time to actually practice the teachings. This sort of
approach may generate good intentions, but it never develops real
understanding or self-perfection, nor does it contribute much to
changing the world for the better. As Yogananda pointed out, “Change
yourself, and you have done your share to change the world.” But
the only way to change yourself is to practice self-cultivation.
The fact of the matter is this: anyone who sincerely
wishes to cultivate awareness and self-perfection can certainly
take the time and energy to do so within the context of his or
her daily life, without becoming a monk or foresaking family and
social responsibilities. What’s required here is a re-arrangement
of basic priorities and a simplification of lifestyle in order
to make room for practice. People these days spend an average of
four to six hours a day gazing at television, but it only requires
less than half that time to sustain a strong, frutiful meditation
practice. The real problem is not lack of time – it’s
lack of resolution and sincerity. “To attain the Tao requires
resolution, cutting decisively through whatever holds you back,” remarks
Liu I-ming. “People who study Taoism and Buddhism yet cannot
wrap up the complications in their lives completely and effectively
are ridiculous.”
A popular approach to “spirituality” these
days is to join an exotic new group, learn a few new chants, take
on a new nickname, and consider oneself to be a newborn spiritual
being. Of this sort, Liu I-ming says, “So many practicioners
are merely skipping rope – with one or two Zen phrases they
pretend to be great hermits, having done a little meditating they
call themselves advanced sages. Such people are insubstantial,
shifty, and vacuous; they just talk to delude others, but it is
themselves they delude.” As Lao-tze notes in the Tao Teh Ching, “He
who knows does not speak; he who speaks does not know.”
The only way to realize the truth of “Complete
Reality” and attain the “Great Perfection” of primordial
awareness is to practice meditation, “sitting still and doing
nothing” (ching jing wu wei) until awareness dawns. For those
accustomed to the constant distraction of sensory entertainment,
or who believe only in external short-cuts to salvation, meditation
can be a very boring business. But for those who yearn to discover
the “precious pearl” of luminous awareness hidden within
the maze of mundane consciousness, meditation is the secret map
that leads the mind slowly but surely to the mysterious marvel
within.
“To
meditate,” explains
Namkhai Norbu, “only means to keep presence both of the state
of calm and that of movement; there is nothing on which to meditate … The
truth here is that the calm state is the essence of mind, and the
movement is its energy: they are two inseparable aspects of the
same reality, like a river and its waves or the sun and its rays.” At
first, many practitioners feel disturbed by the strange thoughts
and strong feelings that bubble up from their minds when they sit
down to meditate. It’s important therefore to realize that
these thoughts are nothing more than manifestations of one’s
own energy, conditioned by one’s own habitual ways of thinking
and behaving. There’s no point trying to fend them off or
suppress them, or feeling guilty and inadequate for having them.
Simply recognize them as your own “stuff,” and if you
wish to change the way your stuff manifests, all you need to do
is change the way you think and act in your daily life. As long
as you have a body, you cannot separate mind from matter: you are
what you do as well as what you think, and what meditation does
is show you a reflection of the energy you manifest in life.
Meditation is a mirror of your own mind, and
what you see is a reflection of how you use your energy. In the
beginning, it can be quite disturbing, because the images that
arise are not always as pretty as you imagine yourself to be. Herein
lies the transformative power of meditation: it shows you “where
you’re really at,” and it can prompt you to make positive
changes in the way you manifest your energy in the world. Meanwhile,
as Namkhai Norbu advises, “one must simply acknowledge whatever
thoughts arise – good or bad, relevant or insignificant – and
just continue observing the state of ‘movement:’ this
point is vitally important.”
This work takes time and patience and requires
careful attention and presence of mind. It’s not as artless
as turning on the television or putting a frozen pizza into the
microwave. On the other hand, we’re not talking about back-breaking
work like digging ditches, or the sheer force of will required
to scale Mt. Everest. We’re simply talking about giving up
some unnecessary distractions (such as a few hours of TV time )
and investing only a fraction of the effort and attention to spiritual
practice that most people pour into the single-minded pursuit of
fame and fortune, fun and games. Moreover, while fame and fortune
are fleeting and fickle rewards that never last, awareness and
wisdom become permanent assets in this life and beyond. To gain
them, however, you must give them the proper priority in life and
pay sufficient attention to the work. “If you are insubstantial
and lacking in will,” asks Liu I-ming, “how can you ever
transcend the ordinary crowd? … All over the world there are
people who want to get rich on this earth and also leap into the
clouds and climb the nine heavens, but I have never heard of a
sage coming from among them.”
At first, it may be helpful to isolate yourself
from “the ordinary crowd,” or go into periodic retreat,
in order to avoid distractions and concentrate on your practice
in quietude. But ultimately you must realize that all sensory perceptions,
just like thoughts and feelings, are only manifestations of energy
moving within your own mind, not independent external events. And
when you realize that, you can practice anywhere, any time, under
any conditions, without disturbance or distraction from internal
or external movement. Here again, the important point to remember
is that movement is as natural to the primordial State of awareness
as stillness, and that you need not prefer one or the other, nor
try to create an artificial calm. As Namkhai Norbu suggests in The
Mirror: Advice on the Presence of Awareness,
The most important thing when practicing meditation
is not to look for anything, not to think that one is meditating
or that anything particular ought to manifest. Without creating,
without wishing to receive or obtain anything, remaining beyond
desire and apprehension, one must continue in the presence of
one’s own state … That is why in both Dzog Chen and
Mahamudra it is explained that meditation must start freely,
leaving thought free and observing it, not controlling it.
In other words, just “let it be, let it
be,” and you will soon discover that it is nothing and everything,
empty and full, still and moving – the original and sole source
of one and all. Already perfect and complete, it needs no re-defining
from you. All you need to do is learn to recognize it. “Awake
or asleep,” writes Liu I-ming, “it is always there; looking,
listening, talking, walking, it is very very close. This is not
the awareness of conditioned knowledge, it is the original sane
energy, vitality, and spirit. If you seek this in terms of form
or shape, you are mistaking the servant for the master.” If
you wish to master your original sane State, you must order your
priorities according to the dictum of Chang Po-tuan, one of the
great masters of the Chuan Chen lineage: “Practicing self-refinement
is the first priority.”
Integration: The Fruit
The fruit of the practice is to integrate the
presence of awareness with all your daily activities by dissolving
the distinction between meditation and life. This is the “Great
Perfection” of Dzog Chen practice and the way of the “Perfected
Man” in Chuan Chen cultivation. It means that every activity
of body, speech, and mind arises directly from the self-perfected
State of pure awareness rather than the confusion and conflict
of ego and emotion, and that daily life itself becomes the ground
and the path of practice.
To complete their quest of self-cultivation as
truly Perfected Men (jen ren), adepts of Chuan Chen Tao must return
from seclusion in mountains and hermitages and once again live
among ordinary people in towns and markets , where the give-and-take
of daily life provides a perpetual stage for continuous practice.
This is the final test of the adept’s attainment and the gauge
that separates the real practicioner from the impostor.
In the Chuan Chen lineage, the integration of
practice and daily life traditionally involved the conscious cultivation
of poverty as path. “Poverty is the foundation of nurturing
life,” wrote the Perfected Man, Ma Tan-yang. “Such is
truly the lifestyle of a person of the Tao.” Liu Hai-chan,
after resigning his powerful post as prime minister and foresaking
the comforts of wealth in order to go to the mountains to study
and practice the Tao, finally returned to the towns and spent the
rest of his life hanging around public markets, where he became
known as the beggar A Bao. Earning his way with odd jobs and menial
tasks in wealthy households, he skillfully utilized the mundane
situations of everyday life to further hone his practice and to
help people in need, while constantly inspiring others to cultivate
the Tao with dazzling displays of his own amazing attainments.
The founding patriarch of the Chuan Chen lineage,
Wang Chung-yang, taught his disciples to beg for a living as an
effective means of fusing their spiritual practice with the practical
requirements of daily survival in the world. Many of his followers
were educated men and women from wealthy households, and begging
in public taught them the virtues of humility and non-attachment
far more efficiently than book learning or meditation. Begging
also insured a simple, elementary lifestyle, free from the distractions
of holding office and immune to the spiritually crippling complexities
of fame and fortune. The deliberate cultivation of “pure poverty” helped
to tame the ego and allowed the adept to devote sufficient time
and energy to nurturing the precious pearl of awareness shining
within his or her own mind.
In Dzog Chen, integration is also regarded as
the final and most important stage of practice. After receiving
direct introduction to the true nature of mind from a master, and
eliminating all doubt about it through direct exprience in practice,
the Dzogchenpa must learn to integrate the State of awareness with
ordinary activities and erase the boundry between meditation and
life, thereby dissolving the contradiction between what one knows
internally and what one does externally. “Practicing only
means bringing knowledge into daily life,” states Namkhai
Norbu, “without getting distracted … This is the only
way the teachings can become something concrete … For this
reason, it is very important to try to maintain presence as much
as possible, integrating it with all our activities.”
Sitting still in the tranquility of your shrine
room and attending occasional meditation retreats are all well
and good, but beyond that, you must extend your practice to all
situations, at all times, “until there is no longer any distinction
between meditation and life.” To those who claim they have
no time for practice, Namkhai Norbu replies that apart from sitting
sessions and periodic retreats, “practicing does not mean
doing anything in particular: living is enough. Only if someone
told me, ‘I am sorry, Master, I haven’t had time to live!’ would
I believe that they didn’t have time to practice.”
The key to integration is to avoid getting distracted,
to try your best to remain ever-present in the State of awareness
and never lose your view of “Complete Reality.” That’s
why so many Taoist masters choose to live in poverty – to
avoid the distractions of fame and fortune and focus attention
on the basics of practice and presence in daily life. “If
we practice without distraction,” explains Namkhai Norbu, “gradually
the space of the meditation increases, becoming integrated with
daily activities … fact, in order to realize the inseparability
of meditation and daily activities, we must apply the practice
twenty four hours a day. And that can only be done by not getting
distracted.”
Unless we are prepared to apply the teachings
in a concrete way in our daily lives, and extend our internal awareness
to our external activities, we run the risk of becoming what Liu
I-ming describes as “vacuous dilettantes … merely skipping
rope.” Knowing what’s true but doing what’s false
in daily life is sheer hypocrisy and belies the very essence of
spiritual practice. As the Dalai Lama notes, “The real practice
is daily life.”
Herein lies the grandeur of the Dzog Chen and
Chuan Chen vision – the realization that self-perfection is
possible in this very lifetime, and that awareness and energy may
be fully integrated in every activity of body, speech, and mind.
It’s a vision of Great Perfection and Complete Reality that
every individual on earth has the potential to realize in his or
her own life, but that few have the patience and persistance to
pursue. For those who do, the same signpost appears again and again
at every milestone along the path: “Practice Makes Perfect:
Proceed Onward!”
* * *
Notes:
Quotes from Liu I-ming were taken from Awakening
to the Tao, by Liu I-ming, translated by Thomas Cleary (Shambhala,
1988)
Quotes from Namkhai Norbu were taken from The
Mirror: Advice on the Presence of Awareness, by Namkhai
Norbu, translated by Adriano Clemente and Andrew Lukianowicz
(Shang-Shung Edizioni & Barrytown Ltd, 1996)