r/Dzogchen

Just wanted to recommend the Denver Dzogchen podcast. I’ve found it very helpful, specifically for daily practice and off the cushion practice. I’ve found it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

Came across this term in most of the traditions. But why its called like that?. What this means in Great Perfection?.

Title: Tripping Toward the Real: Inducing Liminal Sensory Experiences through Psychoactive Substances in Buddhist Contemplative Practice

Author: James Gentry, PhD; Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Stanford University

Abstract: This article analyzes passages found in Tibetan writings from the early Great Perfection tradition that prescribe the cultivation and consumption of psychoactive fungi as an integral part of the Buddhist path. It identifies these passages as the first instances discovered in premodern Buddhist literature in which the use of psychedelics is unambiguously prescribed to hasten progress toward awakening. In so doing, it makes two central arguments: one, that mounting scholarly consensus claiming premodern Buddhists never used psychoactive substances as part of Buddhist contemplative practice is in need of correction; and two, that the early Tibetan Great Perfection tradition and others that integrate medicine and meditation can serve as resources for investigating how premodern Buddhists envisioned the role of psychedelics in developing contemplative experience. The article concludes with suggestions for how this and similarly focused text-historical research in Buddhist studies might contribute to scientific research on the possible relationships between contemplation and psychedelics.

Select quotations:

"This article addresses this gap by presenting textual evidence from the Tibetan Great Perfection Heart Essence tradition (rdzogs chen snying thig) that prescribes the use of datura and other substances in the cultivation of psychoactive fungi to be consumed with the express goal of altering sensory experience to hasten progress along the Buddhist path toward awakening, or buddhahood."

"In the discussion above I have presented what is to my knowledge the first unambiguous evidence yet discovered of the cultivation and use of psychoactive substances among premodern Buddhist practitioners as an integral part of the Buddhist path. We can discern in the passages presented above prescriptions for the synthesis of psychoactive compounds and fungi to be ingested for the purpose of inducing disruptive interventions of habitual sensory engagements. These disruptive interventions are framed according to the normative Buddhist goal of “dispelling the attachments of the sensory faculties,” one of the primary obstacles to the cognitive transformation of “awakening,” or buddhahood."

"As the Treasury specifies, it is especially necessary to induce such altered states of perception during a degenerate age, when the lifespan of beings is short and beings are therefore in need of quicker and easier methods that can help circumvent the prolonged period of Buddhist practice that is more typically prescribed to effect sensory purification and transformation."

"Perhaps it goes without saying that the psychoactive pill recipes in the Treasury and the Only Child commentary directly contravene mounting scholarly consensus that premodern Buddhists never used psychedelics, datura, or any other, as part of the Buddhist contemplative path."

URL: https://academic.oup.com/jaar/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jaarel/lfag046/8753552?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Edit: PDF of the full article kindly posted in the comments by /u/amritasiddhi : https://tinidrop.com/s/u44q7mzz

Mahayana Buddhism says that after Shakyamuni Buddha, Maitreya will be the next Buddha to appear in this world.

But in Vajrayana, figures such as Padmasambhava, Milarepa, Naropa, Tilopa, Virupa, etc. are described as having attained complete Buddhahood.

Padmasambhava is even called the “Second Buddha.”

So how do these two views fit together?

Does this mean that Mahayana texts simply don't reveal everything about what happens between Shakyamuni and Maitreya, while Vajrayana texts reveal additional teachings and accounts of beings who attained Buddhahood during this period?

Is the information about these other Buddhas considered something that was not openly revealed in the Mahayana teachings but was later revealed through Vajrayana? Or is there another explanation for why Maitreya is called the “next Buddha” despite these other Buddhas?

Is Frank here from Gomde, Pyrenees? If so, would you mind DM’ing me? don’t worry if not 🙂

hope everyone is okay

Hi all: Is there anyone here who is / were practicing Doing Nothing (on and off cushion) pursuant to an instruction from an authorized Tibetan teacher? No agenda and just interested in connecting. Please feel free to msg me directly. Thanks and hope everyone's practice is going smoothly and fruitfully!

Hello friends, I try to be cautious about not reading inappropriate texts, but it's not always easy to tell what is restricted. I know it's best to ask my teacher, but we have limited bandwidth and I don't want to bother her with this if I can avoid it.

I'm specifically wondering about the first volume of the English translation of Jigme Lingpa's Treasury of Precious Qualities on sutric teachings, and Erik Pema Kunsang's Wellsprings of the Great Perfection. I thought I'd gather opinions from people familiar with these texts. Are they open and readable by anyone, without wang, lung, and tri?