DZOGCHEN AS A PHENOMENOLOGICAL THEOPHANIC MANIFESTATION

1. THE GREEK WORD PHANES MEANS APPARITION OR APPEARANCE….OF DIVINITY.

2. THE GREEK WORD PHAINO MEANS TO SHOW OR TO MANIFEST OR DISPLAY. TO APPEAR. APPEARING, SHOWING, MANIFESTING, APPARITION. PHANINO MEANS TO BRING TO LIGHT OR TO BRING INTO APPEARANCE. PHANEROS MEANS TO SHOW OR DISPLAY, TO MANIFEST.

3. PHENOMENOLOGY AS METHOD COMES FROM THIS WORD…THE EXPERIENCE OF APPEARANCE. ..THE UNFOLDING OF MULTIDIMENSIONAL APPEARANCE, THE ARTICULATION OF APPEARANCE AS KNOWLEDGE. THE PATH OF DZOGCHEN IS THE PATH OF AWARENESS WITHIN APPEARANCE AND APPEARANCE WITHIN AWARENESS. THE PATH OF PHENOMENOLOGY IS THE ARTICULATION OF APPEARING WITHIN EXPERIENCE.

4. THEOPHANY MEANS THE APPARITION OF DIVINITY WITHIN AND THROUGH APPEARANCE. DIVINITY MANIFESTING THROUGH PHENOMENA. THEOPHANY IS THE APPARITION OF GOD, DEUS…

5. AND SO AWARENESS AS YOU AND I KNOW IS MULTIDIMENSIONAL, THIS WONDERFUL AWARENESS MAY BE CONSIDERED A THEOPHANY…WE OFTEN THINK ABOUT THIS THEOPHANY IN ITS VERTICAL OR ASCENDANT HORIZON… THE GEOMETRY OF ASCENDANCY…OF MANIFESTATION. PURE AWARENESS UNBOUND OPENNESS OF DARK LUMINOSITY, ARISING AND MANIFESTING IS THE COSMIC LIGHT AND VORTEXES AND THE ARCHETYPAL DIMENSION OF THE DEITIES OR DEVAS OR DAKINIS…AND THEN THE ELEMENTS BECOME FLESH….ARISING OUT OF VOID, THE LIGHT AS ELEMENTS CONFIGURE AND CREATE THE POWERS OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND THEN THEY MANIFEST AS THE EARTH ELEMENT THE ELEMENT OF FLESH.

6. BUT THIS VERTICAL PRESENTATION IS ONLY AN IMAGINED GEOMETRY..AND SO THE THEOPHANY IS ALSO HORIZONTAL….AND SO ONE ENTERS THE THEOPHANIC DIMENSION DIRECTLY THROUGH WHAT IS IN FRONT OF YOU, BEHIND YOU, WITHIN YOU, AND ABOVE YOU…THE RELATIONAL WORLD IS THEOPHANIC.

7. OF COURSE THIS THEOPHANIC DISCOURSE IS THE MANIFESTATION OF LOVE, PURE LOVE COSMIC LOVE PERSONIFIED.

8. THE SINGULARITY OF LOVE , OF THE BELOVED IS THE SINGULARITY OF EACHNESS OR SUCHNESS...THE COSMIC WITHIN THE PERSONAL. IN THE THEOPHANIC LOVE, ALL LOVE IS COSMIC ...COSMIC COMPASSION AND PERSONAL. IN OUR POOR SOCIETY EROS HAS BECOME SEXUALITY AND A KIND OF DISCHARGE MECHANICS. BUT WITHIN GREEKS, DZOGCHEN AND MAHAMUDRA, AS WELL AS CERTAIN SUFI AND CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHIES ALCHEMICAL LOVE IS EROS... AND OF COURSE LOVE MASTERS US. LOVE IS THE THEOPHANIC MANIFESTATION. YOU AND I ARE THEOPAHNIC MANIFESTATIONS OF PURE LOVE.

9. LOVE. EROS IS GOD..AND GOD IS EROS... UBI CHARITAS ET AMOR DEUS IBI EST.

10. IT IS NOT LOVE THAT THE LOVER FALLS IN LOVE WITH BUT THE DIVINITY MADE MANIFEST BY LOVE .

11. AS DANTI DESCRIBES IN HIS FIRST SIGHT OF BEATRICE WHO IS COSMIC AND PERSONAL. FOR THE DZOGHCEN SHAVITE AND AS WELL AS SUFISM OF ILB ARABI, LOVE IS COSMIC PERSONAL, LOVE IS ALWAYS THEOPHANIC..

12. WHEREVER YOU LOVE THERE IS GOD.

13. TRUE SPIRITUALITY IS AN ANIMA EXPERIENCE...PSYCHE. OF COURSE THE LOVE OF YESHE TOGYAL AND PADMASAMBHAVA IS A THEOPHANIC DESCRIPTION…AND THE ONENESS OF THE COUPLE SAMANTABHADRA AND SAMATABHADRI IS INDICATIVE OF THEONENESS OF THE MASCULINE AND FEMININE IN ONE PERSON AND THE THEOPHAINIC EXPERIENCE OF LOVE BETWEEN TWO.

15. THE PRACTICE OF THE INNER HEART ESSENCE IS A PATH OF LOVE, A THEOPHANIC PATH OF NON DUAL ONENESS, OF LUMINOUS FLESH,

16. SPACE MAKES PLACE FOR THE MANIFESTATION OF THE ANIMA …SPACE MAKES PLACE FOR THE ANIMA MUNDI. THE DAKINI IS THE ANIMA EXPRESSION OF PRIMORDIAL AWARENESS IN HER MANY FORMS. AS SOURCE, AS APPARITION. VORTEXUAL, AS HUMAN BEING AND AS THE EARTH ITSELF, THE EARTH IS THE DAKINI.

17. ALTHOUGH PATRIARCHICAL IN INSTITUTIONALIZATION, THE PATH OF AWARENESS IS THE ANIMA, GNOSIS , DIRECT PERCEPTION AND IS FEMININE. DIRECT PERCEPTION, GNOSIS IS LOVE ITSELF.

18. THERE WAS THIS AMAZING AND SECRET GROUP THAT CROSSED THE BOUNDARIES OF SUFISM AND CHRISTIAN MEDIEVALS…CALLED FEDEI D'AMORE, THE SERVANTS OF LOVE. AND THIS WONDERFUL GROUP WENT THROUGH SPAIN, ANDALUSIAN SPAIN, INTO ITALLY. DANTI WAS A MEMBER. A SUFI NAMED RUZBEHAN BAQLI OF SHRIRAC D1209 WROTE A TREATISE THE JASMINE OF THE FEDLI D'AMORE. MARSSILO FICINO WROTE DE AMORE, AND SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE LABORS LOST WRITES A DEFENSE OF THE FEDEI D'AMORE. THE SUFI IBN ARABI IN 1201 FALLS IN LOVE WITH A YOUNG WOMEN NAMED NIZAM AYN AL-SHAMS, meaning HARMONY. THE EYE OF THE SUN AND OF BEAUTY. SHE REVEALS THE SOPHIANIC RELIGION OF LOVE.

19. IF ONE READS THE TEXT OF DZOGHCEN AND THE MAHAMUDRA SIDDHAS ONE SEES OVER AND OVER THE VAST EMPHASIS IS ON HUMAN LOVE AND THE MYSTERIOUS CONJUNCIO AS DIRECT MANIFESTATION OF NON DUAL ONENESS.

What is the Wonder of all Wonders? The Unfolding of Awareness

To experience the unfolding of the kayas of the awareness field, the dimensions of awareness, is to experience the manifestation of consciousness in ourselves and in the world around us...it is to experience the unfolding of gnosis, direct perception, as the ground of our being. This is a gifted experience...and at times this gift and manifestation is wrapped in the cloth of excess and saturation. The mystic life is excessive. It is useful to read and hear the lives of yogis ofi the various traditions i.e., The Play of Consciousness: A Spiritual Autobiography of Swami Muktananda, and The Lion of the Siddhas: the Life and Teachings of Padampa Sangye, The Life of Meister Eckhart, the Life of Ibn Al-Arabi, and the experiences of Namkhai Norbu, Yan Xin the siddha qi gong master, Lama Norhla, Kunsange Dechen Lingpa, Dudjom Rinpoche, Amma, to name a few.

There is a famous statement in phenomenology..."what gives itself,shows itself,what shows itself gives itself". Awareness manifests itself in you in so far as it gives itself in you and in as much as awareness gives itself in you awareness manifests itself in you. The field of awareness manifests awareness itself in us as us. Actually in the manifestation of awareness, awareness creates itself as the body of light in us as us...awareness creates and brings forth awareness in us. The experience of awareness is a gift and not a function of intentionality, of the mind as the noetic noema function ... awareness is not a thought, awareness is an experience of what is given...when asked who is god Swami Muktananda would say god is this fantastic experience that is within you as you.

The divine experience is not a movie, not outside of you, there is no distance, no distance whatsoever, it is your youness that is the place of manifestation.

The sense of subjectivity that takes place within you when you are located in your solipsitic mind, is not the same sense of subjectivity that takes place when you are in awareness of your mind, and the sense of subjectivity that arises out of your becoming aware of your own awareness is not the same sense of subjectivity as in those prior events of knowning. Subjectivity is a floating metaphor. The sense of subjectivity that takes place within the infinite unfolding of the kayas is subjectivity that is pure unbound and unbinding openness of the ground of beingness which is awareness itself...without reference.

As the kayas or as the dimensions of awareness unfold themselves in you as you as nirmanakaya, sambogakaya and dharmakaya, your subjectivity is the dimension. You do not have a kaya, you do not visit a kaya, aham ah I am that...these experiences of subject, experiencer is vastly different then your earlier experience of being a subject locked in the mind or locked in a particular function of the mind...like the affective function or the thinking function...such is the wonder of all wonders..translucent openness as flesh, translucent openness as light, translucent openness as pure potential space..unbound.

The very sense of subjectivity is transformed, disolved and reinvented within these developemental movements. The becoming one with the awareness field is not the simple expansion of mind, actually the mind may expand very little, if at all. The expansion is the vaste expansion of awareness..into gnosis, becoming knowingness...this is a gift that is given...in certain ways the mind never catches up to what has happened.

With each step in this step by step unfolding your sense of subjectivity transforms and is given...by the gift of awareness manifesting. In the begining of your life your mind contained subjectivity, containing awareness like in a bottle or in a vase...as awareness gives itself to you and shows itself to you as you, awareness then contains your mind, and you know less with your mind...with the functions of your mind and more through your unbound openness...ineffableness...and basic faith arises...confidence in your experience.

Since you are the receiver of the gift, the gifting of unbound and unbinding awareness, this gift of awareness with its intensity and ineffability brings forth suffering and bliss. The very fleshing of the luminous awareness in its incessant manifestation in your body stretches the receiver, the recipient, in every way possible. The manifestation of cosmic awareness in your body is excessive and saturating...as event, as iconic radiance, as flesh and subtle body, the saturation of the infinite experience in a finite body mind continium.

The receiver of manifestation is put in the situation of feeling the experience of unbound and unbinding awareness as their own self, their own fragile embodiment. The gift of awareness is not simply given into a subjectivity like a dollar being placed in a bucket, but given as subjectivity... subjectivity itself undergoes the alchemical gifting of self manifestation of gnosis. There is no distance whatsoever..and so the very structures of person are undone and redone.

The receiver of awareness not only receives what awareness gives to him or her , the receiver allows the given to show itself in so far as it gives itself in him or her. Awareness is not grasped it is received. As the receiver receives the gift of awareness, the receiver accomplishes or completes the giveness by transforming the gift into manifestation...according to what gives itself in you shows itself in you.

many thanks to Jean Luc Marion for his inspiration on the phenomena of giveness

Becoming Aware of Your Own Awareness

To become aware of awareness itself is to open a vast area of experience. Most often people are located in their mind...in there thinking, feeling, sensation, memory, imaginal functions. Then one day they suspend their mind just a bit, and rather then their awareness being focused in their mind and the functions of the mind, they begin to focus on awareness itself.. and in that brief moment they begin to glimpse ever so briefly that there mind is not their awareness, and they may even experience the sense that their awareness is a field, and is infinite in its horizon and multidimensional. With this tiny shift in attention the very light of awareness itself begins to open up to them..with immediacy, ineffability and simplicity.