Dzogchen: Understanding Garab Dorje's Three Vital Points

In the lecture “Dzogchen: Understanding Garab Dorje’s Three Vital Points,” delivered on October 10, 2021, Diamond Approach founder and spiritual teacher A. H. Almaas clarified the understanding of Garab Dorje’s three vital points with the hope of benefiting all those who are interested in practicing Dzogchen or in gaining a better understanding of its experiential qualities of emptiness, luminous clarity, and compassion. This was the fifth lecture in the 2021 A.H. Almaas Lecture Series, offered by the Ridhwan Foundation, the home of the Diamond Approach. This handout shares each of the main points Almaas made, including the relevant quotations from the works that Almaas discussed.
Key insights
• 🤯 Garab Dorje believed that Dzogchen teachings were best suited for people with superior intelligence, leading to many intellectuals in the Western world following the teaching.
• 🌟 Dzogchen teachings go beyond the laws of karma and cause and effect, leading to the enlightened state without finishing all karma.
• 🧘‍♂️ The first essential point in Dzogchen is that the student receives the enlightened state directly in their consciousness through a real teacher.
• 🤯 Recognizing pure awareness is a discovery that needs to be independent not only from others but from one's mind, and sustaining the state requires the power of practice to make it arise on its own and become more permanent.
• 🧘‍♂️ The great masters of Tibet often spend years in complete dedication to their practice, even going to extremes like spending nine years in a cave.
• 🌟 The goal is not just to continue the state of meditation but to actualize the realization and live it in one's personal life.
• 🌅 The stage of effortless, spontaneous living in the awakened state can be considered the fruition of realization of the path of Sakya and continues through the dying process.
• 🧘‍♀️ The primary obstacle for all non-dual states is the habit of believing that the self is the real me, which can be overcome by recognizing and investigating this belief.
Summary
Dzogchen is a non-dual teaching in Tibetan Buddhism that emphasizes direct introduction to one's own nature, recognition of pure awareness, and integrating the liberated state into everyday life through sustained practice and meditation.
• 00:00 🧘 Dzogchen is a non-dual teaching in Tibetan Buddhism that cannot be taught, and the three essential points of Garab Dorje's teaching summarize what it is and its stages, attracting highly intelligent people in the West.
• 13:46 🧘 The three vital points of Garab Dorje's teachings on Dzogchen involve direct introduction to one's own nature, recognition of pure awareness, and understanding that it is not a matter of cause and effect.
• 22:38 📜 The commentary discusses the direct introduction to one's own nature in Dzogchen, which is a transmission received from a golden letter and emphasizes the recognition of the enlightened state through personal experience and the nature of mind as naturally great perfection.
• 30:38 📚 Many Tibetans and llamas prepare for years before being introduced to the state of the auction, unlike in the West where lack of infrastructure and support for practice hinders realization and awakening, which cannot be decided intellectually but are a matter of personal discovery through direct introduction from a teacher and sustained practice, leading to a sense of verification and certainty, and not many people reach the second stage of the path.
• 43:59 🧘 The speaker discusses the third essential point of Dzogchen, which involves integrating the liberated state into everyday life through constant self-remembering and meditation, leading to effortless spontaneous living and the realization of the path of Sakyan.
• 52:40 🧘 Dzogchen emphasizes the transmission of direct realization, meditating to realize one's true nature, and bringing this realization into everyday life, while also discussing the integration of psychological means and the importance of realizing the primordial state.
• 01:02:16 📚 Dzogchen teachings require extensive practice and inquiry, with differences in realization levels between Western and traditional Tibetan practitioners.
• 01:12:37 📚 The speaker discusses the relationship between spiritual traditions and modern knowledge of the brain and consciousness, the experience of hearing an inner teacher, and overcoming psychological obstacles to achieve non-dual states in meditation.
Want to learn more about this lecture? Check out this blog post: online.diamondapproach.org/dz...
#dzogchen #garabdorje,

[@Fritsiefrats]

I have been studying Buddhism for 33 years, but have only been aware of Dzogchen's existence for a few weeks. I am pleased with your review waiter Dzogchen, my ideas have certainly matured further through it, I also think you warn sufficiently that you are not a fully qualified teacher, thank you kindly for your effort of sharing the knowledge you have, to anyone who has this seeks to make it available. About your comment about what is called decision, (36 minutes) I had taken those words about decision as yes this is a different process in me than any of the other processes, realizing this, I come to the decision, I have to deal with this differently . Continued success in becoming a Buddha.

[@paris8711]

Very nice lecture. These series are very interesting. Thank you for your generosity dear @Almaas. I would like to ask you if you could make a lecture about Ibn Arabi. I know you know quite a lot about him. It would be interesting to hear specifically about the "perfect human being" as a microcosm. I think it might have some link with dzgochen as the "self perfected state".

[@lolopatate6325]

congratulation , by your long studies you make simple and clear the essence and nature of this practice! So it shows a great perfection of comprehension and pointer keys essentials. Bravo... At a certain level tell that the mental is the great ennemy as great destructive, so you go before mental with confidence as mental just as a limited friend as just a road to reach and after it s up to you to integrate and recieve fortunately. in some instants... persistence , confidendence and profond wisdom and humility.

[@williamcallahan5218]

Great lecture. Thank You. I listened to this about a year ago and needed to revisit Garab Dorje again regarding his pointing of "certainty", "confidence". I especially appreciate your panoramic view of non duality which enriches the pov you share greatly. Thanks again.

[@DiamondApproach]

Hi William, thanks for the comment. You might find Hameed's book Runaway Realization of interest as it explores other realizations than just classic nondualism.

[@arabianbrahma]

Dear Almaas, Do you think Dzogchen is just a fantasy? I have friends practicing Theravada, Hinduism, Sufism and magic, they have achevied some forms of realization and siddhis compared to many I know who practice Dzogchen for decades and some of them have done 3-6 years retreat but no serious result, when I ask them why they tell me Dzogchen is about liberation in Bardo (after death) !! This sounds like religious faith Islam/Christianity which promises results after death.

[@RobMatthews21]

Lots of talk about it but not much of value. Why focus on Norbu’s approach. The translation of many of the original texts are available. I agree with him it’s not about intelligence.

[@000pete9]

Go read the books, oneself will have a better or more complete content.

[@Rob-rj4qk]

Almaas' knowledge of Dzogchen and the 3 statements of Garab Dorje in this lecture is very superficial. He is not a Dzogchen teacher, so I wonder why he devaluates repeatedly Dzogchen practitioners and teachers. Why does he need this? As a long term student of Norbu Rinpoche I can say that his comments about Norbu Rinpoche are also incorrect. Poor lecture.

[@DilbagSingh-sp2yp]

Thanks for sharing and saving my time.

[@DanielJackson2010]

The ultimate state is different than in Advaita Vedanta?? Wow. That's some 'scholastic Dzogchen' right there. That is like saying you clean your window with vinegar water and someone else cleans it with industrial cleaner the result is not the same. No, the window is made clean, clear and that's it. You can clean manually with circular movements, or power washing by strong streams of pressurized water, the end goal is the same regardless of the method. I wish people stopped talking on subjects they know nothing about. Yes, skillful means differ, but you can't say such utter stupidity like the ultimate states differ, cause there is ONLY ONE realizable state whether in Dzogchen, Tantras, Sutras or Vedanta, Shaivism or Chan or Zen... etc.

[@kokuyoz]

seems to me that while we talk about an "state" we are missing the point. it's not about a state, because they change, that's their nature.

[@psz931]

There are actually many ways you can comprehend these various teachings that life offers to you. Even Eastern Religions and Spiritual Practices have not a certain set of rules and it's hard to distinguish between them correctly. There are actually many insightful spiritual people who lived on Earth and made important spiritual thesises which contradicted one another. One can never be certain that the experience a person's having is the same for an other person and it only takes openess and acceptance that it is possible that reality has even more layers and realms that we know so far. It's just ironic to me sometimes that certain philoshophies limit themselves by the very essence they seek to capture which is endlessness, timelessness and absoluteness. The state that one experiences during meditation can be only one coherent part of mental state which may differ to other states that one can have whether dead or alive. People often tend to idealize older teachings over the new ones which also comes from our inherent conditioning of exalting the old and stepping over our evolutional stepping stones. I think if you want to be truly open then you must experience and try to understand all the types of teachings from chirstianity through hinduism to buddhism and stay open for scientific discoveries or occultist practices. NDEs for example a great source of material that questions the deeply rooted thoughtforms of some Eastern Traditions that the mind is gone in death. Non-dual and dual can in fact exists at the same time and that's a more balanced view of things which is tolerant and balacing towards all the known truthts. Being so single minded would only make you ignorant.

[@hisatsinommonistasih6052]

Advaita Vedanta & Dzogchen Differ. Greatly. Study more. Comment less.

[@Interspirituality]

They are all saying the same thing, you fools

[@Richard-zm5cd]

Disappointing lecture about Dzogchen, many faults, many degradations. Obviously made to attract new students to the Ridhwan school. Not to value Dzogchen.

[@shamanverse]

I agree. The lack of enthusiasm/disposition... bright...reflects an obscuration or truncated realization on his part. Also, the broad strokes as to who transmits with voltage when and how is perplexing. At least, he acknowledged he is an outsider.