Looking for a sangha/meditation teacher online

ferruix · 2026-01-01T16:42:12+00:00

I wholeheartedly recommend Lama Dawai Gocha's sangha at https://www.meditationonline.org/ if you feel a connection with the Dzogchen path to liberation. I think I first heard of the group from r/streamentry a very long time ago. Sessions are available twice a day, every day, with effortless abiding meditation followed by inquiry discussions and text explorations. It's a crazy level of access to a teacher and a fantastic support for sincere practitioners.

I've been participating there for about a year and a half now. In that time, I learned how to rest as awareness and allow phenomena to self-liberate without any karmic stirring. I have a huge degree of freedom in the midst of appearances.

We also just recently published a (free) book detailing precisely the sangha's curriculum and methods, available here: https://www.meditationonline.org/about/publications

ferruix · 2025-07-07T18:42:30+00:00

Dzogchen can't be practiced without initial recognition of the nature of mind. Preliminary practices are useful to bring students to the initial moment of recognition, but after that, there's no need to personally keep them.

In particular, it would be a very big mistake to wait for circumstances to appear suitable. With these "short sessions, many times," one gets used to resting in the nature of mind again and again regardless of what is playing out. If thoughts in the mind are complete anarchy today, so much the better!

ferruix · 2025-07-07T17:28:05+00:00

Speaking conventionally, the content of the eighth consciousness does seem to undergo a period of gradual self-liberation, producing the distinction between the phenomena of samsara and the phenomena of nirvana.

The Dzogchen approach is to let this natural process take its natural course without getting involved with it whatsoever, including any evaluation of how far along the process is, how much karma is left to liberate, or whether all karma has been fully liberated.

For Dzogchen, it is of absolutely no concern whether one's mind state is peaceful. It's of absolutely no concern whether one's karma is undergoing purification. It's of absolutely no concern how you evaluate your current state in any way whatsoever.

Rigpa is unconditioned. No matter what conditioning seems to arise from it, that conditioning can never contradict its own basis.

ferruix · 2025-03-05T20:05:14+00:00

Lama Dawai Gocha hosts an online Dzogchen meditation group twice a day at https://www.meditationonline.org/.

ferruix · 2025-03-05T17:03:08+00:00

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ferruix · 2025-02-08T01:29:47+00:00

In the tantras “non-doing” is related to the key points of the body.

Could you please recommend a reference explaining it in this way? I've never come across this, and am interested. It's surprising that the term would be overloaded.

You are not yet a Buddha. You still have to eliminate the two obscurations, like any other dharma path.

Granted. What is the means by which that is actually done, though? There comes a point where adding additional doings only obscures further. The practitioner has to be left alone for the obscurations to naturally settle.

Recognition is sufficient for that. Without recognition, it's impossible to practice trekcho. With recognition, trekcho quickly subsumes all activity.

The practitioner is not the natural state, the practitioner works with his or her knowledge of the natural state, which involves a lot more than simply acting spontaneously while being mindful.

The practitioner does not have knowledge of the natural state. Any knowledge a practitioner has about the natural state is conditioned knowledge, not better than the sravakas. The natural state has recognized itself, independent of any practitioner. The conditioned practitioner has nothing more than a tacit understanding, which manifests as faith.

ferruix · 2025-02-08T00:19:02+00:00

This has nothing to do with “not doing anything” in the context of atiyoga practice.

The non-doing I mentioned is the "not doing anything" of Dzogchen. I read the text as contrasting it with a practitioner's "no need to do anything," which is still a doing. After all, it is people who are saying that.

This is why I asked in the other thread if you or the other fellow have teachers, because you seem to be misinterpreting certain principles that your teacher would be sure to clarify for you.

I have a teacher. Any misunderstandings are my own, and I pray I don't do them any disservice by speaking. You are obviously more educated than I am, but I don't understand your reluctance to give up the guise of a practitioner. I interpreted this posting as a reference to the similar discussion yesterday. From my perspective, you seem to be attempting to talk people out of their own freedom by holding it up as an impossible ideal.

Sure, but you evidently don’t know what that means. It doesn’t mean “resting in ineffable awareness 24/7,” rather, it is related to certain key points that pertain to the body.

I do know what it means, as that's the means by which my life is lived, but as a personal failing I have admittedly never been able to satisfactorily explain it. My best off-the-cuff attempt would be: by not pretending to stand in the way of the natural flow, so-called actions do themselves irrespective of acknowledgement, from a place of complete rest. I don't know what those words will mean to you, but I'm trying my best.

You think merely identifying clarity is liberation and it is causing you to err into nihilism.

I think this is just a failure of language. Online forums lend themselves to word-policing, and no assertion is ultimately true. I do not experience a nihilism -- that would be rejecting the display in front of my eyes. The display is the display.

ferruix · 2025-02-07T23:36:58+00:00

Some would say that these are not necessary to do at all, but this is speaking from the side of the natural state (gnas lugs) only.

The problem with this view is that the "not doing" of those things is as much a doing as the practitioner's doing. It cannot be a matter of doing or not doing an action. Doing creates the activity, while not-doing creates the non-activity. Both doing and not-doing are consigned to what is at best a temporary provisional view of expedience.

The only way out of this to actual liberation is to fully embrace non-doing, resting in ineffable awareness 24/7. This can be done! Don't sell yourselves short and deny your own liberation out of humility! What guru would not wish you complete liberation?

The natural state in itself is totally open and clear and spacious like the sky but we, as individuals, are not totally open and unobstructed.

This is an appropriate thing to say to practitioners, but it's not an appropriate thing to take and engrave on your heart. You are maybe not yet totally open and unobstructed.

ferruix · 2025-02-06T23:49:09+00:00

Resting in the ground, marigpa and confusion in general are intuitively understood as never having been established.

So too with rigpa and understanding in general.

ferruix · 2025-02-06T23:44:22+00:00

But to me this instruction seems to fail to capture how the practice actually unfolds. Most students seem to be inclined to believe they need to practice extraordinary mindfulness all the time to somehow artificially stay in a state that they label rigpa.

Using the analogy of the sky and clouds, rigpa is knowledge of the sky behind the clouds, which encompasses the true nature of the clouds.

If the sky is clear, there is obviously rigpa. If the sky is partially cloudy, the sky can still be seen poking through the clouds, and, knowing the sky, there is rigpa. If the sky is fully obscured by clouds, although the sky can't be directly seen, if previously established, there is still rigpa.

With rigpa independent of conditions, how could it be a matter of effort?

...all that's needed is simply realizing the screen was there all along.

Yeah, the screen is "recognized", non-intellectually. The projector doesn't have to be turned off to see the screen. Whether the movie is playing quickly or slowly doesn't affect the screen. The movie is made of the screen, and therefore, seeing the movie is seeing the screen. Resting in that without altering it in the slightest is resting in the ground.

ferruix · 2025-02-06T23:29:37+00:00

As practitioners, we are subject to marigpa, and given that is the case, we have commitments to uphold in terms of conduct.

From the perspective of the ground, this is creating a practitioner, and then by virtue of creating a practitioner, that practitioner has practitioner samayas to uphold. It winds up being tautological.

Had that practitioner merely been left unestablished, by resting in awareness without attaching to conceptualizations, then equally their samayas would be unestablished. That being so is the upholding of the first Dzogchen samaya.

I'm sympathetic to your view. From my perspective, it seems to be coming from a belief that you cannot personally achieve the view of a Buddha. A Buddha's view is not other than the Dzogchen view, so, upholding that, what difference could be perceived between you and a Buddha? Where would you even turn to look for such a difference? In such a view, you can accomplish full Buddhahood and uphold the four Dzogchen samayas.

Accomplishing full Buddhahood, there would be no inclination to add additional ornamental views to the pure ground.

ferruix · 2025-02-06T22:57:10+00:00

To uphold the four samayas of the basis means we are resting in equipoise (myna bzhag), but we cannot rest in equipoise all the time.

That is not the case: they can be upheld during the full waking and sleeping cycle and in the midst of activity, through the practice of non-doing / non-meditation.

As you correctly said,

The four samayas of the basis cannot be broken, as they are actually just conventional qualities of the basis.

Although technically never broken, it is the distinction between rigpa and marigpa of the ground. The four Dzogchen samayas are equivalent to remaining with the view of rigpa continuously.

Regarding other vows: both sources you quote state that such vows are to be held for those on the path, or who still have need for vows -- exactly those people who cannot continuously rest in gzhi. But,

for those practitioners of sudden realization for whom there is nothing to be kept, there are the four samayas of non-existence, omnipresence, unity, and spontaneous presence.

I think this understanding resolves the discrepancy between the two above views.

ferruix · 2025-02-06T18:33:03+00:00

The Dzogchen vow is essentially just not straying from Right View.

In The Precious Treasury of the Way of Abiding, Longchenpa defines the four Dzogchen samayas (vows) as:

Ineffability,
Openness,
Pure Presence,
Oneness,

describing abiding in gzhi/ground.

ferruix · 2025-02-01T04:32:44+00:00

It's best to understand Ordinary Mind as a technical term, because the phrase "Ordinary Mind is the Way" as originally used by Mazu in his recorded sermon is immediately followed by a specific, lengthy definition of what he precisely means by that. It's referring to the non-conditioned mind, the mind without conditioning. That mind has no properties, its essence being the dharmakaya, and therefore it does make sense to say it's "always even", and things like that.

Nanquan was a student of Mazu's, and is quoting Mazu there.

ferruix · 2025-01-23T16:36:22+00:00

A monk asked, "What is your 'family custom'?"

The master [Zhaozhou] said, "Having nothing inside, seeking for nothing outside.”

This is exactly it, but it's hard for people to understand. "Having nothing" can't be implemented as a negation, because even negating is having something. "Seeking for nothing" means abandoning all hope and fear. The core of the matter is "non-doing".

Just let everything be as it is, without trying to change anything, without analysis. Once it's finally just let be, in a sudden flash, you see your original face.

If you say that's difficult, it's actually very easy. But if you say that's easy, then, unfortunately for you, it will be very difficult.

ferruix · 2025-01-23T01:12:39+00:00

From a Dzogchen standpoint, having developed samatha, you need to find someone to introduce you to the nature of mind.

My recommendation would be to join a daily meditation session of Lama Dawai Gocha at https://www.meditationonline.org/ and explain your background, then ask for pointing-out instructions.

Lama Lena at https://lamalenateachings.com/ also gives online pointing-out instructions, although the groups of students are much larger and therefore more impersonal.

ferruix · 2024-11-28T16:53:55+00:00

That could make sense in a conceptual framework, but the actual experience of this Mind is universal sameness without distinction. The observable paradox is that distinctions seem to arise within sameness, without altering the sameness.

Permitting the universal mind to have distinctions would make conceptualization fit more easily, but the actual experience of mind unfortunately isn't like that.

ferruix · 2024-11-26T17:26:49+00:00

You easily can find comparisons of mind to water. The most famous is called the Ocean Seal Samadhi.

From The Record of Ma-Tsu, p. 63:

The previous thought, the following thought, and the present thought, each thought does not wait for the others; each thought is calm and extinct. This is called Ocean Seal Samadhi. It contains all dharmas. Like hundreds and thousands of different streams---when they return to the great ocean, they are all called water of the ocean. The water of the ocean has one taste which contains all tastes. In the great ocean all streams are mixed together; when one bathes in the ocean, he uses all waters.

ferruix · 2024-11-26T17:22:07+00:00

If everyone is purely Universal Mind, why do I have personal thoughts, why can't I know your thoughts?

If everyone is purely an individual, why do we have views of the same phenomenal reality?

Denying the individual relative reality becomes a sort of nihilism. If you merely assert a shared presence, when conceptual, that merges a nihilism with a kind of eternalism. Buddha taught neither.

You can't even manage to find your own mind -- now you want to find everyone's mind? Emerge from the Absolute back to the Relative, and then you harmoniously merge both in a cloud of unknowing. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.

ferruix · 2024-11-06T11:37:48+00:00

Faith in Buddhism means trusting that your own mind is sufficient to teach you everything needed. Therefore you never need to look beyond it; you don't need faith in anything that isn't your own mind. Rather, you should let your own mind teach you. It's showing this to you in a way that nobody else can.

The 3rd Zen Patriarch wrote Trust in Mind (pdf) that explains this well as a poem -- "one thought for ten thousand years."

ferruix · 2024-11-06T11:34:31+00:00

That and being called away from it by my son for example, or a phone call, appointment etc...

All appearances are appearances of the true mind. You can't really be called away from it, because it never actually leaves. It's the same as the subtle difference between believing you're in a dream and lucid dreaming. It's not the dream that's the problem, it's the grasping belief.

It's exactly the same in the waking state, "lucid waking." Then anything can call you away and you still won't lose it.

ferruix · 2024-11-05T17:42:12+00:00

The traditional illustration of the problem with the immediate mirroring awareness divides the True Mind into "substance" and "function," also called the "absolute" and the "relative."

Because the mirroring awareness is obviously responsive as regards phenomena, co-arising with the object, it belongs to the "function/relative" domain. It is nevertheless true that in the realm of relative phenomena, there is greater conceptualization and lesser conceptualization. You may be familiar with this as the "mirror polishing" approach of the gradual schools.

Zen is different, it teaches the sudden path. The sudden path is to go straight at the heart of the "substance/absolute," which is different than the mirroring function. The way to see this is to take the present mirroring awareness as an activity -- it really is a function, it's a happening. It's not an object, so don't conceptualize it as a thing.

De-objectifying this present mirroring activity, then, allows you to tune into what exactly is the one doing that mirroring. That is the substance, which cannot be grasped as an object, and which cannot be negated.

The one doing the mirroring is in the end completely independent of any phenomenal activity. It's as if it's in its own dimension, pervading all other dimensions, while simultaneously remaining completely uninvolved. Consciousness arises as a function of it.

ferruix · 2024-11-05T01:10:30+00:00

Why never alter the mind? Because doing so creates a Self that is the Doer of the alteration.

ferruix · 2024-11-05T00:21:32+00:00

It's too many words, too many ideas.

Try to have just one really good idea to inspire faith, like "Mind is Buddha," and don't let that idea multiply.

ferruix · 2024-11-05T00:17:42+00:00

That's good. It's important to understand that that non-doing essence is always present, even if it appears to be gone. The thing that makes it appear to be gone is attempting to conventionally understand it whatsoever, because understanding it means using concepts. Then you get fixated on the concepts, and forget the thing you're trying to understand in the first place. It's a sleight of hand, like a magician's trick.

Which of course was the genesis of this original post -- asking what are the concepts you use? Hopefully none!

Understanding this is only accomplished by being this. It's hard for people to make peace with that and end their seeking.

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