Keep it simple: dzogchen in daily life. Brighton, May 2007

James Low
Brighton, 12-13 May 2007
Transcribed by Mark Grizenko, Ross O’Shea and Angelina McMillan then prepared by Rob Dowling.

Extracts

Because our life is nothing but moments, events, arising and passing, arising and passing. All that we’ve ever done is gone. Our childhood is gone. We can remember it, we can tell stories about it, but it’s gone. Even our breakfast is gone. Everything is gone. If we really see that, then when we tell people about ourselves, about our past, we’re just inviting them to fall asleep with us. We’re saying, ‘I had a lovely dream, let me share it with you. You can fall asleep in my dream for a while and then, because I believe in reciprocity, I’ll fall asleep in yours.’ …

… Life is not fair, it’s not rational, it’s not based on arithmetic. It is very complex and very confusing. And so the ego’s desire to control, to plan, to predict, to know what’s what in advance, is always going to be stymied because it’s operating from the wrong position: that information will show you what to do. Information doesn’t show you what to do; it is participation, actually being part of things, that allows us to know what to do….

…To try and fill yourself with an ideal object is the basis of samara. You try this object, and it doesn’t work out but you think, ‘Well, I was just a bit unlucky this time, I see now how I could improve the fit…’ and like an engineer you try to change yourself a bit, you try to change the object a bit, always hoping that one day the ideal configuration is going to arise. From life to life to life we revolve in samsara on the basis of this.