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Meditation for Modern Madness
You are already enlightened.
You don’t need to get enlightened again or to make your enlightenment better. It’s not something you have to create or believe in. You just need to recognize who you already are.
Dzogchen is an ancient Tibetan tradition that is perfect for countering the stress of our modern lives. A simple and quick method, Dzogchen is practical and direct, and open to us all—you simply need to recognize the great potential that is naturally born within everyone.
In his highly anticipated first book, the Seventh Dzogchen Rinpoche, Jigme Losel Wangpo, shows us how our everyday lives can be turned into spiritual practice—not only to ease our stress, but to allow the true nature of our minds to reveal itself, right now, on the spot. The Dzogchen view is the highest view, the view from the top of the mountain. We need to build a platform that will hold the view, and Dzogchen Rinpoche provides the meditations and advice for living that will help you do just that. In turn, you’ll find true peace in a mind at rest.
You don’t need to get enlightened again or to make your enlightenment better. It’s not something you have to create or believe in. You just need to recognize who you already are.
Dzogchen is an ancient Tibetan tradition that is perfect for countering the stress of our modern lives. A simple and quick method, Dzogchen is practical and direct, and open to us all—you simply need to recognize the great potential that is naturally born within everyone.
In his highly anticipated first book, the Seventh Dzogchen Rinpoche, Jigme Losel Wangpo, shows us how our everyday lives can be turned into spiritual practice—not only to ease our stress, but to allow the true nature of our minds to reveal itself, right now, on the spot. The Dzogchen view is the highest view, the view from the top of the mountain. We need to build a platform that will hold the view, and Dzogchen Rinpoche provides the meditations and advice for living that will help you do just that. In turn, you’ll find true peace in a mind at rest.
- GenresBuddhism
237 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 10, 2024
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49 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 22, 2025
Dzogchen Lite
This book is an easy, quick read and gives the first impression of being a very simple intro to Dzogchen (the pinnacle and in some ways most demanding stage of Buddhist practice), but it is Dzogchen lite in an interesting way. It is playful lite, like watching a juggler or jester play with familiar objects throwing them up and around, discarding and switching them around (now a magician, now a child) and well, basically messing with us, the earnest watcher/seeker so deeply invested in our samsara experience.
In other words, this book in subtle ways made me question my whole approach to Buddhism and Dzogchen and language and learning, all things I’ve been doing for many lifetimes, in this way it is fresh and refreshing, but also at times somewhat unreliable and glib and naive seeming (like the author just doesn’t occupy the same world as us). The jester after all is telling us all about what’s being juggled but mixing it all up and smiling the whole time and making it clear that NONE OF IT MATTERS.
Needless to say, this is not the usual approach to teaching such subjects, and that’s a good thing (although he also spends a fair amount of space covering the Dharma in conventional ways, he never lets us get stuck there). It seems to me this could be a great intro to Dzogchen for the uninitiated, but that it could easily just go right over their heads and in this way I’m reminded of the story of how Milarepa (14th century Tibetan yogi) could not grasp the dharma at all when his first teacher taught him dzogchen (and so had to take the long, arduous ascetic path). But who am I to know what will speak to people in this modern madness of a world…
“We need to get rid of both good and bad thoughts because they are all illusion. This is because relative truth is an illusion. We need to let go of relative truth so we can experience absolute truth. The absolute truth is that there is no relative truth. Everything that is part of relative truth is not real; these things are not true.” (P.23-24)
“You can’t attain enlightenment until you let go of relative truth. You are not supposed to be attached to relative truth; you need to let it go and experience absolute truth” (p.25)
“Being in the business world might make some things impossible, but the spiritual world is not like that - the spiritual world makes everything possible. You can do anything. That’s the great thing, everything is possible.” (p.30)
“In nondual pure awareness, however, there is nothing to reflect on, no one to reflect, and nowhere to reflect it. In Dzogchen, there is no relative view. To counter it with an absolute view is also unnecessary because everything is absolute in Dzogchen.” (p.33)
“There are three stages of the Dzogchen view: the relative view, the meditation view and the absolute view. We can’t mix these three together for the moment, because they are all quite different. The relative view is produced by what you see, hear, smell, taste and touch through your senses, and you believe your view of these things. You have another view when you meditate. This view is still about what you experienced through the senses, only now you don’t believe what you see - you see it, but you don’t believe it. The absolute view goes a step further because now you don’t see it and you don’t believe it. There are these three stages within the Dzogchen view. They are quite practical categories.” (p.35)
“The absolute view sees everything as empty. Not empty, like a shopping bag is empty, but empty of reality, because there is nothing, container or contained, to be empty. You don’t need to make something empty, it’s already empty. This is the same as saying you don’t need to make it better, it’s already the best. We don’t need to change; we are already perfect. We don’t need to worry about dying; we were never born and we never die, nothing ever changes. That is excellent. That is the right view. That is the absolute view.” (p.36)
“Emptiness doesn’t mean there is nothing there at all. We are not grasping after nothingness. We aren’t saying something is there or that something is not there. We cannot say “it is there” because even buddhas do not see it, and we cannot say “it is not there” because it appears. It is just that everything is our perception. Both samsara and nirvana are created by this perception. Reality is beyond language and beyond judgment. This subject of emptiness usually leads to a very philosophical level of debate among various Buddhist schools, but in Dzogchen, such discourse is futile because there is nothing to debate.” (p.81)
“When you look out at the world and don’t recognize it as fake, you are resting in alaya (relative ground of experience). You might think you are doing Dzogchen meditation when you look at the stars, the sun, or space, but that is only relatively reality, it’s not Dzogchen. In Dzogchen meditation, we know that what we are looking at is an illusion. It’s all just mind. It has no reality.” (p.102)
“The mind cannot recognize rigpa. Mind is always present, and pure awareness is always present, too, except it hardly gets used. Pure awareness is your reality, it is the genuine you, but you ignore it and prioritize an artificial intellectual awareness. You need to trust and believe the lineage instead of trusting the tricky mind. The lineage will take you to your destination, while mind will just try to keep you in this crazy world. Pure awareness is like gold. The intellectual mind is like brass that we try to polish to make it look like gold, even though we all have this real gold within us all the time.” (p.108)
“You need to see everything as an illusion and stop getting stressed by it. Just see it as it is. Does something seem really serious? It only looks serious. All our stresses are fake. They are relative truth. Relative truth refers to things that are only pretending to be real. Everything we do is fake. It never really happened. In absolute truth, it doesn’t matter who is right or wrong, it’s just illusion anyway. To think “He is doing bad” is an illusion. To think “She is doing good” is an illusion. We stay free of physical and mental stress when we can stay neutral. We are talking about the view here. We have to approach it differently when it comes to our actions, where we should always be kind, genuine and humble.” (p.127)
“Devotion is central in Dzogchen, but it needs to be genuine devotion, not an artificial devotion based on belief… You don’t need to create devotion, nor do you need to strive to increase it, just maintain it and devotion will grow by itself. This is the blessing of the lineage, of the buddhas, of Guru Rinpoche. Trust the Buddha, trust Guru Rinpoche, and don’t follow your monkey mind. If you do that, your suffering and stress will be fun - it will become a teaching, a method to grow and expand… Whenever I introduce this Dzogchen lineage, I always explain that you don’t need to become better, you are already good enough. The only thing we need to do is recognize. That’s it. You already know, but you miss it because your mind is frozen. You need to defrost it. It is time to melt your mind.” (p.128-29)
“We all get stressed by other people, and that is the nature of samsara. We just need to relax and learn to accommodate people. When you are happy, notice it and enjoy it. When you are sad notice it and accept it. Don’t try to change these feelings or your mind will become your master, you will keep following it and trying to either change, reject or adjust your circumstances. The intellectual mind is all about drama and stories, and we are usually dominated with these thoughts.” (p.139)
I think this may just be perfect for us in the modern world (a world increasingly ruled by rigid woke mindsets) after all because all our problems are in fact part of the relative truth illusion. I’m not sure who this 7th Dzogchen Rinpoche is, but within his playful slightly off kilter rap I see the face of a kind mischievous buddha peeking through, dissolving everything into space, leaving us all with just a big Cheshire smile.
This book is an easy, quick read and gives the first impression of being a very simple intro to Dzogchen (the pinnacle and in some ways most demanding stage of Buddhist practice), but it is Dzogchen lite in an interesting way. It is playful lite, like watching a juggler or jester play with familiar objects throwing them up and around, discarding and switching them around (now a magician, now a child) and well, basically messing with us, the earnest watcher/seeker so deeply invested in our samsara experience.
In other words, this book in subtle ways made me question my whole approach to Buddhism and Dzogchen and language and learning, all things I’ve been doing for many lifetimes, in this way it is fresh and refreshing, but also at times somewhat unreliable and glib and naive seeming (like the author just doesn’t occupy the same world as us). The jester after all is telling us all about what’s being juggled but mixing it all up and smiling the whole time and making it clear that NONE OF IT MATTERS.
Needless to say, this is not the usual approach to teaching such subjects, and that’s a good thing (although he also spends a fair amount of space covering the Dharma in conventional ways, he never lets us get stuck there). It seems to me this could be a great intro to Dzogchen for the uninitiated, but that it could easily just go right over their heads and in this way I’m reminded of the story of how Milarepa (14th century Tibetan yogi) could not grasp the dharma at all when his first teacher taught him dzogchen (and so had to take the long, arduous ascetic path). But who am I to know what will speak to people in this modern madness of a world…
“We need to get rid of both good and bad thoughts because they are all illusion. This is because relative truth is an illusion. We need to let go of relative truth so we can experience absolute truth. The absolute truth is that there is no relative truth. Everything that is part of relative truth is not real; these things are not true.” (P.23-24)
“You can’t attain enlightenment until you let go of relative truth. You are not supposed to be attached to relative truth; you need to let it go and experience absolute truth” (p.25)
“Being in the business world might make some things impossible, but the spiritual world is not like that - the spiritual world makes everything possible. You can do anything. That’s the great thing, everything is possible.” (p.30)
“In nondual pure awareness, however, there is nothing to reflect on, no one to reflect, and nowhere to reflect it. In Dzogchen, there is no relative view. To counter it with an absolute view is also unnecessary because everything is absolute in Dzogchen.” (p.33)
“There are three stages of the Dzogchen view: the relative view, the meditation view and the absolute view. We can’t mix these three together for the moment, because they are all quite different. The relative view is produced by what you see, hear, smell, taste and touch through your senses, and you believe your view of these things. You have another view when you meditate. This view is still about what you experienced through the senses, only now you don’t believe what you see - you see it, but you don’t believe it. The absolute view goes a step further because now you don’t see it and you don’t believe it. There are these three stages within the Dzogchen view. They are quite practical categories.” (p.35)
“The absolute view sees everything as empty. Not empty, like a shopping bag is empty, but empty of reality, because there is nothing, container or contained, to be empty. You don’t need to make something empty, it’s already empty. This is the same as saying you don’t need to make it better, it’s already the best. We don’t need to change; we are already perfect. We don’t need to worry about dying; we were never born and we never die, nothing ever changes. That is excellent. That is the right view. That is the absolute view.” (p.36)
“Emptiness doesn’t mean there is nothing there at all. We are not grasping after nothingness. We aren’t saying something is there or that something is not there. We cannot say “it is there” because even buddhas do not see it, and we cannot say “it is not there” because it appears. It is just that everything is our perception. Both samsara and nirvana are created by this perception. Reality is beyond language and beyond judgment. This subject of emptiness usually leads to a very philosophical level of debate among various Buddhist schools, but in Dzogchen, such discourse is futile because there is nothing to debate.” (p.81)
“When you look out at the world and don’t recognize it as fake, you are resting in alaya (relative ground of experience). You might think you are doing Dzogchen meditation when you look at the stars, the sun, or space, but that is only relatively reality, it’s not Dzogchen. In Dzogchen meditation, we know that what we are looking at is an illusion. It’s all just mind. It has no reality.” (p.102)
“The mind cannot recognize rigpa. Mind is always present, and pure awareness is always present, too, except it hardly gets used. Pure awareness is your reality, it is the genuine you, but you ignore it and prioritize an artificial intellectual awareness. You need to trust and believe the lineage instead of trusting the tricky mind. The lineage will take you to your destination, while mind will just try to keep you in this crazy world. Pure awareness is like gold. The intellectual mind is like brass that we try to polish to make it look like gold, even though we all have this real gold within us all the time.” (p.108)
“You need to see everything as an illusion and stop getting stressed by it. Just see it as it is. Does something seem really serious? It only looks serious. All our stresses are fake. They are relative truth. Relative truth refers to things that are only pretending to be real. Everything we do is fake. It never really happened. In absolute truth, it doesn’t matter who is right or wrong, it’s just illusion anyway. To think “He is doing bad” is an illusion. To think “She is doing good” is an illusion. We stay free of physical and mental stress when we can stay neutral. We are talking about the view here. We have to approach it differently when it comes to our actions, where we should always be kind, genuine and humble.” (p.127)
“Devotion is central in Dzogchen, but it needs to be genuine devotion, not an artificial devotion based on belief… You don’t need to create devotion, nor do you need to strive to increase it, just maintain it and devotion will grow by itself. This is the blessing of the lineage, of the buddhas, of Guru Rinpoche. Trust the Buddha, trust Guru Rinpoche, and don’t follow your monkey mind. If you do that, your suffering and stress will be fun - it will become a teaching, a method to grow and expand… Whenever I introduce this Dzogchen lineage, I always explain that you don’t need to become better, you are already good enough. The only thing we need to do is recognize. That’s it. You already know, but you miss it because your mind is frozen. You need to defrost it. It is time to melt your mind.” (p.128-29)
“We all get stressed by other people, and that is the nature of samsara. We just need to relax and learn to accommodate people. When you are happy, notice it and enjoy it. When you are sad notice it and accept it. Don’t try to change these feelings or your mind will become your master, you will keep following it and trying to either change, reject or adjust your circumstances. The intellectual mind is all about drama and stories, and we are usually dominated with these thoughts.” (p.139)
I think this may just be perfect for us in the modern world (a world increasingly ruled by rigid woke mindsets) after all because all our problems are in fact part of the relative truth illusion. I’m not sure who this 7th Dzogchen Rinpoche is, but within his playful slightly off kilter rap I see the face of a kind mischievous buddha peeking through, dissolving everything into space, leaving us all with just a big Cheshire smile.
April 19, 2025
3 out of 5 stars because the title feels misleading. The book teaches about Dzogchen Buddhism, and not so much meditating in the modern world, which is what you'd think. The book reads like it was translated, though I'm not sure it was. Feels very clunky and a little too simple some times.
If you were looking for an introductory book on Dzogenchen this one is for you. Their form of meditation, called Shamatha, is interesting. You focus on an object rather than your breath, though it sounds like you should do that throughout the mediation to break up a session into five minute increments. There was a big emphasis on Absolute and Relative reality. Not to mention lots of high level Buddhist themes: Buddha nature within everyone, importance of meditation, impermanence, non-duality and non-self, etc.
The idea of enlightenment being the pause in your out breath was interesting. The author says you should try to live in that moment.
A fairly in-depth breakdown of this particular sect that gives you enough info without bogging you down in details. It's just enough and not too much.
That all being said it didn't feel too tied into modern society aside from some passing anecdotes and the general idea that we're a lot busier than we used to be.
A good read but not what I expected
If you were looking for an introductory book on Dzogenchen this one is for you. Their form of meditation, called Shamatha, is interesting. You focus on an object rather than your breath, though it sounds like you should do that throughout the mediation to break up a session into five minute increments. There was a big emphasis on Absolute and Relative reality. Not to mention lots of high level Buddhist themes: Buddha nature within everyone, importance of meditation, impermanence, non-duality and non-self, etc.
The idea of enlightenment being the pause in your out breath was interesting. The author says you should try to live in that moment.
A fairly in-depth breakdown of this particular sect that gives you enough info without bogging you down in details. It's just enough and not too much.
That all being said it didn't feel too tied into modern society aside from some passing anecdotes and the general idea that we're a lot busier than we used to be.
A good read but not what I expected
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews