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Dzogchen Daily Practice
'Dzogchen Daily Practice' provides a liturgy and a description of the elements of Radical Dzogchen daily practice. The heart of this practice is 'simply sitting' described in the short practice, but in the long practice the supportive elements of the ngondro are also provided. 'Daily Practice' describes the elements of the ritual meditation embedded in the 24-hour-a-day Dzogchen praxis.
- GenresBuddhism
72 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 4, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 10, 2025
Beware: this is a very low quality book. It and the others in this series are Amazon on-demand "books" that are automatically printed, bound, and shipped on the day they are ordered. The type setting, font size, print, paper, and binding are what mass paperbacks used to be - junk books. It is sloppily edited and presented, clearly just a digital file loaded somewhere into Amazon's server, waiting to be ordered and printed on-demand. It's hardly "a book" in the standard sense - no publisher, no editorial oversight, no copy editing, nada.
The low quality of the book unfortunately detracts from the content presented, in this case, daily practice suggestions and instructions for Dzogchen practitioners. The practices are spelled out but the sloppy type setting and low quality of the book degrade the overall presentation of the sacred Dzogchen practice. It's shameful Mr. Dowman has allowed the sacred teachings of Dzogchen to be packaged in such careless, sloppy, techno-worthless form.
Fortunately Mr. Dowman has other books that are outstanding standard quality presentations of Dzogchen such as Natural Perfection: Longchenpa's Radical Dzogchen, The Flight of the Garuda: The Dzogchen Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, and Everything Is Light: The Circle of Total Illumination. But this and others in the series are not recommended.
The low quality of the book unfortunately detracts from the content presented, in this case, daily practice suggestions and instructions for Dzogchen practitioners. The practices are spelled out but the sloppy type setting and low quality of the book degrade the overall presentation of the sacred Dzogchen practice. It's shameful Mr. Dowman has allowed the sacred teachings of Dzogchen to be packaged in such careless, sloppy, techno-worthless form.
Fortunately Mr. Dowman has other books that are outstanding standard quality presentations of Dzogchen such as Natural Perfection: Longchenpa's Radical Dzogchen, The Flight of the Garuda: The Dzogchen Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, and Everything Is Light: The Circle of Total Illumination. But this and others in the series are not recommended.
December 22, 2022
One of the silver linings of the pandemic shutdowns of '20-21 was the series of Dzogchen Now! booklets which Dowman produced. These are tiny gem-like bite-size teachings on Dzogchen in a variety of specific topics (from Lama and Lineage to Sex), each bringing Keith’s direct style to practice oriented instruction. This booklet on Daily Practice lays out Keith’s minimalist approach to Dzogchen Ritual via ‘simply sitting’ – both the how and why of creating a daily practice of non-meditation along with supplemental material (Dzogchen ngondro, guru-yoga, semdzins, mantra, prayer, and song) and some inspirational pointing-out instructions from the excellent book by Tulku Pema Rigtsal - The Great Secret of Mind, and a transcribed Time of Covid Zoom talk by Dowman.
"It is only with the understanding that simply sitting is nonmeditation that we can properly engage in formal meditation. Once we have that understanding, free of any impulse towards enlightenment or at least disabused of the folly that we can actually prepare the ground of buddha, only then can we simply sit. It should be stressed now that these remarks are only valid in the Dzogchen context - other traditions have a less lofty view and more pedestrian aims, goals that can be attained by the causal meditation that can surely improve the relative state of being." (p. 6)
“… But remember, simply sitting has no greater significance than anything else that we do. When we make sitting meditation a cause (or an effect) of a higher mental state, we are no longer celebrating the immediacy and the natural immanence of Dzogchen, the great perfection, and awareness of it as a lifestyle, but rather reinforcing a sense of insufficiency.
"Recognition of the value of simply sitting is recognition of the futility of doing anything at all in pursuit of the Great Perfection. The purpose of simply sitting meditation is no purpose at all. An understanding of this conundrum depends on an initial hit of the real thing – the initiatory realization. But we can’t simply sit with the purpose of attaining no purpose. No-purpose must be built-in. No-purpose was realized in the initiatory experience, and simply sitting is a re-enactment of that experience of the nature of mind, or the recall of it. But the experience of mind’s nature has no particular quality or sign so that anything and everything that arises in the simply sitting practice, just as in the duration of the inter-session experience, is IT and requires no modification or change. Simply sitting is demonstration of the Dzogchen view.” (p. 53-54)
“The simply-sitting component of the 24-hour meditation takes precedence over all other ritual postures comprising the day. It doesn’t matter where you are or what time it is, just relax into the nature of mind when you feel the urge or the need. But doing it at a particular time of the day provides a frame in which memory can work for us. Remember the teaching that Guru Rinpoche gives to Yeshe Tsogyel: he said something like, ‘Sit like a sack of potatoes and keep silent. Allow each and every thought to arise but don’t do anything about it.’ That is the essence of ritual non-action in sitting. You can call it practice if you like, because we are rehearsing what we are going to do in every moment thereafter, but as soon as possible let go of that intellectual overview because we are actually experiencing the manifold rainbow nature of mind in all its splendor in the here and now, and there is nothing but the here and now – time is shot!” (p. 58)
"It is only with the understanding that simply sitting is nonmeditation that we can properly engage in formal meditation. Once we have that understanding, free of any impulse towards enlightenment or at least disabused of the folly that we can actually prepare the ground of buddha, only then can we simply sit. It should be stressed now that these remarks are only valid in the Dzogchen context - other traditions have a less lofty view and more pedestrian aims, goals that can be attained by the causal meditation that can surely improve the relative state of being." (p. 6)
“… But remember, simply sitting has no greater significance than anything else that we do. When we make sitting meditation a cause (or an effect) of a higher mental state, we are no longer celebrating the immediacy and the natural immanence of Dzogchen, the great perfection, and awareness of it as a lifestyle, but rather reinforcing a sense of insufficiency.
"Recognition of the value of simply sitting is recognition of the futility of doing anything at all in pursuit of the Great Perfection. The purpose of simply sitting meditation is no purpose at all. An understanding of this conundrum depends on an initial hit of the real thing – the initiatory realization. But we can’t simply sit with the purpose of attaining no purpose. No-purpose must be built-in. No-purpose was realized in the initiatory experience, and simply sitting is a re-enactment of that experience of the nature of mind, or the recall of it. But the experience of mind’s nature has no particular quality or sign so that anything and everything that arises in the simply sitting practice, just as in the duration of the inter-session experience, is IT and requires no modification or change. Simply sitting is demonstration of the Dzogchen view.” (p. 53-54)
“The simply-sitting component of the 24-hour meditation takes precedence over all other ritual postures comprising the day. It doesn’t matter where you are or what time it is, just relax into the nature of mind when you feel the urge or the need. But doing it at a particular time of the day provides a frame in which memory can work for us. Remember the teaching that Guru Rinpoche gives to Yeshe Tsogyel: he said something like, ‘Sit like a sack of potatoes and keep silent. Allow each and every thought to arise but don’t do anything about it.’ That is the essence of ritual non-action in sitting. You can call it practice if you like, because we are rehearsing what we are going to do in every moment thereafter, but as soon as possible let go of that intellectual overview because we are actually experiencing the manifold rainbow nature of mind in all its splendor in the here and now, and there is nothing but the here and now – time is shot!” (p. 58)
January 14, 2022
Headcheese
This is one stuck in a loaf of intellect, here is an invitation to trim off some fat and establish its supportive role. Hear
This is one stuck in a loaf of intellect, here is an invitation to trim off some fat and establish its supportive role. Hear
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews