Sunday, August 11, 2019

More regarding the essential "mirror like quality" of Rigpa

More regarding Rigpa:
According to Alexander Berzin, there are three aspects of rigpa:[web 4]
  1. The essential nature of rigpa: primal purity (ka-dag). Rigpa is primordially without stains, both being self-void (rang-stong) and other-void (gzhan-stong);
  2. The influencing nature of rigpa: the manner in which rigpa influences others. Rigpa is responsiveness (thugs-rje, compassion). It responds effortlessly and spontaneously to others with compassion;
  3. The functional nature of rigpa: rigpa effortlessly and spontaneously establishes "appearances" (lhun-grub).
As Berzin notes, all of the good qualities (yon-tan) of a Buddha are already "are innate (lhan-skyes) to rigpa, which means that they arise simultaneously with each moment of rigpa, and primordial (gnyugs-ma), in the sense of having no beginning.[web 4]
Sam van Schaik translates rigpa as "gnosis" which he glosses as "a form of awareness aligned to the nirvanic state".[62] He notes that other definitions of rigpa include "free from elaborations" (srpos bral), "non conceptual" (rtog med) and "transcendent of the intellect" (blo 'das). It is also often paired with emptiness, as in the contraction rig stong (gnosis-emptiness).[63]

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