:::DZOGCHEN Romania:::

Dzogchen it doesn't mean a name of filosophy, or school, or tradition, real Dzogchen is our real condition. Dzogchen shouldn't be regarded as a religion, and it doesn't ask anyone to believe in anything. On the contrary, it suggests that the individual observe him or herself and discover for themselves what their actual condition is. Everybody we have Dzogchen, but we are ignorant of that, for that reason we need to follow Dzogchen teaching.
The teaching of Dzogchen is in essence a teaching concerning the primordial state that is each idividual's own intrinsec nature from the very beginning. To discover this primordial state is to understand the teaching of Dzogchen.
To understand and enter the primordial state one does not need intellectual, cultural or historical knowledge. It is beyond intellect by its very nature. Since the Dzogchen teachings are not dependent on culture, they can be taught, understood and practiced in any cultural context.
The Dzogchen teachings are also known as Ati-yoga, or „Primordial yoga”. The word „yoga” is used here with the sense that it has in the equivalent Tibetan term naljor, which means „possessing the authentic condition”, this condition being the primordial state of each individual.
Yet when people encounter a teaching they have not heard before, one of first things they may want to know is where this teaching arose, where it came from, who taught it, and so on. Although it is true that the tradition of Dzogchen that we are about to consider has been transmitted through the culture of Tibet that has harbored it ever since the beginning of recorded history in Tibet, we nevertheless cannot finally say that Dzogchen is Tibetan, because the primordial state itself it has no nationality and is omnipresent. But the Dzogchen teachings are the essence of all the Tibetan spiritual traditions, both Buddhist and Bön (the indigenous and largely shamanic tradition of Tibet, that pre-date the arrival of Buddhism from India), though itself actually belonging to neither Buddhism nor Bon.

Chögyal Namkhai Norbu
Copyright © Shang Shung Institute. All rights are reserved.

DZOGCHEN MASTERS

GARAB DORJE
(SANSCRIT PRAHEVAJRA)

GURU GARAB DORJE
Dzogchen teachings were taught for the first time on this planet in this time cycle by Garab Dorje who manifested a birth as a human being in the third century B.C.E., in the country of Ogyen, which was situated to the north west of India. His final teaching before he entered the Body of Light was to summarise the teachings in Three Principles, sometimes known as The Three Last Statements of Garab Dorje.

GURU PADMASAMBHAVA
It was the great eighth and ninth-centruy C.E. master Padmasambhava who was primarily responsable for enabling the Buddhist teachings to become established in Tibet, where obstacles had previously been created by the shamanic practitioners of the indigenous Bön tradition.
Padmasambhava was a totally realised being who manifested an extraordinary birth in Ogyen, where he received visionary transmission of Dzogchen directly from Garab Dorje as well as receiving the lineal or Kama transmission from the spiritual successors of Garab Dorje who were his contemporaries. Later he travelled to India, where he absorbed and mastered all the tantric teachings being taught there at that time. He developed all "siddhis" or powers that may arise when the dualistic condition is overthrown. Thus, when he was invited to Tibet to further the spread of the Buddhist teachings there, he was able to overcome the obstacles that he encountered in the form of negative energies, by means of his own superior powers. Since he was, howevere, beyond all limits, he did not consider it necessary to reject what was of value in the local traditions of Tibet, but instead created the conditions in which Buddhism could integrate with the local culture. Thus, through Padmasambhava's influence and activity, there came into being that breat confluence of spiritual traditions from Ogyen, India, and local Bönpo sources that is what we now know as the characteristically Tibetan form of Buddhism.
The original disciples of Padmasambhava in Tibet did not consider themselves a school, or sect. They were simply practitioners of tantric Buddhism and Dzogchen. But when there arrived later different traditions of practice following other lines of transmission from Indian tantric masters, and these devloped as schools, the original followers of Padmasambhava became known as the "Nyingmapa", the "Ancient Ones", or "Ancient School". And although a lineage of transmission (of the primordial state) from master to disciple does exist, members of that lineage, all equally practitioners of Dzogchen, could be and still can be found in all the schools of Tibetan Buddhism, or among the practitioners of Bön, or belonging to no school or sect at all.

by Chögyal Namkhai Norbu - "The Crystal and the Way of Light"

DZOGCHEN TEACHINGS

Santi Maha Sangha
Santi Maha Sangha means Dzogchen Community, people who follow the Dzogchen teachings, trying to understand and to apply them. But, Santi Maha Sangha designates also a program of theoretical and practical studies for those practitiones who whish to deepen their knowlede of Dzogchen, "The Great Perfection". The basic program is contained in the book "The Precious Vase."

Vajra Dance
The Vajra Dance is related to the ancient Tibetan Dzogchen tradition from Oddiyana and it is inseparable connected to the transmission of the Dzogchen Teachings. Chögyal Namkhai Norbu received the transmission of theVajra Dance through dreams, starting with a first dream 1985 about Gomadevi, an ancient Indian princess and Dzogchen master.
In the Dzogchen Teaching sound and movement are very important because they are the means to integrate oneself into the state of contemplation. The Vajra Dance is principally a means to harmonize the energy of each individual. If one has a more profound knowledge of the meaning of the Dance, it becomes a method for integrating the three existences of body, voice and mind into knowledge of the state of contemplation. This integration is one of the most important aim of a Dzogchen practitioner. The Vajra Dance is practiced on a Mandala which represents the correspondence between the internal dimension of the individual and the outer dimension of the world.

Yantra Yoga
Yantra Yoga or the Yoga of Movement is an ancient system of Tibetan yoga based on the text The Union of the Sun and the Moon, written in the 8th century by the master and translator Vairochana. Chögyal Namkhai Norbu wrote a detailed commentary on the root text and started to transmit this teaching in the West at the beginning of the seventies.
Yantra Yoga is a fundamental method to integrate the profound essence of the Dzogchen Teaching in the three doors (body, voice and mind) of the practitioner. Through positions and movements combined with breathing one’s energy is coordinated and harmonized, so as to let the mind relax and find the authentic balance which is the basis for getting into contemplation.