A Phenomenological Dzogchen View of Being-fullness and Beinglessness

A Phenomenological Dzogchen View of Being-fullness and Beinglessness Rudolph Bauer, Ph. D Diplomate in Clinical Psychology, A.B.P.P, The Washington Center for Consciousness Studies and The Washington Center for Phenomenological and Existential Psychotherapy Studies. Phenomenological Ontological Understanding of Being-fullness and Beingless-ness The Dzogchen phenomenological ontological understanding of the luminosity of lived Being- fullness experience does not belong to anyone religious tradition or anyone culture. Namkhai Norbu the great Contemporary Master of Dzogchen would so often say that Dzogchen does not belong to any one tradition and does not belong to any one culture. He was saying the Dzogchen understanding does not belong to Buddhism and neither does the Dzogchen understanding belong to Tibetan Culture. This ontological phenomenological understanding of lived luminous Being full experience can be found in Kashmir Shaivism and this understanding can also be found in the forms of Sufism as elaborated by Ibn ‘Arabi. The Sufi phenomenological ontological understanding of Being-fullness was articulated by the phenomenological scholar Henry Corbin. This phenomenological ontological experience of living Being-fullness can be found in Daoism as expressed by the contemporary master Dr. Yan Xin. The Dzogchen understanding of Being-fullness and Beingless-ness can be found in western philosophical traditions such a Continental Existential Phenomenology. Being-fullness and Beingless-ness The Dzogchen drama of Being- fullness and Beingless-ness is embodied in the Continental Philosophy of Existential Phenomenology. Dzogchen and the Existential Phenomenology of the Ontic Ontological lived experience of Being- fullness and Beingless-ness are intimately related. Martin Heidegger and Menard Boss explored our human existential phenomenological experience of Being-fullness and Beingless-ness in their Zollikon Seminar for 10 years. The members of the seminar were psychiatrists, psychologists, philosophers and theologians interested in existential phenomenology and ontic-ontological dimension of human Beings. Ontological dimension means the dimension of Being that we are. The Zollikon seminar has had great influence on bringing the actually of the experience of Being and the experience of the fullness of Being as well as the experience of the emptiness or absence of Being into the field of Experiential Phenomenological Psychotherapy, Existential Experiential Psychotherapy and Existential Psychoanalysis. In Continental Phenomenology, the amazingly brilliant Edith Stein focused on both the ontological actual reality of the fullness of Being-fullness as well as the ontological actually of Personhood as did her close friend and colleague Hedwig Conrad Martius. Personhood or Who-ness is not simply a psychological event but an event of Being-fullness. Roney Miron’s studies on Phenomenology as a Gateway to Reality are a great exploration of this profound topic of our ontological Being-full Self and Being-less Self. Maurice Merleau- Ponty illuminates Being- fullness and Beingless-ness in his great phenomenological ontological text the Visible and the Invisible. His work is a phenomenological study of the Visible and Invisibleness aspects of Being and the self-manifestation of Being- fullness and Beingless-ness within human beings and as human beings. Existential Phenomenological Psychology and Psychotherapies Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s existential phenomenological understanding has influenced many existential psychologists and psychotherapists. Existential Phenomenology has greatly influenced many forms of contemporary Existential Experiential Psychotherapy. Some of these Psychotherapies are existential psychoanalysis, gestalt psychotherapy, client centered psychotherapy, experiential internal family systems, experiential hypnosis, self-psychology, archetypal psychology to name a few. There are many leaders in this phenomenological ontological movement. Leaders such as: Eugene Gendlin, Carl Rogers, Menard Boss, Rollo May, R. D. Lang, Erving and Miriam Polster, Donald Winnicott, Michael Eigen, Robert Stolorow, Austin Deslaurier, Maude Emanuel, Henry Elkin to name a few. Both Dzogchen and Contemporary Existential Phenomenology focuses implicitly and explicitly on our direct knowing of our luminous lived experience of Being-fullness within our own person, and within our own experience of the world. In Dzogchen Self- liberation is the ongoing embodied lived experience of luminous Being-fullness whatever the manifestation of our unfolding life events. All life events are Events of Being. All life events can be experienced from within the experience of Being- lessness and Being-fullness. This experience of Being-fullness and Beingless-ness reflects the profound range of our human Existential Drama between Self-Liberation and Ontological Despair. The All-Creative Source The Dzogchen View of Being- fullness and Beingless-ness is exquisitely expressed in the magnificent foundational 8th century Dzogchen Text: The All-Creative Source. This evolutionary and original ontological text languages the naturalistic human drama of Being- fullness and Beinglessness. Samatabhadra becomes the personal metaphoric name of Pure Being self-manifesting the Being-ness of beings and the Being-full events of Being. This naming of Pure Being as self- manifesting the Personal Beingness of beings and the Being full events of Being, brings forth the dramatic understanding that our who-ness, our person is an ontological event of Being’s self -manifestation as us, as our knowing self. Our whoness is not simply an as if psychological event, but rather ontological. This understanding is the foundational understanding of Dzogchen as expressed by Longchenpa, the great 14th century master of Dzogchen. This great foundational Dzogchen text opens the profound understanding that the language of Shiva, the language of Buddha, the language of Allah, and the language of Deus are all personal ontological metaphors of Pure Being, the Pure Creative Source, the Pure Ground of Being. The All-Creative Source self-manifests as Being- full phenomena. All appearances are of the same luminous nature of Source. As the great Dzogchen prayer of the Nyingma Dzogchen tradition declares “May I experience all phenomena as the Ground of Being. May I experience all appearance as the Ground of Being. May I experience all phenomena as the Dharmakaya”. Longchenpa the great Dzogchen philosopher of the 14th century has a great commentary on this text The All- Creative Source. His commentary is You are the Eyes of the World. Being-fullness is a Personal event. Dzogchen is the phenomenological ontological understanding of the nonduality of source and appearance, the non-duality of source and phenomena. Source and Phenomena are of the same nature. Source and Phenomena are in oneness, complete oneness. Source and Phenomena are the Same essence. Source and Phenomena are Sameness. Source is Pure Being self-manifesting as the Beingness of beings and the Beingness of Events. Pure Being self-manifests as the Being-fullness of Forms, the Being-fullness of Phenomena and the Being-fullness of Appearance, and the Being-fullness of our Who-ness, our Person. Naturalistic Experience This experience of the Being-fullness of all phenomena opens for us the experience of self-liberation within the naturalistic context of our ordinary life world experience. Our ordinary life world experience is the experience of Being and Being-fullness as phenomena. The Ground of Being, the Primordial Timeless awareness Source of Being is the source of all phenomena and the Ground of Being self-manifests as all phenomena. All Phenomena are the self-manifestation of Pure Being. Pure Being is not a being. Pure Being is not an entity. Beings and the Beingness of beings and the events of Being are the self-manifestations of Pure Being. All Beings are Pure Being in self manifestation as phenomena, as appearance and as lived experience of our Who-ness. Human Beings can directly experience Being. Human Beings can nonconceptually and pre-reflectively experientially know Being. As Heidegger declares Human awareness knows Being. Our Human innate primordial awareness is our openness to directly knowing Being. Human Beings can experience the phenomena of Being and the Being of phenomena. Human beings can directly experience all phenomena as Being and as the manifestation of Pure Being. Our who-ness is the self- manifestation of Pure Being. The Being of all forms and the Being of all appearances and the Being of all phenomena are Pure Being. All events are the unfolding self - manifestation of Pure Being. Within our inner experience of the Purity of our own Being and within our experience of the Purity of Being of all life events is the primordial source of self-liberation for everyone, ‘just as they are.’ In Dzogchen this direct knowingness of Being is called Gnosis or Jnana or Yeshe. Yeshe implies Wisdom Knowingness. Yeshe is the wisdom of self- liberation. Transformative Ontological Shift Within this profound Dzogchen understanding is the dramatic transformative radical ontological shift from the ancient transcendental process of self-liberation through dissociation, through detachment and through depersonalization into the immanent experience of the unfolding process of self-liberation through our direct experiential non conceptual knowing of the immanence of Being as, and through our direct experience of phenomenological Being. Our phenomenological experience of beings is our iconic phenomenological experience of Being. Within and through our experience of phenomena we simultaneously can experience the Being of the phenomena and the phenomena of Being. We can experience the Being of beings as we experience the phenomena of the beings. We can experience the trans- lucidity of Being as we experience the actuality of our own Being just as we are. To experience our own Being is the iconic doorway to experience Being and even the Purity of Pure Being. This is the Bliss of the ordinary. This experience of Being-fullness is self-liberation just as we are. Self-liberation is not omniscience or omnipotence as some wish to think. The “would be” omniscience and omnipotence of self- realization is simply the aspirations of human grandiosity. The thinking that human realization is becoming omniscient and omnipotent is Patriarchal delusion. The direct knowingness of our awareness knowing Beingfullness is what Dzogchen describes as Rigpa. Ma Rigpa means our lack of awareness and our consequent ignorance of not knowing or living within Being-fullness. Grandiosity is a substitute for Being-fullness. Grandiosity always reflects Beingless-ness and always brings forth Beingless-ness in one’s self and others. Naturalistic Mystic Humanism Our non-conceptual direct experiential knowing of Being within phenomenological Being, as phenomenological Being, is foundational, and fundamental to both Dzogchen and Contemporary Existential Phenomenology. Phenomena is the iconic form dimension of Being. Appearance is an iconic form dimension of Pure Being. All experience is an iconic form dimension of Pure Being. This understanding does not belong to any one tradition or any one culture. This is the luminous translucid experience of naturalistic mystic humanism. In Dzogchen our direct non conceptual pre-reflective knowing of Being and our direct non conceptual pre-reflective knowing of the Being of phenomena is often called by Dzogchen as Yeshe or Gnosis or Jnana. Heidegger the master of phenomenological ontological experience describes how human beings are an ontological Spacious Openness to the direct, pre-reflective and non-conceptual experiential knowing of Being, of Being-fullness and Beingless-ness. Our Open Spacious Awareness as Ontological Knowingness is ultimately the Ground of Being. Our personal open spacious awareness is a direct manifestation of the Ground of Being. Our Human Awareness Knows Being. Our Knowing as awareness knows Being within our own Being. Our knowing as awareness knows Being within the Being of others, and our knowing as awareness knows Being within the Being of the world and our Knowing as awareness knows Being within the infinity of the Being-fullness of Cosmological infinity. Our own Being knows Being. Our own Being’s knowingness is called primordial awareness. Richard Capobianco’s text Engaging Heidegger is wonderfully useful in opening and sustaining our understanding of the Drama of Duality and Non-Duality within phenomenological ontology, Contemporary Continental Existential Phenomenology as expressed by Heidegger and Merleau -Ponty as well as other continental phenomenological Ontological philosophers. This point of view makes the important distinction between our mind knowing of phenomena and our primordial awareness directly knowing Being. Our Mind knows phenomena and our awareness knows Being. Husserl focused on our mind knowing phenomena and our mind intuitively knowing the essence of phenomena. Heidegger focused on our awareness knowing Being and our awareness knowing the Being of phenomena. This is the famous Turn in Phenomenology. Heidegger phenomenologically describes how our own Being knows Being. Awareness is our Being’s knowingness of Being. This is the same ontological understanding of and within ancient Dzogchen. Dzogchen is not a psychology, but Dzogchen is an ontology. The Knowing of awareness is not the knowing of our mind knowing phenomena but our knowing of awareness is our Being knowing of Being, and our Being knowing of Beingfullness and Beingless-ness. Our personal knowing of awareness as awareness is our profound ontological who-ness. The knowing of mind is ontic and the knowing of awareness is ontological. The Union of Mind Within Awareness In Dzogchen there are also two ways of knowing. There is our mind knowing phenomena and there is our awareness knowing Being. When our knowing of mind and knowing of awareness are in union, then our Being as awareness knows the Being of phenomena and the Being of Being. Human beings have the capacity for the direct non conceptual knowing experience of Being, the direct non-conceptual knowing experience of the Being of beings and the direct non conceptual knowing experience of Pure Being in and of itself. The experiential knowingness of Our own Being reflects our own Awareness’s direct experiential knowing of Being. The Being of our very own Awareness is our own Being’s knowingness of Being. Our knowing of Being is not the knowing of our mind. Our awareness is our experiential direct knowingness of our Being knowing Being. Our Being knowing as our awareness is our Being’s knowingness of Being. Our knowing of Being is called Gnosis, or Jnana which means direct knowing or direct experience or direct perception of Being. Gnosis is our experience of our translucid direct knowing of Being within in our self, within others, within the world and within cosmos. Does Being have knowingness? Yes, Being is knowingness as primordial awareness. Our experience of Phenomena is our lived experience of our minds knowing of the appearance of phenomena. When our mind and our awareness are in union, we can know the Being of phenomena and the phenomena of Being simultaneously. We can know Phenomena and the Being of the Phenomena. We can know Being and the Phenomena of Being-fullness within our own self and we can know Being and the Phenomena of Being-fullness within the phenomena of the world. Self-Liberation This union of our mind knowing phenomena and our awareness knowing Being is the beginning movement of self -liberation both in Dzogchen and Ontic Ontological Phenomenology. This is also the beginning movement of self-liberation in Kashmir Shavism. This is also the beginning of selfliberation in the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi. This is also the same opening of the process of self-liberation in Daoism as expressed by the contemporary Master Dr. Yan Xin. This is also the necessary step of the mind awareness union in the unfolding of existential self-liberation in various forms of Existential Experiential Psychotherapy and Existential Psychoanalysis. The beginning of self-liberation is the union of our mind within our primordial awareness which is the field of Being. This is the mysterious conjunction of our two ways of knowing. This union of mind within awareness is often little understood or followed. Many philosophical and psychological traditions only know mind. This is the Heart Mind connection that is so often described in Existential Phenomenology, Dzogchen, Kashmir Shavism, Daoism and the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi. Ontological Creative Experience as Self Manifestation of Being-fullness Both Dzogchen and Existential Phenomenology focus on our lived experience of the drama of self-liberation by our living within our immediate awareness field of Being-fullness within our own Being. Furthermore, by living within our immediate awareness within the Being-fullness of others and living within our immediate awareness within the Being-fullness of the world we experience self-liberation. Self-liberation is the Bliss of the Beingfullness of our Ordinary Life World. Self-liberation is our experience of the Bliss of Being-fullness in the context of the unfolding events of our life. These life events are events of Being. The events are lived experience. The Opening of Spaciousness The first Open Spacious movement of this praxis is Entering and Holding the field of Awareness. This may involve the suspension (epoche) of being in our mind alone and becoming aware of our own innate primordial awareness. Of course, awareness is our direct non conceptual prereflective experiential knowing of Being-fullness. Awareness is our field of Being-fullness knowing Being-fullness. Then the next step unfolds as we integrate the knowing of our mind knowing phenomena into and within our field of our awareness directly knowing Being as Beingfullness. And so, as the one knower we can know the Being of phenomena and the phenomena of Being simultaneously. This movement is the unfolding experience of self-liberation. We can experience the field of Being, as we experientially and simultaneously hold our awareness of the field of Being as we directly experience the phenomenological world. We are now experiencing the phenomenological world within the field of our awareness as the field of Being-fullness simultaneously. Entering The Field of Awareness as The Field of Being There is the spontaneous unfolding of our Open Spacious movement of our Being into the field of Being-fullness. We are experientially absorbed in the field of Being and by being absorbed in the field of Being we actually experience the Being of phenomena, and the phenomena of Being-fullness simultaneously. We learn to enter into and live within the field of awareness which is the field of Being-fullness. As we are fully in the field of Being, the field of Being-fullness will surround us, will infuse us, and will permeate us. The Field of Being is within us, and we are within the field of Being as the field of Being-fullness. We can directly experience our phenomenological world as the field of Being and our embodied self as the field of Being-fullness. The field of Being-fullness is infinite in its horizons, vast and multidimensional. Personal Who-ness The field of Being-fullness is Pure Ontological Radiant Presence. Pervasive Pure Luminous Presence! And so, we can think in the field of Being as the field of Being, feel in the field of Being as the field of Being, sense within the field of Being as the field of Being, speak within the field of Being as the field of Being. We experience becoming Being-fullness. ‘We are becoming what we are’. We are becoming the Who-ness that we are. The mantra that declares this experience is Aham Ah. “I am Becoming Who I am”. Beingfullness is profound Who-ness. Becoming The Field of Being-fullness Then our Third Open Spacious movement unfolds. We Become the Field of Awareness and We become the Field of Being-fullness. Our Field of Awareness is our Field of Being-fullness, again, our field of Awareness is the Field of Being-fullness! As we become the Field of Being, we experience our sense of our innermost self as our field of embodied Beingfullness. We experience the field of Being within us and we can experience the field of Beingfullness within phenomena. We can experience the non-duality of the field of Being within us and within others, and within the world. We become the field of Being. Our own Being- fullness is the field of Being as Being- fullness. We experience our self as the field of Being and we experience phenomena as the field of Being as beings. We experience ourself and phenomena in the non-dual oneness of the field of Being- fullness. Simultaneously we experience the profound difference within beings and between beings. We can live in the drama of dualistic beings within our Non-Dualistic Field of Being-fullness. And within our field of awareness, we experience non-dualistic Being-fullness within dualistic beings. We can have the lived experience of oneness and separateness, oneness and difference simultaneously just as we are! As we integrate and bring our mind that is our thinking, feeling, sensation, memory and imagination into the transitional open spaciousness of primordial awareness, the power of our imaginative awareness begins to manifest and becomes activated. We can then begin to perceive the field of Being in its multi- dimensionality. The Unfolding Experience of Our Multidimensional Field of Being There is the unfolding opening of our awareness as the multidimensional field of Being. There is the unfolding embodiment of our awareness as the the embodiment of our Being-fullness, and our embodiment of our awareness into the trans-lucidity of our embodied Being- full Presence. We can live within the Trans-lucidity of Being-fullness of Being life after life and death after death. Overtime there is an unfolding luminous infusion of our mind within our field awareness which is our field of Being-fullness. The multidimensionality of the field of Being manifest and unfolds experientially and simultaneously. Multidimensional Field of Awareness as Multidimensional Field of Being We often first experience our ordinary life world as the field of Beingfullness. We then become open to experience the Archetypal dimension of our field of awareness as Being-fullness. In the archetypal dimension we experience the primordial energies and primordial translucent presences of the archetypal actuality of our field of translucent Being-fullness. The archetypal realm of translucent Being-fullness manifests different translucid forms of luminous presences of archetypal ontological Whoness. The archetypal realm is both formless and translucent forms or spheres of Being-fullness. It must be known that the archetypal realm is not a realm of entities even though the archetypal realm is the primordial field of Who-ness. Archetypal Being-fullness Our archetypal perceptual awareness imaginatively experiences the archetypal dimension of reality that manifests elemental and foundational creative energy forces of archetypal manifestations. The archetypal manifestations are translucent Being-full subtle spheres of primordial ontological energies of primordial Ground of Being that influence and manifest the actuality of our ordinary life world. In Dzogchen this is the realm of the Dakini, the feminine dimension of Being-fullness. The feminine dimension is luminous direct gnosis infinite in its horizons. In phenomenological ontology this is also the feminine dimension of direct knowingness of primordial creative energies of Being as Being-fullness. Ground of Being-fullness As Source And then within our unfolding of Being-fullness, we become open to the profound experience of the Ground of Being as source, as light, as the pure Beingness of Being as our very own Being-fullness. We experience the Ground of Being as our own Being-fullness and our own ontological Whoness. We become what we are and who we are. We become the Ground of Pure Being-fullness in self- manifestation. This is the non-conceptual pre - reflective experience of vastness and Timelessness of Being- fullness as our essential ontological Who-ness. Our experience of our Pure Being-fullness is completely personal. The experience of our multidimensional Being-fullness is the unfolding of the experience of profound multidimensional luminous Who-ness. Longchenpa illuminates this profound experience of the Indwelling of Who-ness. This is not the non- personal or impersonal experience of dissociative meditative transcendental traditions that are so pervasive and so distorting. Certain traditions within Buddhism and within Hinduism reflect this non personal or impersonal experience as Absences or Emptiness or Vacuousness. Indwelling of Who-ness As we experience the different dimension of Being-fullness we experience the profound sense of our Beingness as deeply and profoundly personal. We experience our Who-ness in its multidimensionally. We experience Our Who-ness within and as our ordinary life world of Reality and Actuality. We experience our own who-ness as the indwelling who-ness of our archetypal dimension of Being-fullness. And we can experience our own Who-ness as the primordial dimension of Timeless Awareness in time. Our Who-ness participates as our ontological Who-ness of the Timeless Ground of Being Self-manifesting in time. Our primordial Who-ness of and as the Ground of Being is Timeless Awareness manifesting in time. This is self-liberation as Living within Being-fullness as Being-fullness in the drama of ontological phenomenological self-manifestation. Our I-ness of Mind and Our Who-ness of Primordial Awareness Our Who-ness of Awareness is not the I-ness of our mind. Human Beings often identity their sense of self as their sense of mind. Many people experience their sense of self as their mind and their functions of mind. They equate the unfolding development of self as the unfolding development of mind functions such as thinking, feeling, sensation, memory, reasoning. Their mind is what psychoanalysis would call the Ego Functions. This I-ness of mind does not reflect the depth and breathe of the Being-fullness of our Being. The sense of I-ness reflects our identification with our mind and functions of our mind. Who-ness reflects our profound experience of our Being-fullness in and of the world. I-ness is psychological and Who-ness is Being. I-ness is ontic and Who-ness is ontological. Husserl and Heidegger In phenomenology Husserl’s phenomenological focus was on the mind and our mind knowing the essence of phenomena. Heidegger’s focus was on the Being-fullness of Human Beings; and on our awareness knowing the Being of beings; and awareness knowing Being in and of itself. Thus, in phenomenology as in Dzogchen there are the two ways of knowing. Our mind knows phenomena and our awareness knows the Being of phenomena. This understanding of the two ways of knowing is intrinsic to Phenomenological Dzogchen. Within both phenomenology and within Dzogchen when we have the union of our mind within awareness, then we can experience both the essence of phenomena and the Being of phenomena simultaneously. We can know phenomena and the Being of phenomena simultaneously. We can have the mediated knowledge of mind and the direct pre-reflective non-conceptual experiential knowing of awareness simultaneously. Moreover, within this union of our mind within our awareness field of Beingfullness, the opening of the archetypal dimension of our Being-fullness naturally takes place. And so, there naturally unfolds the opening of the Ground of Being as our own essential Ground of Being-fullness. Sometimes this unfolding is sequential and sometimes it seems rather random. The Natural Experience of Self Liberation Both Dzogchen and Contemporary Existential Phenomenology understand and elaborate that the Being- fullness of our own Being is Pure Being itself. By directly knowing of our own Being we know Pure Being itself as our own Being. This knowing is deeply and profoundly experiential and is beyond words and letters. This direct knowing is experientially non conceptual and pre-reflective directly manifesting through our lived experience of Being as our Luminous Being-full Presence. This naturalistic lived experience of our multidimensional Being-fullness is our own Direct Knowing of our Being-fullness as our Who-ness. Gnosis and Jnana are our own direct Knowing as Who-ness. Who-ness is Gnosis and Who-ness is Jnana and Who-ness is Yeshe. Our Who-ness does not have Jnana or have Gnosis or have Yeshe. Our Who-ness is Jnana and Our Who-ness is Gnosis and Our Who-ness is Yeshe. This is Longchenpa’s understanding as described in his great commentary The Precious Treasury of Genuine Meaning. Our Who-ness is direct knowingness, our Who-ness is our Being-fullness directly knowing Being-fullness. In our heart essence, Our Who-ness is the Ground of Being. Longchenpa describes emphatically how self-liberation takes place only within the Who-ness of our Awareness as the Ground of Being. Immediate Experience of Who-ness In Longchenpa’s Precious Treasury of Genuine Meaning Longchenpa elaborates how the profound experience of the Spontaneous Presence of the Ground of Being (Dharmakaya) will not be accomplished in any other place other than our own immediate experience of ourself as the Ground of Being in its spontaneous manifestation. This moment of self- liberation cannot be accomplished from any other place and will not be found elsewhere. This ground of Spontaneous Presence is posited and manifested as our own Presence. All phenomena emerge from the oneness of this wisdom awareness. We are liberated within this oneness. We are the self- appearing experience and we are the self-appearing of the Ground of Being. We are the ground of Being self- manifesting as our awareness, as our ontological Who-ness. This understanding is the essence of Dzogchen and the essence of Ontic Ontological Phenomenology. This understanding de-constructs the Anatman illusion of non- self and deconstructs the illusion of the nonactuality of phenomena. This understanding reflects the profound oneness of source and appearance, source and phenomena. By our focusing and articulating our phenomenological lived experience of Being-fullness we are able to experientially Know Being-fullness and Experience Being-fullness experientially, non-conceptually, thoughtfully and personally. Through the spoken language of our lived experience within the field of Being-full awareness we can bring forth understanding that is not simply ideational or mentalistic or psychological. Our Being-full awareness is experiential Ontological Knowing. Gnosis, Jnana, and Yeshe are Ontological Knowing as our ongoing Ontological Experience, as our ongoing continuity of Being-fullness, as our ongoing continuity of lived experience, “Just as we are”. “Just as it is!” Understanding becomes the direct experience of knowing perceptually and experientially luminous Being-full Who-ness, infinite in its horizons vast and multidimensional. We experience our Being-fullness of Being as profoundly personal and as ontological Who-ness. This Who-ness goes beyond our body boundaries. All unfoldment of Being-fullness is profoundly personal. Self-Liberation takes place within and through our own ontological Whoness as our Being-fullness, and as our innate intrinsic Awareness. Our knowing of our awareness is ontological knowing and not simply our psychological knowing of mind. Self- Liberation is not simply a psychological experience but is profoundly ontological. Self-liberation is an ontological event. Self-liberation is a Being full Event. Our Who-ness is infinite in its horizons, vast and multidimensional. Just as we are. Our Schizoid Experience of Beingless-ness Both Existential Phenomenology and Dzogchen described our human experience of Beingless as ontological. Our lived experience of Beingless experience takes place in our world of Being. We can experience Beingless-ness within our own being and Beingless-ness within the being of others. This experience of Beingless-ness is felt agony. Many human beings live their life in the agony of Beingless-ness. Many human beings die in the agony of Beingless-ness. By schizoid experience we mean Beingless experience. Within our schizoid experience we not only feel Beingless-ness within our own Being. We experience the Beingless-ness of phenomena, the Beingless of beings, the Beingless-ness of our life, and the Beingless-ness of the cosmological world. Schizoid experience manifest as the Beingless-ness of our own innermost sense of lived experience of self, the Beingless-ness of our lived experience of others and the Beingless-ness of our lived experience of the World and our lived experience of the vast Void of Cosmological Beinglessness. Our continuous Beingless-ness experience can bring forth relentless and endless ontological despair. True Compassion as Our Self Manifestation of Being-fullness Compassion is the naturalistic manifestation of Being-fullness in ourselves and our manifestation of our Being-fullness into others. Compassion is the naturalistic transmission of our luminous Beingfullness experience into human beings and animals and situations. This is the innate power of our Human Ontological Awareness as Our Human Being-fullness. Our human Being-fullness can self-manifest Beingfullness and transmit Being-fullness into other human Beings and human situations. This is the great compassion. This is Maha Suka or the Great Bliss of Being-fullness. This Maha Suka is both the experience of our Being-fullness and the profound generosity of Being-fullness. As Bodhidharma said in the 6th century Cei “Beyond words and language there is a transmission, this transmission does not belong to any tradition or any one culture. This transmission is the nature of human awareness.” This transmission is the transmission of luminous awareness as Being-fullness. The Four Times As Yang Thang Rinpoche the brilliant Contemporary Dzogchen Master would often say. There are four times. From timeless awareness we can transmit compassion into the present moment of the person, from timeless awareness we can transmit compassion into the past time of the person, and from timeless awareness we can transmit compassion into the future time of the person. This transmission of compassion is the transmission of Luminous Being-fullness from within our own Being-fullness into the Being of another person or persons or situations. Wonderfully, we can transmit Being-fullness into the present moment of persons, we can transmit Being-fullness into the past moment of persons and we can transmit Being-fullness into the future moment of persons. This is the power of Being-fullness within our experience of Timeless Awareness in time. This power of Timeless Awareness belongs to everyone and is within everyone. Timeless awareness is the experiencing of Pure Being-fullness. Timeless Awareness is the experience of our Pure Ground of Being. Timeless awareness is our experience of the Dharmakaya as Us. Naturalistic Mystic Humanism We can all experience Timeless Awareness in time. This is the profound power of Being a human being. This is the profound power of naturalistic mystic humanism. Both Dzogchen and Existential Phenomenological Ontology are forms of naturalistic mystic humanism. This power of Transmission does not belong to any one institution. The power of Transmission cannot be institutionalized as All Patriarchal Institutions love to pretend and love to pretend to possess. Patriarchal Institutionalization obscures Being-fullness, distorts Being-fullness, objectifies and reifies Being-fullness. Patriarchal Institutionalization obscures the personal and brings forth Schizoid Being-lessness. Schizoid Existential Experience as Beingless-ness and Meaningless-ness When we experience Beingless-ness, within our sense of Beingless-ness there is a felt absence of Meaningfulness. Meaningfulness and Beingfullness are correlated just as Meaningless-ness and Beingless-ness are correlated. Beingless-ness and Meaningless-ness and Being-fullness and Meaningfulness are two sides of the same continuum. Meaningfulness and meaningless-ness are not simply conceptual or intellectual states of experiencing as some would think. Meaning arises out of Being-fullness. Meaningless-ness arises out of Beingless-ness. Being-fullness and Meaningfulness are our lived experience of our Being in Being-fullness. Non-Conceptual Pre-Reflective Knowing In an amazing way meaningfulness and meaninglessness are in essence primarily non conceptual and non-ideational. Eugene Gendlin’s genius was in his elaborate exploration and teaching of this phenomenon of meaningful-ness and meaningless as dimensions of Being and Beinglessness. Our Being- fullness manifests as pre-reflective meaningful-ness. Meaningful-ness is not simplistically conceptual or ideational as some think. Meaningful-ness is not simplistically a good idea. Ideas and words are a way of articulating meaningful-ness but yet not the source of meaningful-ness. Meaningful-ness reflects our lived pre-reflective experience of Being-fullness. Early Buddhism as Being-less Experience and Being-less Existence This Beingless understanding of phenomena and Beingless understanding of personhood and Beingless understanding of the world and the Beingless reality of the universe was profoundly reflected in early Buddhist understanding and experience of human existence and human life. Within his Being-less and who-less existence Gautama continuously experienced and lived within meaningless experience and meaningless existence. Thus, Gautama taught that all life is suffering. His lived experience was within the Beingless-ness of his own self and the Being lessness of all phenomena and the Beingless-ness of the world. Gautama experienced the Beingless-ness of his own wife and the Beinglessness of his child and the Beingless-ness of his role in the world as a Prince. He left everything to find Being- fullness and meaningfulness elsewhere! Gautama experienced all phenomena and all personhood and all lived experience as lacking Being fullness and lacking actuality and even lacking reality. It was all unreal. It was all a delusion. Everything and everyone seem to be unreal in his Beingless world and meaning-less universe of his lived experience. Gautama’s experience was the lived experience of Beingless agony. And so, Gautama would accurately declare all life is suffering! Within his meaning-less realm of Beingless experience, Gautama thought that the reality of the world and even of the reality of his own inner sense of self was unreal. Gautama’s lived experience of continuous absence of a Being-full self and Being-full reality resulted in his profound sense of the loss; loss of the actuality and reality of self and the loss of the sense of the actuality and reality of the world. His dreadful experience of self-lessness and Being -lessness resulted in him feeling pervasive nothingness and the profound emptiness of his Being-less reality. His Being-less life was agony. He wanted a way out. He wanted to cease existing. This emptiness of Being-less reality is a profound distortion of the actuality of the felt sense of Being- full existence. Gautama’s dreadful lack of a Being- fullness sense of self, resulted in Gautama bringing forth the Anatman teaching that is so fundamental to Buddhism. Neither could Gautama experience the world as the self- manifestation of Pure Being and so he created a concrete operational causality as dependent origination as to how illusionary Being-less phenomena appeared imaginatively. His world reflected an illusionary and Being-less and Meaning-less causation. For Gautama the world was a fantasy without a fantasizer. Gautama’s pervasive sense of Beingless-ness is why he felt that human desire only intensified suffering. His Beingless despair of human Beinglessness is why Gautama emphasized “cessation” as the only goal. The schizoid Being-less experience is always looking for cessation, looking for a way out. In early Buddhism the emphasis was on “Cessation”. Gautama’s own inner sense of self, his own inner sense of ongoing continuity of Being fullness was nonexistent. He felt he was non-existent and everyone and everything is non-existent in actuality. Life was an illusion. Existence is an illusion. Love is an illusion. All human experience is “As If’, as if it is real, as if it is actual, as if it truly exists. In this understanding, there is no existing-ness and there is no who-ness, there is no you-ness, there is no person, there is no self. There is no lived experience of authentic Being-fullness. Gautama’s innermost sense of existence was Beingless and Meaningless, and Pervasive Absence. Of course, he would consequently think that there is no who-ness within his own being and within other human beings. His life was non personal and impersonal. There was no Personhood. He was Beingless and self-less and he consistently experience his “absence” of self as Beingless-ness. He would authentically declare all life is suffering. All life is meaningless. The only way out was to transcend the experience of this illusionary world. As he said “Go beyond, Go Beyond, Go Beyond.” When Gautama experienced phenomena, he experienced phenomena with his mind alone. His experience of phenomena was that phenomena was Beingless and Empty of Being-fullness. There was no ontological Basis of phenomena and there was no ontological basis of self. Phenomena was absent of Being and absent of Being- fullness. Phenomena was Beingless. There was no ontological Personhood. There was no ontological sense of self. There was no ontological sense of Being-fullness. His family was a Being-less event. His child was a Being-less event. His wife was a Beingless event. There was as Gautama so often declared there was no ontological basis of phenomena and no ontological source of Being and no ontological basis of self. Of course, he lived in agony. In his ontological experience of Beingless-ness, Gautama concluded that all human beings were absent of Being- fullness and even absent of whoness, absent of personhood. Gautama thus created the illusionary Anatman teachings, the absence of self-teachings. The Anatman teaching and Anatman understanding is a profoundly schizoid view of human life and human existence. Early Buddhism reflected a profound ontological schizoid experience of human Being- lessness and this Beingless view continues today to be the basis of many forms of Buddhism. Transcendental Experience as Vehicle for Cessation of Suffering by Disappearing Gautama’s meditative practices emphasized forms of Beingless dissociation and Beingless detachment as the path to self-liberation and freedom from suffering. Gautama was master of articulating the human schizoid state of Beingless-ness and the schizoid path of transcending misery through dissociative depersonalization of experience. For Gautama the dissociative detachment of transcendental experience was the only way out of agony. As Gautama said Go Beyond, Go Beyond and Go Beyond. His method of transcendence was the skillful use of detachment, dissociation and depersonalization in order to not experience the empty agony of Beingless-ness. Gautama’s genius was his creative use of dissociation, dissociative detachment and depersonalization as a way of freeing people from the pain of schizoid detachment, from the pain of schizoid dissociation, and from the pain of schizoid depersonalization. Dissociation, detachment and depersonalizations and lack of sense of Being- full self are qualities of schizoid existence. This schizoid experience of Beingless-ness is not simply psychological but is an ontological and existential event. A person can have excellent psychology of mind and nonetheless experience a profound loss of Being-fullness and exist in solipsistic Beingless-ness. In Beingless-ness we disappear, we just disappear. Gautama’s experience of Beingless experience has had vast influence on many forms of eastern philosophy and many forms religious experience even to this day. His Beingless formulation of monasticism has often dominated human spirituality both in the east and in the west. Spirituality for so many is the embracing of the Beingless existence of being a Human Being. His nihilistic dualism of source and phenomena undercuts the divinity of experience and the divinity of phenomenological appearance. The dissociation of source and phenomena creates Beingless-ness both of phenomena and within the Experiencer of empty phenomena. When phenomenon is empty of Being-fullness phenomena is meaningless. The Phenomenology of Schizoid Lived Experience of Beingless-ness Schizoid is a metaphor describing the existential lived experience of personal Beingless-ness and consequent absence of Being-fullness in our world of human beings. It is neither useful or true to focus on schizoid experience as a psychiatric or medical problem. Beingless-ness is an existential ontological experience possible for all human beings. Human life is the drama of Being-fullness and Beingless-ness. Being-fullness and Beingless-ness are primal and the primordial pair of foundational ontological opposites. Some persons who live within Beingless experience do have medical and psychiatric problems just as a Being-full person may have medical and psychiatric problems. Schizoid experience is a Beingless way of Being in the world with an inner sense of Beinglessness and Self-lessness. Our sense of true self is ultimately our sense of our own embodied Beingfullness. Our sense of non self or absence of self is ultimately our sense of our own disembodied Being-fullness. The absence of self is our Beingless experience of our absence of Being-fullness. The Abyss of Absence Experiencing the Beingless-ness of our self or the Beingless-ness of another person and the Beingless-ness of the unfolding events of life is ontological suffering. Beingless suffering is often wordless and a silent continuous pain of absence that can easily bring forth the desire to not exist in such an endless abyss of ontological absence and agony. Suicide seems to be for some, a dreadful existential option for escaping the relentless voidness of Beingless-ness. Suicide is an expression of the compelling desire for cessation of the agony of Beingless-ness. Gautama understood his compelling desire was for the complete cessation of meaningless existence. His meditative goals were the cessation of the experience of ontological emptiness and ontological absence. Sometimes the greatest suffering of our Beingless experience is when a Beingless person experiences the mysterious and untouchable luminous Being- fullness of others. Our own innermost Beingless-ness is not easy to understand by and within our mind alone. Beingless experience is often beyond words and meaning. The Beingless-ness of our lived experience is often beyond our mind’s conceptual understanding. Beingless-ness is not simply a cognitive experience. Beingless-ness is an ontological experience. Beingless-ness is often beyond words and language. We are not simply psychological Beings. We are ontological Beings who directly experience the ontological drama of Being-fullness and Beingless-ness. We often speak from within our mind alone and not our innermost lived experiential sense of Being. Our schizoid experience of our experience of Beingless-ness happens when we are located and locked within our mind alone. The schizoid experience is the experience of being in mind alone. This means a person only knows phenomena through their mind and lives only in their Beingless mind. Being located in mind alone it is very difficult for a person to experience and articulate and understand Beingless-ness. We become enclosed in our solipsistic experience of Beingless-ness. When our mind is dissociated from our field of primordial awareness and our embodied field of Being, we suffer the Beingless of life events. Our mind can be excellent in psychological functioning and yet when our lived experience is enclosed within the Absence of Being-fullness and the Emptiness of Beingless-ness, the agony of meaningless is continuously experienced. The Medium of Language Our ongoing experience of Beingless-ness brings forth the agony of meaningless-ness. It is very difficult for a person to articulate experientially meaningless experience. It is very hard for a person to process meaningless experience without the medium of meaningful language. Many human beings endlessly suffer Beingless experience. Whenever awareness is foreclosed, Being-fullness is foreclosed. When Being-fullness is foreclosed, emptiness becomes pervasive and even cosmological. The experience of emptiness is focal in Beingless states of experience. This voidness is the felt sense of the absence of Being within in oneself and within others and within the world. Within this absence of Being-fullness, the meaningless of life experience and life events is felt. An Authentic Articulation of Beingless-ness Early Buddhism is a philosophy of emptiness and ontological Absence. Early Buddhism is a profound and authentic articulation of the pervasive human experience of Beingless-ness and our human Absence of Beingfullness. The experiential articulation of meaningless-ness is powerfully illuminating and illuminates our foundational human experience of Beingless-ness and meaningless-ness. The Transformative History of the Path of Beingless-ness Turning and Unfolding into the Path of Being-fullness This experience of the Absence of Being-fullness becomes focal in Buddhist philosophy. The history of the unfolding of Buddhist philosophy through the various epochs of time is the unfolding of the experience of Beingless-ness into the transformative unfolding of Being-fullness. This unfolding of Beingless-ness into Being-fullness is the natural hermeneutic story of the unfolding of collective self-liberation. The unfolding of emptiness of Beingless experience into the collective embodiment of Being- fullness of experience is accomplished in the manifestation of the Dzogchen Teaching of the 8th century Cei Tibet. Therefore, Dzogchen is called the Great Perfection or Naturalistic Completeness, just as we are. The Transformational Unfolding Within Buddhism from Beingless-ness to Being-fullness! This transformational unfolding of the truth of Being-fullness within Buddhism took many centuries to fully accomplish. There was similar unfolding and accomplishment in Hinduism within the 9th century within Tantric Kashmir Shavism. This time period of the 8th and 9th centuries was a collective hermeneutic event of transformative unfolding of transcendental traditions of Beinglessness into the ontological traditions of our natural embodied immanence of Beingfullness. The immanence of Beingfull-ness is the oneness of appearance and source, the non-duality of phenomena and Ground of Being. The unfolding collective experience of Being-fullness was that we are naturally in Being-fullness, and are born in Being-fullness and die in Beingfullness and are reborn in Being-fullness, life after life and death after death. This embodiment of Being-fullness is express in the Dzogchen tradition as well as in contemporary phenomenological ontology. Summary This paper is an elaboration of the Dzogchen and Existential Phenomenological Ontological understanding of our lived luminous experience of Being-fullness and Beingless-ness. Self-liberation is the experience of living within Being-fullness within the context of our ongoing continuity of Being-full life. Dzogchen and the Existential Phenomenological Study of the ontic ontological lived experience of Being-fullness and Beingless-ness are intimately related. Self-liberation is our lived experience of ongoing continuity of Embodied Being-fullness. Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D. Diplomate in Clinical Psychology, A.B.P.P. 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THE ALL CREATING SOURCE OF KUNJED GYALPO: There are a number of translations with different titles of this 8 th century cei Masterful and Evolutionary text. The All Creating Source. 1.The Supreme Source. Translated by Namkai Norbu and Adriano Clemente. Snow Lion Press.1999. 2.The Sovereign All Creating Mind, The Motherly Buddha by E.K, Neumaier. Dargay University Press, 1999. 3. The All Creating King, by Christopher Wilkinson.2019. Independently Published. 4.The Kunjed Gyalpo Series, Translated by James Valby Publications, Shelburne Falls, Mass. 2020. These are all great translations with different nuances.