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Writer's pictureRudy Bauer

A Phenomenological Dzogchen View of Being-fullness and Beinglessness

A Phenomenological Dzogchen View of Being-fullness and Beingless ness 

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 Being lessness. 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 who ness 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 non duality 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 non conceptually 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 Being fullness 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 self liberation 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 Being fullness 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 pre reflective 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”. Being fullness 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 Being fullness. 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 Who ness. 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 Who ness. 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 Being fullness, 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 non actuality 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 Who ness 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 Beingless ness. 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 Being fullness 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 Being fullness 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 Being lessness 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 Being less 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 who ness, 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 Being fullness. 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 Being fullness. 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 Being fullness 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. 

Washington Center for Consciousness Studies and The Washington  Center for Phenomenology and Existential Psychotherapy Studies  

References 

Bauer, R. The Timeless Interface of Dzogchen and Contemporary  Existential Phenomenology. Transmission: The Journal of The Awareness  Field. Vol.20.2021 

Bauer, R. Ancient Dzogchen and Contemporary Existential Phenomenology. Transmission: The Journal of The Awareness Field Vol. 20 2021 

Bauer, R. and Nicholson, J. An Existential Tantric Consultation Phenomenology. Transmission: The Journal of The Awareness Field. Vol.  9. 2020. 

Bauer, R. The Absence of Self: An Existential Phenomenological View of  The Anatman Experience. The Journal of Philosophical  

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Bauer, R. The Direct Experience of Our Ontological Sense of Being as Self.  Transmission: The Journal of The Awareness Field.2017. 

Bauer, R. Experiencing the Archetypal Realm: A Phenomenology of Self  Liberation. Transmission: The Journal of The Awareness Field. Vol 8,2017

Bauer, R, The Nature of Awareness as Tantra: A Phenomenology.  Transmission: The Journal of The Awareness Field.Vol.8.2017. 

Bauer, R. Our Existential Character: A Phenomenological Dzogchen View.  Transmission: The Journal of The Awareness Field. Vol.20.2021 

Bauer, R. The Phenomenological Method in Light of Our Mind Knowing  Phenomenological Forms and Our Awareness Knowing Phenomenological  Being. Transmission: The Journal of The Awareness Field. Vol 20,2021. 

Bauer, R. The Natural Hiddenness of the Luminous Experience of Being within Human Beings. Transmission: The Journal of The Awareness Field.  Vol.8.2017. 

Bauer, R. Phenomenology of Respiration and The Sense of Who-ness  within Tantra as Personhood. Transmission: The Journal of The Awareness  Field. Vol. 8.2017. 

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THE ALL CREATING SOURCE OF KUNJED GYALPO:  

There are a number of translations with different titles of this 8th 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.

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