Death and Deathlessness

Death and Deathlessness

By Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D Diplomate In Clinical Psychology, A.B.P.P.

Washington Center For Consciousness Studies and Washington Center for Existential Psychotherapy and Phenomenological Consultation

I would like to describe a dream that I had several years ago. In the Dream, I am sitting in our Meditation Center in meditation, and I could hear and see Swami Muktananda speaking to someone behind a screen. The sound is of two old men speaking about death.  The voice of the other old person behind the screen sounded so familiar but I could not place the voice in those moments. Swami Muktananda is saying that in the mind and through the mind alone Death is an Impossible Experience. The abyss cannot be crossed by being in Mind Alone. Then, the other voice behind the screen describes how thin the veil is between the earth realm and the realm beyond death, the Deathless Realm. And both are laughing about how close, how unimaginably close, these two dimensions are. Within the Field of Primordial Awareness. Within Being full Primordial Awareness there is No Distance. None!

When I woke up, I naturally was happy to have had such a dream. Later in the morning, I began seeing clients in psychotherapy. Around noon I received a phone call from a friend telling me that Lama Kunsang Dechen Lingpa had died during the night, It was then, that I realized Kunsang Dechen Lingpa had been the second voice that I heard behind the screen. How amazing!

Swami Muktananda was a great Master of Kashmir Shaivism, who I studied with for many years and Kunsang Dechen Lingpa was a great Master of Dzogchen who taught and transmitted the Luminous Experience of Primordial Awareness at the Washington Center For Consciousness several times. Both teachers were so great in their Transmission of Primordial Awareness to everyone.

They both taught and transmitted so directly so immediately the profound experience of Luminous Embodiment of Primordial Awareness. One taught from the Shaivite Tradition, and the other taught from the Dzogchen Tradition. They both taught the same Understanding and the Same embodied luminous experience of Self liberation. There was no true difference in their Understanding, in their Teaching and in their Transmission. Dzogchen and Kashmiri Shaivism are Intimately Related. Different language of the same profound process and profound experience of the Embodiment of Primordial Luminous Being Full Awareness For Ever and Ever. Just As We are!

  Now, Regarding Death, I once did an experimental study on Death Awareness and Identity development. The first result of the study was that those at both extremes, that is, those who had a highly developed Identity and those who had the least developed Identity were consciously aware of death. The in between or normal population was statistically much less aware of death than those at the extremes of high or low identity development. Moreover, the religious believers on a “Conscious” level had less fear of death than the non-believers.  I then tested everyone’s Unconscious fear of death utilizing a classic word association test and measuring the physiological response delay. The results were that Everyone, both believers and non-believers was terrified of Death and had Intense Annihilation Anxiety or Death Anxiety. Both Believers and Non- Believers Unconsciously suffered the Terror of Dying.

I would now like to use our Natural Phenomenological Understanding of Primordial Awareness and our Dzogchen and Shaivism’s understanding of Primordial Ontological Awareness in our deepening of our Experiential understanding of Death and Deathless states, and within our ongoing experience of Primordial Ontological Awareness. Now it is important to know both Existentially and Phenomenologically, there are Two Types of Knowing! The Knowing of our mind alone is terrified of death and our Direct Experiential Knowing of Primordial Awareness. Our Direct Knowing of Primordial Awareness Knows the Continuity of Being and Being fullness, life after life and death after death.

Ontological Knowing and Psychological Knowing

Our Ontological Knowing means our Being Knowing Being fullness. Ontological is not the same as Psychological. There is Ontological Knowing and there is Psychological Knowing. Ontological Knowing is Our Being full Consciousness Knowing Being, and our Psychological Knowing is our Psychological Mind Knowing Phenomena. One knowing is our Psychological Conceptual Mind knowing Phenomena and our other Knowing is our Profound Form of Direct Knowing is our Non-Conceptual Experiential Knowing of Our Being Knowing Being life after life and death after death.

The two forms of knowing can be integrated and so we can know Phenomena and the Being of the Phenomena simultaneously.

Source

Longchenpa the great Dzogchen Master of the 14th century writes “there is this atomic nucleus of radiant light lying at the heart of all living beings.” This enlightened nucleus is the primordial Ground of awareness, the Primordial Ground of all that is.” So, what he is saying is that, in the Dzogchen Experiential understanding there is within our heart, is   Primordial Awareness itself; and that you are Primordial Awareness itself. You are Primordial Being and Being fullness!  Primordial Awareness is Primordial Being and Being fullness.

That is your very Subjectivity is Primordial Awareness itself. The Ontological Openness that you are is Primordial Awareness itself. So in our becoming aware of our own innermost Awareness we enter into the embodiment or our living experience of Primordial Awareness itself, Primordial Consciousness itself, the Primordial Ground of Being itself as us.  You are the Primordial Ground of Being. Your Innermost Awareness is the Primordial Ground of Being, your Innermost Awareness is Source. To experience your own personal innermost awareness as the Ground of Being as Source is the profound experience of Self liberation. This is the essence of Longchenpa’s experience and teaching. This is the same understanding of and as Kashmiri Shaivism.

Longchenpa goes further and describes that this Primordial Field of Awareness in its unmanifest dimension is called the Dharmakaya, or the Primordial Ground or Primordial Source. This Primordial Ground is Pure Potential Space.  And this Unmanifest State, is devoid of actualized concrete forms. This Primordial Awareness is Completely Indestructible and Continues throughout and within all living beings, including everything in the Universe and the Universe itself. The Universe is Knowingness, the Universe is Gnosis, the Universe is Consciousness Embodied, the Universe is Creative Consciousness in self-manifestation.

This Experience is called Vajra Kumara, which means Unborn and Undying, Forever Youthful!  From this view everything is Alive, everything is Anima or Psyche…and most wonderfully this Primordial Ground of Awareness manifests the world and all the infinite forms of the World and this Primordial Awareness manifests in you as your mind and your body and even your unfolding circumstances.  But most essentially, most Purely, this Pure Being of Consciousness manifests as your own Innermost Awareness, as your Innermost self. 

This experience and understanding is considered to be the Heart Essence Tradition of Self- liberation. This is the Great Perfection. The is the Great Completion of Dzogchen, ‘Just as You Are’, This is not an earned experience or a merited experience or some form of placating the relentlessly cruel superego that culturally organized much of religious belief of whatever the religion. This is not the Anatman drama of early Buddhism.

As Namkai Norbu Rinpoche so often said, this understanding of Dzogchen does not belong to any tradition and does not reflect any culture and is our Real condition (this is not the insipid drama of everything, and everyone is an illusion). And finally, this is Galactic or Cosmological.

So, Please Suspend Your Mind!

So now, please Suspend your Mind just for a moment and focus within. Focus within on your innermost awareness.  Pause your mind. This is the Epoche of Phenomenology. this Pure Primordial Ground of Being resides within our hearts. Its action is presencing “or self-manifestation.” The action of presencing “or self-manifestation pervades our embodiment. Our body is the wonderful network of luminous channels and fields (spheres), of the Archetypical Energies and Energetic Qualities that we consider as archetypal deities or Sublime Energies. This archetypal dimension sometimes called the Sambogakaya realm is our human dimension of Being and the Luminous Energetic Manifestation of Being. There is physical energy and psychological energy and there is this Being full Dimension of Luminous Energetic Archetypal Conscious Manifestation. Energy and Awareness are always intimately related.

In Kashmir Shaivism tradition the Being and Being full Dimension is called Shiva, and the Energetic Dimension Is called Shakti.  We are both Being and the Being full Luminous Energetic Dimension and Energetic manifestation of Being. As Longchamp describes we are both Ontological Being and the Ontological Energetic Dimension of Being and awareness and the energy of awareness are Intimately Related Experientially.

Every instant we are re-enacting the Cosmic Drama of Self Recognition or lack of Self recognition. We are Aware of Being full Awareness or unaware of Being full Awareness) BOTH WITHIN ourselves and within others. To use the language of Swami Muktananda:” The Divine dwells within you as you…and experience the Beatific in oneself in each other.” Our Innermost Awareness is a Luminous Beatific State of Pure Being and Pure Energetic Being fullness in our Ontological Self manifestation of Being and In the Being fullness of the World.

Our very subjectivity, our innate Ontological Who ness is the Self -Manifestation of the Primordial Ground of Being. Our own inner self, our inner most ontological Awareness is the manifestation of the Primordial Luminous Ground of Being. The Ontological Ground of Being is Presencing within you as your Innermost Awareness, as the Ontological Openness that you innately are: Directly, Unmediated, Openly, Spaciously, Easily and Endlessly, Timelessly Forever and ever.

Ground Presencing means the appearance of the Ground of Being and within the Ground, the Lightening up of the Ground of Being, the Luminous Radiance of the Ground of Primordial Awareness, Primordial Openness, Primordial Self Manifestation. Cosmically, the Radiance of Primordial Awareness is the Light of Ground manifesting infinite forms and infinite presences, as infinite Singularities. This Radiance, which is Bodhicitta the Compassion begins as Unimpeded light flowing forth from the Ground and within the Ground as the Archetypical Elements.  Then this Sambhogakaya Dimension of the Archetypical Energies and Forms as elaborated as Energetic Deities. And then, within that dimension, the Field manifests the dimension of us…this world, the world of Flesh, the world of Desire, the world of Love, the world Human Primordial Awareness.

This Primordial light evolves into dualistic form of congealed light, congealed light matter, and dualistic experience. Light encapsulated as Earth, Wind, Fire and Space: Luminous Flesh, Luminous Body and Luminous Awareness in Singularity. Awakened awareness with awakened phenomena within Pure Being and Being fullness.

This drama of self-awareness, of self-presenting, is the core dynamic of the universe. This gnosis, this jnana, this intelligence, this knowingness of radiant light, the entire spectrum of psychic activity and material dynamics reflect the various Luminous Energy Vibrations that congeal and become dimmed and can reawakened and become brilliant luminous experience of Pure Being and Pure Being fullness whatever the context.

The entire universe is thoroughly intelligent and is the Knowing Consciousness as the Anima-Mystic Universe, the Universe as Psyche.  You and I are psyche; and we are in psyche, the world as psyche. Psyche is Consciousness. Consciousness is infinite in its horizons, vast and multidimensional.

It is true that circumstances may be dimmed, that the mind may be dimmed and that our body may be dimmed, all as obscured contained light.  But our subjectivity, our innermost awareness is light, Pure light, Unobscured light, Pure Consciousness. Microcosmically, the Ground of Being as Primordial Awareness (the Ground is) in you as you and --- essentially, indestructibly in you as your very innate Awareness, your singular Subjectivity. As Husserl the great phenomenologist would say: “What is the wonder of all wonders?  Pure awareness.  And the Doorway is our own Subjectivity.”

The Ground’s utter Spaciousness which is best described as ontological openness of pure potential space is in perfect oneness with the luminous radiant light energy of Creative Self Manifestation. This Spaciousness or Openness or Potential Space is Inherently Dynamic and Luminous, Luminous in its self-manifestation. Its very essence is Purity, Pure Being. The nature of consciousness is pure luminosity as Pure Spontaneous Presence, and its nature is Compassion which is Pervasive and is Creative Resonance, Creative Transmission of the Infinity of Luminous Energetic Being and Being fullness Endlessly, Yes Endlessly.

This Ground of Being, Source is Brilliant Shining Consciousness. And so, this self - organizing Gnosis is at the Cosmic level the Source of the infinite star systems and parallel universes. At the micro cosmic level, the subtle energy structures and most of all, the peculiar personal world of the self-conscious beings that are us. All this is in compassionate resonance, compassionate manifestation. Time itself is compassionate manifestation, life after life and death after death. All experience is the expression of compassion, all happiness, all agony, all love and all hatred. Everything is the manifestation of the Radiance; every experience is the manifestation of Divinity. So, the unfolding of your life, just as it is, is your personal map or self-liberation…just as you are.

Timeless awareness is manifesting as Time. Timeless awareness manifesting in Time and Awareness as Timeless Awareness as Time. Non duality manifesting duality, and non-duality within duality, and duality within non duality.  Knowing this is the essence of meditative practice.

In the dimension of Primordial Ground (Dharmakaya) the field remains as virtual reality, reality as Pure Potential Space. The self-contained Potential Space is our experience of Source as Source. This Potential Space is Pure Consciousness, Pure Potentiality.  The entire universe is enfolded within it. Then the vase opens and worlds manifest. The world as archetypical, symbolic energies, vortices of energies, and then the world as ordinary phenomena, Multidimensional existence.  The field of Primordial Awareness is multidimensional.

There is a Dzogchen Master named Kyabgon who comments that the Dzogchen Tantras very rarely if at all invoke the understanding of emptiness or sunyata as non- self-existence, non self. These non-self-theories are misleading because their understanding of emptiness lacks the dynamic reality of primordial awareness as Luminous Openness, Radiance, Purity and the Cosmic Resonance of Compassion. The Purity of Being is the essence of the Ground of Being. Original Purity is simultaneous with spontaneous presence.  The internal radiance or the Pure Potential or the virtual reality gives rise to the actualization of infinite forms and infinite persons, all in singularity.

The light energy presences itself in you and me both as the congealed elements of light, and as the adamantine awareness. This adamantine awareness is the who in the mind and body, the who in me and in the who in you…this is world of “whos“.  We are in Who-villa, my Who ness is the Primordial Guru. Yes, the Guru Dwells in You as You.

So, Death happens, yes it does, Death happens. And so, the mind begins to dissolve and the body dissolves, and the circumstances dissolve.  The Nirmanakaya dimension dissolves. What remains, what remains?  The who remains primordial awareness, as you as a who. Our who-ness remains. This who-ness   has a history of incarnations, incarnating as you….at this time…the who...in different times, different epochs.  This unfolding “who” has different names and forms, different minds and bodies. You may be Harriet now, but in another incarnation this who was Joan, or George. You with different names and presentations.  All these incarnations leave traces, the traces of manifestations of the who, the very same Who. The yogis call these traces the Alaya-Vijana “the storehouse of consciousness”. The traces are divinity as much as the who is divinity, as much as the primordial ground is divinity.

The Who remains. The Who that remains at the moment of death is the Vajra Kumara as a “who” unborn, undying, deathless consciousness as Who-ness. The “who” as the deathless state of pure awareness, pure, openness, light, energy, resonance…with singular traces of the narratives of various incarnations.

And so, the ground meets the ground, the essence is becoming what we are, (Aham Ah), “I am becoming who I am.”  The ground becomes the ground, oneness, complete oneness, experiential oneness.

Much is possible in this extended moment, in this bardo of transitional space.... but to understand this transitional place from the Dzogchen viewpoint, you must forget about simplistic causal explanations or juridical explanations, or karmic explanations, which are ultimately simplistic stupid understanding of causality…ping pong ball causality, ultimately a caste system frame of reference.

Rather, the unfolding and unformulated potentiality of the who becomes further and deeper the Who is the Who of primordial ground awareness and so the unfolding can lead who into reincarnating on earth or incarnating in the celestial realms or the who simply being in total oneness with the ground of Being never to incarnate again.  The singular Who becomes what it is. Actually, whatever dimension you are in, it is all the same; it is completely equal as it is all divinity, - it is all primordial awareness with different nuances, different faces.

Once I had wonderful friend who was very ill who asked me about good skillful means to die. And so I asked Namkai Norbu,Rinpoche who was also my Dzogchen teacher, about the Powa practice wherein one practices leaving through the top of the head.  He laughed and said you have to be in great condition to do that sort of gymnastic and it is not really the path of Dzogchen. He suggested simply using the heart essence mantra AH…the sound of primordial awareness.

So, for about one year, every day, my friend and I would hold awareness together.  We would extend the field to each and co-emergently we became better and better at being in the light of Being full Awareness. And then at the moment of his death, he was initially unconscious. Then he opened his eyes and began exhaling the mantra AH, AH.  Then he looked at each individual in the room, with an exquisite smile.  His head fell back, and everyone saw this luminous light arise from within, and go up and out of his body. His teenage son said, “Awesome”.   And his death was Awesome and Fantastic!Beyond words and letters there is a transmission that does not belong to any tradition, it is the very nature of human awareness itself, and that is the Buddha. The Buddha is not a Guy, the Buddha is the Perfection of Human Primordial Awareness and Human Primordial Awareness is Cosmological and Galactic Consciousness.

The Power of the Vajra Kumara is not simply a technique. Dzogchen is not a technique or a collection of techniques. This technique view is an unhappy distortion of our technical concretized minds. To think that way is very dull and not luminous knowingness. Vajra Kumara is the Source of unfolding Creative power and Destructive power in the Dzogchen Experience of Self liberation. Dzogchen is not a masochistic schizoid religious tradition. Liberation in Dzogchen is equal vision and not the required dog like submission that most of the forms of the Religious Master Slave Relational Life Require.

Om Ah Hum - Three Dimensions of BeingBodhicitta   -   ConsciousnessMaha Sukha - the Great SweetnessJhana        -    Direct KnowingnessDhatu Ah.    -  In Every Situation Being

Resources:

R, Bauer, Identity and Death, Transmission: The Journal of The Awareness Field, February   2020.

Traleg Kyabgon, Actuality of Being, Dzogchen and Tantric Perspectives. Shogam Publications, 2020.