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Essays listed in chronological order starting with most recent. For archives, please see previous volumes below.
  • Writer's pictureRudy Bauer

Phenomenology of The Virtual as Expressed by Deleuze and Dzogchen


Rudolph Bauer, PhD. ,A.B.P.P., Writer, Elizabeth Ebaugh, LCSW-C, Editor


In virtual empiricism the relationship is one of contraction and expansion of the virtual. There is the opening and closing of the virtual field. The conditions of experience are no longer abstract conditions of possible experience; they are the virtual conditions of real experience.  They are not theoretical conditions , but the conditions are immanent and contextualized to what they condition. These conditions are no longer Kantian like conditions of all possible experience rather they are the empirical circumstances of actual  experience in all its singularity. In their  singularity  the circumstances of real experience are not broader then what they contextualize.  Experience arises and manifest  through them by extending within them by means of intuition, by opening awareness to vibrations of  duration, by remaining within  the human experience  and experiencing   within the unbound and uncontained field of immanence.. The circumstances of experience are less determined by concepts than the actual manifestations of  virtual field of pure awareness. And while these experience’s are understood  within concepts, the conceptual  model is modeled on the thing itself which only suits that thing. Deluze utilization of the Bergsonian method of intuition or direct perception supports the overcoming of endless  framing of transcendental idealism of Kantian thinking and eastern philosophical idealism that so dominates certain forms of Buddhism and Hinduism.  Virtual empiricism which things are no longer modeled after concepts but concepts are modeled after things.  Virtual empiricism helps us understand the manifestation of the ground of being or the dharmakaya. The ground of being or the dharmakaya is the realm of potentiality or no thingness  manifesting everything and anything.


This is the language of dzogchen and the understanding of dzogchen.


Experience manifest  within the unfolding circumstances  and through expansion or extension by means of intuition or direct perception;  thus awareness is opening itself up to endless vibrations of  time and timelessness. Awareness opening itself to the   nonhuman and human, from human and archetypical. One can go beyond the human condition by experiencing  immanence  of the beingness of Beings within the  field of awareness.

In Deleuze’s utilization of the method of intuition or direct perception by virtual empiricism things are not modeled after concepts but concepts after things. Philosophy is the creation and invention of concepts and understanding based upon the experience of beings and things.


The virtual manifests as actualities. Intuition is dimensional as is the manifestation of the actualities. All actualities or manifestations take place within the virtual, the sphere of the virtual. Appearance is the manifestation of light, apparition is the manifestation of light vortextually, and virtual is light -luminous darkness.


Subjectivity is the manifestation of light and openness or light and space.  Subjectivity is the light of awareness, spaciousness in mind and in body, in humans and in all sentient beings.

This is Deleuzian  understanding is very similar to the contemporary Dzogchen view as understood in light of contemporary philosophy and phenomenology.  Subjectivity is primordial awareness itself; manifesting in human form and in the form of all sentient beings.


This is the true essence of Dzogchen. This is the brilliance of existence. This subjectivity is sublimely manifesting in humans and sentient beings. It is even manifested in inanimate phenomena.this subjectivity is the very manifestation of primordial awareness itself. Primordial awareness manifest as human awareness which is our very subjectivity of awareness. In experiencing our own awareness of awareness we are able to experience primordial awareness itself.  Our own awareness is the manifestation of the virtual dimension of the dharmakaya. The dharmakaya is the virtual dimension of reality.

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