The Experience of Timeless Awareness In Time: The Essence of Personal Self Liberation

The Experience of Timeless Awareness In Time: The Essence of Personal Self Liberation

Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D  Diplomate In Clinical Psychology, ABBP.

The Washington Center For Consciousness Studies and The Washington Center For Existential Consultation

Dzogchen As The Experience of Timeless Awareness Within Time

To experience Timeless Awareness in Time brings forth this Profound experience of self-liberation whatever the context of our lived experience of our existential phenomenological world and whatever the self-manifestation of the Energetic Ontological Manifestation of Creative Source May Be.

Most mysteriously, in Dzogchen we ourselves are both the phenomenological experience and we are the ontological manifestation of our Being as Source.  In Phenomenological Dzogchen our self-manifestation of Being and Being as Source are the same Creative Experience. There is this Great Dzogchen prayer: May I experience all phenomena as Source.

Our Ontological and Profoundly Personal Whoness Is Unborn and Undying

Dzogchen is Profoundly Personal as the Dzogchen experiential focus is our Ontological Being and Being fullness of our own unborn and undying Innate Ontological Whoness . Whoness is not only Psychological, but Whoness is Profoundly Ontological. Whoness is unborn and undying. Whoness is Pure Knowingness. This is the true meaning of the word Vajra. Indestructible.!

Our Primordial Awareness is our innate Ontological Whonesss . Our Primordial Ontological Self is Ontological Subjectivity and Our Ontological Subjectivity is both the Ontological Knower of Being and is the Ontological Being of the knower.

Our Primordial Ontological Awareness being our own Ontological Whoness, brings forth a profoundly Personal Beingfull world of form and a world of Beingfull formless knowingness. Dzogchen is not the Void of the Beingless Absence of  the Anatman experience of early Buddhism and neither is Dzogchen the “absence” of self that so many contemporary Buddhist Meditation practitioners experience endlessly. Endless Absence and Endless Voidness! And thus, for the Buddhist Meditation practioner all phenomena and all phenomenological reality is illusion. Of course, as one enters the dissociative practice of transcendental meditation what remains in this profound setting of detachment is Nothingness or Absence, or Beinglessness or Emtpiness.

In Dzogchen phenomenological reality is the self manifestation of Being and the Beingfullness of  Being and beings.

In Dzogchen Our primordial Beingfull personal awareness is ultimately experientially unborn and undying. The forms of our embodiment of ontological awareness transform life after life and death after death. Our personal Whoness is Pure Being. The Purity of our Whoness is the Purity of our Being which Being is Pure Being itself. Our Whoness is not simply psychological or Ontic but is foundationally and Primordially Ontological. Our Whoness is the Ground of Being. Our Whoness is our Awareness as Primrodial Source. Existence is Profoundly Personal. Self-liberation is Profoundly Personal.

Most amazingly our own Primordial Awareness is our Primordial Luminous Ground of Being and Beingfullness. As the Nyingma Dzogchen prayer declares “may I experience all Phenomena as Source.” And further May I experience my own Primordial Awareness as Source.

This is Longchenpa’s Focus and understanding which is the intimate cosmological power of Dzogchen. Primordial Awareness is not simply a psychological phenomena but Our Primordial Awareness is our Ontological Beingfull Self Knowing of the Being of Beings and our Direct Beingfull knowing of the Being and Beingfullness of the world and even the Being and Beingfullnes of the Cosmological Universe. Dzogchen as Namkai Norbu would say is Galactic. Dzogchen is Cosmological.

In Dzogchen Our Being knows Being. Our Being knowing of Being Is this direct non conceptual primordial awareness knowing of the Being of beings. What we call awareness is the Awareness of our Being knowing Being. Only Being knows Being and Being knows the Being of Phenomena. This is Wisdom Gnosis. Wisdom Gnosis is the Direct Non-Conceptual Knowing of Being and our Direct Embodiment of Being and Beingfullness.

The Experience of Being is not an imaginary, hallucinatory endless moment. Religious and Shamanism tend toward hallucinatory Visionary Imaginal Transcendental  Experiences. Our experience of Being is Luminous Actuality and Luminous Reality. Dzogchen is liberation through Reality. Dzogchen is liberation through our Personal Actuality of Luminous Beingfullness.

Our Luminous Ground Of Being As Primordial Source

Most dramatically, Our own Primordial Awareness is the Luminous Ground of Being as Source manifesting Being and is the Power of our self-manifestation of Beingfullness in this world.   Longchenpa the great 14 th century Master of Dzogchen consistently emphasizes that the experience of our Personal Ontological Awareness is also our experience of  Primordial Ontological Source . Our personal existential ontological awareness participates in our own self manifestation as the Primordial Source of Phenomena. All human Beings participate in the self-manifestation of Being and the Intrinsic Being fullness of this world. The Bliss of Samadhi is the Bliss of the world as the Shavite Masters Declare.

Longchenpa the Great 14th century master of Dzogchen describes his experience, and his understanding is within his great text The Precious Treasury of Genuine Meaning. Our own awareness participates as the manifestation of primordial ontological consciousness as our personal awareness self-manifesting Being and Being fullness within this world..

Self-Liberation is the profound experience of our own ontological awareness as Luminous Primordial Source. Self-Liberation is this immediate and naturally this is experientially near. In Dzogchen self-Liberation is not earned or merited. Self-liberation is not an economic system of earning rewards from or merit from an Identified Omnipotent Patriarchal Deity.

Liberation is self-discovered as the Natural Givenness of our Being and Being fullness. Longchenpa elaborates this experiential ontological understanding of human Being and Being fullness in his great text The Precious Treasury of Genuine Meaning. Another great source text is The Supreme Source and this great 8th century Dzogchen text was translated by Namkai Norbu.

The Ontological Cosmological Nature of Dzogchen

Namkai Norbu the great and brilliant contemporary Dzogchen Master whenever he would begin a teaching seminar on Dzogchen he would say  “Dzogchen does not belong to any Tradition, and Dzogchen does not belong to any Culture, and Dzogchen is our Real Condition. He would then say Dzogchen is Galatic.” Galatic means Cosmological. Dzogchen reflects the Timeless Infinity of the Cosmos! The Dzogchen experience is known throughout the cosmos.

By Real Condition Norbu means the Actuality of Our Ontological Condition. Our Ontological condition is not one of illusion or one of delusion as so many forms of eastern philosophy think and suffer this philosophical distortion  of the illusionary  unreality of existence.  The illusionary unreality of Being and Beingfullness! The Illusionary unreality of appearance and experience. The only illusion here is the illusionary experience of the unreality of lived experience and illusion of the Illusionaryness of Being and the Ground of Being and Beingfullness.

The Endless Empty Existential Drama of Illusion and Delusion

This illusionary view of phenomena and this illusionary view of  our world is an experiential  Source of the Emptiness of Beingfullness and Beinglessness for so so many people over so many centuries. This illusionary view is the source of dissociation and detachment from Being and Beingfullness and even a detachment from our very sense of personal human Whoness or our human Self-ness.   This is an anti-life view and This is a cheapening  view of human reality which  is profoundly schizoid and hides our self-liberation through the domination of our dissociated  mentalistic mind and concretized mind. This illusionary view of the world and existence is profoundly distorted and profoundly schizoid and empty of Beingfull Relational Love.

When Namkai Norbu says Dzogchen is our Real Condition he is saying that our lived experience of our own Innate Primordial Awareness Is Our Ontological lived experience of Being as Being.

Our Primordial Awareness participates as our Ontological Capacity to experience All Appearance as the Beingfullness of Being.

In the Language of Kashmir Shaivism our own innermost self is the cosmological ontological Self of Being as Being. Dzogchen and Kasmir Shaivism are completely similar ontologically and similar in their emphasis on the Energetic luminous Esoteric Dimension of Awareness being focal in our unfolding experience of self-liberation.

Namkai Norbu would say Dzogchen is Galactic or Cosmologically infinite in its Vastness. Here Namkai Norbu is saying that Dzogchen is the Cosmological Experience of Timeless Awareness in Time. Timeless Awareness  is the experience of the  Infinity of Being and Beingfulllness so vast and multidimensional in Timelessness and in Time simultaneously.  The experience of Timeless Awareness in Time is the essence of self liberation in the Dzogchen path of self liberation.

Our own innermost awareness is Ontological and our Ontological Awareness is Ontologically Infinite in its Horizons Vast and Multidimensional. Our Ontological Awareness is Timeless Awareness in Time. Norbu would then often say the essence of Dzogchen is being in Timeless Awareness in Time. To experience Timeless Awareness in time is to experience Self Liberation just as we are in the world just as it is. Timeless Awareness is the Essence of Ontological Awareness of Pure BEING and Pure Beingfullness in Naturalistic Timeless Infinity.

Jigme Lingpa the 17 th century master of Dzogchen describes how Dzogchen goes far  beyond the  basic dissociative Beingless assumptions of early Buddhism. Actually Phenomenological Ontological Dzogchen is  similar in essence and in  understanding with the  Phenomenological Ontology of  Kashmir Shaivism. Dzogchen is profoundly phenomenological and profoundly experiential and profoundly ontological in essence. Dzogchen is experiential in its emphasis on our naturalistic articulation of our own innermost lived experience of Being and Being fullness.

Within our primordial Ontological Awareness and within our Primordial Ontological manifestation of Being fullness in the world and as the world. Dzogchen is most similar to contemporary existential ontological philosophy and existential phenomenological psychology in the shared focus on lived experience as the source of  experiential knowingness and our experiential knowing of Reality.

The Dzogchen Emphasis on the focusing and articulation of lived experience in experiential language  is very similar to the wonderful phenomenological work of Eugene Gendlin. The Dzogchen emphasis on the three kayas or the three dimensions of Being is profoundly similar to contemporary archetypal psychology as expressed by Henry Corbin and other Archetypal  Phenomenological Psychologists.

The Three Dimensions of Experience

The Sambhogakaya Dimension is the Archetypal Dimension of Being. The ordinary life world is our most obvious dimension of Being. And Our Source as the Ground of Being reflects our own innate intrinsic participation as Source and within Source is to experience self-liberation in a non-conceptual manner and within ontological experience of the three dimensions of our Being. The archetypal dimension is powerful luminous energetic dimensions of lived experience and not simply imaginary and visionary drama’s’. It is best not to equate the archetypal realm as only Imaginary Visionary experience. The archetypal Energetic dimension of Being is not a fantasy. The Archetypal is the luminous energetic manifestation Of Being and Beingfullness. Our  awareness is three dimensional . Our primordial awareness is source. Our primordial awareness is the archetypal dimension of Being and Beingfullness. Our primordial awareness is our ordinary Beingful  life world.

Longchenpa and Timeless Awareness In Time

In both Dzogchen and  in Contemporary Existential Phenomenology as expressed by Heidegger there are 4 times. There is the time of the present moment, the time of the past , and the time of the future, future time perspective. Then there is the fourth time which is Timeless Awareness. We can experience Timeless awareness and we can experience our past time within timeless awareness, and our  present time  within timeless awareness and our  future time within timeless awareness.

Within timeless awareness the trauma of the past can be metabolized, and the trauma of the present can be metabolized, and by holding future time perspective within timeless awareness ,the terror of the future can be metabolized. The power of timeless awareness metabolizes experience, and the pain and agony of experience whether of the past, the present or the futures. Timeless Awareness is not only timeless knowing but Timeless Awareness is Timeless metabolization of horrific experience,

When one is in the state of absorption of awareness into awareness, and in becoming aware of Timeless Awareness in time, a person may have a decisive experience of naturally occuring Timeless Awareness and so the mind which is the basis of all ordinary experience is undermined. The Center of the human being shifts decisively from being within our mind to being within timeless awareness itself. The power of organizational experience is no longer our mind, but Primordial Timeless awareness itself, We are self-liberated from our mind and historical domination of our mind by internalized family history and the traumatic drama of the pass experience. The traumatic drama of the pass is the horrific forms of terror of the past experience, includiing death.

To experience timeless awareness in time is to experience the infinity of our Being in Time and through time and  to experience the power of timeless awareness dissolving and metabolizing truamtic terror and to experience the self-manifestation of the Being fullness of Being in all  Beings.

There are Four Times in both Dzogchen and Contemporary Existential Phenomenology of Lived Experience. There is the Time of the Present Time, there is the Time of  Future Time and the Time of the Past Time and there is the Time Of Timeless Awareness as Pure Time.  We can experience the time of the present, the time of the past and the time of the future and still   in Dzogchen still be living within Timeless Awareness In time which is the unfolding of  self liberation. We can integrate our three times into timeless awareness in time which liberates our present moment, our past moments   and our future time perspective.

When we become experientially absorbed in our experiential knowing of DIRECT KNOWINGNESS Of Being and Beingfullness of Phenomena, there arises this unique decisive stage that is the path of self-liberation.  This is Not the path to self-liberation but is the path of self-liberation.

The psychological state of our mind which is the base and source of our ordinary life experience becomes undetermined to use Longchenpa’s famous language..  The secret of self-liberation and the self-secret of enlightened awareness , enlightened knowingness  is our freedom from Conceptual Mind.

The ordinary states of experience that are associated with desire, forms and formless are underdetermined and we will  experience the profound freedom from our conceptual mind or ordinary mind. We can experience absorption in timeless awareness and   Our mind which is our historical mind and is the coordinating faculty of thinking, feeling, sensation and fantasy can  becomes underdetermined. Our experience is one of direct knowingness and direct perception or Gnosis or Jnana  is primary and primordial. Within this direct non conceptual gnosis or jnana there is no fixations and locked in with phenomena. One is within the non-conceptual knowing and the non conceptual  experiencing of Being and Beingfullness. The mind and its functions become undertermined since the functions are a function of non-conceptual consciousnesss as primordial awareness. This self-knowing awareness is pervaisive of the mind functions.

The profound shift is our mind is no  longer foundation of lived experience, but rather our iinermost  awarenees, our direct awareness is foundational of our lived experience.

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 Consultation.

To contact Rudolph Bauer,Ph.D  rbauer@rsbauer.net  2436 4th Street, apt 5 ,Santa Monica,Ca.90405  phone 202 256 0307 . The weekly Seminar on The Contribution of Phenomenology and Dzogchen to Psychotherapy and Healing are available through Zoom and also our many Dzogchen Meditation and Phenomenological Seminar videos on our website. Washington Center For Consciousness Studies.www.meditatelive.com. You can, if you wish, also participate in the Live OnLine Seminars. Contact Inquiry at rbauer@rsbauer.net.

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