The Important Dzogchen Distinction Between Awareness of Mind and Awareness of Being.The Drama of Sems and Semde

The Important Dzogchen Distinction Between Awareness of Mind and Awareness of Being. The Drama of Sems and Semde!

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

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

Preface

This is the Most Basic and Most Necessary Distinction Within Existential  Dzogchen!

Our Awareness of Mind knows Phenomena and Our Primordial Awareness  as Being knows Being.

We will now focus on the essential Dzogchen distinction between our psychological awareness as our Mind knowing our lived experience of our phenomenological world and our Primordial Ontological Awareness as our Being directly Non-Conceptually knowing Being. In Dzogchen this direct non conceptual knowingness of Being is Gnosis or Jnana or Semde.

This was and is the most basic theme of Jigme Lingpa in his elaboration of Dzogchen understanding in his text The Yeshe Lama. The difference between the direct knowing of our psychological mind knowing phenomena and the direct ontological knowing of primordial awareness knowing Being.

Of course this most important difference between the psychological knowing of mind knowing phenomena and our ontological knowing of our Ontological Awareness knowing Being was expressed by Longchenpa in his ontological psychological distinctions and descriptions in the 14th century.

This is also the very same essential distinction of the two ways of knowing in various forms of contemporary existential phenomenological philosophy and psychology. This same distinction is made in many forms of contemporary existential psychoanalysis such as Michale Eigen and Donald Winnicott. The difference between psychological mind and transitional space of  transitional awareness within human awareness  is totally  central to existential psychoanalysis and is this same distinction between knowing of mind and the knowing of ontological awareness is expressed in Dzogchen and Kashmir Shaivism. This psychological dimension of Mind Conceptually knowing phenomena and our ontological dimension of Primordial Awareness  knowing Being is foundational in Dzogchen Tradition and also in the Kashmir Shavistic Tradition.

Longchenpa of the 14 century made this foundational distinction between the two ways of knowing  and he also emphasized the Energetic or the Prajna dimension of Primordial Awareness of foundational  importance. Longechenpa articulated how  Primordial Awareness  embodies  the Energetic Luminous Vibrational Dimension of Primordial  Awareness and this Energetic Dimension is  central in  the experience of self-liberation.

This same emphasis of the profound importance of the Energetic Luminous Vibrational dimension of Primordial  Awareness is central to the unfolding process of self-liberation is in the Shaivite tradition. In contemporary Phenomenological Existential Psychotherapy there is  same emphasis on the profound importance of the Energetic Embodied Dimension of Primordial Awareness. The integration of these  Instinctive Energies into the Primordial Energy of Primordial Awareness is focal in having a Unified State  of Creative and Sustaining experience of our vital life force. A person can integrate the sexual and aggressive instinctive energy into their primordial personal awareness. Primordial Personal Awareness is the Primordial Awareness of Being and Beingfullness infinite in its horizons vast and multidimensional.

The Two Ways of Knowing: The Phenomenological Knowing of Phenomena and The Ontological Knowing of Being

This understanding of the two ways of knowing is Essential to actually experientially know phenomena in and of itself   and to experience the living Being and  Beingfullness of Phenomena.  Our mind’s  psychological knowing of the actuality of the phenomenological field  and the actuality of our ontological knowing of Being and  Beingfullness   leads us to the corresponding integration of these   two forms of knowing within our own lived experience as  the path of self-liberation. The integration of our mind knowing phenomena within our Awareness Field of Being  knowing Being and with our mind being  integrated within the field of primordial awareness allows us to know experientially  the Being of phenomena and the phenomena of Being.

The Endless Absence of Being and Beingfullness

It is this very essential distinction of Being and Beinglessness that is so often absent in the many forms of Buddhist thought and Buddhist Understanding. The difference between the psychological experience of our mind knowing phenomena  and the ontological experience  of our awareness  knowing Being allows for the profound integration of our phenomenological psychological experience into our  Ontological Awareness field of Being and  Beingfullness.

This is our  natural path of Dzogchen as self-liberation through the experience of our luminous Beingfullness Nature just as we are . This liberation is the self liberation of Equality Consciousness within Timeless Awareness.

We will explore the foundational Dzogchen Praxis of the integrating the Union of our psychological phenomenological mind within our phenomenological ontological Beingfull Awareness. This union brings forth our  experiencing of phenomena and the Being and Beingfullness of the phenomena simultaneously. This is the naturalistic doorway to our natural ontological self-liberation just as we are! In our own lifetime! This is not the endless drama of earning merit. This is not the endless Drama of Obedience and Submission to Religious Dominating Patriarchal Authority. This is not the endless drama of self-imposed deprivation and isolation. This is not the schzoid dramatic understanding  that human desire is the source of  all suffering. As Lacan said in 1968 in speaking at John Hopkins in Baltimore, Desire Built Baltimore! In Dzogchen Desire is the source of self manifestation of Being.

This is not the spiritual  economic view of earning merit, this is not the deprivation  view of liberation through schzoid detachment. This Experiential  View is not the void  view of  dissociation from lived experience  and from embodiement. This is not the  view of humiliation  as our necessary subjugation to the many forms of Patriarchal Authority. This is not self-liberation through Obedience and Subjugation. This is not the drama of the reward of heaven for the good person and the damnation of hell eternal fire for ever and ever for the bad person. This experience of Non Dual Awareness takes us beyond Binary Judgment.

Subjugation: Self Liberation Through Subjugation!

This is not self-liberation through Subjugation. This is not liberation through Institutionalization and Ritualization. This is not the view of self- liberation through self-negation and self-hatred and self-humiliation or self liberation through  non- existence. This is not the view of liberation through solipsistic schizoid Beingless isolation. This is not the view of self-liberation through the Master Slave Relationship with the Gods as our masters and we as the slave of the Gods or God. This is not the view of God as an Entity. This is not the view of ourselves as Entities as Things.

The Patriarchal GOD or the Gods seem to continuously require subjugation as the Doorway to self-liberation. Dzogchen is  not the obsessive compulsive ritualistic endless repetition of prayers begging for  help from would be archetypal  entities. In actuality the archetypal  Realm is the Realm of Luminous archetypal Energies of multidimensional  Being and Beingfullness.

As Dudjom Rinpoche would so often say “Take The Power into Your own hands. Stop begging for help.” Take the power of creative awareness into your own hands and your own voice.

Neither is this drama of Self Liberation through  the accomplishment of the would be manifestation of Human Grandiosity becoming Omnipotence or Omniscience. Many spiritual traditions place liberation as happening after eons and eons of practice and thus obtaining the natural reward of Omnipotent Omniscient Beingfullness after centuries of spiritual practices and subjugation. This is an unhappy delusion and illusion of Religious Grandiosity and Omnipotence.

As the Dali Lama who is a practitioner of Dzogchen says I am the Dali Lama  and I do not know everything and I can not do everything. I am not omniscient or omnipotent.  I do like that people love me.

Grandiosity For Some is Illusionary Self Liberation

Realization is often wrapped within Grandiosity and within  the Absolutely Knowing of Everything and having the Absolute Omnipotent Grandiose Power of doing everything and willing everything.

In Dzogchen self-liberation is not the attainment of Grandiosity of Omnipotence and Omniscience. Self-liberation is not  the drama of Absolute knowledge and Absolute Mastery. Absolute knowledge is our human Grandiose illusion and Grandiose delusion of Power. Such self omnipotence and omniscience is a distorted form of Royalty. Of course Spirituality in Religious Context is always Infused and fused with Royalty and within Royalty. This fusion with would be Royalty of course distorts the Nature of Equal Vision and Equality Consciousness.

Absolute Knowledge and Absolute Master and The Endless Master Slave Experience

This drama of Absolute Knowledge reminds us of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit wherein the person who has Absolute Knowledge becomes the Absolute Master over those who do not have absolute knowingness. The Master Slave Relationship dwells in most religious and spiritual traditions including Buddhism.  The Master Slave relationship dwells in most forms of monasticism and in most forms of concretistic fundamentalistic religious understanding and concreteness of ideational belief.

As the Dali Lama says  “I am the Dali Lama and I do not know everything and I cannot do everything, but I do love that people love me.”. The Dali Lama also expresses how the enduring realm of Tibetan Buddhist Patriarchalism will destroy Tibetan Buddhism. He made these statements when he was giving the Kalachakra teaching in Washington DC a number of years ago.

The History of Dzogchen is the natural liberation of the   Unfolding Of Our Experience of Primordial Awareness Knowing Being Within The Context of Our Human Mind Knowing Phenomena! In Dzogchen the sense of self is  our sense of our own innermost Being and Beingfullness. Of course in early Buddhism there is no self because early Buddhism is Beinglessness. Phenomena is Beingless, Phenomena is Emptiness. Phenomena is Void.

In Dzogchen  Being and Beingfullness is now Source and is now the drama of embodiment. Longchenpa’s work and the Openeness of Being and Beingfullness takes us beyond the drama of everything is illusion and there is no actuality of phenomena. There is no actuality of Being. There is no actuality of Existence. Yes your sense of innermost self is your sense of your innermost awareness as your innermost Being and Beingfullness.

Embodied Awareness and Becoming Aware of Awareness!

As David Higgins describes so artfully in his wonderful dissertation, between the 8th and 14th centuries there were illuminating phenomenological distinctions that were essential to  the  understanding of the Dzogchen Practice of Becoming Embodied Awareness through the Experiential Praxis of  becoming aware of our innermost Beingfull Awareness.

In becoming aware of our own primordial awareness we become experientially aware of our own Being and Beingfullness.This experiential praxis was known as The Great Perfection or The Great Completeness. David Higgens   notes that these phenomenological distinctions were primarily made by the Nyingma Masters of Meditation.

In Becoming aware of our primordial awareness, we experience our own embodied  ontological Beingfull Awareness. We become our living Field of Being and Being fullness as Luminous Ontological Awareness and we Ontologically Experience  our own Being full knowing of Being. Awareness is our Being knowing Being.

Our primordial awareness is not our mind knowing Being. Our mind knows phenomena. Our Being Experientially knows Being. Our Primordial  Awareness is our Being knowing Being. Our primordial awareness knows the Being of beings. Our primordial awareness is our Being’s knowingness of Being. Primordial Awareness is an ontological knowingness knowing Being. Human beings are Ontic Ontological beings. Our Ontic knowing knows Phenomena and our Ontological Knowing knows Being and our Ontological Knowing knows the Being of beings.

Heidegger And Our Direct Knowing of Being

Heidegger would call this awareness DA Sein. Human Dasein knows Being. Human Dasein is self-liberated through the direct experiential knowing of Being and the Being fullness of beings. This experiential knowledge of Being is both profoundly personal and profoundly relational and profoundly infinite in its horizons vast and profoundly multidimensional.

Sems and Semde: The Most Basic and Most Important Distinction Made Within Dzogchen!

The most basic philosophical distinction is the distinction between our Mind of Dualistic phenomenological experience (Sems) and our Primordial Ontological Awareness of our Naturalistic Non-Dualistic Experience of Primordial Knowingness (Ye she) or (Semde). This Primordial Knowingness (Ye she or Semde) is non dualistic non conceptual direct experiential ontological knowingness of Being as Being. This direct perception or direct non conceptual experiential ontological knowingness is also known as Gnosis or Jnana in the Eastern Philosophy of Dzogchen Dr. Higgins has some excellent papers on the essential distinction between mind and awareness. Mind knowing Phenomena and Awareness Knowing Being and Beingfullness.

Our Mind Knows Phenomena. Our Awareness Knows Being.

There is the Luminous Union of our Direct Non-Conceptual Knowing of Being and our Direct Conceptual Knowing of Phenomena.

There are Two Ways of Knowing. There is the psychological knowing of our mind knowing phenomena and this psychological knowing of mind in Tibetan language is Sems. And there is the experiential ontological knowing of our primordial awareness which is our direct ontological knowing of Being. This direct non conceptual experiential ontological awareness of Being is Semde in Tibetan language. Self-Liberation Is Natural Unfolding of Being and Being fullness.

There is the Self - liberating Existential Drama of the  Union of our psychological mind knowing phenomena within Our field of primordial ontological awareness which is our direct ontological knowingness or our direct experiential  perception  non conceptually knowing Being and the Being fullness of beings.

In the Dzogchen traditions this direct non conceptual knowing of Being is called Gnosis or Jnana. When there is this Union between our psychological mind knowing phenomena and our ontological awareness knowing Being, we can then experience Phenomena and the Being of the Phenomena simultaneously.  This union of knowing phenomena and the Being of the Phenomena is the self-liberating experience that unfolds into and within our natural Beingfull self-liberation.

Visionary Experience As An Opening of the Door of Luminosity

Self-liberation is this Direct and Immediate. Self-Liberation is an unfolding  function of experiential metabolization. Self-liberation is not a once and for all moment. Self-liberation is repetitive movement into Being through  phenomena. Neither is self-liberation simply a function of a “visionary” experience and the “visionary” moment. Visions are the opening of perceptual experience to the Luminous Being full dimensionality of this multidimensional universe. Self-Liberation is an embodiment of the Being and Beingfullness that we are, infinite in its horizons and vast and multidimensional.

This union of our psychological knowingness of mind within our ontological awareness of Being has the dramatic experiential result that we can experience both the Duality of Phenomena within the Nonduality of the Being of the Phenomena Simultaneously.

We can experience the Oneness of Being  and the Separateness or Differences of Being  within Phenomena Simultaneously.  We can experience oneness and difference simultaneously. We can experience the Oneness of Being within the different beings of Being. We can experience the Duality of beings within the Non Duality of Being and Non Duality Being within the Duality of beings. This is the experience of self-liberation.

Moreover, this direct knowing is infinite in its horizons and infinitely vast and multidimensional.  This is Self-liberation just as we are. We can experience the Duality of Living Phenomena within Luminous Non-Duality of Being. We can experience the Non-Duality of Being within the duality of living phenomenological beings. This experience is the unfolding of Self-Liberation just as we are.

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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