Zhine and tregchod practices

from Zhang Zhung Nyan Gyud

Menri Ponlop Trinley Nyima
June 24 – 28, 2009
Ciamma Ling Center

Wilga, Poland

Contact: Wojtek Pluciński wplucinski@interia.pl tel. +48 500 602 477



The year ago we started the first cycle from Zhang Zhung Nyan Gyud - ngondro, practice that helps. This year we will continue with the second cycle, zhine and tregchod practices from the Zhang Zhung Nyan Gyud text. The source of that teachings is a yogi Dru Gyalwa Yungdrung. The aforesaid practices are strictly interrelated to each other, because the mindful concentration deriving from zhine is fundamental for tregchod practice.

THE IMPORTANCE OF ZHINE PRACTICE

You must understand the reason why we practice zhine. Peaceful abiding means the place of the same quality, which is related to the essence of mind. Bon cha is the aspect of emptiness, foundation, base. This is level of base. When the mind becomes empty and thoughts are liberated, the mind comes back to the Base. To the base of something what is unchangeable and never distracted. This base cannot be distracted because of the vajra concept. Why are we distracted so often ? It is because we cannot handle with the movement and with the thoughts, emotions and feelings. They all take us away from the Base. And that is why we need a calm. Despite this distracting role of thoughts and emotions, they additionally obscure our experience. Obscure the Base. Obscure the Rigpa. Obscure all divine qualities and all pure energies up to the moment of such a obscuration in which one looses the knowledge of one`s own identity. That is why we use zhine to overcome all these obscurations and get to know our true nature. Is that clear ?
For somebody lacking the good foundation of zhine, it is very difficult to attain something like Dzogchen experience. We may say like this: zhine, tregchod, thogal. In the case of a weak zhine, it is very hard to practice tregchod properly. And again, without a good tregchod practice, the practice of thogal looks like extremely difficult. The experience deriving from zhine and tregchod is the feeling of stability and overcoming of the certain kind of fear. You feel that independently from the circumstances, nothing in fact can be changed in you. This is a kind of connection. All experiences are connected rather with the root than manifestations. You have a chance to go beyond the feelings of hope and fear. Hope and fear are related to the change. Abiding in the Base is a kind of experience which is out of any changes. Do you agree that fear is bounded to the changes ? The change of something known to us and a change of something what is out of our knowledge. That kinds of changes are the roots for our fear. On the other hand, there is something what never changes. And that thing is a base for what is changing. It must be discovered to let you know that this is what is a base for changing experience in your life. If you endlessly see only that what is changing all the time and not seeing the unchangeable, you will always feel the fear.