Like Dreams & Clouds: Emptiness & Interdependence, Mahamudra & Dzogchen

By Ringu Tulku

The Heart Wisdom series aims to make the teachings of Ringu Tulku Rinpoche available to a wider audience, by bringing his oral teachings to the written page. This volume looks, in a simple way, at the fundamental Buddhist view called Emptiness or Interdependence: how things really exist. It includes a short teaching on Mahamudra and Dzogchen, ap

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bodhicharya Publications CIC
• Release date: Sep 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781915725042

Ringu Tulku

Ringu Tulku Rinpoche is a Tibetan Buddhist Master of the Kagyu Order. He was trained in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism under many great masters including HH the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa and HH Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. He took his formal education at Namgyal Institute of Tibetology, Sikkim and Sampurnananda Sanskrit University, Varanasi, India. He served as Tibetan Textbook Writer and Professor of Tibetan Studies in Sikkim for 25 years.Since 1990, he has been travelling and teaching Buddhism and meditation in Europe, America, Canada, Australia and Asia. He participates in various interfaith and 'Science and Buddhism' dialogues and is the author of several books on Buddhist topics. These include Path to Buddhahood, Daring Steps, The Ri-me Philosophy of Jamgon Kongtrul the Great, Confusion Arises as Wisdom, the Lazy Lama series and the Heart Wisdom series, as well as several children's books, available in Tibetan and European languages.He founded the organisations: Bodhicharya - see www.bodhicharya.organd Rigul Trust - see www.rigultrust.org

Book preview

Like Dreams & Clouds

Emptiness & Interdependence

Mahamudra & Dzogchen

Ringu Tulku Rinpoche

First Published in 2011 by

Bodhicharya Publications

Bodhicharya Publications is a Community Interest Company registered in the UK.

38 Moreland Avenue, Hereford, HR1 1BN, UK

www.bodhicharya.org Email: [e-mail]

©Bodhicharya Publications

Ringu Tulku asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Please do not reproduce any part of this book without permission from the publisher.

We welcome the creation of editions of our books in other languages.

Please contact the publisher for details.

ISBN 978-1-915725-04-2

Second Edition: 2013

Emptiness and Interdependence: transcript and editing by Mary Heneghan and Jonathan Clewley.

Overcoming difficult circumstances, Gangtok, Sikkim, India. March 2013. Transcribed and edited by Mary Heneghan. (Text on page xvii)

Bodhicharya Publications team, for this book: Tim Barrow; Annie Dibble; Marita Faaberg; Margaret Ford; Mary Heneghan; Eric Masterton; Rachel Moffitt; Jet Mort; Pat Murphy; Paul O’Connor; Minna Stenroos; Claire Trueman; David Tuffield.

Typesetting & Design by Paul O’Connor at www.judodesign.com

Cover Image: ‘Rainbow in Sikkim’ courtesy of Andries Pelser.

The Heart Wisdom Series

By Ringu Tulku Rinpoche

The Ngöndro

Foundation Practices of Mahamudra

From Milk to Yoghurt

A Recipe for Living and Dying

Like Dreams and Clouds

Emptiness and Interdependence, Mahamudra and Dzogchen

Dealing with Emotions

Scattering the Clouds

Journey from Head to Heart

Along a Buddhist Path

Riding Stormy Waves

Victory over the Maras

Being Pure

The practice of Vajrasattva

Radiance of the Heart

Kindness, Compassion, Bodhicitta

Meeting Challenges

Unshaken by Life’s Ups and Downs

Like stars, mists and candle flames;

Mirages, dew-drops and water bubbles;

Like dreams, lightning and clouds;

In that way, I will view all composite phenomena.

Wishing Prayer

Kagyu Monlam Prayer Book

Editors’ Preface

Emptiness or Interdependence describes the key philosophical view of Buddhism. An experiential understanding of this is the basis for a true appreciation of Buddhist teaching. In this way, we hope what is presented here offers something for a wide range of new students and experienced practitioners. Ringu Tulku gives us a short, clear, step-by-step practical discussion of this central topic and looks at how it applies to our lives. At the same time, he points us towards the great mystery that opens out as our understanding deepens.

This teaching is combined here with another teaching by Ringu Tulku which was originally published as the first in the Heart Wisdom series. This covers Mahamudra and Dzogchen, approaches which provide skilful means and an overall path by which we can realise the true nature of ourselves, our world and all things - as none other than emptiness or interdependence.

With very great thanks to Ringu Tulku for bringing these timeless teachings through to us with their subtleties and depth, in a way we can understand and use.

May all beings be happy and peaceful and come to know things just as they are.

Mary Heneghan and Jonathan Clewley

For Bodhicharya Publications

Emptiness & Interdependence

The Buddhist View of How Things Exist

The Abbey, Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire

29th April 2010

What is this?

The concept of Emptiness, or Interdependence, is the main philosophy of Buddhism, especially Mahayana Buddhism. There are many detailed discussions of this important topic, looking at it from all sides and with different approaches. There are the Prajnaparamita Sutras, for example, which are all on this subject. So we could spend a long time debating, asking questions, using logic and analysis to go deeper and look to see if there is a contradiction between the way we generally perceive things and the results of intellectual analysis of how things are. But here we are going to look at this topic in a short way, in a direct and concise way.

Many different terms are used for this concept. They are all trying to get at the same thing. You can say Emptiness or Interdependence or Co-dependent Arising or Co-dependent Origination. People also use terms such as ‘voidness’ or ‘absence’ or ‘openness’. In Sanskrit it is shunyata. But whatever term you use, whether interdependence, or shunyata (usually translated as ‘emptiness’), they are all exactly one and the same. This is something very important to understand.

Nagarjuna said: ‘Because there is nothing that is not dependently arising, therefore there is nothing that is not emptiness in nature’. That is the understanding. Interdependence or dependent arising is about the way any phenomenon, any ‘thing’, is. It is about the viewpoint—any analytical or logical way of experimenting with, and asking, this question for yourself. Look at anything, whether it is a material thing or a person or an event or the mind, whatever, and say: ‘What is this? What is the way this exists? Does it exist as a completely independent thing? Or is it dependent on other things?’ If it is something existing totally independently, then, because it is independent, the existence of it should not depend on anything else.

The existence of this [meditation gong stick] cannot be independent because it is made up of