Feelings Bound and Freed: Wandering and Wonder on Buddhist Pathways

• Published in: Contemporary Buddhism Vol. 19; no. 1; pp. 83 - 101
• Main Author: Klein (Rigzin Drolma), Anne C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 02.01.2018
• ISSN: 1463-9947; 1476-7953
• DOI: 10.1080/14639947.2018.1443567

In fourteenth-century Tibet, Longchen Rabjam drew from classic Indian Buddhist writing and early Dzogchen tantric poetry to articulate unique features of the Great Completeness (Dzogchen] tradition. I trace here the pivotal shifts he describes: he upturns classic Buddhist views of self and senses. For the senses are not problems, they are portals to reality. The state of awakening, enlightened mind, bodhicitta, is not a goal to achieve, but the way things are. The path does not go anywhere, it simply opens. Wisdom, the ultimate truth, suffuses mind, body and world. Recognising this wisdom evokes in practitioners feelings of wonder, amusement and spacious delight. Longchenpa's narrative is rooted in confidence that these qualities are so natural that they are bound to be elicited through practice. Therefore, in closing, I connect some of his key points with a more contemporary manner of eliciting feeling and knowing that otherwise remains occult to us.