Ms M:

Hi, I know I have asked you once before your opinion on Hillside Hermitage/Ajahn Nyanomoli Thero. I think u said he has anatta insight but u dont know much about him in detail

I wanted to share this video as I thought it was quite in line with your experience but I want to check to see if I am wrong

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HIDVvlTYxIc&t=918s

Soh:

Yes thats what i heard but im not familiar with his teachingsxabir Snoovatar

Ms M:

The whole 12:00-20:00 is great, but look at 14:30 - 15:00 and 16:30-18:00 especially

Talking about seeing that amorphous feeling of self or I am separate from 5 senses and thought

And undermining jt

How any type of feeling of watcher or observer is still realized as being present without your involvement, and dependent on other factors (not self and not in your control)

Soh:

Sounds like he might have the anatta insightxabir Snoovatar

Ms M:

Interestingly he really emphasizes self restraint as the basis of the practice, which seems good to me since the suttas always start with the person being secluded from sense pleasures, mind being ready for training, and then they have jhana/realization

Is your path/mahayana/dzogchen seeing this as unecessary? Like you can undermine things more directly by seeing the nature of reality?

I know sila is still important for you i just dont remember seeing *sense restraint

Soh:

dzogchen style practice is somewhat different

"This Dzogchen style. Very supple, produces flexible wood, very green, hard to break. In Dzogchen style śamatha you actually engage all six sense objects with your six senses, there is nothing to accept and nothing to reject, nothing to follow, nothing to ignore."

"

A little, but really it has to do with the definition of one pointed. In sūtra style one pointedness, one is focusing one's mind on one point, in a very concentrated way, while ignoring everything else. Also in Dzogchen, sometimes we use this experience as well.

But there is also another meaning of one pointedness, meaning that all sense contact all their objects."

"This Dzogchen style. Very supple, produces flexible wood, very green, hard to break. In Dzogchen style śamatha you actually engage all six sense objects with your six senses, there is nothing to accept and nothing to reject, nothing to follow, nothing to ignore."

-- dzogchen teacher acarya malcolm smithxabir Snoovatar

"This is Hinayāna teaching. It does not apply to Dzogchen and Vajrayāna practitioners. As Dzogchen and Vajrayāna practitioners, we are supposed to enjoy all objects of desire of the five senses as objects of desire. We are not Hinayāna monks refusing to mix the sauce into our rice.

So while there are certainly some Buddhists who apply this method, it is not really the principle of our teaching here."

- malcolm

so quite different

but insight of anatman and emptiness is still crucial for liberation

eventually all paths must lead to liberation of mental afflictions

“There are three traditional methods of dealing with emotions: abandoning them, transforming them, and recognizing their nature. All three levels of Buddhist teaching, all three yanas, describe how to deal with disturbing emotions. It is never taught, on any level, that one can be an enlightened buddha while remaining involved in disturbing emotions - never. Each level deals with emotions differently.

…

Just like darkness cannot remain when the sun rises, none of the disturbing emotions can endure within the recognition of mind nature. That is the moment of realizing original wakefulness, and it is the same for each of the five poisons.

…

In any of the five disturbing emotions, we do not have to transmute the emotion into empty cognizance. The nature of the emotion already is this indivisible empty cognizance.” - Vajra Speech, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche

“Why would you accept afflictive emotions? They are afflictive and are the root cause of suffering.

Either you renounce them, transform them or self-liberate them. But you certainly don't accept them. That way just leads to further rebirth in samsara.

M” – Dzogchen teacher Acarya Malcolm Smith

“We do bad things, non-virtuous things, because we are afflicted. Afflictions are never a part of oneself but they do define us as sentient beings. If you want to stop being a sentient being and start being an awakening being you have to deal with your afflictions via one of three paths I mentioned.

Why am I a sentient being and not a Buddha? Because I am subject to afflictions. How do I become a Buddha? By overcoming afflictions and attaining omniscience. How do I begin? By setting out on one of the three paths, depending on my capacity.” – Dzogchen teacher Acarya Malcolm Smith

“Mr. JK said: What you're describing is the duality found in Christianity. saying we are impure and must better ourselves.

Kyle Dixon replied: Not at all, this is literally the teaching of Dzogchen, Śrī Siṃha one of the original Dzogchen masters, who was Padmasambhava’s guru, states:

This is acceptable since a so called “primordial buddhahood” is not asserted. Full awakening is not possible without being free of the five afflictions... It is not possible for wisdom to increase without giving up afflictions. Wisdom will not arise without purifying afflictions. (Bolded and emphasized by Soh)

Likewise, Khenpo Ngachung, one of the greatest luminaries of recent times states:

In any system of sutra or tantra, without gathering the accumulations and purifying obscurations, Buddhahood can never be attained. Though the system of gathering accumulations and purifying obscurations is different, in this respect [dzogchen] is the same.

Longchenpa states:

All phenomena of samsara depend on the mind, so when the essence (ngo bo) of mind is purified, samsara is purified... The essence of mind is an obscuration to be given up. The essence of vidyā is pristine consciousness (ye shes) to be attained... That being so, it is very important to differentiate mind and pristine consciousness because all meditation is just that: all methods of purifying vāyu and vidyā are that; and in the end at the time of liberation, vidyā is purified of all obscurations because it is purified of the mind.

Even Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, Mingyur Rinpoche’s father, states:

Purification happens through training on the path. We have strayed from the basis and become sentient beings. To free the basis from what obscures it, we have to train. Right now, we are on the path and have not yet attained the result. When we are freed from obscuration, then the result - dharmakāya - appears... the qualities of the result are contained in the state of the basis; yet, they are not evident or manifest. That is the difference between the basis and the result. At the time of the path, if we do not apply effort, the result will not appear.

Thus there is still much for you to understand about how Dzogchen actually works. You are only speaking of the side of the nature, the state of Dzogchen, but the side of appearances, the side of the practitioner, is not pure and perfect just yet. The two sides meet when the practitioner recognizes that nature, which is not presently known, and trains in the method and view.

5” – Kyle Dixon, 2021, krodha (u/krodha) - Reddit