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Studstill: Cybernetic Approach to Dzogchen 341with itself. 97 Describing thugs-rje as “ceaseless,” Jigmed Lingpa furtherconsiders it “the basis of [Being’s] various manifestations.” 98 It is associatedwith two basic qualities: kun-khyab (“all-encompassing”) and rig-pa(“excitation”). 99 The second quality refers to the excitation or cognitiveintensity of Being as a whole that “breaks away from Being” and becomesthe “seed” for Its consequent evolutionary options. 100The Four KåyasAnother framework for describing the multilevel processes of Being isthe four kåyas 101 or “buddha bodies”: essential-nature body (Tib. ngo-bonyid-kyisku, Skt. svabhåvakåya), dharma-body (Tib. chos-sku, Skt.dharmakåya), enjoyment body (Tib. longs-sku Skt. sambhogakåya), andtransformation body (Tib. sprul-sku, Skt. nirmånakåya). The four kåyasare a tantric and Dzogchen elaboration of the standard three kåyas ofMahåyåna Buddhism: dharmakåya, sambhogakåya, and nirmånakåya. Asgenerally explained in Mahåyåna sources, the ultimate “Dharma Body” ofthe Buddha is identified with Reality, i.e., emptiness. The sambhogakåyais the compassion-motivated manifestation of the dharmakåya, symbolicallyrepresented as a celestial form of a buddha enthroned in his Pure Landand surrounded by hosts of bodhisattvas and other divine figures. Thenirmånakåya is identified with any “physical” form the sambhogakåyamay take in order to aid sentient beings, Ûåkyamuni Buddha being theforemost example.According to Guenther, these standard explanations utterly fail toconvey the intended meanings of these terms, at least as they are used inDzogchen. He translates sku (“body”) as “gestalt,” explaining that “agestalt is an unbroken whole, a complete pattern that cannot be arrived atthrough an accumulation of parts, but rather imbues the parts with meaning….In the Buddhist context gestalt refers to the wholeness of experiencewhere the subject-object split has not yet occurred and the field of experiencehas not been dissected into isolatable units of interest.” 102 The kåyas,then, are a way to understand Being’s varying levels of expression inrelation to (or as) an individual’s experience.The first level, svabhåvakåya, Guenther describes as “the gestalt ofBeing-in-its beingness,” referring to the ultimate, ontological Ground ofexperience. 103 According to Longchenpa, the three other kåyas “are allincorporated into this [fourth kåya], which is permanent, all pervasive,unconditioned, and without movement or change.” 104 The next three kåyasall represent experiential manifestations of this ultimate ontological Ground.The chos-sku (Skt. dharmakåya) refers to “Being’s meaningfulness” or“meaning-rich gestalt”—the svabhåvakåya’s “excitation” as self-under-