PACIFIC WORLD - The Institute of Buddhist Studies

350Pacific WorldAdditional Mahåyåna practices (“preliminaries” from the Dzogchenperspective) include meditation focused on calming and pacifying themind (Tib. zhi gnas; Skt. Ωamathå) and analytical contemplation aimed atgaining first a conceptual and then a non-conceptual insight into emptiness(Tib. lhag mthong; Skt. vipåΩyana). 176 For Longchenpa, insight meditation“involve[s] no specific techniques beyond analytical or poetic shaping of apreexisting contemplative state, with a focus on directed inquires intoemptiness.” 177 By undermining the concepts of inherent existence of bothsubject and object, insight practice may not only weaken evaluative associations(since there is nothing to evaluate or cling to), it may, with enoughpractice, weaken perceptual dualism as well. Longchenpa also presentstwo practices integrating Ωamathå and vipåΩyana. David Germano’s descriptionof these practices hints at what they involve. The first he describesas a “thematic type of contemplation focused on finding the valorized stateof awareness while sitting in the standard posture” while the second (“an‘enhancer’ … to the first”) utilizes “specific postures and gazes to contemplatea lucent cloudless sky… .” 178Tantra introduces the next level of preliminary practices. 179 The core oftantric practice is meditative visualization. Usually this involves visualizingoneself either residing in a tantric deity’s pure realm, or (in moreadvanced tantric practices) as the deity in his or her pure realm, with theaim of awakening in the practitioner an awareness of whatever “energy,”aspect of Reality, or aspect of one’s own mind the deity represents. 180 Otheraspects of tantric practice include (1) embracing one’s embodied situation(particularly all associated feelings and passions) as the vehicle of awakening,(2) de-conditioning dualistic evaluative associations by imaginativelysuperimposing the ma√∂ala over ordinary appearances, and (3) gainingcontrol of the subtle energy (Tib. rlung; Skt. pråna) of the body throughnadi-pråna yoga. 181 More generally, tantra seems to serve the additionalfunction of beginning (through symbols) to acquaint the practitioner withthe experience of immediate presence.Though these practices may be quite structured and formalized, theytend to become less so as preliminary methods of Dzogchen. As Germanonotes, most of the preliminary practices described by Longchenpa involve“no techniques beyond the standard lotus posture, and are … poeticallythematized styles of contemplative inquiry attempting to evoke and/orpinpoint such key dimensions as emptiness, clarity, awareness and primordialfreedom.” 182 Most of the “practices” outlined by Longchenpa inhis Sems-nyid ngal gso, for example, remain “technique-free, exhortatoryand evocative in nature.” 183 Furthermore, the structured practices that areutilized are modified according to Dzogchen ideals: “though they drawupon tantric practices and other normative Buddhist meditative techniques,the guiding principle is extreme simplicity (spras bral), and alwayspriority remains on the mind’s state, not the imported practice’s specific