Dzongchen View Of Spirits (大圆满见鬼)

All of the religions in this world would teach us to stay away from demons, devils, evil spirits, ghosts etc. In fact, in some religions; fighting demonic forces has become the majority part of their doctrines. And, that too means a lucrative business for the production and selling of religious products. The normal treatments towards spirits are fear, fear and nothing but fear. In fact, all of those spirits should be destroyed or being cast to hell for punishment.

I am not to judge which is the correct way to treat spirits, but suffice to discuss how these spiritual entities are treated in the eyes of Dzongchen practitioners.

In Dzongchen, every matter is started with ‘view’. And only after establishing the correct view that a matter can be tackled swiftly and correctly.

Spirits, good or bad are treated as the manifestation of our own mind which are external to us. Since spirits are only the reflexions of our own mind, now we must understand that the nature of our mind has no characteristic; hence empty. By empty means that our mind changes according the stimulations we received from our environment which has no own characteristic of its own: when we are praised, we are happy or otherwise.

So said, in order to destroy those external demonic forces, we should first subdue the fear in our own mind instead of praying to external forces for help. Even there is a saying that goes: “The God will help those who help themselves.”

Now that we have viewed spirits are merely the reflection of our mind, then there is no need to fear or pity them. We should just look into our mind and rest in our natural state without creating any new thoughts. Then all the demons in our heart will vanish automatically along with our fear.

Actually, all of the sadhana practices: Vajrakilaya, Dorje Dorlo, Black Thorma, Hayagriva and etc. refer to the same ‘view’. Of course, if a practitioner has already aware that the external world is the reflection of his/her mind, there is no need for those sadhana practices. He/she can just fall into his/her natural state of relaxation. In Dzongchen, we don’t use meditation as meditation means a little too deliberate and tense up our lively mind.

It is only through a relaxed but not to drowsy mind that we can become fearless as our yidam (deity) and hence entering the state of Great Perfection.

To sum up, Dzongchen treats out outside world as the manifestation of our inner mind. Instead of performing all those unnecessary rituals to get rid of the demons in our mind, perhaps it is more effective just to lay our busy mind to rest. And, let our mind stays that way forever. The state of Great Perfection is none other than resting in our natural and tranquil state of equilibrium. Apparently, those people who like to constantly keep their mind busy will not be able to achieve Buddhahood in the view of Dzongchen.