The Dzogchen Tradition

– Randall Studstill

Dzogchen has been practiced in Tibet for at least eleven hundred years by both Buddhists and Bonpos. Its doctrines and practices have evolved through various diﬀerent oral and textual transmissions. And though Tibetans have created reﬁned systemizations of Dzogchen teachings, these systems are themselves nuanced, complex, and elaborate. Dzogchen is not exclusively Buddhist but is also practiced in Tibetan Bon. Some Tibetan Buddhists claim that Dzogchen is not Buddhist—that it is really a disguised form of Hindu theism. While Dzogchen is a departure from more conventional Buddhist teachings associated with Nikaya and Mahayana Buddhism and may even have elements interpretable as theistic, this is completely irrelevant to the fact that Dzogchen has been (and is) practiced by Buddhists as a Buddhist tradition.

Dzogchen, in simplest terms, is a philosophical and meditative tradition of Tibet. Its name is an abbreviation of rdzogs-pa chen-po. rDzogs-pa may be variously translated as “to be complete,” “full,”“exhausted in,” etc. while chen-po means “big” or “great.” Herbert Guenther has suggested several English renderings of the term: “ultimate completeness,” “sublime wholeness,” “impeccable entirety,” and“super completeness.” The most common translation – and the one that will be used here – is Great Perfection. According to John Reynolds, the Great Perfection “is so called because it is complete and perfect (rdzogs-pa) in itself, with nothing lacking, and because there exists nothing higher or greater (chen-po) than it.” The “greatness” of Dzogchen is associated with the distinctive nature of its doctrines and path. For example, Dzogchen posits innate and natural perfection as the individual’s “ever-present” and permanent condition and maintains that the simplicity of immediate awareness, unconditioned by any concept, symbol, practice, etc., constitutes a direct path to realizing this perfection.

Because Tibetan Buddhists of the Nyingma School believe Dzogchen to have originated in India or the quasi-mythical kingdom of Uddiyana (or Oddiyana in some sources), the term rdzogs-chen is considered to be a translation of an original Sanskrit term, variously reconstructed as mahasandhi, mahasanti, mahasampatra and mahashanti. Because of the absence of any Dzogchen texts in Sanskrit, the Indian origins of Dzogchen have tended to be questioned by modern scholars.

Among Tibetan Buddhists, Dzogchen is primarily associated with the Nyingma School, where it is considered the most advanced of the Nine Paths or Yanas (Tib. theg-pa) of Buddhism. The esteem accorded Dzogchen is by no means universal among Tibetan Buddhists. Some non-Nyingmapas (i.e., members of either the Kagyupa, Sakyapa, or Gelugpa Schools) have been highly critical of Dzogchen, claiming that it is either not really Buddhism or that it is a covert form of Ch’an. On the other hand, some of Dzogchen’s greatest advocates have been non-Nyingmapas.

The Nine Paths are a hierarchical systemization of Buddhist paths arranged according to soteriological eﬃcacy and level of spiritual capacity required by the practitioner. Listed in order from least advanced to most advanced they are: Shravaka, Pratyekabuddha, Bodhisattva, Kriya, Charya, Tantra, Yogatantra, Mahayogatantra, Anuyogatantra, and Atiyogatantra. In general terms, the ﬁrst two (“Hearer” and “Solitary Buddha” respectively) are based on the Nikaya Sutras and emphasize renunciation and a realization of no-self (anatman) with respect to persons. The third refers to the sutra-based path of the Mahayana, emphasizing puriﬁcation in association with the Six Perfections (Paramita) and placing particular stress on compassion and analytical reﬂection on emptiness (shunyata). The next six paths represent progressively more advanced levels of tantric practice, culminating in Atiyogatantra, another name for Dzogchen. Non-Nyingma schools list four tantric paths: Kriya Tantra, Charya Tantra, Yogatantra, and Anuttarayogatantra. In this list, Dzogchen is not formally recognized as a path, though non-Nyingmapas may still practice it. In addition, Anuttarayogatantra is often considered to culminate in Mahamudra, which has close aﬃnities to Dzogchen.

Within this framework, Nyingmapas describe and deﬁne Dzogchen in diﬀerent (though usually overlapping) ways. As stated above, it is claimed to be the highest path, with respect to either its view and/or practices. In the ﬁrst sense, Dzogchen doctrines are considered the ultimate expression (possible in words) of the true nature of Reality, the individual, and the state of awakening. In the second sense,“highest” refers to the special directness or uncontrived nature of Dzogchen “practice.” In the context of the Nine Paths, Dzogchen is also described as (1) the culmination of all Buddhist paths, (2) the“essence” or “condensation” of all previous paths, and/or (3) the culminating stage of a single path or awakening process. In this ﬁnal sense, the ﬁrst eight “paths” are considered preliminary stages of realization leading to an ultimate state of realization called “Dzogchen.” In addition, some presentations of Dzogchen describe it as an “all-inclusive” path—a tradition that includes all Buddhist paths as means of “provoking the awareness (rig-pa) of the true nature of reality in its ultimate purity and perfection.” (This inclusivist approach maybe directly contrasted with the sectarian, clerical (i.e., non-shamanic) systemizations of Buddhism by the Gelugpas). In many of these formulations, Dzogchen is identiﬁed with the goal of Buddhism, i.e., the enlightened state/Buddhahood/nirvana. Such an identiﬁcation is the basis for Namkhai Norbu’s claim that Dzogchen is the “essence”of all Buddhist paths. As he puts it, Dzogchen is “the recognition of our true State and the continuation of its presence,” and as such,“really is the essence of all paths, the basis of all meditation, the conclusion of all practices, the pith of all the secret methods, and the key to all the deeper teachings.” Other translations of rig-pa (Skt. vidya) include intrinsic awareness, knowledge, intellect, pristine cognition, pure presence, or intelligence. Guenther variously translates rig-pa as ecstatic intensity, cognitive intensity, or simply ‘excitation’ in order to specify rig-pa’s expression through the individual as an “ongoing” existential pressure to transcend “all limits set by the prevalent ‘unexcited’ state of one’s everydayness.”

In general, then, ‘Dzogchen’ may be used as a term for ultimate Reality (identical with the true nature of the individual) and the ultimate experiential state that realizes Reality. As a term for the Real, Dzogchen “connotes a natural and eﬀortless unity underlying and pervading all things, often described as an empty, yet luminous Ground (gzhi) out of which all phenomenal appearances arise. As a label for the realization of the Real, Dzogchen indicates “a high-order level of thought, the peak of a person’s endeavor to fathom the depth of his being and gain an unobstructed view.” Dzogchen constitutes “the direct introduction to and the abiding in [the] Primordial State of enlightenment or Buddhahood,” or, as Sogyal Rinpoche puts it, “the primordial state of total awakening that is the heart essence of all the buddhas and all spiritual paths.”

From the above perspectives, some Dzogchen teachers deny that Dzogchen is a school, a path, or an articulatable set of doctrines. As John Reynolds notes, “the Nyingma Lamas do not regard Dzogchen as just another set of beliefs, or a system of philosophical assertions, or a collection of texts, or some sect or school.” They point out that if Dzogchen is already ineﬀable enlightenment as well as the “the primordial state of the individual,” it cannot also be a “path” for attaining enlightenment. Sa-pan Kun-dga’ rgyal-mtshan (1181–1282) states: “the theory of Atiyoga is Gnosis, not a means. To make a subject – that can not be expressed in words—an object of discussion, is not a thought of the learned.” These points notwithstanding, Dzogchen texts and teachers do attempt to explain through language the nature of Reality, and they recommend a particular type of contemplative approach—as Geoﬀrey Samuel describes it, “a formless and non-conceptual system of meditation conceived of…as the ﬁnal stage of Tantric practice…going beyond the transformational techniques of Tantra itself to the goal of the Enlightened state.” Though Dzogchen may ultimately be much more than a view and path, these categories are still legitimate and helpful ways of approaching the tradition.

Dzogchen’s placement as the ﬁnal of the Nine Yanas raises an additional issue. Is Dzogchen essentially tantric (as the name Atiyogatantra suggests), or does it constitute a distinct, non-tantric tradition? Even though the framework of the Nine Yanas locates Dzogchen as the highest tantric path, it is common for both Tibetan Buddhists and scholars to contrast tantra and Dzogchen as being fundamentally distinct in approach. For example, tantra may be described as a path of “transformation” based on highly ritualized, structured, and symbolically rich meditative practices, in contrast to Dzogchen, which aims at “self-liberation” (rang-grol ) through the “formless” practice of “letting be.” While this distinction is valid (and will be elaborated on below), it would not seem to override the essential continuity between tantra and Dzogchen, and the sense in which Dzogchen is the completion or culmination of tantric practice. Like tantra (and Mahayana Buddhism in general), Dzogchen stresses the unqualiﬁed continuity of Absolute Reality and mundane appearances, though tantra represents this continuity symbolically through the forms of the mandala while Dzogchen tends to subvert (at least as an ultimate ideal) any form of symbolic representation (especially in the context of meditative practice). Dzogchen also shares one of the tantra’s most distinctive characteristics: the identiﬁcation of path and goal. In advanced tantric practices, one visualizes oneself as already being a tantric deity, fully enlightened with all attendant buddha-qualities. In Dzogchen, inherent perfection/Buddhahood is considered one’s primordial condition from the very beginning. Again, this common theme takes either a symbolic or non-symbolic form depending on the path: in tantra, the identiﬁcation is accomplished through symbolic visualization while Dzogchen bypasses symbols altogether (one’s current predicament is the mandala). Put another way, both tantra and Dzogchen are means of ‘tuning in’ to the here and now, one through symbols and one non-symbolically through the experience of immediate presence. This non-symbolic approach is directly correlated by Nyingmapas with Dzogchen’s ultimate superiority as a path since from the Nyingma perspective any type of condition imposed on experience is necessarily an obscuration of one’s true, primordial nature. Tantra exercises such a pervasive inﬂuence on all forms of Tibetan Buddhism that in actual Dzogchen practice symbolic and non-symbolic approaches tend to be inseparably enmeshed. Nevertheless, a tendency to undermine symbolic representation is in most cases still discernible even in the more tantric expressions of Dzogchen.

Dzogchen’s Historical Origins

According to Norbu, Dzogchen, being “the Primordial State of the individual,” is independent of any religious tradition and “outside” or “beyond” the history of any particular school. This claim notwithstanding, the teachings and practices of Dzogchen have a history that is to some degree traceable, though the origins of Dzogchen are obscure and will only be treated here in the most general and broadest of terms. I begin with the tradition’s own account of its historical origins, though from the perspective of Western Buddhologists this account has little (if any) historical value. According to traditional, Nyingma accounts, the historical founder of Dzogchen was Garab Dorje (dGa’-rab rdo-rje), king of Uddiyana (or Oddiyana), a quasi-mythical kingdom possibly located in modern-day Pakistan, Afghanistan, or the Swat Valley. The Nyingma sources cited by Reynolds date Garab Dorje’s birth at either 853BCE, 715 BCE, or 521 BCE (each date being calculated with reference to the Tibetan estimate of 881 BCE for the paranirvana of the Buddha. This date is universally rejected by scholars. The Pali sources, generally considered more reliable, date the Buddha’s paranirvana sometime early in the 5th century BCE. More recent scholarship has argued that the late 4th century BCE is the more likely date). The Dzogchen teachings were transmitted to Garab Dorje through a visionary encounter with Vajrasattva (Tib. rDo-rjesems-dpa’), the tantric personiﬁcation of the Buddha’s Sambhogakaya. Since Vajrasattva received the Dzogchen transmission from Samantabhadra (Tib. Kun-tu bzang-po, the tantric personiﬁcation of the Buddha’s dharmakaya), it is the latter who is usually credited as being the ultimate source of the Dzogchen teachings, as well as the source of the Mahayoga and Anuyoga tantras. Given that Samantabhadra is the personiﬁed symbol of ultimate Reality (i.e., the dharmakaya) and “an emanation of the primary wisdom of all Buddhas,” the traditional account of Dzogchen’s origins reﬂects the Nyingma view that Dzogchen is a direct revelation of ultimate Reality itself.

According to the tradition, Garab Dorje passed on the Dzogchen teachings to his student(s) and thereby established the various lineages of Dzogchen teachings that eventually made their way to Tibet. The sources, however, do not necessarily agree on the sequence of ﬁgures making up these lineages.

In the second account, the transmission of the Dzogchen teachings from Srisimha to his four students takes place in India. The teachings were then brought to Tibet by Vimalamitra, Vairocana, and Padmasambhava in the 8th century CE. Of these three, early Dzogchen sources depict Vairocana as playing the central role in transmitting Dzogchen to Tibet. The later Nyingma tradition, however, tends to attribute the transmission primarily to Padmasambhava. Padmasambhava is claimed to be an incarnation of Samantabhadra and as such, an embodiment of the “essential spirit” of Dzogchen. An interesting discrepancy between the lineages outlined above involves the sequence of geographical locations associated with the transmission. In the ﬁrst, Dzogchen begins in Uddiyana, is transmitted to China, then India, and ﬁnally Tibet. The second, in contrast, omits China as a locality of transmission. In this case, the sequence of transmission is Uddiyana, India, and then Tibet. This version of the lineage is the one historically favored by the Nyingma School, reﬂecting the overwhelmingly negative attitude of the Tibetans toward the Chinese from the 11th century onwards. Without naming his sources, the modern Tibetan teacher Khetsun Sangpo states that Dzogchen was transmitted from India to Tibet, not mentioning Uddiyana as an originating locale. He adds that Dzogchen was also transmitted from India to China and Japan, “but only to Tibet was it transmitted in its complete form.” As evidence, he refers to the Tun Huang manuscripts, in which Dzogchen ideas can be found but are scarce and undeveloped. This scenario would seem to reﬂect an attempt to acknowledge the presence of Dzogchen-type ideas in Chinese Buddhism (usually associated with Ch’an), while denying that Chinese Buddhism in any way mediated the transmission of these ideas into Tibet. The possible motives behind this position are discussed below. Once in Tibet, these teachings were passed down either through a continuous (textually-based) lineage of Tibetan teachers, or were hidden, to be discovered later as “Concealed Treasures,” or Termas (Dzogchen texts attributed to Padmasambhava, and some attributed to Vimalamitra, falling into this second category). Beginning in the 11th century, “Terma texts began to appear” in large numbers, becoming from then onwards the textual basis for the Dzogchen tradition.

Terma (gter-ma, ‘hidden treasure’) primarily refers to a class of sacred literature in the Tibetan Nyingma tradition (certain relics may also be considered Terma). Most are texts considered to have been composed by Padmasambhava or his consort, Ye shey Tsho gyal, in the 9th century, but then hidden by him to be rediscovered at a later date by the reincarnations of his disciples (called ‘Terton’). They may take the form of actual physical texts discovered in some concealed place, or be “Mind Treasures,” transmissions from Padmasambhava “concealed in the center or depth of the heart” and discovered through meditative experience. Non-Nyingmapas (especially Gelugpas), as well as scholars, tend to reject Termas as “genuine historical sources”(at least with respect to Padmasambhava). They are, of course, sources for understanding the Buddhist traditions that created them.

Nyingma accounts of the later transmission of Dzogchen will not be addressed here, except to mention the 14th-century Dzogchen master Longchenpa (kLong-chen rab-’byams-pa) – one of the greatest scholar-practitioners of the Nyingma School and one of the most important promulgators of the Dzogchen teachings. Longchenpa systematized the Dzogchen teachings and “brought them into a relationship with the New Tantra tradition.” In addition, Nyingmapas attribute an important collection of Termas to Longchenpa – the Longch’en Nyingt’ig (“The Vast Expanse of the Essence of Mind”) received by the Terton Jigme Lingpa in the 18th century. These Termas exercised a strong inﬂuence on the later Dzogchen tradition.

As noted above, scholars consider this traditional account to have little historical value. Garab Dorje in particular is a historically problematic ﬁgure, given the conﬂicts in the sources, the mythical content of his biography, and his unlikely dates. Even if Garab Dorje is dated 6th century BCE (the latest date indicated in the traditional sources), his dates are absurdly early given that he is separated from Padmasambhava by only two ﬁgures in the lineage and Padmasambhava is dated 8th century CE. The tradition makes sense of these dates by maintaining that Garab Dorje had an extremely long life span – an unsatisfactory explanation for anyone but a devout Tibetan Buddhist. Given these problems, Garab Dorje is best considered a mythical ﬁgure. Reynolds’ Nyingma sympathies lead him to maintain that Garab Dorje, as well as Dzogchen’s other early masters, were historical ﬁgures. As he argues, “the very existence of Dzogchen as a viable and successful spiritual path points to the real existence of its early masters; for if not with them, with whom did Dzogchen originate?” Having said this, however, he then concedes that, at least in the case of Garab Dorje, it is impossible to know when he lived, where he lived, or much of anything else about him.

In contrast to Garab Dorje, the historicity of the other members of the Dzogchen lineage is less doubtful. In general, Srisimha, Padmasambhava, Vimalamitra, and Vairocana all seem to have been historical ﬁgures, and there is good evidence (according to Dargyay) that Vimalamitra and Vairocana played central roles in the promulgation of Dzogchen in Tibet (Padmasambhava’s role in the dissemination of Dzogchen appears to have been marginal). Beyond these broad generalizations, however, establishing historical facts for any of these ﬁgures remains problematic.

The traditional Nyingma account of Dzogchen’s origins is complicated by several other considerations. No Sanskrit originals for any Dzogchen texts have been discovered. This means there is no historical evidence to support the Nyingma claim that certain early Dzogchen texts are translations of Indian, Sanskrit originals and are therefore Indian in origin. The earliest Dzogchen texts are from Tun Huang. They are Tibetan texts, dated to either the 8th or 9th centuries. If dated to the 8th century, these texts conﬁrm the existence of Dzogchen during the period associated with Vairocana, Vimalamitra, and Padmasambhava. But they provide no concrete historical evidence for the existence of Dzogchen before this time (i.e., in India). Furthermore, the Dzogchen doctrines in these texts seem to echo ideas found in Chinese Ch’an. How similar Ch’an and Dzogchen actually are is debated. Among scholars and Tibetans, there seem to be three positions on the issue: (1) the appearance of similarity between Dzogchen and Ch’an is illusory (in other words, the teachings of the two traditions are fundamentally distinct), (2) there is some similarity, and (3) the teachings are very similar or almost identical. These positions suggest a variety of conclusions regarding the historical origins of Dzogchen. The rejection of any similarity between Dzogchen and Ch’an supports the view that Dzogchen is exclusively derived from Indian Buddhist tantra. The second position—that there is some similarity—is compatible with three diﬀerent conclusions: (1) Dzogchen is essentially a development of Indian Buddhist tantra, strongly inﬂuenced by Ch’an; (2) Dzogchen is essentially a development of Ch’an, strongly inﬂuenced by Indian Buddhist tantra; and (3) Dzogchen is a form of syncretism, that evolved through the combined inﬂuence of the two traditions. The third position—that the teachings are close to identical—supports the view (favored by some Tibetan critics of Dzogchen) that Dzogchen is really Ch’an in Tibetan guise. In order to evaluate these contesting views, I address in more detail the relationship between Dzogchen and Ch’an below.

Chinese Inﬂuence on Dzogchen

In addition to Indian Buddhism, there is no doubt of a Chinese Buddhist presence in Tibet during the 7th and 8th centuries (the period of Buddhism’s ﬁrst introduction to Tibet). Given the apparent similarities between Dzogchen and Ch’an, it seems reasonable to conclude that Chinese Buddhism (especially Ch’an) played some role in the eventual emergence of Dzogchen and that Dzogchen represents a continued residual presence of Chinese Buddhism within Tibetan Buddhism. The aﬃnity is so close between certain aspects of Chinese Buddhism and Dzogchen that Dargyay speculates that before the Samye (bsam-yas ) debates late in the 8th century Dzogchen may not have been “distinguished from the related Chinese schools.”

The evidence that Chinese Buddhism (most likely, Ch’an) inﬂuenced Dzogchen is persuasive. As indicated above, according to at least one traditional account Garab Dorje transmitted Dzogchen to ‘Jam-dpal-bes-gnyen in China, who in turn transmitted it to Srisimha also in China. Though the details of these lineages are historically unreliable, they nevertheless suggest Chinese inﬂuence on the tradition. Dargyay seems to accept the Nyingma claim that Dzogchen is originally Indian. She maintains, however, that the particular form that Dzogchen took in Tibet evolved in China. According to her, “many of the early hierarchs of the Tibetan Old School (rNying-ma-pa) received their education in China and brought texts from there to Tibet, where they were translated into Tibetan.” She there-fore concludes that “the rDsogs-chen teachings are, in all probability,…based on…several [Chinese schools]…, mixed with elements of Indian systems.”

There is some disagreement over the historicity of the Samye (bsam-yas) debates, where representatives of Chinese and Indian Buddhism are claimed by the Tibetan tradition to have entered into a three-year debate (792–794 CE) in order to determine which form of Buddhism Tibet would adopt. Traditional Tibetan sources claim the Indian Kamalashila won, leading to the oﬃcial adoption of Indian Mahayana Buddhism within Tibet, the expulsion of Chinese Buddhists, and an anti-Chinese Buddhist sentiment among Tibetans ever since. According to Herbert Guenther, the debate is nothing but a “hoax,” invented by the later tradition to serve political and doctrinal ends. Reynolds also doubts the historicity of the debate; according to him, Ch’an was expelled from Tibet, but for purely political as opposed to religious reasons. (Reynolds, Golden Letters, 222–3) On the other hand, David Ruegg argues persuasively that not only is the historicity of the Samye debate factually “demonstrated,” but that the Tibetan accounts of what occurred at the debate are historically reliable. Ueyama also considers the historical occurrence of the debate proven, though he notes the likely possibility that the Tibetan records about the debate are not accurate.

Tucci asserts that at least some elements of Dzogchen doctrine may be traced back to Chinese Buddhism – speciﬁcally, the Ch’an School and one of Ch’an’s most famous representatives in Tibet, Ho-shang Mahayana. As evidence, Tucci cites “Nyingma traditions that Vairochana…actually studied under Hwashang Mahayana.” Tucci’s argument is supported by Longchenpa’s claim that Srisimha, one of the earliest ﬁgures of the Dzogchen lineage, was Ho-shang Mahayana, “the much-maligned opponent of the Indian Kamalasila…at the so-called bSam-yas ‘debate.’” In other words, according to one of the most respected ﬁgures of Tibetan Buddhism, the archetypal representative of the Ch’an “heresy” in Tibet is none other than one of the greatest representatives of the Dzogchen tradition.

Dargyay argues that Ho-shang Mahayana actually a representative of the early Chinese Madhyamaka school of Seng-chao (itself strongly inﬂuenced by Taoism), noting that Ho-shang himself claimed to be a teacher of Madhyamaka. (Dargyay, Esoteric Buddhism, 8–9) Given that Ch’an teachers have often considered themselves to be explicating the true meaning of emptiness according to the Mahayana sutras and the Madhyamaka of Nagarjuna, and that Ho-shang’s position in Tibet would have likely lead him to defend his views by identifying them with Madhyamaka, Dargyay’s point does not seem very persuasive. Regardless, Dargyay would still aﬃrm a Ch’an inﬂuence on Dzogchen, though she would not attribute that inﬂuence to Ho-shang Mahayana as Tucci does.

Tucci also argues that some Dzogchen Termas, discovered in the 11th century and attributed to Padmasambhava, were actually texts of the Ch’an school hidden by Ho-shang Mahayana in the wake of anti-Chinese sentiment following the Samye debates. Dargyay makes a similar point when she states that “at the time of the expulsion of Chinese Buddhists, many [Chinese Buddhist] texts were hidden and later unearthed as the Concealed Books (gter-ma).”

As noted elsewhere, these Termas came to form the primary textual basis for the later Dzogchen tradition. Attributing these texts to an Indian author, however, did not prevent some Tibetans from criticizing Dzogchen as having “too much in common with the Chinese schools as to its doctrine, origin of texts and masters.” Non-Nyingmapas such as Sakya Pandita (12th–13th centuries) were critical of Dzogchen because of what they considered its Ch’an origins.

The inﬂuence of Ch’an on Dzogchen is also supported by the common perception that “there is much in the doctrine of Rdzogschen that is similar in content to early Ch’an doctrine.” Luis Gomez notes the similarities between teachings attributed to Vimalamitra and Ch’an. Dargyay observes the close aﬃnities between early Chinese Madhyamaka, Ch’an, and Dzogchen. According to her, “in many particular instances…[Dzogchen] teachings [attributed to Pad-masambhava] correspond with those of Chinese Buddhist schools…[such as] Ch’an, Seng-chao, and Hua-yen.” A comparison of Ch’an and Dzogchen indicates that both undermine conventional notions of virtue by emphasizing the “relativity of good and bad.” Both consider immediate presence (identiﬁed with one’s own mind or nature) to be the basis of both the path and goal, as opposed to involvement with doctrines, images, and formalized practices. Both are “direct,” “non-gradual,” or “sudden” paths to realize the “absolute condition” through “no-thought.” Even Dudjom Rinpoche – a modern Nyingma lama who emphasizes sectarian distinctions between Dzogchen and Ch’an – admits that the Dzogchen practice of “total freedom from deliberations during periods of meditative equipoise may well be the meditation of Hoshang Mo-ho-yen.”

Even though some Nyingmapas acknowledged the inﬂuence of Chinese Buddhism on Dzogchen and the Nyingma School in general (Longchenpa being the foremost example), for the most part, Nyingmapas have resisted any suggestion that Dzogchen is derived from or inﬂuenced by Ch’an, or is in any essential way similar to Ch’an. Some Western scholars (or scholar-practitioners) have supported this position as well. Both Hanson-Barber and Per Kvaerne claim that Dzogchen is a development of Indian tantric or Indian Mahasiddha traditions respectively, an indirect but strong rejection of the view that Ch’an played an important role in the emergence of Dzogchen. Other scholars make a weaker argument – as Reynolds puts it, that “there exist no historical grounds” for considering Dzogchen to be “derived from the Chan of China.” This position, however, is fully compatible with the view that Ch’an played some role in the emergence of Dzogchen in Tibet. Karmay, for example, maintains that Dzogchen and Ch’an have distinct Indo-Tibetan and Chinese origins. At the same time, he acknowledges the existence of “parallel ideas and practices” in Dzogchen and Ch’an and the possibility that Ch’an may have had some inﬂuence on the development of Dzogchen.

Reynolds notes Tucci’s position on Dzogchen and Ch’an, but rejects it, claiming that Tucci provides no supporting evidence. Reynolds, however, gives little evidence for his own view. He cites the bSam gtan mig sgron of Nubchen Sangye Yeshe as an indication that “at least as early as the ninth century, and probably before, Tibetan Lamas could clearly distinguish the respective viewpoints of Dzogchen and Chan.” According to this text, there are four basic Buddhist paths: Sutrayana, Ch’an, Tantra, and Dzogchen. Within this framework, Ch’an functions as a transition between the Sutrayana and Tantra, with Tantra and Dzogchen both representing fundamentally superior paths that fully recognize the positive quality of emptiness and therefore go beyond viewing emptiness as a mere “antidote.” This contrasts with Ch’an, in which the possibility of such an understanding is merely “opened up.” Granting that these distinctions are valid, the strength of Reynolds’ argument depends on his early dating of the text. However, as Reynolds himself points out, this date is disputable. Karmay, for example, dates the text to the 10th century. This later date, if accurate, substantially weakens Reynolds’ argument, since an earlier Ch’an/Dzogchen syncretism could have easily evolved into sectarianism by the 10th century.

Even though they may admit some doctrinal similarities between Dzogchen and Ch’an, Tibetans tend to emphasize what they consider to be the important diﬀerences between the schools. According to some Tibetan Buddhist teachers, for example, even though Ch’an is a “direct approach” like Dzogchen, it is still a “Sutra path” that renounces the relative while Dzogchen (like tantra) does not renounce the relative. In addition, some Nyingma teachers claim that Ch’an practice aims at “the realization of emptiness” while Dzogchen (and tantra in general) emphasizes both emptiness and “luminous clarity”(gsal-ba). This distinction would seem to echo Hanson-Barber’s point regarding ‘no thought’ in Pao-T’ang Ch’an and Dzogchen. According to him, in Ch’an, no-thought may be interpreted literally as the cessation of thinking. In Dzogchen, however, it has a positive, “dynamic,” and “all-encompassing” meaning because it emphasizes a pure awareness that includes the experience of “objects” as suchness (tathata). More generally, Hanson-Barber claims that in Ch’an no-thought is identiﬁed as the goal whereas in Dzogchen the goal is “pure awareness,” no-thought being only a potential by-product of that experience. Hanson-Barber also argues that Ch’an and Dzogchen have fundamentally diﬀerent understandings of enlightenment: in Ch’an, enlightenment (and the Buddha) is identiﬁed with one’s “own mind” while in Dzogchen enlightenment is described as bodhicitta.

The merit of these distinctions is debatable. Many appear more rhetorical than substantive. Hanson-Barber’s distinction between “own mind” and bodhicitta is weak without some elaboration on the meaning of these terms in the particular texts being compared. He claims that “own mind” is derived from the sutra tradition while bodhicitta is used in a tantric sense. He then cites two passages to illustrate the meaning of bodhicitta, but the esoteric nature of the passages makes them meaningless without additional commentary (though it is clear that bodhicitta is being presented from a tantric perspective). Hanson-Barber’s emphasis on enlightenment as bodhicitta may actually undermine his point since in Dzogchen bodhicitta is often equated with sems-nyid, or the essential nature of mind. From this perspective, both systems seem to be identifying the goal – enlightenment or Buddhahood – with one’s own nature or consciousness. Regarding the possibility of Chinese Buddhist and Ch’an inﬂuence on Dzogchen, what can be concluded from the above remarks? It would seem that many of the arguments for rejecting such inﬂuence are weak, as well as suspect, considering Nyingmapa’s sectarian agenda and the anti-Chinese bias surrounding and following the Samye debates. Furthermore, even if the doctrinal distinctions noted above are valid, this does not negate the similarities that do exist and have been noted by both scholars and Tibetan Buddhists from non-Nyingma schools. Again, the distinctiveness of such doctrinal similarities suggests the likelihood of at least some Ch’an inﬂuence on the early development of Dzogchen.