Original Face, Ultimate Reality

This article appeared here previously, on February 15, 2009

The Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote: "...that with such passionate clearness a man sees and knows over what he is in despair, but about what it is, escapes his notice..."

Kierkegaard further wrote on this topic: "For the "immediate" man does not recognize his self, he recognizes himself only by his dress, he recognizes that he has a self only by externals... In possibility, everything is possible, thus a man can go astray in all possible ways. One form is wishful... the other form is melancholy fantastic--on one hand hope, on the other fear or dread... In order to will in despair, to be oneself, there must be consciousness of the infinite self."

The self who one might think of as the 'original face,' the face that existed before you were born. Yet we are all blind by definition. We may see the other clearly, but not ourselves. As Ezra Bayda writes in At Home in the Muddy Waters, 'to the extent that we're not aware...we're bound to follow this predictable path. When two people who don't know themselves reach the point of conflict, the result is a collision... even though it may be easy to see how unaware the other person is, our own blind spots are blind by definition.

Yet these [persistent] conflicts are clues that we're in the dark... believing in our reaction is another tell tale sign of darkness to self. Many power struggles have resulted from a perceived notion of a failing, or loss of a good or promise to us. We then act to recoup what must be ours, partitioned, from our now enemy. But in the exchange, we are mired in both our hopes and our fears; we despair to will to be ourselves, the face that exists now and infinitely.

Failure to work with, and work out our perceived 'need for power, our self centered desires to possess, our fear based need to control results in hatred, intolerance and aggression. The blindness to self first, and towards the other second, is the source of all conflicts...without inner understanding, individuals and societies flounder,' writes Bayda.

Part of the simple mind, joy in relationships, comes not so much from getting what we think we need or from happiness, but from contact with our essential self, our infinite or original self. The expression of this connection is through generosity, a sharing of that self infinite. It is like a well, we drink of its unending source all that is essential.
 

Unbounded Wholeness, the Bon Po and Dzogchen

"Through teaching essential precepts, your mind is known. Like seeing your face when a mirror is shown, to know that is to know the dimension of Bon." Unbounded Wholeness: Dzogchen, Bon, and the Logic of the Nonconceptual --by Anne Carolyn Klein, Geshe Tenzin Wangyal, Rinpoche

Dzogchen, or the Great Completeness as it's sometimes known, is one of the great thoughts of the East. Its practice encompasses ancient Buddhism and the Bon, an indigenous religion of Asia, especially in the Tibetan region. The tradition encompasses "mind-nature" as both its object, and its practice. 
Dzogchen teaches that mind-nature is completely uncontrived; that it is neither an improvement upon enlightenment nor an impediment, nor a flaw in Samsara. Why? Because the sages teach it is always present. The presence of wholeness governs its nature.

"Wholeness defines liberation and determines the strategies or the lack thereof that defines it," write the authors, Anne Carolyn Klein, Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, in an important book on this topic, Unbounded Wholeness: Dzogchen, Bon, and the Logic of the Nonconceptual.
They seek to discuss the notions of a wholeness, a completeness which is in and of itself complete as nature herself. There is, unlike the intellectual, spinning mind, no cause for division in wholeness. The authors next take up the topic of authenticity.

This is defined as Dzogchen does: authenticity is that which takes valid or correct measure; for a "subject to take the correct measure of its object means that a knower is valid with respect to what it knows." 
While these ideas are complex, they do not seem to be concerned with typical, syllogistic thought. Instead Dzogchen's authenticity accesses a single, principle thought, central to what is often called unbounded wholeness. It is not, however considering, what many familiar with Tibetan Buddhism think of as "the core problem of universals".
For Dzogchen only open awareness is authentic.

In this sense, there is no apparent statement of relationship of an object to its subject; indeed, placement gives no indication of relationship. The Buddhist master Dzogchen and others like him take an interest in the relationship of open awareness and delusion. 
Its philosophy addresses questions such as: how can one look in the mirror? How can one recognize or "know" one's own face? How is it authenticated? In simple terms, how do you know something, or anything? And while not directly quoting Bon scriptures, Dzogchen plainly indicates through his topic and ensuing discussion that the ideas of the Bon are indeed there, in the background. 
Finally it is so that without primacy of experience or understanding, one cannot provide authentic reasoning. Both the process and realized states of being are distinguished within this cosmology. And unbounded wholeness is how and what reality is. Yours to discover.