Dogzchen

“… Even though I was born into a Christian family, I did not feel Christian and I refused to accept Christianity. I really wanted to know the answer – the truth… We had an American teacher who let us listen to rock music… After I got my American visa, I went to Bejing with the guitar and tried to become a singer. I was like a beggar there. I stayed for several months. I had no money. I was still trying to write songs and I felt really happy because I was doing what I wanted to do. So, after one year, I released my first album.

I had my own band. After the release of my album, I became famous in China and then I got lost. Because I was young, like 24 or 25, and famous, at that time China was not that rich, normal people didn’t have a lot of money, but my friends and I had money, so I got lost. We partied all the time. I got drunk until the morning. For ten years I lived this kind of life and it almost killed me… After that kind of life, my ex-wife got tired. She wanted a divorce. We had a daughter. I was a terrible husband and father...


After I divorced, I moved out and I took nothing with me. I started from the beginning again. So, suddenly I thought life was like a dream. I really wanted to find the truth. I didn’t want to live like this again. I was always interested in spiritual things, but the problem was that my family is a Christian family and I didn’t want to make my mother sad. A friend called me and said, “Do you want to meet a Tibetan master?” “Yes, I want to go!”


I flew to meet Jigme Phuntsok and I stayed there for two days. I had no idea what was happening. I had just met him but I felt that he was not a normal person. People like Rinpoche and this master are shining from their natural state of mind and wisdom. You can feel their energy, compassion and love are so strong. Jigme Phuntsok gave me a page with my Tibetan name on it with Chinese pronunciation. I thought this was strange and difficult to pronounce. I put all the stuff away in a book. Then I totally forgot about it. Ten years passed, I got worse and I was down to the bottom of my life… Suddenly I remembered that when I met Jigmed Phuntsok, he gave me something just like that… Then I tried this for one week. Then, something happened.


One day at a party I met a friend, a famous businessman… He said, “Tomorrow morning, I am going to meet a young Tibetan Buddhist master. Do you want to come with me?” I said, “Sure. I want to meet him.” The next day, I went to the place, an apartment in a building. There was a dark room and a young man sat there and some older guys sat beside him… The young master said, “I have a book. It’s a gift for you. But it is in Chinese. It is written by Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche.”





The night he gave me this book, when I got home I read the book for the whole night. It was called Dzogchen Teachings. That night I was shocked because I felt that this was what I had been looking for all my life – the Dzogchen Teachings. I already felt that I came to this life just for this. So I was really excited. Finally, I found what I was looking for. Then, I contacted this young master. The day after that he was going to Italy to meet Rinpoche. I said, “Tomorrow when you go to meet this Rinpoche, please say thank you for me.” Then, he came back in one month and brought me a new book “Crystal and Way of Light” with Rinpoche’s signature. Rinpoche’s teaching influenced my life and my behavior. After that, I followed the young master and studied Dzogchen with him, how to do contemplation, how to do the tsalung, from then to now for eight years.


The greatest part of Rinpoche is that he is full of compassion to give this great teaching to people like me. I am this kind of person, I am crazy, you know, I have done a lot of bad things, but I still have the opportunity to learn Dzogchen from him. That’s so great! These eight years I was trying to be at present most of the time, and remain in the state of contemplation. I don’t want to say I am doing well, but I can say I tried my best.


I was still doing my music but my interest moved to Dzogchen. The first time I fell in love with rock and roll and the second time I fell in love with Dzogchen. So every morning I woke up, I just did my homework. I love all this stuff. I don’t know why, maybe I am just the kind of person that when I am interested in something I insist on doing that. So eight years is not that easy to repeat doing something, again, again, every day. That needs devotion and people around me saw me as crazy.
In one year, the guy, the businessman, who led me to the young master, called me again. Before that, we didn’t have contact. I thanked him for introducing me to the young Rinpoche. He told me that the teacher of the young master, Yeshe Khenpo, of Langyi Monastery in Amdo, Aba, was in Bejing. When he became a monk he was in a Gelugpa monastery and then he became a Bonpo. Now he is a Dzogchen practitioner, but he doesn’t belong to any school.


Yeshe Khenpo really admires two Dzogchen masters… The day I met him, I told him, “I want to be your student.” He said, “I don’t have too many Chinese students because Chinese people like to talk too much…” I was really upset. I was almost crying. Because I felt I found him, the guru, he was there, and that was the one I wanted. I almost cried that night. I thought I was so unlucky, I met this master and I wanted to be his student, but he refused me.


The next morning my friend called me, “Come to my home.” I said, “What’s happening?” He told me that the night before Yeshe Khenpo was doing his Chöd practice. Then he opened the door and he said, “This is my student, let him come.” Then he taught me how to do this meditation, contemplation thing. He gave me the direct introduction. Actually, the first time I read Chögyal Namkhai Norbu’s book, I felt I got his direct introduction. But the second time, I got it from my Lama Yeshe Khenpo, and that made me confirm that feeling, this natural state of mind. Then, I started to do all these practices for eight years, almost nonstop...

Agarba Rinpoche told all his students that Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche is one of the greatest in masters in the world, so all his students should know him. Many of his students flew to Shanghai to meet Rinpoche and I went there, too. That’s the first time I met Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche. That was in 2014. We flew to Shanghai to meet him. Rinpoche came and gave a public talk. And then I went back to Beijing and thought, “Maybe this time I didn’t have an opportunity to meet him closely.”
When I was back in Beijing, Wes was preparing for Rinpoche to give a public talk at Beijing University. This was not easy in Beijing because Beijing University is very traditional and sensitive about whether they should invite a religious figure to do this. Wes called his friends and asked who could help to get permission. I had friends who were in charge of this and I called them and we got the permission.


Rinpoche came to Beijing. I told Wes that if he needed help with cars to call me. And he said, “If you have cars, maybe we need more cars.” So, my driver and I went to Rinpoche’s hotel and we all drove to the university together. When we left the university, they couldn’t find their own cars and they used my car, so we drove Rinpoche to the hotel. And that is the first time we had an opportunity to talk.


Then another day they had some meeting, but I was busy, I couldn’t go there because I had a concert in Beijing. They knew that and they asked if Rinpoche could attend the concert because he was free. I was shocked. The concert was sold out, so we had to find ten tickets for them. They came and sat in the first row. My concerts are noisy, you know, rock n’ roll. I was worried about that because they sat so close. The speakers are really huge. But Rinpoche has a really young heart. He enjoyed the rock n’ roll all the time. I sang “Back in Lhasa” and before I sang, I did some prayers to Guru Padmasambhava.


I worried and was a little bit nervous because I didn’t know whether Rinpoche would like the concert or not. After the show I ran to Rinpoche asking, “Are you ok with this?” “I loved it!” he said, “I enjoyed it!” So, that made me really happy. You know, when you are performing on the stage, you feel the presence or your state of contemplation because you have to focus and concentrate. And at that moment, if you observe yourself, your mind, you can feel a very strong clarity. So, I did that on stage sometimes. And that day I felt really good. The next day, I drove Rinpoche, Rosa and Migmar to the airport. So on the road for an hour or something, I talked to Rinpoche, “I really want to thank you, for the Dzogchen teachings I received from you. Dzogchen teachings don’t belong to any religion. It is just about the truth.” So I thanked him and told him what my two lamas said about him and he was happy. He said, “Yes, you are right.


In October of 2015, Agarba Rinpoche and Chögyal Namkhai Norbu met in the airport, one just returned and one was leaving. When they met each other, immediately they were talking about the view, about the Dzogchen teaching. They had a discussion. That surprised me. Two of them are both Dzogchen practitioners, they are not just like religious people, they are not doing superficial things and they go directly to the point. These people are real Dzogchen practitioners and that means that the Dzogchen transmission is alive in the world. That’s so great for us! One master is older and one is young. They made me feel really touched. I felt they are full of compassion.


Then Rinpoche left, I drove the young Rinpoche to his house, asking him, “What were you talking about?” He said, with a great master like Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche, anytime you have the opportunity to meet him, you should ask him about the teaching. We don’t have those nonsense conversations, those kind of talks.” He said, “He is the teacher, you should've ask him about the teaching and the transmission.”


That really touched me, because Dzogchen is not just a teaching, it is a way to live and behave. So that influenced me a lot. I felt the rest of my days are still like a sports car, but I can drive the car, I am the driver. Life is the car. That was the first time I felt so free, so relaxed, so comfortable, and so happy. No matter what happens in my life, that experience has changed me. So in the future if I have the opportunity to help other people, and they can contact the Dzogchen teaching, I would like to.
I meet many people but just like Rinpoche said, most people aren’t interested in the teaching, because human beings always like to choose the easy way. To live like a Dzogchen practitioner you first really need to understand that and find that state, and that is not easy. The moment you’ve found it, you never want to lose it. One of my brothers became a practitioner. He is a very successful businessman, but right now spends a lot of time doing Dzogchen practice and contemplation.


You know, many people are interested in Buddhism but not interested in freedom. They are interested in a more convenient life or getting richer or more famous or more comfortable. So they want to do a trade with Buddha, but they don’t want to set themselves free. They want to get more material things, and that’s a tragedy. People like Rinpochee are full of compassion. For me, this kind of person is special. I am so selfish. I try to be like that, but it is so hard, so hard to forget about yourself and benefit human beings and sentient beings. It sounds easy, but when you try to do it, it is so hard. We all have egos and that makes you feel hopeless sometimes. You try, you fail, and you try again. So you really need big courage for that.


Before I came here, I met my young Rinpoche and asked, “This time I am going to meet the Rinpoche, what’s your advice?” He said, “I hope you go there to get the Rinpoche’s teaching because… He is Dzogchen himself; he is living Dzogchen. I also felt that the people around him should know how lucky they are! They should know how lucky they are and they should follow his teaching and spend more time on his teaching. That’s the most important thing. Dzogchen is not to worship someone or make someone a god. You follow him by following his teaching, that’s real following. So we should really do what Rinpoche asks us to do. That means you really respect Rinpoche.”

~ Zheng Jun (born 1967) is Chinese rock singer-songwriter.

~ Chögyal Namkhai Norbu was born in Derghe, eastern Tibet, in 1938. As a child he was recognized as the reincarnation of the great Dzogchen Master Adzom Drugpa (1842-1924) and later by the sixteenth Karmapa as a reincarnation of Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal (1594-1651), the first Dharmaraja of Bhutan. In the late 1950s, Chögyal Namkhai Norbu made a pilgrimage to Tibet, India, and Nepal. While he was staying in Sikkim in 1959, the Chinese occupied Tibet and as he was forced into exile, unable to return to his homeland to join his family. Moreover when he had already been in the Western world for several years, he received the news that his large family had been captured by the Chinese, put into prison, tortured and as a consequence, without being guilty of anything, they had died.

~ The path of Dzogchen is called the “Path of Self-Liberation”. The Mind’s Essential Nature is said in the Dzogchen Teachings to be like the nature of a mirror. A mirror’s essential nature is clear, pure, and limpid; if this was not the case no reflections could arise in it. In the same way the mind's natural condition is one of clarity, purity and limpidity. A mirror will reflect whatever is placed in front of it, but the nature of the mirror is not stained by any reflection, no matter how ugly or terrible. In the same way, if an individual remains continually present in the contemplative state that is the inherent nature of the mind, no thought however beautiful or ugly, attractive or repulsive, can stain the mind’s fundamental purity, or distract or disturb the practitioner, who remains integrated in a state beyond the limits of the ego and the judging mind, experiencing the world as the play of his or her own energies. This is the effortless state of “Dzogchen”, the “Great Perfection”, complete in itself, and lacking nothing.