' Ultimate Causation in Dzogchen '...

In basic Buddhism, including Madhyamaka, all phenomena are dependent on earlier and co-existing conditions and circumstances. All objects and persons are dependent on other and previous objects and persons. So causation is a dependent origination.

In Prasangika Madhyamaka an even more subtle distinction is made: all phenomena are dependent on being conceptually designated. Phenomena have no inherent characteristics other than what the observer (mind) designates. Causation is only conceptual construction in Prasangika.

Dzogchen doesn't deny the first two processes but goes further to say those chains of causation are themselves dependent solely upon a type of causative agent called Rigpa or Buddha Mind. Early Dzogchen symbolized this ultimate cause by calling it the "supreme source", Kunje Gyalpo, "the All-Creating King". Each person is this "All Creating King" that creates everything through its energetic power called "tsal".

It creates the "outside" world by generating 3D holograms of tsal and gives them meaning through its generating names and labels. That projected "outside" world only appears within its "inside" world as the changeless, Empty Space of Pure Awareness (Dharmakaya).


-Jackson Peterson