Rigpa

[u/wordscapes69]

The more I read about dzogchen the harder I find a difference between resting in awareness, which is similar to the 6th jhana and that being rigpa, I’ve read some claims online where mastering this leads to the same experience at nirodha but without cessation and 100% cognition. I find this hard to believe cuz anyone who has mastered the 6th jhana may find lil to no difference while attaining higher jhanas.

[u/luminousbliss]

Well that’s the thing, there’s no inherent way that reality actually is, and so anything objective that’s perceived is really a result of reification by the mind. Which is why Dzogchen is about piercing through these kinds of delusions, to the unfabricated nature of the mind. In a state of rigpa there is no fundamental reality, and no concepts.

[u/Zestyclose_Mode_2642 → u/luminousbliss]

Would you say that in the state of rigpa nothing arises at all?

Also genuinely curious as to how rigpa differs from notions of the deathless or nirvana from theravada buddhism

[u/luminousbliss → u/Zestyclose_Mode_2642]

Would you say that in the state of rigpa nothing arises at all?

Dzogchen masters like Longchenpa have said this. All phenomena are like illusions, and the same with awareness itself.

All external entities are like magical illusions or dreams,
The moon in water, hallucinations, or cities in the clouds—
Clearly apparent yet unreal, the very forms of emptiness.
How happy I shall be to see them from this day forth!

Inner awareness, empty and clear, is the dharmakāya,
Unimpeded and pervasive like unobstructed space.
Insubstantial stirrings dissolve naturally without trace.
How wondrous this natural exhaustion of phenomena,
Wherein relinquished and remedy are freed by themselves!

--

Also genuinely curious as to how rigpa differs from notions of the deathless or nirvana from theravada buddhism

Rigpa is a state of nirvana. For example, in one of Longchenpa's other texts, Stainless Space, he says:

In addition, all phenomena of saṃsāra depend on the mind, so when the essence (ngo bo) of mind is puried, saṃsāra is puried. Since the phenomena of nirvāna depend on the pristine consciousness (ye shes) of vidyā (rig pa), since one remains in the immediacy of vidyā, buddhahood arises on its own, all critical points are summarized by those two.

[u/Zestyclose_Mode_2642 → u/luminousbliss]

Very interesting, thank you