Rigpa is the state of compassionate awareness that, according to Mahayana Buddhism, is the innermost nature of the mind. It is the primordial, nondual mind that shines through when unobscured; intelligent, cognizant, awake. “Empty in essence, cognizant in nature, unconfined in capacity.” Recognizing and dwelling within rigpa is the goal of Dzogchen practice (a kind of South/Central Asian relative or analogue of Zen meditation practice).
Anima suggests the state of animacy, animateness, animality, shared by all sentient beings. “Anima mundi” is the World-Soul that permeates and animates all things. “Animism,” both in its classical definition and in its revived and revalorized form (as used by anthropologists such as Nurit Bird-David and Tim Ingold and scholar of religion Graham Harvey), is belief and practice which recognizes the aliveness and “ensouledness” of all things. “Anima” is also Carl Jung’s term for the inner soul, the feminine part of the male self, though, by extension, I take this to mean the multifaceted diamond of animate soul within all things.
Where Rigpa meets Anima is where the empty, cognizant, unconfined essence of reflection meets the embodied, relational phenomenality of the world in its ceaseless becoming.
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Thanks for this very thought provoking connection you have brought together.
I have to say though that in Dzogchen there is absolutely no concept of a transpersonal consciousness or soul, such as a World Soul. All beings are seen as having the same nature of mind – the luminous emptiness. All experience is this way. But the each being has their own awareness or consciousness.
The essence of each is the same, the realisation would be the same. But not of a consciousness that spans beings. In this way it is quite distinct from Hindu traditions, for example, where it’s the same Atman, Brahma or Shiva.
Thank you, Chodpa, for your astute comment. I understand that the “World Soul” may seem illusory from a Buddhist (and perhaps especially a Dzogchen) perspective, and if it is seen as a kind of “extra” thing added to reality, it can seem fantastical.
My impetus for bringing Dzogchen into dialogue with this notion of “Anima” is not to find something “extra,” but rather to avoid the pitfalls of western dualistic thinking about mind and matter. Mind, in this tradition, tends to be seen as disembodied, mental, and rather vacuous; it is about “thinking” and decision-making. Matter, on the other hand, is the mindless body. What’s missing from both is the heartfelt reality of living. By contrast, Chinese thought has a notion of the “heart-mind,” and references to “the heart” are common in other traditions (e.g., Islamic Sufism). I reference Jung mainly because his notion of “the soul” (or perhaps its more James Hillman’s notion) is a very heartful one.
When Buddhism is filtered through the modern western philosophical tradition, it sometimes tends toward a kind of nihilism of the intellectual self shorn of its heartfulness (and soulfulness). I think of “anima” as representing that heart/soul dimension. So perhaps I could rephrase your words by saying that “all beings have the same nature of heart-soul-mind” and “each being has their own heart-soul-mind.” Each is responsible for how they respond to the world. But their responsiveness is of the same *nature* as all other beings. Could that be a way to mediate between our perspectives?