Dude, it ain't the highest teaching!
When a Western Tibetan Lama who claims to be a loppon, or spiritual master, makes statements that dependent origination is the highest teaching of the Buddha, one has to seriously wonder if modern Buddhism isnt being gradually taken over by the Buddhas bad boy, Mara the Evil One.
While it is true dependent origination (pratyita-samutpada) is the Buddhas way of telling us that our existence is contingent which means it is empty or inane, it is not the highest teaching. It is only the highest teaching for prithagjanas, that is, the profane. The highest teaching for the arya or noble ones, concerns the realization or gnosis of the true nature (svabhva) of dependent origination from which all things arise which I hasten to inject, is anything but contingent.
This same Lama goes on with more wrong views informing his followers that rig-pa or gnosis is just realizing there is nothing transcendent. There is just earth, water, fire, air, space, and consciousness (avijapti?). This is like saying there is only the skandhas or aggregates of form and consciousness which is the same as name and form (namarupa). But this is not the complete teaching of the Buddha. It is deficient or a hina teaching as in hina-yana which is meant for the profane (prithagjana).
If this hina teaching were the highest we would be left with: all is inane (shunya). The teaching of nirvana would have never been revealed. Is this really what the Buddha taught, that is, all is inane? I dont think so.
I think a lot of this sort of wrong view, or Mara Dharma as I like to call it, stems from a wrong grasp of dependent origination. Seemingly, the most difficult teaching of all, it is not impossible to begin to grasp with a little brain sweat. What seems obvious, at least in the literature, is that dependent origination stands for non-ultimate existence, namely, origination and disa! ppearanc e whereas, in sharp contrast, nirvana stands for non-origination and non-disappearance, that is, ultimate reality.
We can safely conclude that nirvana is the highest teaching. But certainly, the Buddha taught nirvana not in a conventional or profane sense that the profane or prithagjana might comprehend. He taught nirvana as liberation from the gyre of dependent origination in which all things are empty.
