NO ONE CAN DIE FEARLESSLY and in complete security until they have truly realized the nature of mind. For only this realization, deepened over years of sustained practice, can keep the mind stable during the molten chaos of the process of death. Of all the ways I know of helping people to realize the nature of mind, that of the practice of Dzogchen, the most ancient and direct stream of wisdom within the teachings of Buddhism, and the source of the bardo teachings themselves, is the clearest, most effective, and most relevant to the environment and needs of today.
The origins of Dzogchen are traced to the Primordial Buddha, Samantabhadra, from whom it has been handed down in an unbroken line of great masters to the present. Hundreds of thousands of individuals in India, the Himalayas, and Tibet have attained realization and enlightenment through its practice. There is a wonderful prophecy that “in this dark age, the heart essence of Samantabhadra will blaze like fire.” My life, my teachings, and this book are dedicated to lighting this fire in the hearts and minds of the world.
My constant support and inspiration and guide in this is the supreme master Padmasambhava. He is the essential spirit of Dzogchen, its greatest exponent and its human embodiment, with his glorious qualities of magnanimity, miraculous power, prophetic vision, awakened energy, and boundless compassion.
Dzogchen was not widely taught in Tibet, and for a while many of the greatest masters did not teach it in the modern world. Why then am I teaching it now? Some of my masters have told me that this is the time for Dzogchen to spread, the time alluded to in the prophecy. I feel too that it would be uncompassionate not to share with people the existence of such an extraordinary wisdom. Human beings have come to a critical place in their evolution, and this age of extreme confusion demands a teaching of comparably extreme power and clarity. I have also found that modern people want a path shorn of dogma, fundamentalism, exclusivity, complex metaphysics, and culturally exotic paraphernalia, a path at once simple and profound, a path that does not need to be practiced in ashrams or monasteries but one that can be integrated with ordinary life and practiced anywhere.
So what, then, is Dzogchen? Dzogchen is not simply a teaching, not another philosophy, not another elaborate system, not a seductive clutch of techniques. Dzogchen is a state, the primordial state, that state of total awakening that is the heart-essence of all the buddhas and all spiritual paths, and the summit of an individual’s spiritual evolution. Dzogchen is often translated as “Great Perfection.” I prefer to leave it untranslated, for Great Perfection carries a sense of a perfectness we have to strive to attain, a goal that lies at the end of a long and grueling journey. Nothing could be further from the true meaning of Dzogchen: the already self-perfected state of our primordial nature, which needs no “perfecting,” for it has always been perfect from the very beginning, just like the sky.
All the Buddhist teachings are explained in terms of “Ground, Path, and Fruition.” The Ground of Dzogchen is this fundamental, primordial state, our absolute nature, which is already perfect and always present. Patrul Rinpoche says: “It is neither to be sought externally, nor is it something you did not have before and that now has to be newly born in your mind.” So from the point of view of the Ground—the absolute—our nature is the same as the buddhas’, and there is no question at this level, “not a hair’s breadth,” the masters say, of teaching or practice to do.
Yet, we have to understand, the buddhas took one path and we took another. The buddhas recognize their original nature and become enlightened; we do not recognize that nature and so become confused. In the teachings, this state of affairs is called “One Ground, Two Paths.” Our relative condition is that our intrinsic nature is obscured, and we need to follow the teachings and practice in order to return us to the truth: This is the Path of Dzogchen. Finally, to realize our original nature is to attain complete liberation and become a buddha. This is the Fruition of Dzogchen and is actually possible, if a practitioner really puts his or her heart and mind to it, in one lifetime.
The Dzogchen masters are acutely aware of the dangers of confusing the absolute with the relative. People who fail to understand this relationship can overlook and even disdain the relative aspects of spiritual practice and the karmic law of cause and effect. However, those who truly seize the meaning of Dzogchen will have only a deeper respect for karma, as well as a keener and more urgent appreciation of the need for purification and for spiritual practice. This is because they will understand the vastness of what it is in them that has been obscured, and so endeavor all the more fervently, and with an always fresh, natural discipline, to remove whatever stands between them and their true nature.
The Dzogchen teachings are like a mirror that reflects the Ground of our original nature with such a soaring and liberating purity, and such a stainless clarity, that we are inherently safeguarded from being imprisoned in any form of conceptually fabricated understanding, however subtle, or convincing, or seductive.
What, then, for me is the wonder of Dzogchen? All of the teachings lead to enlightenment, but the uniqueness of Dzogchen is that even in the relative dimension of the teachings, the language of Dzogchen never stains the absolute with concepts; it leaves the absolute unspoiled in its naked, dynamic, majestic simplicity, and yet still speaks of it to anyone of an open mind in terms so graphic, so electric, that even before we become enlightened, we are graced with the strongest possible glimpse of the splendor of the awakened state.
The practical training of the Dzogchen Path is traditionally, and most simply, described in terms of View, Meditation, and Action. To see directly the absolute state, the Ground of our being, is the View; the way of stabilizing that View and making it an unbroken experience is Meditation; and integrating the View into our entire reality, and life, is what is meant by Action.
What then is the View? It is nothing less than seeing the actual state of things as they are; it is knowing that the true nature of mind is the true nature of everything; and it is realizing that the true nature of our mind is the absolute truth. Dudjom Rinpoche says: “The View is the comprehension of the naked awareness, within which everything is contained: sensory perception and phenomenal existence, samsara and nirvana. This awareness has two aspects: ‘emptiness’ as the absolute, and appearances or perception as the relative.”
What this means is that the entire range of all possible appearances, and all possible phenomena in all the different realities, whether samsara or nirvana, all of these without exception have always been and will always be perfect and complete, within the vast and boundless expanse of the nature of mind. Yet even though the essence of everything is empty and “pure from the very beginning,” its nature is rich in noble qualities, pregnant with every possibility, a limitless, incessantly and dynamically creative field that is always spontaneously perfect.
You might ask: “If realizing the View is realizing the nature of mind, what then is the nature of mind like?” Imagine a sky, empty, spacious, and pure from the beginning; its essence is like this. Imagine a sun, luminous, clear, unobstructed, and spontaneously present; its nature is like this. Imagine that sun shining out impartially on us and all things, penetrating all directions; its energy, which is the manifestation of compassion, is like this: nothing can obstruct it and it pervades everywhere.
You can also think of the nature of mind like a mirror, with five different powers or “wisdoms.” Its openness and vastness is the “wisdom of all-encompassing space,” the womb of compassion. Its capacity to reflect in precise detail whatever comes before it is the “mirror-like wisdom.” Its fundamental lack of any bias toward any impression is the “equalizing wisdom.” Its ability to distinguish clearly, without confusing in any way the various different phenomena that arise, is the “wisdom of discernment.” And its potential of having everything already accomplished, perfected, and spontaneously present is the “all-accomplishing wisdom.”
In Dzogchen the View is introduced to the student directly by the master. It is the directness of this introduction that characterizes Dzogchen and makes it unique.
What is transmitted to the student in the introduction is the direct experience of the wisdom mind of the buddhas, through the blessing of a master who embodies its complete realization. To be able to receive the introduction, students have to have arrived at a point where, as a result of past aspirations and purified karma, they have both the openness of mind and devotion to make them receptive to the true meaning of Dzogchen.
How can the wisdom mind of the buddhas be introduced? Imagine the nature of mind as your own face; it is always with you, but you cannot see it without help. Now imagine that you have never seen a mirror before. The introduction by the master is like suddenly holding up a mirror in which you can, for the first time, see your own face reflected. Just like your face, this pure awareness of Rigpa is not something “new” that the master is giving you that you did not have before, nor is it something you could possibly find outside of yourself. It has always been yours, and has always been with you, but up until that startling moment you have never actually seen it directly.
Patrul Rinpoche explains that, “According to the special tradition of the great masters of the practice lineage, the nature of mind, the face of Rigpa, is introduced upon the very dissolution of conceptual mind.” In the moment of introduction, the master cuts through the conceptual mind altogether, laying bare the naked Rigpa and revealing explicitly its true nature.
In that powerful moment, a merging of minds and hearts takes place, and the student has an undeniable experience, or glimpse, of the nature of Rigpa. In one and the same moment the master introduces and the student recognizes. As the master directs his blessing from the wisdom of his Rigpa into the heart of the Rigpa of his student, the master shows the student directly the original face of the nature of mind.
For the master’s introduction to be fully effective, however, the right conditions or environment have to be created. Only a few special individuals in history, because of their purified karma, have been able to recognize and become enlightened in an instant; and so the introduction must almost always be preceded by the following preliminaries. It is these preliminaries that purify and peel away the ordinary mind and bring you to the state wherein your Rigpa can be revealed to you.
First, meditation, the supreme antidote to distraction, brings the mind home and enables it to settle into its natural state.
Second, deep practices of purification, and the strengthening of positive karma through the accumulation of merit and wisdom, start to wear away and dissolve the emotional and intellectual veils that obscure the nature of mind. As my master Jamyang Khyentse wrote: “If the obscurations are removed, the wisdom of one’s own Rigpa will naturally shine.” These purification practices, called Ngöndro in Tibetan, have been skillfully designed to effect a comprehensive inner transformation. They involve the entire being—body, speech, and mind—and begin with a series of deep contemplations on
These reflections inspire a strong sense of “renunciation,” an urgent desire to emerge from samsara and follow the path to liberation, which forms the foundation for the specific practices of
All these practices build up to and center around the Guru Yoga, which is the most crucial, moving and powerful practice of all, indispensable for opening the heart and mind to the realization of the state of Dzogchen.2
Third, a special meditative investigation into the nature of mind and phenomena exhausts the mind’s restless hunger for thinking and research, and its dependence on endless conceptualizing, analysis, and references, and awakens a personal realization of the nature of emptiness.
I cannot stress strongly enough how important these preliminaries are. They have to work hand in hand systematically, to inspire the student to awaken the nature of mind, and to enable the student to be ready and prepared when the master chooses the time to show him or her the original face of Rigpa.
Nyoshul Lungtok, who later became one of the greatest Dzogchen masters of recent times, followed his teacher Patrul Rinpoche for about eighteen years. During all that time, they were almost inseparable. Nyoshul Lungtok studied and practiced extremely diligently, and accumulated a wealth of purification, merit, and practice; he was ready to recognize the Rigpa, but had not yet had the final introduction. Then, one famous evening, Patrul Rinpoche gave him the introduction. It happened when they were staying together in one of the hermitages high up in the mountains above Dzogchen Monastery.3 It was a very beautiful night. The dark blue sky was clear and the stars shone brilliantly. The sound of their solitude was heightened by the distant barking of a dog from the monastery below.
Patrul Rinpoche was lying stretched out on the ground, doing a special Dzogchen practice. He called Nyoshul Lungtok over to him, saying: “Did you say you do not know the essence of the mind?”
Nyoshul Lungtok guessed from his tone that this was a special moment and nodded expectantly.
“There’s nothing to it really,” Patrul Rinpoche said casually, and added, “My son, come and lie down over here: be like your old father.” Nyoshul Lungtok stretched out by his side.
Then Patrul Rinpoche asked him, “Do you see the stars up there in the sky?”
“Yes.”
“Do you hear the dogs barking in Dzogchen Monastery?”
“Yes.”
“Do you hear what I’m saying to you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, the nature of Dzogchen is this: simply this.”
Nyoshul Lungtok tells us what happened then: “At that instant, I arrived at a certainty of realization from within. I had been liberated from the fetters of ‘it is’ and ‘it is not.’ I had realized the primordial wisdom, the naked union of emptiness and intrinsic awareness. I was introduced to this realization by his blessing, as the great Indian master Saraha said:
He in whose heart the words of the master have entered, Sees the truth like a treasure in his own palm.4
At that moment everything fell into place; the fruit of all Nyoshul Lungtok’s years of learning, purification, and practice was born. He attained the realization of the nature of mind. There was nothing extraordinary or esoteric or mystical about the words Patrul Rinpoche used; in fact, they were extremely ordinary. But beyond the words something else was being communicated. What he was revealing was the inherent nature of everything, which is the true meaning of Dzogchen. At that moment he had already brought Nyoshul Lungtok directly into that state through the power and blessing of his realization.
But masters are very different, and they can use all kinds of skillful means to provoke that shift of consciousness. Patrul Rinpoche himself was introduced to the nature of mind in a very different way, by a highly eccentric master called Do Khyentse. This is the oral tradition I heard of this story.
Patrul Rinpoche had been doing an advanced practice of yoga and visualization, and had become stuck; none of the mandalas of the deities would appear clearly in his mind.5 One day he came upon Do Khyentse, who had made a fire out in the open and was sitting in front of it drinking tea. In Tibet when you see a master for whom you have deep devotion, traditionally you begin to prostrate your body on the ground as a mark of your respect. As Patrul Rinpoche started prostrating from a distance, Do Khyentse spotted him and growled menacingly, “Hey, you old dog! If you are brave, then come over here!” Do Khyentse was a very impressive master. He was like a samurai, with his long hair, his rakish clothes, and his passion for riding beautiful horses. As Patrul Rinpoche continued doing prostrations and began to approach closer, Do Khyentse, cursing him all the time, started to hurl pebbles at him, and gradually larger rocks and stones. When he finally came within reach, Do Khyentse started punching him and knocked him out altogether.
When Patrul Rinpoche came to, he was in an entirely different state of consciousness. The mandalas he had been trying so hard to visualize spontaneously manifested in front of him. Each of Do Khyentse’s curses and insults had destroyed the last remnants of Patrul Rinpoche’s conceptual mind, and each stone that hit him opened up the energy centers and subtle channels in his body. For two marvelous weeks the visions of the mandalas did not leave him.
I am going to attempt now to give some sense of what the View is like and how it feels when the Rigpa is directly revealed, even though all words and conceptual terms fail, really, to describe it.
Dudjom Rinpoche says: “That moment is like taking a hood off your head. What boundless spaciousness and relief! This is the supreme seeing: seeing what was not seen before.” When you “see what was not seen before,” everything opens, expands, and becomes crisp, clear, brimming with life, vivid with wonder and freshness. It is as if the roof of your mind were flying off, or a flock of birds suddenly took off from a dark nest. All limitations dissolve and fall away, as if, the Tibetans say, a seal were broken open.
Imagine you were living in a house on the top of a mountain, which was itself at the top of the whole world. Suddenly the entire structure of the house, which limited your view, just falls away and you can see all around you, both outside and inside. But there is not any “thing” to see; what happens has no ordinary reference whatsoever; it is total, complete, unprecedented, perfect seeing.
Dudjom Rinpoche says: “Your deadliest enemies, the ones who have kept you tied to samsara through countless lives from beginningless time up until the present, are the grasping and the grasped.” When the master introduces and you recognize, “These two are burned away completely like feathers in a flame, leaving no trace.” Both grasping and grasped, what is grasped and the grasper, are freed completely from their very basis. The roots of ignorance and suffering are severed utterly. And all things appear like a reflection in a mirror, transparent, shimmering, illusory, and dream-like.
When you naturally arrive at this state of meditation, inspired by the View, you can remain there for a long time without any distraction or special effort. Then there is nothing called “meditation” to protect or sustain, for you are in the natural flow of the wisdom of Rigpa. And you realize, when you are in it, that is how it has always been, and is. When the wisdom of Rigpa shines, not one shadow of doubt can remain, and a deep, complete understanding arises, effortlessly and directly.
All the images I have given and the metaphors I have tried to use you will discover to be fused in one all-comprehensive experience of truth. Devotion is in this state, and compassion is in this state, and all the wisdoms, and bliss, clarity, and absence of thoughts, but not separate from one another, all integrated and linked inextricably with each other in one taste. This moment is the moment of awakening. A profound sense of humor wells up from within, and you smile in amusement at how inadequate all your former concepts and ideas about the nature of mind were.
What springs from this is a growing sense of tremendous and unshakable certainty and conviction that “this is it”: There is nothing further to seek, nothing more that could possibly be hoped for. This certainty of the View is what has to be deepened through glimpse after glimpse of the nature of mind, and stabilized through the continuous discipline of meditation.
What, then, is meditation in Dzogchen? It is simply resting, undistracted, in the View, once it has been introduced. Dudjom Rinpoche describes it: “Meditation consists of being attentive to such a state of Rigpa, free from all mental constructions, whilst remaining fully relaxed, without any distraction or grasping. For it is said that ‘Meditation is not striving, but naturally becoming assimilated into it.’”
The whole point of Dzogchen meditation practice is to strengthen and stabilize Rigpa, and allow it to grow to full maturity. The ordinary, habitual mind with its projections is extremely powerful. It keeps returning, and takes hold of us easily when we are inattentive or distracted. As Dudjom Rinpoche used to say, “At present our Rigpa is like a little baby, stranded on the battlefield of strong arising thoughts.” I like to say we have to begin by babysitting our Rigpa, in the secure environment of meditation.
If meditation is simply to continue the flow of Rigpa after the introduction, how do we know when it is Rigpa and when it is not? I asked Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche this question, and he replied with his characteristic simplicity: “If you are in an unaltered state, it is Rigpa.” If we are not contriving or manipulating the mind in any way, but simply resting in an unaltered state of pure and pristine awareness, then that is Rigpa. If there is any contriving on our part or any kind of manipulating or grasping, it is not. Rigpa is a state in which there is no longer any doubt; there is not really a mind to doubt: You see directly. If you are in this state, a complete, natural certainty and confidence surge up with the Rigpa itself, and that is how you know.6
The tradition of Dzogchen is one of extreme precision, since the deeper you go, the subtler the deceptions that can arise, and what is at stake is the knowledge of absolute reality. Even after the introduction, the masters clarify in detail the states that are not Dzogchen meditation and must not be confused with it. In one of these states you drift into a no-man’s land of the mind, where there are no thoughts or memories; it is a dark, dull, indifferent state, where you are plunged into the ground of the ordinary mind. In a second state, there is some stillness and slight clarity, but the state of stillness is a stagnant one, still buried in the ordinary mind. In a third you experience an absence of thoughts, but are “spaced out” in a vacant state of wonder. In a fourth your mind wanders away, hankering after thoughts and projections. None of these is the true state of meditation, and the practitioner has to watch out skillfully to avoid being deluded in these ways.
The essence of meditation practice in Dzogchen is encapsulated by these four points:
Clearly it takes a lifetime of practice to understand and realize the full richness and majesty of these four profound yet simple points, and here I can only give you a taste of the vastness of what is meditation in Dzogchen.
Perhaps the most important point is that Dzogchen meditation comes to be a continual flow of Rigpa, like a river constantly moving day and night without any interruption. This, of course, is an ideal state, for this undistracted resting in the View, once it has been introduced and recognized, is the reward of years of sustained practice.
Dzogchen meditation is subtly powerful in dealing with the arisings of the mind, and has a unique perspective on them. All the risings are seen in their true nature, not as separate from Rigpa, and not as antagonistic to it, but actually as none other—and this is very important—than its “self-radiance,” the manifestation of its very energy.
Say you find yourself in a deep state of stillness; often it does not last very long and a thought or a movement always arises, like a wave in the ocean. Don’t reject the movement or particularly embrace the stillness, but continue the flow of your pure presence. The pervasive, peaceful state of your meditation is the Rigpa itself, and all risings are none other than this Rigpa’s self-radiance. This is the heart and the basis of Dzogchen practice. One way to imagine this is as if you were riding on the sun’s rays back to the sun: You trace the risings back, at once, to their very root, the ground of Rigpa. As you embody the steadfast stability of the View, you are no longer deceived and distracted by whatever rises, and so cannot fall prey to delusion.
Of course there are rough as well as gentle waves in the ocean; strong emotions come, like anger, desire, jealousy. The real practitioner recognizes them not as a disturbance or obstacle, but as a great opportunity. The fact that you react to arisings such as these with habitual tendencies of attachment and aversion is a sign not only that you are distracted, but also that you do not have the recognition and have lost the ground of Rigpa. To react to emotions in this way empowers them and binds us even tighter in the chains of delusion. The great secret of Dzogchen is to see right through them as soon as they arise, to what they really are: the vivid and electric manifestation of the energy of Rigpa itself. As you gradually learn to do this, even the most turbulent emotions fail to seize hold of you and dissolve, as wild waves rise and rear and sink back into the calm of the ocean.
The practitioner discovers—and this is a revolutionary insight, whose subtlety and power cannot be overestimated—that not only do violent emotions not necessarily sweep you away and drag you back into the whirlpools of your own neuroses, they can actually be used to deepen, embolden, invigorate, and strengthen the Rigpa. The tempestuous energy becomes raw food of the awakened energy of Rigpa. The stronger and more flaming the emotion, the more Rigpa is strengthened. I feel that this unique method of Dzogchen has extraordinary power to free even the most inveterate, deeply rooted emotional and psychological problems.
Let me introduce you now, as simply as I can, to an explanation of how exactly this process works. This will be invaluable later on, when we come to look at what happens at the moment of death.
In Dzogchen the fundamental, inherent nature of everything is called the “Ground Luminosity” or the “Mother Luminosity.” This pervades our whole experience, and is therefore the inherent nature of the thoughts and emotions that arise in our minds as well, although we do not recognize it. When the master introduces us to the true nature of mind, to the state of Rigpa, it is as if he or she gives us a master key. In Dzogchen we call this key, which is going to open to us the door to total knowledge, the “Path Luminosity” or “Child Luminosity.” The Ground Luminosity and the Path Luminosity are fundamentally the same, of course, and it is only for the purposes of explanation and practice that they are categorized in this way. But once we have the key of the Path Luminosity through the introduction of the master, we can use it at will to open the door to the innate nature of reality. This opening of the door in Dzogchen practice is called the “meeting of the Ground and Path Luminosities” or the “meeting of Mother and Child Luminosities.” Another way to say this is that as soon as a thought or emotion arises, the Path Luminosity—the Rigpa—recognizes it immediately for what it is, recognizes its inherent nature, the Ground Luminosity. In that moment of recognition, the two luminosities merge and thoughts and emotions are liberated in their very ground.
It is essential to perfect this practice of the merging of the two luminosities and the self-liberation of risings in life, because what happens at the moment of death, for everyone, is this: The Ground Luminosity dawns in vast splendor, and with it brings an opportunity for total liberation—if, and only if, you have learned how to recognize it.
It will be clear now, perhaps, that this merging of the luminosities and self-liberation of thoughts and emotions is meditation at its very deepest level. In fact, a term such as “meditation” is not really appropriate for Dzogchen practice, as ultimately it implies meditating “on” something, whereas in Dzogchen all is only and forever Rigpa. So there is no question of a meditation separate from simply abiding by the pure presence of Rigpa.
The only word that could possibly describe this is “nonmeditation.” In this state, the masters say, even if you look for delusion, there is none left. Even if you looked for ordinary pebbles on an island of gold and jewels, you wouldn’t have a chance of finding any. When the View is constant, and the flow of Rigpa unfailing, and the merging of the two luminosities continuous and spontaneous, all possible delusion is liberated at its very root, and your entire perception arises, without a break, as Rigpa.
The masters stress that to stabilize the View in meditation, it is essential, first of all, to accomplish this practice in a special environment of retreat, where all the favorable conditions are present; amidst the distractions and busyness of the world, however much you meditate, true experience will not be born in your mind. Second, though there is no difference in Dzogchen between meditation and everyday life, until you have found true stability through doing the practice in proper sessions, you will not be able to integrate the wisdom of meditation into the experience of daily life. Third, even when you practice, you might be able to abide by the continual flow of Rigpa with the confidence of the View; but if you are unable to continue that flow at all times and in all situations, mixing your practice with everyday life, it will not serve as a remedy when unfavorable circumstances arise, and you will be led astray into delusion by thoughts and emotions.
There is a delightful story about a Dzogchen yogin who lived unostentatiously, surrounded, however, by a large following of disciples. A certain monk, who had an exaggerated opinion of his own learning and scholarship, was jealous of the yogin, whom he knew not to be very well read at all. He thought: “How does he, just an ordinary person, dare to teach? How dare he pretend to be a master? I will go and test his knowledge, show it up for the sham it is and humiliate him in front of his disciples, so that they will leave him and follow me.”
One day, then, he visited the yogin and said scornfully: “You Dzogchen bunch, is meditate all you ever do?”
The yogin’s reply took him completely by surprise: “What is there to meditate on?”
“You don’t even meditate, then,” the scholar brayed triumphantly.
“But when am I ever distracted?” said the yogin.
As abiding by the flow of Rigpa becomes a reality, it begins to permeate the practitioner’s everyday life and action, and breeds a deep stability and confidence. Dudjom Rinpoche says:
Action is being truly observant of your own thoughts, good or bad, looking into the true nature of whatever thoughts may arise, neither tracing the past nor inviting the future, neither allowing any clinging to experiences of joy, nor being overcome by sad situations. In so doing, you try to reach and remain in the state of great equilibrium, where all good and bad, peace and distress, are devoid of true identity.
Realizing the View subtly but completely transforms your vision of everything. More and more, I have come to realize how thoughts and concepts are all that block us from always being, quite simply, in the absolute. Now I see clearly why the masters so often say: “Try hard not to create too much hope and fear,” for they only engender more mental gossip. When the View is there, thoughts are seen for what they truly are: fleeting and transparent, and only relative. You see through everything directly, as if you had X-ray eyes. You do not cling to thoughts and emotions or reject them, but welcome them all within the vast embrace of Rigpa. What you took so seriously before—ambitions, plans, expectations, doubts, and passions—no longer have any deep and anxious hold on you, for the View has helped you to see the futility and pointlessness of them all, and born in you a spirit of true renunciation.
Remaining in the clarity and confidence of Rigpa allows all your thoughts and emotions to liberate naturally and effortlessly within its vast expanse, like writing in water or painting in the sky. If you truly perfect this practice, karma has no chance at all to be accumulated; and in this state of aimless, carefree abandon, what Dudjom Rinpoche calls “uninhibited, naked ease,” the karmic law of cause and effect can no longer bind you in any way.
Don’t assume, whatever you do, that this is, or could possibly be, easy. It is extremely hard to rest undistracted in the nature of mind, even for a moment, let alone to self-liberate a single thought or emotion as it rises. We often assume that simply because we understand something intellectually, or think we do, we have actually realized it. This is a great delusion. It requires the maturity that only years of listening, contemplation, reflection, meditation, and sustained practice can ripen. And it cannot be said too often that the practice of Dzogchen always requires the guidance and instruction of a qualified master.
Otherwise there is a great danger, called in the tradition “losing the Action in the View.” A teaching as high and powerful as Dzogchen entails an extreme risk. Deluding yourself that you are liberating thoughts and emotions, when in fact you are nowhere near being able to do so, and thinking that you are acting with the spontaneity of a true Dzogchen yogin, all you are doing is simply accumulating vast amounts of negative karma. As Padmasambhava says, and this is the attitude we all should have:
Though my View is as spacious as the sky,
My actions and respect for cause and effect are as fine as grains of flour.
Masters of the Dzogchen tradition have stressed again and again that without being thoroughly and deeply acquainted with the “essence and method of self-liberation” through long practice, meditation “only furthers the path of delusion.” This may seem harsh, but it is the case, because only constant self-liberation of thoughts can really end the reign of delusion and really protect you from being plunged again into suffering and neurosis. Without the method of self-liberation, you will not be able to withstand misfortunes and evil circumstances when they arise, and even if you meditate you will find that still emotions like anger and desire run as rampant as ever. The danger of other kinds of meditation that do not have this method is that they become like “the meditation of the gods,” straying all too easily into sumptuous self-absorption or passive trance or vacancy of one kind or another, none of which attack and dissolve delusion at its root.
The great Dzogchen master Vimalamitra spoke in the most precise way of the degrees of increasing naturalness in this liberation: When you first master this practice, liberation happens simultaneously with the rising, like recognizing an old friend in a crowd. Perfecting and deepening the practice, liberation happens simultaneously with the arising of thought and emotion, like a snake uncoiling and unwinding its own knots. And in the final state of mastery, liberation is like a thief entering an empty house; whatever arises neither harms nor benefits a true Dzogchen yogin.
Even in the greatest yogin, sorrow and joy still arise just as before. The difference between an ordinary person and the yogin is how they view their emotions and react to them. An ordinary person will instinctively accept or reject them, and so arouse the attachment or aversion that will result in the accumulation of negative karma. A yogin, however, perceives everything that rises in its natural, pristine state, without allowing grasping to enter his or her perception.
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche describes a yogin wandering through a garden. He is completely awake to the splendor and beauty of the flowers, and relishes their colors, shapes, and scents. But there is no trace of clinging nor any “after-thought” in his mind. As Dudjom Rinpoche says:
Whatever perceptions arise, you should be like a little child going into a beautifully decorated temple; he looks, but grasping does not enter into his perception at all. So you leave everything fresh, natural, vivid, and unspoiled. When you leave each thing in its own state, then its shape doesn’t change, its color doesn’t fade, and its glow does not disappear. Whatever appears is unstained by any grasping, so then all that you perceive arises as the naked wisdom of Rigpa, which is the indivisibility of luminosity and emptiness.
The confidence, the contentment, the spacious serenity, the strength, the profound humor, and the certainty that arise from directly realizing the View of Rigpa is the greatest treasure of life, the ultimate happiness, which, once attained, nothing can destroy, not even death. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche says:
Once you have the View, although the delusory perceptions of samsara may arise in your mind, you will be like the sky; when a rainbow appears in front of it, it’s not particularly flattered, and when the clouds appear, it’s not particularly disappointed either. There is a deep sense of contentment. You chuckle from inside as you see the façade of samsara and nirvana; the View will keep you constantly amused, with a little inner smile bubbling away all the time.
As Dudjom Rinpoche says: “Having purified the great delusion, the heart’s darkness, the radiant light of the unobscured sun continuously rises.”
Someone who takes to heart the instruction of this book about Dzogchen and its message about dying, will, I hope, be inspired to seek, find, and follow a qualified master, and undertake to commit him- or herself to a complete training. The heart of the Dzogchen training is two practices, Trekchö and Tögal, which are indispensable for a deep understanding of what happens during the bardos. I can only give here the briefest of introductions to them. The complete explanation is only given from a master to disciple, when the disciple has made a wholehearted commitment to the teachings, and reached a certain stage of development. What I have explained in this chapter, “The Innermost Essence,” is the heart of the practice of Trekchö.
Trekchö means cutting through delusion with fierce, direct thoroughness. Essentially delusion is cut through with the irresistible force of the View of Rigpa, like a knife cleaving through butter or a karate expert demolishing a pile of bricks. The whole fantastical edifice of delusion collapses, as if you were blasting its keystone away. Delusion is cut through, and the primordial purity and natural simplicity of the nature of mind is laid bare.
Only when the master has determined that you have a thorough grounding in the practice of Trekchö will he or she introduce you to the advanced practice of Tögal. Tögal practitioners work directly with the Clear Light that dwells inherently, “spontaneously present,” within all phenomena, using specific and exceptionally powerful exercises to reveal it within himself or herself.
Tögal has a quality of instantaneousness, of immediate realization. Instead of traveling over a range of mountains to reach a distant peak, the Tögal approach would be to leap there in one bound. The effect of Tögal is to enable persons to actualize all the different aspects of enlightenment within themselves in one lifetime.7 Therefore it is regarded as the extraordinary, unique method of Dzogchen; whereas Trekchö is its wisdom, Tögal is its skillful means. It requires enormous discipline and is generally practiced in a retreat environment.
Yet it cannot be stressed too often that the path of Dzogchen can only be followed under the direct guidance of a qualified master. As the Dalai Lama says: “One fact that you must bear in mind is that the practices of Dzogchen, such as Trekchö and Tögal, can only be achieved through the guidance of an experienced master, and through receiving the inspiration and blessing from a living person who has that realization.”8
Through these advanced practices of Dzogchen, accomplished practitioners can bring their lives to an extraordinary and triumphant end. As they die, they enable their body to be reabsorbed back into the light essence of the elements that created it, and consequently their material body dissolves into light and then disappears completely. This process is known as the “rainbow body” or “body of light,” because the dissolution is often accompanied by spontaneous manifestations of light and rainbows. The ancient Tantras of Dzogchen, and the writings of the great masters, distinguish different categories of this amazing, otherworldly phenomenon, for at one time, if at least not normal, it was reasonably frequent.
Usually a person who knows he or she is about to attain the rainbow body will ask to be left alone and undisturbed in a room or a tent for seven days. On the eighth day only the hair and nails, the impurities of the body, are found.
This may be very difficult for us now to believe, but the factual history of the Dzogchen lineage is full of examples of individuals who attained the rainbow body, and as Dudjom Rinpoche often used to point out, this is not just ancient history. Of the many examples, I would like to choose one of the most recent, one with which I have a personal connection. In 1952 there was a famous instance of the rainbow body in the east of Tibet, witnessed by many people. The man who attained it, Sönam Namgyal, was the father of my tutor and the brother of Lama Tseten, whose death I described at the beginning of this book.
He was a very simple, humble person who made his way as an itinerant stone carver, carving mantras and sacred texts. Some say he had been a hunter in his youth, and had received teaching from a great master. No one really knew he was a practitioner; he was truly what is called “a hidden yogin.” Some time before his death, he would be seen going up into the mountains and just sit, silhouetted against the skyline, gazing up into space. He composed his own songs and chants and sang them instead of the traditional ones. No one had any idea what he was doing. He then fell ill, or seemed to, but he became, strangely, increasingly happy. When the illness got worse, his family called in masters and doctors. His son told him he should remember all the teachings he had heard, and he smiled and said, “I’ve forgotten them all and anyway, there’s nothing to remember. Everything is illusion, but I am confident that all is well.”
Just before his death at seventy-nine, he said: “All I ask is that when I die, don’t move my body for a week.” When he died his family wrapped his body and invited Lamas and monks to come and practice for him. They placed the body in a small room in the house, and they could not help noticing that although he had been a tall person, they had no trouble getting it in, as if he were becoming smaller. At the same time, an extraordinary display of rainbow-colored light was seen all around the house. When they looked into the room on the sixth day, they saw that the body was getting smaller and smaller. On the eighth day after his death, the morning for which the funeral had been arranged, the undertakers arrived to collect his body. When they undid its coverings, they found nothing inside but his nails and hair.
My master Jamyang Khyentse asked for these to be brought to him, and verified that this was a case of the rainbow body.