Garab D oije’s Three Verses That Strike the

Key Points o f Practice

Tsig Sum Nei Dek

As Taught By

Lingtrul Rinpoche

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Garab D oije’s Three Verses That Strike the

Key Points o f Practice

Tsig Sum Nei Dek

As Taught By

Lingtrul Rinpoche

Translated by Richard Barron (Chokyi Nyima)

The Three Verses That Strike the Key Points o f Practice

To begin, I ask you to approach this teach­ing with the proper motivation. With altruistic and compassionate resolve in your mind that you may contribute to the spiritual attainment of all beings, whose numbers are equal to the limits of space, to the state of the Sovereign Lord, Samantabhadra, the primordial Lord Protector. That is to wish for each and every being to attain nothing less than complete enlightenment.

As you know, the topic is the instruction on the direct transmission that is known as the Tsig Sum Nei Dek in Tibetan or The Three Verses That Strike the Key Points o f Practice. Due to the nature of these Dzogchen, or Great Perfection teachings, it possible, under ideal circumstances, for an individ­ual of the very highest acumen to use these instruc­tions for the attainment of buddhahood in this life­time. However, we shouldn’t think of Great Perfec­tion teachings alone as some kind of a magical for­

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mula. A number of circumstances must come together in order for that ideal result to come about. By this, I mean that there must be the factor of a qualified and realized teacher, as well as the student who is of the highest acumen. In the student’s own situation any number of factors must come together in a very posi­tive and supportive way in order to allow the practice of that individual to lead to the very ideal result of the attainment of buddhahood in a single lifetime.

On the level of the teacher to whom the stu­dent relates, he or she cannot be just anyone who is conversant on an intellectual level with Dzogchen teachings. In order for this ideal situation that we are discussing to come about, the teacher must be of an ex­traordinary nature. He or she must be endowed with a great deal of realization and enlightenment and, then, be able to affect that same kind of realization through working with the student. On his or her part, the teacher must be someone who has realized and given rise to the positive qualities of that realization based upon an understanding and an experience of the ground, path and fruition of the Great Perfection. In order for the student to benefit, that realization must already be present in the mindstream of the teacher. As well, the teacher must be someone who has sufficient blessing and power to be able to transmit that realiza­tion to the student. It is not enough just to have that realization; he must be able to transmit that to some­one so that they can come to that same realization.

On the part of the student, it is important for the student’s mindstream to be such that the student is able to overcome all wrong view and all incorrect or counter-productive thoughts and ideas concerning his or her relationship with the teacher and the teachings. So, if the teacher is of such a nature that he or she is

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not able to inspire that kind of unwavering confidence in the student’s mind and is not able to transmit the re­alization that he or she as a teacher has gained, then, it’s really like trying to pour something from an empty vessel. If the vessel is empty, there is nothing to pour into another vessel; no effective transmission of the Great Perfection can take place because of the defi­ciency on the part of the teacher.

When relying upon a teacher in the context of the Great Perfection, it is important to understand that the teacher must have these qualities that I’ve been dis­cussing. It’s important for the student to assess whether he or she can have such a relationship with a given teacher and to not assume naively that this is the right teacher and begin to take teachings, because per­haps later on, a sense of disappointment or disillusion­ment will develop, as well as a wrong view about the teacher. It is far more important in the first place to examine the qualities of the teacher and determine whether you feel you can trust and work with that teacher.

Now, regardless of whether the teacher has all of these qualities or not, if you as a student are entering into a relationship with the teacher and are receiving Great Perfection teachings, it is important for you as a student to make the decision, ‘Yes, I can trust this rela­tionship. I will have respect for this teacher. I will hold this relationship as dear to myself as my own heart and my own eyes.’

It is said that seeking the Great Perfection teachings is like encountering a poisonous snake with a jewel on the top of its head. If you want to take the jewel, you have to be careful how you go about it. It is possible to get the jewel and gain great benefit from it, but you can also injure yourself if you go about it in the

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wrong way. You have to remember that the situation is loaded.

There are different styles of teaching in the Great Perfection approach. All are valid given that they are styles that developed through the process of historical transmission, which has come down to us from the Dharmakaya level of Samantabhadra through to the present day. It is important for there to be this authenticity, although the style of one teacher may dif­fer from that of another teacher. In my case, my root lama in the Great Perfection was a great lama, Khenpo Munsel. His particular means of teaching the Great Perfection was to insist that, first and foremost, the stu­dent had completed the ngondro or preliminary prac­tices—the 500,000 repetitions of prostrations, bodhi- citta, Vaijasattva mantra, and so forth. Khenpo Munsel was not particular about which tradition one need have practiced to complete this preliminary. One might have practiced the Nam Cho cycle, the Long Chen Ny- ing Thig cycle, or the Dudjom Tersar cycle. It really didn’t matter. The important point is that the student had first gone through this process of purification and development by completing the ngondro or preliminary practices. Following this, Khenpo Munsel would teach a one hundred-day course as a means of further purify­ing and training the student’s mind.

The particular text that he used as a basis for this course was a commentary to the Kun Zang Lamai Zhal Lung, The words o f My Perfect Teacher, written down by Patrul Rinpoche and given by Khenpo Ngu Gu. It begins with an examination of the Four Con­templations that turn the mind toward practice and away from further involvement in samsara and contin­ues through the Six Perfections and so forth. So, there is a very developmental approach of the basic teach­

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ings of the three yanas. This was the course that Khenpo would teach following the completion of the preliminaries. This course was given in a very me­thodical manner in the sense that each topic that was discussed and contemplated had a set period of time that it was taught—for a week or a few days or what­ever—beginning with the contemplation of precious human existence with the complete freedom and op­portunity that it offers for spiritual practice. We would spend a number of days with Khenpo Munsel teaching on the various states of freedom of the human exis­tence—he would teach and then we would contemplate the teachings. We would then move to the different types of opportunities that derive from our own situa­tion and the social situation around us. In this way, we would go very methodically up to and including a dis­cussion on the Six Perfections and so forth. It was not simply an intellectual course of teaching but an experi­ential one. Also, it was important for the teacher to check each student’s development to determine that the appropriate levels of realization were dawning in the student’s mindstream. Only then would Khenpo Mun­sel proceed with the Great Perfection teachings. This was how he insisted upon these teachings. In addition to the completion of the ngondro practice, the prelimi­naries, and this course of training in the basic teach­ings, it was also important in Khenpo’s point of view that one had received one of the major empowerments from the Nying Thig Yab Shi cycle, the Four High Col­lections of the Heart Drop teachings, and all four levels of the empowerment, which are technically known in the Dzogchen context as the elaborate empowerment, the unelaborate empowerment, the extremely unelabo- rate empowerment and the utterly unelaborate empowerment.

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Having received the four levels of empowerment into any one of these cycles connected with the Nying Thig Yab Shi he would then proceed with the teachings. He was very precise about what he considered to be the necessary prerequisites for the stu­dent who was interested in truly following the Dzog- chen, Great Perfection teachings. After all of this preparation, Khenpo Munsel would use another text by Khenpo Ngag Chung which is considered part of the Nying Thig tradition and it is known as Ten Pai Nyimai Zhal Lung, The Oral Instructions o f Khenpo Ten Pai Nyima who in turn was Ten Pai Ngag Chung’s teacher. He would use this particular text as the basis of intro­duction to the Great Perfection. This particular text is interesting because it is the first case in this particular lineage of the teachings having been committed to writing. The Nying Thig transmission, as many of you are aware, was transmitted through the great Long- chenpa to the holder of intrinsic awareness, Jigmed Lingpa. From him to Jigmed Gyalwai Ngu Gu, and then, to Patrul Rinpoche, Jigmed Chokyi Wangpo. The heart son of Patrul Rinpoche was Longchen Nyingpo who in turn became the guru of the author of this text, Khenpo Ngag Chung. Up until the point that Khenpo Ngag Chung transcribed these oral teachings, there had been no case of them actually being written down. It had been solely an oral transmission held in the mem­ory of all the lineage holders, which was then transmit­ted from their memory to their students. Fearing that these teachings would be lost, Khenpo Ngag Chung committed to them writing, and this text became known as The Oral Instructions o f Khenpo Ten Pai Ny­ima. This was the text on which Khenpo Munsel based his teaching of the Great Perfection. When Khenpo Munsel taught the Great Perfection based upon this

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text, he followed the developmental presentations in the text beginning with the preliminaries unique to the Great Perfection approach. These preliminary stages are known as tearing down the hut o f ordinary mind. Think of the function of the ordinary mind as a hut that is being tom down or dismantled. That is the technical name given to that stage of practice. Following that is the direct introduction to rigpa, or intrinsic awareness in which the student is introduced to his or her intrinsic awareness and all its immediacy. Then the practice of Great Perfection begins, you may say, at that point. When Khenpo Munsel taught that approach, he pre­ferred to take six months to do it. At the very least, if you were rushing him, he would do it in one month. But to think of it as being a week-end course, or some­thing that could be done in a couple of days, was really out of the question. He insisted on it being a methodi­cal, thorough approach so that one had the proper in­troduction to the teachings and practice.

When he taught the introductory stage of tear­ing down the hut of the ordinary mind, Khenpo Munsel would be very comfortable teaching a hundred or even hundreds of people in one group. However, when he gave the direct introduction to intrinsic awareness and all its immediacy, he would insist upon doing this one on one. He wouldn’t even have two people in the room. When it was appropriate for you as a student, you would see him alone, and at that point there would be the direct transmission. When I say he was giving a course on this introductory level of tearing down the hut of ordinary mind, I don’t want you to think that all day was spent in lectures with him talking and every­body just listening and taking notes. It was a very practice oriented course in which you would be given just the essentials of what you needed to contemplate.

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Then, you would be sent off to do that contemplation. When the process of tearing down the hut of ordinary mind begins, the first stage of that practice is known technically as seeking o f the root o f mind or seeking mind as the root o f one's experience. You would re­ceive teachings and go off and practice for fifteen days working with those topics of contemplation that you had been given, until Khenpo Munsel was satisfied you had come to a certain level of understanding. Then, he would proceed with the next level of instruction, seek­ing out the hidden flaw o f the ordinary mind—the way in which mind functions in an ordinary manner. In this way, you would spend six months going through this text, not just simply reading texts and having intellec­tual discussions, but working with these teachings in a very personal, practice oriented way. Obviously, we don’t have this kind of time available to us in the pres­ent circumstances. We don’t have even a number of days, let alone months to spend together. So, I can only hope to give you in the next day or two a brief overview of the topics that ideally would be presented in much more detail and over a longer period of time and with practice involved.

There are people, I realize, who are a bit impa­tient with this kind of developmental approach. Some people feel that if the Great Perfection is so wonderful they should have the goods right now. Why not just point out the nature of mind. They think, ‘Let’s go. What’s the need of preliminary practices and studying and training over a long period of time?’ We have to understand that it’s not quite that simple. As magnifi­cent as these teachings of the Great Perfection are, they constitute a skillful means of the student being led in a developmental manner to the point where true realiza­tion can dawn in an authentic manner. We should un­

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derstand that the reason the tradition of teaching the Great Perfection has developed in a certain way is not arbitrary and not something purely cultural, but some­thing that has a purpose. If it were perfectly okay to give the Great Perfection teachings—bang, just like that—don’t you think that’s how the lineage would have been transmitted already? If that would truly benefit people, if that were truly the way these teach­ings were meant to be transmitted and realization would result then, of course, the lineage masters would not have wasted all this time with these seeming non- essentials. There are these preliminary approaches be­cause they have a purpose. It’s like planting a crop. You prepare the ground; you plow; you fertilize; you water; and you plant the seeds in the appropriate man­ner for that particular crop. You weed, cultivate and, finally, harvest a good crop. We need to approach our practice of the Great Perfection exactly in the same way and understand the stages of the practice are not arbitrary. They are not something we can dispense with because they don’t seem to be necessary. They have a very valuable function, an absolutely crucial function in the presentation of this path and in the ex­perience of this path by the student.

In the case of a teacher of the Great Perfection, it has always been and must always be the case that the teacher has not just studied and practiced the Great Perfection, but has received explicit permission from his or her teacher to teach the Great Perfection. It isn’t just the case of saying, ‘Well, I studied with so and so, therefore, I guess it’s okay for me to teach somebody else.’ Your teacher has to say, ‘Okay, now you may teach the Great Perfection to your students.’ Only when that explicit permission has been given is there a sense of authentic lineage being transmitted.

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In my own case, I was a student of Khenpo Munsel, one of thousands and not in any way unique. I’m not aware of having been given such explicit and impressive permission from my teacher in which he said to me, ‘You are now a lineage holder of the Great Perfection. Go forth and spread the doctrine.’ I don’t even feel it would be appropriate or right of me to pre­sume to teach the manual that he used during his teach­ing, Ten Pai Nyimai Zhal Lung, The Oral Instructions o f Ten Pai Nyima. The permission I did receive from my teacher is the permission to instruct students on the basis of Patrul Rinpoche’s Kun Zang Lamai Zhal Lung text, one of the main teaching manuals for the prelimi­naries, the ngondro, of the Longchen Nying Thig tradi­tion. Also, he did give me explicit permission on the level of trek chod and togal to transmit the lung, the reading transmission of the text, Commentary on the Enlightened Mind o f Samantabhadra. This is again a commentary on the Great Perfection practice by Khenpo Ngu Gu, and my own teacher granted me per­mission to give the lung of this text to no more than three students at a single sitting. That he explicitly stated to me. I will not claim that he gave me more ex­plicit permission. He also indicated that there was an extremely serious and profound seal of secrecy by the dakinis and that it was important to respect it in this regard. That permission that I had been granted is the extent to which I should feel free to impart teachings.

On this particular occasion, I am assuming all of you are motivated to receive teachings in the Great Perfection. I have to approach this carefully as some­one who has been asked to transmit these teachings. In the case of the Three Lines That Strike the Key Points, I only received the lung from Khenpo Munsel; I didn’t receive extensive teachings on it, but there is a power

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in these words that even hearing in a very general way the topics that these Three Lines discuss is a means of liberating the mindstream of the student, the one who hears these teachings. If you were to have asked me to give extensive instructions based upon The Oral In­structions o f Tenpai Nyima, I would have refused be­cause I don’t have specific permission from my teacher. However, I feel comfortable enough in the case of the verses of Garab Doije, the Three Lines that Strike the Key Points to discuss these teachings in a general way because they have the power inherent in them to liberate upon hearing.

The Three Verses that Strike the Key Points are definitely of the order of Great Perfection teachings. They are the testament or last advice of Garab Doije, the first incarnate teacher of the Dzogchen lineage in the human world, in our era. They are the testament that Garab Dorje left to his heart son Manjusrimita who is the next lineage holder in the human realm of the Great Perfection teachings. In the case of the particular lineage of Great Perfection teachings that I have re­ceived, those teachings are contained within the much larger text that I referred to earlier, The Oral Instruc­tions o f Tenpai Nyima. Although they are much more concise, that is not to say that the Three Lines That Strike the Key Points do not concern all of the essential points that are found in a much larger and more de­tailed presentation, such as The Oral Instructions o f Tenpai Nyima.

There are reasons why I have agreed to give this particular teaching over the next few days. One is I understand that there is a great deal of interest and faith in the teachings of the Buddhadharma among westerners and, in particular, there is a great deal of interest and motivation to seek out the Great Perfection

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teachings, so I don’t want to ignore that fact. I also have confidence that the translator will be able to transmit the information in an accurate manner. When I was asked to give these teachings, due to the interest in them and the competence of the translator, I felt that it would be of value, because people would receive in­formation that would be valuable for their practice. Therefore, for a number of reasons, I felt comfortable with agreeing to give these teachings this week-end.

I would like to return to the point I was making earlier, and that is that the practice of the Great Perfec­tion path is not to be seen in a simplistic way. It is something that under ideal circumstances requires many supportive conditions for it to truly be fruitful. We have already discussed the more external condi­tion, from your own perspective as a student—the teacher with whom you relate to in order to receive the teachings. We should say something about the inner circumstances as well—what kind of excellent attitude and motivation you, as a student, should have in order for your practice of the Great Perfection to be fruitful. As a student, on the inner level, one of the most impor­tant factors for your practice to be truly fruitful is that you have a certain level of contentment in your mind, so that you are not desiring all kinds of things in an im­pulsive manner, but have developed some level of in­ner contentment. What I mean by few desires or few wants in this context is that you are someone whose mind is not grasping after fame, pleasure, power, influ­ence and wealth—someone who is not constantly seek­ing these more worldly, mundane goals. When a per­son has evolved to the point that he or she is no longer hankering after things in that way, then, that person has developed few desires and few wants. The next quality is being fairly content with your own lot, by under­

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standing when you have enough to eat, to wear, and to pay your bills—enough to maintain yourself in a basic manner without continually yearning for more. Truly understanding when you have enough, that it is enough and all you really need in order to practice.

That level of contentment is an important fac­tor to assure success in your pursuit of the Great Per­fection path. If you do not have these qualities of hav­ing few wants and a degree of contentment in your own personal situation, this will interfere greatly with your ability to receive and to put into practice the Great Per­fection teachings. Your mind will be disturbed and distracted by all of these wants and perceived needs. Hankering after these goals, feeling unfulfilled, until you have satisfied this or that worldly goal, will inter­fere with your practice. You will not be able to meet the challenge of the Great Perfection path, if your mind is continually caught up in those kinds of projects and goals and thus robbing you of the ability to really focus on the practice. That is why you need this quality. It is not an arbitrary factor at all. It is something that con­tributes to your ability to receive the teachings of the Great Perfection and to implement them. Whether you have those kinds of attitudes or not, is something that only you know.

You have already received the good fortune of attaining the precious human existence, and you can contemplate that in any number of ways. You can think about the causes that have led to this rare state of existence. You can think about the traditional meta­phors used to emphasize that rarity. You can think of the relatively few numbers of beings who have this pre­cious human existence compared to beings in other realms. In any of these ways, you can assure yourself that you have this precious human existence as the

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starting point, as the working basis. But whether or not you have these other qualities, such as few desires, is something only you know through examining your own mind. It is not something that is necessarily evident on the outside. It is something you, as a student, know by examining your own mind with honesty. If you are not aware of the kind of freedom and opportunity that this human existence provides, in terms of being an ideal working basis for spiritual practice, then you, at the same time, cannot be aware of its rarity. You cannot be aware of how difficult it is to come by that kind of freedom and opportunity, how it doesn’t happen all the time. It is something that you approach methodically by examining the causes that have led to such a fortu­nate and rare state of opportunity. This is approached by examining any number of traditional metaphors that emphasize or draw home the rarity of the occasion you find yourself now enjoying and then comparing the very few numbers of beings in this state of existence that we now enjoy compared to beings in other realms.

In my home county of Tibet, there was a case of a lama who spoke of the rarity of precious human existence, and he had never even been to a large town the size of Chengdu. People who had been there would say, ‘It’s not rare at all. There are plenty of people out there.’ The point they were missing is that when we speak of the precious human existence, we’re not just talking of being human. Anyone can be reborn as a human. That’s not such a big deal. What is a big deal is being reborn with those eighteen conditions of free­dom and opportunity and being connected with the Dharma in that human existence. That is what makes it the precious human existence. Otherwise, you have a mere human existence. You are just in a human body, and that’s neither here nor there. The point that is be­

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ing emphasized here is that precious quality of oppor­tunity.

I mentioned earlier about contemplating the causes of this human existence. We only achieve this precious state of human existence because ethical dis­cipline was a strong factor in our previous lifetimes— maintaining that discipline and not losing the value and benefit of that discipline. Primarily, that is the cause of our rebirth in the human realm in this state of freedom and opportunity. It didn’t come up haphazardly. This rebirth came up for a very specific reason, and that rea­son being discipline. When we know how rare and dif­ficult that discipline is in the world today, we can see how rare it is that the mindstream of a given being has the cause that leads to that state of rebirth. To use per­haps the most famous traditional metaphor in the line­age to describe the difficulty and rarity of coming by this human existence, we may refer to the very famous example of the blind turtle that lives in the ocean. Think of the entire planet being covered with water— one gigantic ocean—and at the bottom of the ocean there is a blind turtle. On the surface of the ocean there is a yoke made of wood, which is buffeted around by the currents and winds—north to south, east to west, back and forth—without any particular pattern. Once every hundred years that blind turtle comes to the sur­face of the ocean and then returns to the bottom of the ocean for another century before resurfacing. The metaphor is of the ocean as the ocean of samsara, of cyclic existence, the yoke, as the opportunity for free­dom; the hole in the center of the yoke as the gateway to liberation; and the blind turtle as the average unen­lightened sentient being, who is blind to the moral con­sequences of the actions that he or she commits. It is conceivable given the law of averages that at some

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point when the tortoise surfaces its head will go through the yoke of wood. It’s conceivable. It’s less likely that a given being’s mindstream will take rebirth in the precious human state of existence. Rebirth not just in the human state of existence, but in the precious human state of existence that is endowed with all that freedom and opportunity. That is how rare it is. It is not something that can just be guaranteed. Another example that is often used in the teachings is the idea of taking a handful of seeds in your hand and casting them against a stone wall. It’s conceivable that one or two may hang on the rough surface of the wall; it’s conceivable. It’s less conceivable that the mindstream of a given being will take rebirth in a precious human existence. It’s that rare. It’s not something we should take for granted.

In terms of the respective numbers of beings in the various realms, the Lord Buddha taught that, if all the beings in all of the hell realms are as numerous as the grains of dirt, sand and earth in a huge area of land, then the number of beings in the preta or hungry ghost realm would be equal to the grains on your fingernail. If the beings in the preta realm were equal to the num­ber of grains of sand and dirt in this huge area, then, the number of beings in the animal realm would be like the number of grains on your fingernail. If the number of beings in the animal realm were equal to the number of grains and dirt in this huge area, then the number of mere human beings would be equal to the number of grains on your fingernail and so forth. The point of these graphic images is to indicate that there are far more beings in the lower realms of existence than there are in higher realms, to say nothing of the very few numbers of beings that have this precious human state of existence when compared to all beings in other

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realms.In one of his writings, the great Jigmed Lingpa

stated that if you think of the infinite numbers of be­ings in all realms, the number of human beings is ex­tremely small. It is within the realm of possibility that there are human beings, when compared to all those other realms, but only barely. Even within the human realm, if you think of the people truly committed to Dharma, it is like seeing a star in the daytime. It can happen, but it is only barely within the realm of possi­bility. And if you think about it, it is true. The number of people truly motivated to even receive teachings let alone do anything about them in terms of practice, is very few. If a very high, respected lama in one of the traditions of Buddhism gives a talk and 200 or 300 people come, everyone is amazed that such a crowd showed up. But if you go to your average concert or sports event and 20,000 people show up, no one is sur­prised. They say, Tt happens all the time.’ It is a ques­tion of priorities, the number of people who actually show up for anything spiritually significant in terms of receiving teachings and perhaps implementing them in practice is quite few. We can see this around us all the time. The emphasis that people have is on anything but receiving teachings.

We have a tendency, because we focus entirely on our own situation as human beings, to think that hu­man beings aren’t very rare; there are billions of us. But if you really compare the human form of life per se, forget about the precious human existence, but just the number of human beings compared to the number of other beings, we can see on a universal level that the number of human beings are very few. Most of us can’t see pretas and hell beings, so, let’s talk about something we can see—the beings in the animal realm.

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If you take the average ant hill and count the number of beings, that number is far greater than the number of human beings in your average major city. Hell beings and pretas are far more numerous than animals. Even though we can’t see them, the numbers of beings that are experiencing those realms can’t be fathomed; we can’t even begin to imagine how many beings are ex­periencing hell realms or preta realms. But we can see something like ants, fish and birds that are far more nu­merous than human beings.

If you think about it just one step further than we normally do, we can see that human existence is relatively rare, even that level of being merely human per se. Given that we have attained this ideal working basis from all the alternatives of cyclic existence, given that we have the ideal working basis for spiritual prac­tice, we should understand again that it does not come about without reason, without cause or haphazardly. It is due to an enormous store of merit that has been gen­erated in previous lifetimes. That is what has brought us to this particular point of freedom and opportunity. When you consider among the six classes of ordinary beings in cyclic existence what opportunities are avail­able for those beings to effectively generate merit and gather the accumulation of merit, again, it will remind you of just how rare this opportunity is. That is be­cause the circumstances under which your average be­ing in the six realms can truly and effectively generate merit in those circumstances is just as rare as the result to which that merit leads. This is true for even the most intelligent animals from our perspective, those animals which can be trained and follow commands. What happens if you walk up to the most clever and best trained dog or elephant and ask them to recite one mantra, or tell them, if they recite Om Marti Padme

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Hung one time, they’ll become a buddha? The animal will just look at you. It is unable to understand on that level. There isn’t the capacity for that animal to be that self-aware and that able to do something about its situation. An animal may be comparatively intelligent and clever, but the animal will never have the level of intelligence that allows a human being to take note of his or her situation and ameliorate it.

Given that we have attained this human exis­tence that is so difficult to attain, what is the purpose of it? What does it truly mean to realize the potential of being human? It means nothing less than following at least one of the alternatives of spiritual development open to us. It may simply be the lesser kind of spiritual individual, who is concerned only with his or her sal­vation, but at least that is something. Or it may be someone who has a greater degree of maturity and commitment in the spiritual process, someone who truly follows the Mahayana, the greatest, most superior path of spiritual development. In any case, to realize the potential of being human is nothing less than fol­lowing one of those spiritual approaches and truly lib­erating, at least, yourself from suffering and ignorance. Although ideally, one would follow the path of the bodhisattva and practice that spiritual path of altruism. Given that you have attained this precious human re­birth, this ideal working basis, now is not the time to sit back and rest on your laurels saying, ‘Oh what a wonderful rebirth I have. Isn’t that marvelous!’ That would be completely inappropriate under the circum­stances. The very nature of this precious human exis­tence is that it has far more potential than other state of rebirth. This human existence, as the working basis for your spiritual path, is the ferry boat that will carry you across the ocean of cyclic existence, bringing you to

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the far shore of liberation and omniscience.At the same time, if you misuse this human ex­

istence you can plunge your mindstream into the very lowest state of rebirth in cyclic existence. So, how you use this rebirth is of far greater consequence than how a being in an animal, a hell or a preta rebirth uses that state of existence. What you do in this human rebirth carries far more weight, far more consequence. It can go either way. You can create enormous damage for yourself and others by misusing the precious human rebirth, or you can gain the best of all possible benefits for yourself and others, through using this precious hu­man state of existence. The choice is in your own hands.

You now have this fortunate state that is en­dowed with this enormous potential. But simply hav­ing that opportunity isn’t enough. You have to use it and realize that potential. The way in which you go about realizing that potential is in the same methodical, developmental way that I’ve been discussing all along. We are fortunate in that what makes our precious hu­man existence precious is the fact that an authentic teacher, the Lord Buddha, has appeared in the world. The Lord Buddha taught, and we have the legacy of those teachings, the Buddhadharma, which have con­tinued to the present day. We are fortunate that we are motivated to enter the doorway of those teachings and follow those teachings. We are fortunate that we are able to encounter qualified spiritual mentors who im­part those teachings to us. Having come to that point in our evolution as beings in this cycle of existence, it is only fitting that we should continue with and follow that path to which we have introduced ourselves and been introduced by our teachers—follow this path, step by step, in a methodical manner from the very begin­

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ning stages to its final fruition. To practice in the ap­propriate manner is to follow the course of teachings and practice as it has been laid out over centuries by a process that has proven the effectiveness of this ap­proach.

How you begin training your mind is by study­ing through utilizing the Four Contemplations that turn the mind away from further involvement in cyclic exis­tence and towards the practice of the Dharma and the attainment of enlightenment. Following that training, there is the extraordinary level of preliminary practices starting with the taking of refuge, the arousal of bodhi- citta and so forth, taking you, step by step, further along the path. Following that, it is entirely appropri­ate and useful for you to receive and practice the Great Perfection teachings. But do not assume that it is okay to begin with the practice of the Great Perfection ap­proach just because you want to, or feel you should be able to. That approach is highly unlikely to be effec­tive. 1 don’t want to deny the possibility that some of you might be like the great King Indrabhuti, who when introduced to teachings on this level, understood their profundity and immediately related to them, and, thereby, attained enlightenment in a relatively short pe­riod of time. That’s conceivable, but let’s be realistic, most of us need to approach it developmentally step by step. That is the most effective way to approach these teachings. It’s not that I feel that you haven’t under­stood or been exposed to these Four Contemplations that turn the mind towards practice. It’s not that I feel that you haven’t understood the importance of taking refuge, bodhicitta, purification and so forth. I don’t feel like I’m talking to a group of idiots, and that you haven’t understood this. I am simply emphasizing the importance of these stages. They cannot be over­

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looked, and the more attention that you pay to them, the more energy and effort that you bring to your prac­tice in following these stages, the more beneficial your practice will be. On the other hand, I may just be bor­ing you. Maybe you are thinking, 4Oh no, I’ve heard all this before. Not again.’

Another point I need to make at this time is that it is all very well to receive teachings, but how much have we actually implemented and realized? You have heard from any number of lamas about the Four Thoughts that turn the mind toward practice, about tak­ing refuge and generating bodhicitta, but remember it is important to continually practice these, not just to re­ceive them and then think, 4Oh, I’ve got it.’ You’ve only got it when you’ve actually integrated it into your own experience through practice. It’s just like food. You can have the food in your fridge, but you still have to make yourself a meal, sit down and eat it. Other­wise, you will go on just being hungry. So, keep in mind just receiving the teachings alone is not enough. They are meant to be practiced once you have received and understood them.

When you think about it, the path that has al­ways been followed, is being and ever will be followed by all buddhas and bodhisattvas—the foundation of that path is in the taking of refuge and giving rise to that precious quality of the mind we term bodhicitta. If we don’t have that foundation upon which to base our practice, we have absolutely no hope of gaining en­lightenment. It is that essential of a foundation to our path. We should never overlook or belittle the impor­tance of taking refuge or giving rise to bodhicitta. The oral instructions of Samantrabhadra, the Kun Zang Lamai Zhal Lung text by Patrul Rinpoche notes that the taking of refuge is the very cornerstone upon which

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the entire spiritual path is built. Above and beyond that, giving rise to and developing the quality of bodhi- citta is the very root of the Mahayana approach. This is the fundamental principle that assures that one’s practice is of the highest order. In a pithy verse found in this text, Patrul Rinpoche summarizes the impor­tance of bodhicitta. If you have one single factor, it is that one factor that assures buddhahood. Yet, if you lack that factor, any number of other means or ap­proaches will not be of benefit. It is that single unerr­ing seed that leads to the fruition of buddhahood. So always give rise to bodhicitta. If you have that factor in your spiritual path, that altruistic and compassionate resolve that is bodhicitta, then your enlightenment is guaranteed. If you do not have that factor, any other means that you rely upon will not lead to the path of buddhahood. It is that crucial. If you plant that seed; you will get the fruit. It is guaranteed.

If you encounter a teacher who tells you that you don’t need bodhicitta to attain enlightenment, that teacher is wrong. A teacher, who teaches that a path without bodhicitta is a path to full and complete en­lightenment, is not teaching the truth. That teacher has made a mistake, and you should not listen to that kind of advice. There are people who seem to feel that all you have to do is realize some profound view without compassion entering into it at all. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, from the Great Perfec­tion point of view, to realize the true nature of reality is to experience compassion as a natural consequence of that realization. Otherwise, you are missing the point and are lost on some profound sidetrack. This is be­cause realizing the true nature of reality is realizing your own buddha nature. When you have realized your own buddha nature, you are also aware of everybody

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else’s buddha nature, and you are keenly aware of how a given being fails to realize his or her own buddha na­ture, which moves you spontaneously to compassion for the plight of those beings who fail to realize their own true nature. It is an automatic consequence of that realization. To assume that the Dzogchen view is less than that is to make a fundamental error. So, you should understand that compassion is the crucial factor in your path and also in your realization to which that path leads you.

It seems to me from my exposure to people in the West, that you have a great affinity for the Mahay- ana way of thinking. You must understand that my ex­perience under Communist rule has exposed me to the opposite attitude—where there isn’t a great deal of em­phasis on compassion, tolerance and kindness to oth­ers. What I am impressed with here is that the seed has already been planted. If that seed is nurtured then very swiftly Western people have the ability to become great bodhisattvas, due to already having that natural inclina­tion for the Mahayana way of thinking and practice. The important point to remember is that having the po­tential is not realizing it. It is something that you ac­tively work at, through hearing teachings, through contemplating and meditating on those teachings to re­alize the ultimate meaning. What I see is a situation where if you are willing to put the effort into meditat­ing, you will very swiftly experience the result in your mindstream. But don’t expect it to come about by it­self. The potential is there, but the potential must be recognized and nurtured through practice. It won’t just happen by itself. Whether we are talking about bodhi- citta or about the view of the Great Perfection or any aspect of sutra or tantra, stage of development or com­pletion—any aspect of the teaching or practice is only

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to be realized through practice. It is only when you ac­tually experience it for yourself, that you truly gain the benefit of the teachings. When I say you have that in­clination, that is the potential—the opportunity that presents itself. It’s still up to you as individuals to practice and realize that potential. Regardless of the particular approach that you are following in the prac­tice of the Buddhadharma, it’s important that you first hear about and study what you are practicing to come to a deeper understanding. It isn’t just intellectual. You must put the ultimate significance of that study and contemplation into effect with meditation so that you directly experience the ultimate significance of what you have learned and contemplated. It’s exactly analogous to learning to drive a car. You don’t just decide one day to drive a car and jump behind the wheel and take off. Not if you’re smart! First you study the driver’s manual. Then you get behind the wheel and slowly begin to learn about the controls. You have someone with you who can show you what to do. You gradually begin to take the car out on a road where there is no traffic and it’s safe, until finally you’re a competent driver and ready for the freeway. In the same way Dharma is developed methodically, step by step. First you hear the teachings and come to an intellectual understanding of the ideas that are being presented. Then you contemplate those teachings, turning them over in your mind so that you cut through all of your wishful thinking and all of your speculation about what they might be talking about and come to a deeper understanding of what they really are address­ing. Finally, you put that into practice through medita­tion. With the precision you have gained through hear­ing, study and contemplation, you are really able to im­plement the meaning of the teachings in your medita­

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tion. If you begin in a half-baked fashion without hear­ing and contemplating and jump right into meditation, you’re out of your depth. You don’t know what you are supposed to be doing and get lost in side issues and lack of clarity in your thinking. So, it is a very neces­sary process. First, you hear the teachings. Then, you contemplate them. Then you’re ready to put them into practice in meditation. There must be this evenly bal­anced methodical approach.

If we think of learning any kind of skill or dis­cipline in the ordinary worldly sense, using our ordi­nary mind, we don’t expect to grasp it overnight. We go to someone who knows how to teach us whatever it is that we want to learn, and we study. Some people may be quicker at learning than others. It may take some people only a few months what it takes others years to learn, but even so, we have to go through a process of learning. How much more so when it comes to the Great Perfection! When dealing with the experi­ence of pristine awareness that transcends ordinary mind, you’re not just going to pick it up from a few hours of hearing an introductory teaching. We’re talk­ing about something so profound and far reaching that it will require the same kind of effort that learning something in the ordinary worldly sense takes, if not more. And, if we are unwilling to practice, we are then denying ourselves the opportunity to go through the process that unerringly leads us to the result that would occur had we followed that process.

This whole presentation has its purpose. There is the outer condition of the spiritual mentor and the inner condition of your own attitude and state of mind as a student. All of these, beginning with the Four Thoughts, are by way of facilitating your ability to ap­proach and appreciate the teachings of the Great Per­

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fection and to implement them properly so that you come to the authentic realization to which these teach­ings are designed to lead you. Given that we have at­tained this precious human existence endowed with the freedom and opportunity for spiritual practice, given that we have encountered those beings it is very diffi­cult to encounter—qualified, authentic spiritual men­tors—given that we have come into contact with the teachings of the Buddhadharma and the remarkable op­portunity in this lifetime to receive the teachings of the Great Perfection path and to practice them, it is impor­tant that we don’t fool ourselves. It is important that we don’t scurry off in wrong directions, but continue to focus on the key point of practicing that path in the most authentic manner possible and assert ourselves with diligence, because although these factors are pres­ent, none of this is guaranteed for any length of time, even the fact that we will go on living.

We have this remarkable opportunity for we know not how long. It is extremely easy to lose this human existence. Anything can be the cause of our death. The human existence is so fragile that it can be snuffed out at any moment by any number of circum­stances. As surely as the sun sets in the west, we are heading for our death. We just don’t know when or under what circumstances. We don’t have the control over our human existence that we would like to have or think we have. It’s not guaranteed. With all of this good fortune in place there is a danger that we will se­duce ourselves into thinking there is plenty of time, and we will take it easy, getting around to it when we feel like it. Then, before we know it, that time will be over, and we will have lost that opportunity with no guarantee we will ever have it again. So, it’s important that we not think of practice as something to do next

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year, next month, next week or tomorrow. Rather, we should leap at the opportunity to practice. In the teach­ings of the great masters, we see statements that we should practice Dharma with the same eagerness that someone, whose hair is suddenly on fire, puts it out. If a poisonous snake is dropped into your lap, don’t you react immediately? You don’t sit back—you act. In the same way having understood the good fortune that you now enjoy, as well as the fragility of that, you act in the sense of putting what you have understood into practice—immediately! When you practice, none of the results of what you undertake are lost. Under ideal circumstances, the results of this practice will ripen in this lifetime, in this embodiment. Even if that doesn’t happen to be the case, due to your specific circum­stances, nothing that you do on the level of practice is wasted. It will always bear its fruit whether in this life­time or in a future lifetime, and that fruit will always be of a beneficial nature. The important thing is to imple­ment what you have learned, through your study and contemplation in meditation, to the degree you are able—to actually begin doing something about it.

When I say that one should practice, I mean that one should apply oneself to the developmental process that we have discussed—that Victorious Ones, the buddhas, out of their great compassion, skill and means have presented as the most developmentally ex­pedient means. Whether it is Vajrayana meditation stage, developmental stage of completion and, beyond a doubt, the Great Perfection, Dzogchen, all of these, in order for them to be truly effective, must be followed in a developmental way. If you think that you are ready to just leap into the practice of the Great Perfection, well, who knows, maybe you are, but on the other hand don't fool yourself. Don't fall prey to that all too human

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flaw of self-delusion, of presuming to be ready for something that you really aren't. You owe it to yourself to begin where you need to begin and to follow the stages of the path.

In my own home country, there was a woman who was very skillful in the world. She was a very good business woman and very capable on that level. But she was the object of a bit of fun because, although she had pretension of being a spiritual practitioner, she didn't understand anything about the more profound aspects of the teachings. Moreover, she couldn’t bother herself to be involved in any of the more mundane as­pects of the teachings. So, she was left with no re­sources on the spiritual level, even though she was a very capable business woman and very successful on that level. On the one hand, she didn't really under­stand anything about the profound view of the Great Perfection, and on the other hand she really couldn't be bothered involving herself in something as seemingly mundane and unimportant as just ordinary physical acts or verbal acts of virtue. She felt they were beneath her, and that she needed something more profound. So, she ended up in the middle of somewhere without any­thing. There is no point in sort of glibly going on about how many Great Perfection teachings you have had or how much the Great Perfection, Dzogchen, instantly brings about enlightenment. If you really aren't practic­ing, it is all just empty talk. If you don't practice what you receive in the way of teachings, it's virtually the same as never having had the teachings in the first place, because you deprive yourself of any of the bene­fits that they are designed to bring you. This is why the developmental approach is so important. You begin where you need to begin, and you go step by step through a proven process that has been validated over

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generations, so that you avoid any of the pitfalls or possible points of error that might crop up. You con­tinue in a very methodical and systematic way to ap­proach that state of realization that is the Great Perfec­tion. And so I cannot overemphasize this careful ap­proach, this step by step methodical approach.

At this point I will conclude my discussion of the more ordinary level of preliminaries and begin speaking about the ngondro or preliminary phase that is specific to the Dzogchen approach. You will recall that earlier today this was referred to by the technical term, tearing down the hut o f ordinary mind, where we com­pare the ordinary workings of the mind to a hut, which is being dismantled at this stage of the teaching and practice. The first stage in this phase of tearing down the hut of ordinary mind begins with what is termed, seeking out the root mind, seeking out mind as the root of all samsara and nirvana. We come to understand that at the very root of the experience of the state of confusion, samsara, as an unenlightened being, or at the very root of the experience of utter peace and total realization, nirvana, that a buddha experiences, we are speaking of something that is rooted in mind. It is a subjective experience that arises in the mind of the one experiencing that state of samsara or nirvana. Having reduced samsara and nirvana at their root, to this prin­ciple of mind, we must further understand that mind as an entity does not exist as something that has an actual ground or root in itself. While mind is the root of sam­sara and nirvana, mind-itself is groundless and is with­out root or foundation in any fixed concrete sense.

If we take the example of a given individual such as ourselves, we can speak about our being, if you will, our presence in this world, in three ways. We have a physical presence, our body. We have a verbal

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presence, our speech. And there is a mental awareness, our mind. And we tend to speak of these so-called three doorways or three avenues of our being, the physical, the verbal and the mental, as though they were things. But this is really just a convenient way to talk about what it is to be a being in the world. It does­n't mean that there are really three separate and distinct things that are body, speech and mind. We can't really establish any thing called body or speech or mind, but it is a convenient way of describing our experience. The very word for body in Tibetan, is the word, /w, which means to leave behind because the body we now experience as our physical body is only valid for a certain length of time, which is to say, until we die. When we die, it is left behind. It's like a shell that is discarded. Other than that there is no thing that we can ultimately prove is and always will be the body. It is simply a convenient label for what we are experiencing at this point as the physical envelope or container that holds our mind during this lifetime. But it will be left behind, and the Tibetans acknowledge this in the way they term it— lu—that which is left behind.

When you think about it, of course, it is fairly obvious that this physical body that you now experi­ence didn't always exist. At a certain point, there was no physical basis, such as this physical body, for your consciousness. Due to the sperm from your father and the egg from your mother coming together and uniting with your consciousness there was then a physical ba­sis. But even that physical basis has never remained the same from the moment of conception until now. There have been continual changes, continual development and growth, even on that physical level of what we so conveniently term the body. We began as a fetus, an embryo growing in our mother's womb. We came to

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full term and were bom into this world as infants. We grew to be toddlers, then to a young person, and then into adolescence. Some of us have moved further along into middle age or even old age and are, perhaps, approaching our deaths, since all of us eventually will die. On this very coarse, obvious level there has been continual change. But the change is also of a much more subtle nature. It is the very nature of phenomena to change constantly. Every moment, every instant, our body is continually changing in many ways, so it is never the same thing. When we speak of the body, we are not describing some thing that is always the same and always has a specific set of characteristics. It is a simple and convenient way to talk about that aspect of our experience. It is certainly nothing that we should treat as eternal or self-sufficient—an entity that exists in and of its own right.

The same can be said for our speech, the sec­ond major aspect of our being or our presence in the world. We didn't come into the world speaking flu­ently. It is something we had to learn through a process that involves physical organs of articulating sound, and the sounds themselves that we use to communicate ideas. All of that linking of causes and conditions is what we conveniently label speech. It's not a single thing at all.

The point here is not that nothing exists what­soever, but that when we use the word speech we are not describing something that exists in any ultimate sense. To begin with, speech, as we understand the concept, is mentally motivated. First, we think about what to say and then we speak. It's not as though speech is an autonomous entity that can just talk in and of itself. We have to think, ‘I want to say this.’ Then we must use the organs of speech as we have learned to

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use them in a laborious process to express that particu­lar thought in sound. That’s what speech is, not some­thing in and of itself, but a process of causes and con­ditions coming together in a certain way.

Again, although speech is one important factor of our experience as beings, the term speech itself does not describe anything that is always the same, that is unchanging, that is eternal that is in and of itself. Rather, speech is a word for a very impermanent proc­ess of sound coming into being, lasting for a short time and then fading away. Moreover, our speech is such that it continually has to come into being. It doesn't stay the same all the time. It is continually something that we give rise to and it vanishes; we give rise to it again and it just vanishes. It doesn't have the power to give rise to itself and constantly, always be the same. Whether we are talking about human speech or the sounds that animals make when they communicate, whether we are talking about pleasant sounds or un­pleasant sounds, we're speaking of a fluctuating proc­ess of impermanent phenomena manifesting, not some­thing in and of itself. And so this is the kind of exami­nation and contemplation we need to undertake.

It is similar for the level of mind, this third ma­jor doorway or avenue of our being. Although in the Tibetan language, there is quite a sophisticated vocabu­lary for describing different functions of mind, they all boil down to the same thing—some kind of mental pro­cess, be it discursive consciousness or the creation of ideas or sensory consciousness of objects in the world around us. They are all mental events taking place. There are different terms to describe mind, for exam­ple, one of the more common words in the Tibetan lan­guage for ordinary mind is the word, sem, which in its most generic sense simply comes from the verb to think

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about, such as thinking about objects in the world around us. On the other hand, taking into account that the thinking about is able to think of specific details of phenomena, we might use the word, nam shei, or dis­cursive consciousness, which is able to pick out the details of things. Yet even a different word might be used to mean the consciousness that is involved with the creation of ideas. Based upon what we perceive in the world around us, we come up with ideas about those mental pictures, of what they are, and ideas of what they constitute. But again we are using words to describe different points of view to this whole process of mental activity. So, it all boils down to the same thing. We may use this precise vocabulary, but we are talking about the same thing essentially—this mental level of our experience.

When we consider our make up as beings from these three points of view—body, speech and mind— and if we further consider the whole process of karma—of what it is that is truly responsible for creat­ing karma, whether it is virtuous karma or non-virtuous karma, whether it is the kind of karma that continues to bind our minds to samsara or whether it is the kind of action that will liberate the mind from that confusion and suffering—what is primarily responsible? Is it the body, the speech or the mind? Where does the primary responsibility, the primary effectiveness lie? Whether we are intent upon perpetuating samsara and keeping our mind bound to samsara, or awakening to full buddhahood that passes beyond all extremes, we are dealing fundamentally on the level of mind, aren't we? It is something that principally boils down to mind, rather than being something specifically physical or verbal in nature.

It may seem that we are saying at this point,

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‘Aha, okay, since the mind is responsible for every­thing, then the only thing that really exists is mind, right? Mind is something.’ Not quite, because when we speak of mind in the ordinary sense, we are speaking of something that is entirely dependent upon the object of which that mind is aware. There is a certain kind of mind taking place when we perceive a beautiful attrac­tive object in our sensory field. We want that object. There is a different kind of mind taking place when we perceive something disgusting, offensive or threaten­ing. When we perceive something about which we are apathetic and that doesn't evoke any reaction at all, there is a still yet different mind state. The way mind functions in its ordinary capacity is in relationship to objects. We can't say that something that is that de­pendent upon external conditions is in and of itself something that is always the same.

Earlier I made the statement that if you wish to perpetuate cyclic existence, it is primarily on the level of mind that you perpetuate it. I made it with this in mind: When our ordinary mind is functioning in such a way that we are attached to seemingly pleasant, attrac­tive objects in our perception or repelled or threatened by certain others, the love/hate tension that we experi­ence towards the objects in our experience is what per­petuates samsara. It is fundamentally that which is re­sponsible for the cycle continuing to turn.

On the other side of the coin, if one is bent upon attaining that state of utter peace, which is nir­vana, the transcendence of all sorrow and suffering, then it is primarily a mental process. In the beginning stages of freeing the mind from suffering, the object of one’s sense of faith or respect to which the mind re­lates is the Three Jewels, rather than an object that gen­erates attachment or aversion in the ordinary sense.

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One’s approach to cyclic existence might be in the be­ginning stages a healthy fear of the consequences of continuing to be involved in that level of confusion. So, you begin through a mental process of realigning or reorienting your approach to the objects of your per­ception. You begin to carry out your spiritual path and live your life in a different way. You begin to observe the sense of discipline that we were talking about ear­lier, and living your life by some code of ethics that assures that at the very least you yourself are freed of suffering. That is a perfectly valid, although, perhaps, not the most laudable motivation for following the spiritual path—to want to end your own suffering, to free yourself from pain and confusion. You can attain a kind of nirvana that way. But again, that is primarily a mental process. What you do with your body and your speech, as a result of that, is just a supportive mecha­nism for what is basically a mental process. The most important factor in all of this is mind, whether we are talking about samsara, the perpetuation of cyclic exis­tence, or the attainment of nirvana.

If we consider the other alternative I men­tioned, the attainment of completely awakened buddha- hood, which does not fall into either the extreme of confusion, the perpetuation of cyclic existence, or the mere peace and quietude of personal salvation, limited nirvana, then we are describing something that is expe­rienced when a person has embarked on the Mahayana path. That is to say, simply, that their motivation is al­truistic and compassionate. Their motivation for pur­suing a path of spiritual development is not one of be­ing concerned only for their personal benefit, but really one which embraces the welfare of all beings, of every­thing that lives. When a person pursues their path as an expression of that altruistic motivation of bodhicitta

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and attains the goal of complete enlightenment, that is an enlightenment that goes beyond the two extremes of simply wandering in confusion or simply escaping from your own suffering without consideration for the welfare of others. But again, we are talking about what is fundamentally a mental process. It is the mind that experiences that transcendence of duality.

Because the factor of your mental perspective is so important, the only way we can truly determine the effectiveness of one’s spiritual practice is on that level of mind, not on the verbal or physical expressions of that practice. When the great Lord Atisha of Bud­dhist India came to Tibet, his main Tibetan student, Drongdun Rinpoche, was staying with him, and at a certain point, Atisha just said, ‘Oh, Oh my.’ It seemed to come out of nowhere and very distraught. Drungten Rinpoche said to him, ‘Sir, what is wrong?’

Atisha said, ‘One of my students in India, who is a practitioner of Hevajra, has just lost his bodhicitta, and he is now practicing on the level of a Shravaka, of a Hinayana practitioner.’

Drongten first thought to himself before reply­ing, ‘Hevajra is a Mahayana practice, a Vajrayana prac­tice. It’s one of the most profound cycles in the Vajray­ana approach, and you’re telling me that someone who is a Mahayana practitioner, practicing this magnificent cycle of teachings is somehow fallen to the level of Hi­nayana?’

Atisha answered, ‘It has nothing to do with the level of teachings he is practicing, it's the mind with which he is practicing it. He is using a Mahayana tech­nique with a Hinayana attitude, and so his practice is Hinayana practice. He has fallen from the ideal to which he committed himself—following the Mahayana path.’

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The point that Atisha was making was that if the Dharma is not practiced as the Dharma is intended to be practiced, it fails to fulfill its purpose, and the person is not utilizing the teaching in the way it is meant to be utilized. If you practice a so-called Mahay- ana technique with a Hinayana attitude, your practice is Hinayana practice. If you practice a so-called Hinayana technique with Mahayana attitude, your practice is Ma- hayana practice. It is a question of your attitude. It is a question of your mental point of view in undertaking what you undertake. It has very little to do with the re­flection on a physical and verbal level of what seems to be this or that, but everything to do with where your mind is when you are practicing. It is perfectly possible for a nominally Mahayana practitioner to be practicing on the level of Hinayana and only achieving those benefits, which are there to be experienced, but far less than if the person were a Mahayana practitioner in the true sense of the word. It is all a question of your mind, of where your mind is, of how your mind is approach­ing something, rather than what that thing in and of it­self may or may not be.

Now, this isn't so abstruse a point that we can't grasp it immediately in our own direct experience. Whenever you act physically, first on some level you think about doing that action, don't you? You say I want to reach and grab the cup. You make some thought in your mind; then that becomes expressed in physical activity. Or when you say something. On some level, however instantaneous, you think first and then you speak. There's some thought that comes up in the mind that is then expressed in speech. It's very obvi­ous, if we take the time just to think about how we ex­perience things, our mind is responsible for our verbal and physical actions, which are just supportive mecha­

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nisms that express what is already going on in the mind. All of this is concerned with this first stage of the preliminary phase of Dzogchen practice, which is known as seeking out the root of mind, seeking out mind as the root, we might say, mind as the fundamen­tal factor.

From there we proceed to the next stage, which is known as rooting out the hidden flaw, exposing the hidden flaw in the way mind ordinarily functions. To begin with, then, in exposing this hidden flaw, when we speak of body, speech and mind, are we speaking about an identity—that body equals speech, equals mind? Or are we speaking about a separateness, a dis­tinctness, that there are three separate things? In the first case is mind equal to speech, equal to body, are these identical, are these the same thing? That's proba­bly absurd, because then our mind would have to have the same kind of shape, color, size and so on and so forth as our body. If mind and body, for example, were identical, the characteristics of the body would be the characteristics of the mind, but they are not. Our mind is not subject to those same kinds of conditions as our physical body; nor is it exactly the same as our speech, because then it would be nothing more than whatever the contents were of our speech at any given point. That is not the case. So, it is patently absurd to assume that body equals speech, equals mind—that there is an identity there. So, our next conclusion is, ‘Oh, they must be separate and distinct from one another.’

Are body and mind identical? We can come to the conclusion, no, they are not because the mind does not partake of the same kinds of characteristics, the form, shape, color, weight, size and so forth as our bodies. Then we can proceed to speech. And we note that speech may be of a pleasant nature; it may be of an

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unpleasant nature; it may be of a completely neutral nature. But the sounds that constitute our speech are not identical to our mind, because then our mind would have to sound pleasant or sound unpleasant or sound neutral, and our mind doesn't sound like anything at all. It is not some pleasant or unpleasant sound or any concatenation of pleasant and unpleasant sounds. So, mind and speech are not identical, they are seemingly separate and distinct.

Then we come to the mind itself, and we say, ‘Well, okay, if mind isn’t equal to the body, and mind isn't equal to the speech, what is the mind?’ How can we say something is anything unless we can describe it? If we say mind exists, mind is something, then let’s describe it. What color is it? What shape is it? What size is it? What direction does it take? What character­istics does it exhibit? What does it taste like? What does it feel like? If we are going to describe it, let's de­scribe it. Let's do a good job. We need to be able to de­scribe it in some kind of concrete terms if we are talk­ing about some entity that exists.

Let's go back to the idea of the body. When we use the word, body, we seem to be describing a single thing that is always the same, some thing that has its own integrity as an entity, but when we examine fur­ther, we realize there is really nothing we can put our finger on to establish the body. When we speak of the body, we are talking about a whole concatenation of arms and legs, bits and pieces, different sense faculties like our eyes and our nose and so forth. When you put those together, you can put the convenient label body on it. But if you remove those elements, where's the body? And so body per se is a fallacy. It's a convenient fiction for what doesn't really exist in and of itself.

This does not apply solely to our own physical

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bodies as individuals, but to all of the phenomena that we experience, whether we are talking about the inani­mate world as a kind of container or the animate beings contained therein. We are speaking about convenient labels for things, not about actually existing entities that have their own ultimate existence, whether we are describing the largest mountain, the most impressive physical object in the world around us. When we say there is a mountain, we are not describing something that actually exists in its own right, but a convenient label for what happens when you put a number of causes and conditions together in a certain way. We can take that mountain, analyze it and reduce it down to its molecular, atomic and subatomic components un­til we simply lose sight of anything there at all that can justify the name, mountain, and that can be said to ex­ist ultimately as a mountain.

Suppose we take the example of the house that we live in. We are used to saying ‘This is my house or my home.’ Although there are component parts of stone, cement, various kinds of metal, glass, electrical wiring and so forth, the only reason we can speak of having a home is because all of these component parts fit together in a certain way. Other than that, there never was a house there in the first place, and there still isn't. There is just a convenient label for this concate­nation of different component parts that we can con­veniently label house. But when we say that we have a house, we are not talking about something that exists in its own right. We can take the component parts and reduce it even further. Suppose we take the front door of our house, which is one of the component parts for this thing we are calling house. The door itself is com­posed of smaller bits and pieces that are put together in a certain way to achieve a certain function, which we

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then label, door. Other than that there is no such thing as a door that exists ultimately. It is simply a label for this concatenation of bits and pieces of component parts.

It is on this basis that we can say that there is absolutely no difference between the enlightened mind of any buddha and the buddha nature of our own minds. But for the time being our confusion imposes upon us a view of things that seem to exist when, in fact, they do not. Things seem to be permanent, when, in fact, they are impermanent. So, we continue to expe­rience things from the point of view of this misappre­hension. When our own mind directly understands its own nature, that's buddha. That’s it! There is no dis­tinction between that and the mind of any buddha, but for the time being these superficial distortions in our way of seeing things prevent us from realizing that. In­stead, we impute all kinds of things to have an exis­tence that they don't have.

For that which we term buddha nature, for that potential for enlightenment to become the actuality and so that the process of unraveling that confusion can take place, we are extremely fortunate that there are the eighty-four thousand collections of the Buddhadharma, the vast wealth of teaching that buddhas through su­preme skill and means and innate compassion present for the benefit of unenlightened beings. If we are will­ing to commit ourselves to the practice of the path and to follow the stages of that path, at some point our bud­dha nature will become evident. Our indwelling pris­tine awareness will become fully expressed rather than just a latent potential. But for the time being, while we are still under the influence of the confusion that pre­vents us from perceiving what is already the case, until the point that we perceive what is for what it is, it is

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important that we follow the process of seeking out mind as the fundamental principle and exposing the hidden flaw of the way ordinary mind works. It is im­portant that we follow all of these stages because they are a necessary process in order for what is already the case to become evident.

We may take our inspiration from the fact that all buddhas and bodhisattvas were once just as ordi­nary, confused and unenlightened as we are. At some point that being began to practice the spiritual path, perhaps, for eons. In some cases spiritual practitioners have undergone enormous hardships for eons in order to receive even a single verse of teachings. But even­tually that process brought the buddha or bodhisattva to the point that the innately indwelling pristine aware­ness in the mindstream of that being became evident for that being. At a certain point the same buddha na­ture that became evident for those buddhas will be­come evident for us, but only if we commit ourselves to the process of the spiritual path and practice just as they practiced and gained enlightenment. There is really no distinction to be made between our buddha nature and the nature of a buddha, except for a buddha that nature is evident, and for us it is not yet evident.

Now, if we consider the examples of those buddhas and bodhisattvas, who in some cases may have labored for eons to gain enlightenment, we may tend to lose heart and think, ‘Oh, I could never be equal to that kind of challenge.’ That is completely in­appropriate. Rather, it should inspire you that someone else went through the process. Why can't you go through that same process and reveal your own buddha nature in all its entirety, just exactly as it is? So, take this as a kind of inspiration not as someone saying, ‘Well if you can’t undergo that same kind of hardship

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right now, then you are hopeless.’ Rather say, ‘Look at the kind of dedication those great beings had to their spiritual search. That's the kind of dedication I want to have. That's the kind of dedication I am going to arouse in myself.’ Use it as a means of fueling your own inspiration to follow your path.

All that we have been covering up to this point is within the category that was described poetically as tearing down the hut o f ordinary mind, dismantling the way in which mind thinks about things. One begins, as we described it very briefly, by identifying mind as the root, as the fundamental principle behind all of our ex­periences of nirvana and samsara and buddhahood. Then one moves to identifying or exposing the hidden flaw of mind—thinking of it as something when in fact there is nothing there—by examining how body, speech and mind are not identical, yet when we try to identify what it is we mean when we say body or speech or mind, there is nothing there to put our finger on. This is known as exposing the hidden flaw of ordi­nary mind.

Having gone over this briefly, we should ex­amine the next stage of these preliminary practices of the Dzogchen path, which is known as the examination of the three phases of thought taking place in ordinary mind. That is to say the examination of initially the source, the location of a given thought or mental event for the period of its duration, and then finally the desti­nation. When a given thought or mental event, some process of ordinary mind, ceases to be, ceases to con­tinue, where does it go? What is its destination? This is known as examining the three phases—the arising, the enduring or remaining o f thought, and the going out o f existence o f thought—examining those three phases.

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The point of this exercise of examining the three phases of thought is that you are attempting to identify whether or not you can actually pin down a particular source from which the mind arises when it expresses itself as a given thought. You have a certain thought that in the previous moment didn't exist and now comes up as something new in your mind. The process of meditation is an analytical one at this point. You try to find out where that thought comes from, or to put in a more general sense, where mind comes from. And you try to identify any source that there might be, so you can pin it down and say, ‘Aha, that's where that thought comes from.’ Now, the ultimate point of the exercise is to arrive at the conclusion that you really can't find any such source. When you really come to try to put your finger on it so to speak, you can't say, ‘Aha, this is where mind comes from; this is the origin of that thought.’

Similarly, you move from there to the next phase of mental activity, which is the duration of a given thought or state of mind, and try to find out where it is located. If we are talking about a thing, it has to be somewhere. Where is that thought? Where is the mind that is thinking that thought—external, inter­nal—where is it? Again, the ultimate point of the exer­cise is that you come to the conclusion that there is no such location or anything located there.

Finally, there is the third phase, the cessation of thought, the going out of existence when a thought ceases to be. Where does it go? Pin down the destina­tion if in fact there is such a thing that can be pinned down. Again, the point of the process is you eventually come to the realization that there is nothing you can put your finger on as the place to which mind, or the thoughts in the mind go, when those thoughts cease to

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happen. That’s the point of the exercise. It is valuable to go through that analytical process rather than just leap to the answer and say, ‘Oh, I understand that the process is that there is no such source.’ Actually work through this analysis, this analytical meditation, to de­termine that you can't find any ultimate source or loca­tion or destination for these phases of ordinary mind operating, creating thoughts.

Now, of course, given that we have already de­termined in the earlier stages of the preliminary medi­tations that mind has no form, no shape, no color or size or location, it would stand to reason very logically that we are not talking about something in the ordinary sense. Therefore, we are not talking about something that has to have an origin from a certain place, coming into a certain location and lasting for a certain time and then going somewhere else. We are not describing things that are of that order. We don't have to talk about mind as though it behaves according to the ordi­nary characteristics that ordinary things have. The point of that process is to lead you, not just to the un­derstanding, but to the experience, the realization that essentially mind is what is termed groundless and without root, or without foundation. There is nothing there to be discussed as though it were an ordinary thing in the usual sense of the word. This process is designed to bring you to that realization in more than just an intellectual way.

Having followed this process through, you are left with the experience of something which exhibits a lucidity and an awareness, but perhaps you are still thinking that there's got to be something there; there’s this lucidity, there's this awareness. However, if you are talking about something that exists in the ordinary or naive sense of the word, it has to have characteris­

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tics. In order to talk about it, as something that exists, you have to be able to describe it. It has to have some form or color or shape or size or direction. It has to have parameters that you can use to talk about it.

It's a bit like trying to describe what it's like to see space, not the sky, not the blue vault that we see above our heads, but just the space in the room here. Do any of you see the space? Yeah, but describe it. It's that there's nothing else there between us, but what we call space. So, we are not really describing anything, but that does not mean we do not have the direct expe­rience of space. Talking about mind is a bit like that. It comes down to the point that we are not really talking about something in the ordinary sense of the word, but there is an experience of lucidity and awareness that is undeniable. But that doesn’t mean that we are able to concretize it and say that it’s this or that in the usual sense of the word.

These are the three stages, if you will, to the introductory, preliminary phase of Dzogchen practice: determining that mind is the fundamental principle that accounts for our experience of samsara and nirvana; exposing the hidden flaw of conceptualizing that mind to be something; and then examining the coming into being of thought in ordinary mind, the duration and lo­cation of that thought and the destination to which that thought finally goes. The express purpose of that proc­ess is to come to the realization that there is nothing that you can really put your finger on. That is a brief overview of these different stages of meditation as they are presented in the ngondro or preliminary phase of the Dzogchen tradition.

What might be most fruitful at this point is to ask for questions; I will try to answer to the limit of my own understanding and realization. I make no claim to

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talk about something I don't understand, but to the ex­tent that I can address your questions, I am more than happy to.

Q: Even though mind is distinct from and not equal to body or speech, are we to also assume that in its dis­tinctness and its non-equalness that it has no inherent part of body or speech, that the mind is so distinct?

A: The point of saying that mind and body, for exam­ple, are not identical was only to point out that they are not identical and seem to be separate and distinct. There is no claim being made that they are ultimately separate and distinct in the sense of being ultimately existing entities that have no connection with one an­other, because in fact there is no phenomenon within samsara or nirvana that can be established to have its own ultimate existence. Body, speech and mind are phenomena that fall within the range of samsara and nirvana, and none of these phenomena can be proven to have their own ultimate existence. The point that was being made was that on a purely conventional level we cannot say that body, speech and mind are identical for the reasons that were mentioned. If the body and the mind were identical, the mind would have the same characteristics as the body. For example, when the body died the mind would die, which doesn’t happen. The mind continues onto other realms of expe­rience after this physical body dies and rots away and is no longer existent even in the nominal sense. The point that was being made was that, ultimately, one cannot say that any of this has any inherent self-nature. Even on a nominal level you cannot say that we are talking about identical phenomena. But likewise, you can't turn around and say they are ultimately separate

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and distinct, because for things to be separate and dis­tinct they have to exist ultimately with characteristics that distinguish them from one another, and there is no ultimate existence that can be proven in any of these phenomena.

Purely on the level of proving that mind and body are not identical is the argument that when the body dies the mind doesn't die. The mind goes onto experience some future state of rebirth. If they were identical, when the body died, the mind would die. That would be it; there would be no more experience. But the mind does in fact go beyond death. All that proves is that even on a nominal level mind and body are not identical. It in no way proves or is meant to prove that mind and body have ultimate existence which distinguishes them from one another.

Q: Let's take the case of a chocolate bar. Maybe some time you are just some place and you see a chocolate bar. Then you have the thought that you want it. So, you might think that the thought or desire to have the chocolate bar came from the chocolate bar. But another time when no chocolate bar is there, you may have the thought; then it's very clear to see that the thought came from your mind. And in that case you must go find a chocolate bar. So, in those two instances it seems like the arising of the thought is from two differ­ent places. The first time it looks like it’s from the chocolate bar, and the second time it looks like it's from your mind.

A: If the original, the initial idea that the thoughtcomes from the chocolate bar, if that’s true, then what that is really saying is that your mind is in the choco­late bar. And you’re going to have a hard time proving

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that. Actually, this is a useful question in that it points out the thing I was getting at earlier that ultimately there is no distinction to be made between the awak­ened awareness of a buddha and the buddha nature of any of us. But for the time being, we are hampered by the distortions imposed by our own confusion; we con­tinue to perceive things as though they were separate from us and invest them with a reality they don't have. We do this to the point that it actually feels like the thought comes from the chocolate bar rather than a thought arising in our mind. Just as the perception of the chocolate bar, which was the trigger for the thought, is just a perception in our mind, too. What you are saying basically is you are investing the chocolate bar with a reality all its own when you say the thought comes from the chocolate bar.

That is an example of dualistic subject/object grasping, which is the root of samsara. It's not a ques­tion of whether the apparent phenomena manifests. Buddhas still experience the manifestation of apparent phenomena, visual or otherwise, but there isn't the grasping. There isn't the conceptualizing in terms of subject and object that is fundamental to the samsaric mind. Ultimately, all you are describing is that in your mind there is for you the attractive appearance of a chocolate bar in your field of perception to which you then have an extremely desirous response. You want the chocolate bar. You are really describing a process of what manifests in your mind—the experience of the chocolate bar, seeing the chocolate bar, which then be­comes the desiring of the chocolate bar. It doesn't mean that a buddha wouldn't see the chocolate bar. It means that there wouldn’t be the subject/object dualism that is in your mind. That is the only distinction on a conven­tional level that can be made between you and a bud­

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dha. You persist in your confusion; for a buddha there is no confusion. Other than that there is no distinction between your buddha nature and the Buddha's enlight­ened awareness.

Q: So, the distinction would be the attachment wewould have towards the chocolate bar, whereas a bud­dha would be able to taste and smell the chocolate with all the senses, so the mind, the enlightened mind also uses the sensory to experience the same way, but the difference would be the attachment?

A: It's not as simplistic as that. For a buddha apparent phenomena continue to manifest, but in a way that we could only really describe at our level as a vast array of purity, what is termed in Tibetan, dag pa rab jam , which means literally a vast array of purity. That which manifests to a buddha's awareness is not any­thing like the dualistic thoughts of lovely or ugly, pleasant or unpleasant, tasty or revolting, fragrant or disgusting, soft or rough, that we are used to. That du­alistic framework of value judgments about our sensory experiences doesn't really pertain on the level of buddhahood. So it's not a question of simply saying, ‘Well, a buddha sees everything just like we do, but he's or she’s not attached to it.’ It's not quite that sim­ple. Manifestations continue to appear to a buddha's consciousness, but not on the same order of reality as things manifest to us. Beyond that, we can say that one of the aspects of a buddha's experience is there is no subject/object dualism. It isn't the case of everything being exactly the same, but there's no subject/object dualism. What appears or manifests before a buddha's awareness or in a buddha's awareness, vis a vis a bud­dha's awareness, is what is simply termed dag pa rab

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jam this entire vast array of purity. For example, in the case of an Arhat, on the Hinayana path, who has real­ized the non-existence of the individual self, but has not realized the non-existence of phenomena, there is some gradation of experience that we can talk about that more or less parallels ours. But for us to talk about full complete enlightenment, buddhahood we are talking about not only the realization of the non­existence of the individual self, but the non-existence of any self-nature in phenomena. And so the way in which apparent phenomena manifest to a buddha’s con­sciousness is of a completely different order than how it manifests to our consciousness.

If we were talking about a buddha, and we’re describing that buddha's experience in terms of lovely things to see or beautiful things to hear or taste, we wouldn't be talking about buddhahood, because we are talking about a dualistic order of experience, a dualistic level of experience of lovely versus not lovely, of pleasant sound versus unpleasant sound. So, we would still be talking about a dualistic framework, and not really describing buddha awareness. In a nutshell, ordi­nary mind is what is taking place when there is the du­alistic conception of subject and object that underlies the mental process that’s taking place. If we are speak­ing of a state of awareness that is beyond that subject/ object dualism, then, we are speaking of rigpa.

Q: I’m taking it when you use the usual word, mind, you would be referring to both mind in its dualistic ca­pacity and its non-dual capacity. And so, the word mind, as you have been using it, has not included in­trinsic awareness? Is that correct?

A: Right. What we have been speaking about today is

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the level of view that deals with phenomenal reality and the operation of ordinary mind vis a vis phenome­nal reality. We haven't got to the view of dharmata, the view of the true nature of reality where we are talking about rigpa.

Q: For example, with the chocolate bar if you are sit­ting with the awareness of the pattern or dynamic of mind that is dealing with dualistic relationship to the chocolate bar, at the same time being aware that there is an intrinsic awareness, you are holding both of those at the same time. What is the next step to dissolve the pattern of the chocolate bar dilemma in order to rein­force or uncover more of the intrinsic awareness?

A: This is something that we will be talking about later with the discussion of The Three Verses of Garab Dorje. But suffice it to say that from the Dzogchen or Great Perfection point of view, there is the initial rec­ognition of view or you might say of rigpa, of intrinsic awareness, and then the holding to that recognition. The process of meditation, if you will, or practicing the path at that point is one of simply maintaining ongoing awareness of that initial recognition. At that point, re­gardless of what thoughts arise in the mind, they are freed in the immediacy of rigpa, of intrinsic awareness, as long—and this is the big if—as long as one is hold­ing to that recognition of intrinsic awareness. From the point of view of the Dzogchen path, meditation is not so much a deliberate or contrived process of maintain­ing awareness of something, as it is a means of simply remaining in the recognition of rigpa despite all the manifestations of what is called the dynamic energy of that rigpa, of that intrinsic awareness. You simply maintain that recognition rather than continually try to

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pay attention to something in a dualistic sense. That recognition is likened to drawing on the surface of wa­ter. The moment that you draw a design on water it vanishes. You still draw the design, but it vanishes. The thoughts arise and yet are freed in that recognition as long as one holds to that recognition. But this is something that paradoxically takes practice. There is the initial recognition. To hold to that is a little trickier. It does require continued or concerted attention to maintain that recognition. Otherwise, people run the risk of making a very big mistake when the first couple of times it feels great. You maintain this recognition. Thoughts arise and thoughts are released, and you think, ‘Hey, this is great!’ And then slowly without even noticing it you start falling under the influence of your old dualistic thought patterns but think you are still maintaining the view. It’s tricky, a tricky question, but basically the process is simply one of maintaining recognition.

The metaphor that was used of the jewel on the head of the poisonous serpent, was to indicate that you can go either way: your involvement with the Great Perfection path can go either way. If you approach the teacher and the teachings with a sense of reverence, with a sense of humility, with a sense of learning, seek­ing to leam from the connection, to receive the teach­ings and practice them, that's the jewel. You can attain buddhahood in this lifetime. Even if you don't attain it in this lifetime, if you approach it in the proper spirit and maintain that samaya connection of respect for the teacher and the teachings, you can attain enlightenment in seven lifetimes, guaranteed, as long as you maintain that positive connection. The poisonous serpent comes in when a person initially, for whatever reason, re­ceives teachings in the Great Perfection, but then delib­

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erately turns against them or the teacher and deliber­ately cultivates an attitude of hating or criticizing in the sense of belittling or disparaging the teacher or the teachings. Then the person is in his or her own mind- stream creating the conditions for rebirth in the lowest hell, the hell of ceaseless torment, which is the most painful of all of the eighteen realms of hell. Not be­cause the person is being punished by anyone else, but because the person in his or her own mindstream has made that extremely powerful connection and then turned against it in a very negative way in his or her own mind. So, the poisonous serpent strikes when you as the practitioner of the Great Perfection deliberately flout or disparage that connection that you have with the teacher or the teachings in the Dzogchen context. When you decide in your mind, that these are bad peo­ple, this is terrible teaching, this is a waste of time, this is worthless, this is trash, you are turning your mind away from the teachings and that powerful connection of the teachings in such a way that, just as certainly as you would have attained enlightenment, your mind will certainly be plunged into the lowest hell. So, that's the very powerful nature of the connection. That's the jewel on the head of the poisonous serpent. But it is a question of you deliberately flouting or going against that connection rather than some incidental little mis­take you might make in your practice. It's the deliberate sense of wrong views about the teacher and the teach­ings that allows the poisonous serpent to bare its fangs.

Another example, which is often used in the tradition to demonstrate the very crucial nature of the connection with such teachings, is of the snake in the bamboo tube. The snake has two choices: it can go straight up or straight down. If a person maintains a positive connection with the teacher and the teachings

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and practices to the best of his or her abilities then the progress is upwards. But if the person flouts that and creates wrong views in his or her mind and indulges in those, the only way to go is down. The snake can only go one of two ways. When it's in the bamboo tube, it can't go any other direction—only straight up or straight down, but it is the snake's choice.

A: The term, narme, in Tibetan or avici in Sanskrit, ac­tually has two interpretations. There is one famous terma cycle in which the statement or prayer is made: ‘May the consciousness of the enemy of the teachings be mixed with earth and cast into the hell of ceaseless torment.’ This sounds like a very cruel thing to say. As a matter of fact, one Gelupa writer who was criticiz­ing this particular terma cycle said, ‘What a terrible, ruthless, uncompassionate thing to actually wish that somebody's consciousness would be mixed with earth and cast into the lowest hell.' The great Mipham Rin- poche of the Nyingma school, who came along towards the end of the last century, wrote a commentary on this. He said, ‘You have to understand that, when it is talk­ing about the word earth or ground, it is using the word for bhumi or level of realization, and the term narme in certain contexts could be interpreted as being the hell o f ceaseless torment; in another context narme can be understood as a realm without suffering, (the pinnacle realm of Akanishta, the dharmakaya pure realm). So, this aspiration was in fact an extremely compassionate aspiration: ‘May the consciousness of the enemy of the teachings be blended with the levels of realization and edified, lifted into the pinnacle pure realm that is beyond torment.’ It was a question of somebody taking the language too literally, and in fact, this term avici or narme can be interpreted in two

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ways. In the case of someone breaking their samaya, the negative connotation is to be understood, but that doesn't mean when you come across that term in a text, it always means that lowest of the hell realms.

In the hellish sense of the word, the term does­n't mean without torment but means there's no torment like the torment o f this hell—it is without any equal and so it is the worst possible kind of agony that can be experienced. That's what the connotation of the term is. But it shows you how something can hinge on a term and the context in which that term is used, be­cause it can be taken to mean the realm beyond or without any torment or full realization.

Q: I wasn't sure what Rinpoche was going for when he talked about there being no thing present with the body or the speech. Mind is a little different. In talking about the body, for example, as being a series of parts, it seemed like his explanation didn't take into considera­tion the well-known phrase, ‘the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.’ Functionally, on a physical level there is such a thing as a body, namely a bit more than a collection of parts.

A: The point that is being made here is that our habit, the way we habitually react to things in our experience is to naively invest them with an existence that they do not have. So, when we speak about the body, we as­sume on some level that we are speaking of a single thing. And, in fact, that is the way we react to all of the phenomena in our experience including all of the com­ponent parts of that body. Even if we break it down the next step further, we think of the parts as being real. There is always that tendency of the mind to invest a reality or invest an ultimate existence in things that

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they do not have. That is the fundamental problem that perpetuates cyclic existence, that keeps us caught in that process of confused existence that we know as samsara. The point that is being made here is simply that when we say the word body, all we are ultimately referring to is a concatenation of circumstances, noth­ing more than that. This is not to deny the experience of having a body and the body being able to execute certain actions and so forth. It is simply to take us back a step from the naive assumption that we are talk­ing about something that exists in and of itself with its own self-nature, its own ultimate existence. Due to our investing things with a reality that they don't have, we then react to them on the basis of whether we find that body beautiful or ugly or find that speech pleasant or unpleasant and we, therefore, develop attachment and aversion towards those perceived objects, which then perpetuates for us the whole process of samsara. If we realize that something like our body or speech does not have an ultimate existence as something in and of it­self, then we are not going to indulge in those dualistic patterns of attachment and aversion that perpetuate samsara. So, that is the real point, and we can use our own powers of reasoning to work that through. The point that we are coming to is that not just the body and not just the speech, but none of the components, none of the elements of our experience, and none of the phenomena within our experience can in any way be proven to have ultimate existence in and of themselves. That is the point that is being made, not that somehow the parts are valid, but that the whole of the parts isn't. Do you see the distinction there?

Q: Well, it seems that the analysis is looking at a dif­ferent level than physical existence.

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A: Think of it this way: In the ultimate sense, no phe­nomenon can be proven to have its own ultimate exis­tence, but on the relative level, within that conven­tional level of reality, things are valid in the sense that they perform certain functions. Something on a phe­nomenal level can perform a certain function that in a sense validates its existence on the conventional or relative level. But the conventional level is that which is involved with dualism and with confusion. And so the argument is presented from the perspective of ulti­mate reality—to shake loose those fixations we have on the conventional or relative level and instead pres­ent it from a higher perspective, so, that we are able to move outside of that conventional context and see how it is simply a conventional reality or relative reality. But that is not something that comes about easily; it's something that requires concerted effort and attention in order to come to that realization. It’s not that we don't want to attain buddhahood; all of us do, but it is­n’t that easy. It’s not just that things are exactly the way they appear, nor is it everything's empty, nothing ex­ists, and that's it, I’m a buddha. It's not that easy. It takes a lot more attention than that, a lot more of a pro­cess of coming to a higher level of realization, a higher perspective. If it were easier than it is, we would have far more many buddhas than we have. But we don't, because it isn't that easy. It does take concerted effort. The kinds of arguments that are presented are simply to shift our perspective from being completely fixated with relative reality, and, instead, to see things as well, from the perspective of ultimate reality. That is some­thing that eventually in the future will lead to realiza­tion. It won't come about quickly though. If it seems a bit overwhelming or a bit confusing at this point, that's

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understandable. It will take some concerted effort to really sort itself out.

Q: In the teaching that was given there was a caution­ary note where the teaching was referring to the view at the relative level, so it's very easy for that view of the self to appropriate the shift and to strengthen itself fur­ther.

A: There is a danger, if you will, or there is at least a cautionary note in the sense that what we have been discussing up to this point is the view of Dzogchen as it concerns the phenomenal level of reality or experi­ence. If one has established a good understanding of that view and then takes that to be something perma­nent, ultimate, true, in and of itself, then one is making a mistake. All that the view of phenomenal reality is intended to do is to reduce or to undermine the ten­dency of ordinary mind to invest things with a reality they don't have. That's the purpose of analyzing, for example, mind from the point of view of it having any characteristics, such as form or shape or color or size or direction. You arrive at the understanding that mind is empty of any self-nature. When you settle your mind in that experience of the emptiness of mind, then you have achieved, in a sense, you have gained that insight which is known as the view of phenomenal reality. Be­yond that it is necessary to gain direct introduction to rigpa, to intrinsic awareness. But you are not out of the woods yet. It's the first step, but to then say, ‘Aha, that’s it. That is reality. That is the ultimate; that is true.’ That is to make an error. Yes, there is a caution­ary note here. We are still only dealing on the level of dualism, albeit subtle, and the level of phenomenal re­ality. We haven't yet begun to address the view of dhar-

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mata, the true nature of reality, the true nature of the mind.

Q: I have a question about approaching Dzogchen for someone who has not found a root teacher. What do you do in that case? Do you take a teaching and hold onto it for a later time? Also, if we haven't made a connection with the teacher of that level, how far do you progress without that connection?

A: In terms of what teachings it is appropriate for you to receive from which teachers, specifically in the Dzogchen context, I think it really comes down to your own attitude as students. If you have completely uncontrived faith in a given teacher, there won't be any question. Of course, you will go to take teachings from that teacher, but otherwise it is a question of at least having enough trust in the qualities of that teacher that you will maintain an attitude of respect even if you don't really understand what you are being taught. Per­haps, you find yourself a little out of your depth, the teaching is beyond you, and you're not quite sure what to make of it. At least maintain an attitude of respect, thinking, 4 Well, I may not understand it, but I trust this teacher to be a good teacher and I trust these teachings to be valuable teachings.’ At the very least, that is nec­essary. To simply go to a Dzogchen teaching out of a sense of fascination, or because everybody is going, is inappropriate. I would strongly encourage you not to go to a teaching just out of the sense of idle curiosity or a sense of peer pressure. Rather, you should have more of a sense of either a real heart connection with the teacher or at the very least a sense of trusting the situa­tion, where you feel that this teacher is an authentic teacher and the teaching is valuable. Then even if you

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don't understand it, maintain a pure view of that situa­tion without then saying, ‘Boy, you know, what a rip off, what a charlatan. That person doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’ Otherwise, you create potentially serious problems for yourself as a student. At least to have that basic trust in the situation seems to be essen­tial for receiving teachings, particularly in the Dzog- chen context.

Q: I'm concerned about this motivation thing. In fact, it sort of really ungrounded me. The idea that you can be sitting there doing Vajrayana practice and yet, because you slip in your motivation, you are definitely not get­ting any merit and are probably breaking your samaya due to having a Hinayana attitude. Okay, I can take re­sponsibility for myself, but I'm also somewhat vitally concerned about the responsibility of the teacher in the situation, because as a student I can blindly sit there and put all my faith and devotion into the situation, be­lieving that the teacher is truly and highly motivated. That's a premise that I've accepted. I accepted it when I examined my teacher, and I assumed that at that point once I've accepted it, I need not be alert, but now I'm beginning to wonder. Since all the teachers, because they are physically manifest—at least this is the way I understand the teaching—are accomplished bodhi- sattvas; they are tulkus. But they are not beyond the eighth level, the eighth bhumi, because they are physi­cally manifest, then it would seem to me that there is some layer there where we could have a discrepancy not only in the bhumi, but also in the skill of the teacher in maintaining his motivation. So, it boils down to this: Can I, through my devotion to a teacher, be blindly led to vajra hell because the teacher has failed in his motivation, or would my own karma surface

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above such— and I don't think it's so abstruse a situa­tion—and lead me forward, and simply the teacher would experience his own karma. At what point does the samaya to the teacher, of the teacher to the student override the samaya of the student to the teacher? It seems to me it's a precarious situation.

A: That was a long question.

Q: So is hell.

A: What you say is perfectly true. It's entirely possible that a lama can make a mistake or can err in his or her judgment or his or her motivation and may fall into a lower level of motivation, perhaps even he or she may have a selfish motivation as opposed to an altruistic, or perhaps simply a Hinayana motivation as opposed to a Mahayana motivation. If you develop a connection with a teacher in the context of Mahayana or Vajrayana with a sense of faith and respect in the teacher and the teachings, maintain that sense of faith and respect for the connection that you have received in the Mahayana or Vajrayana and follow the lama’s instructions, then even if the lama errs, as long as you maintain your pure view of the positive qualities of that lama that allowed you to have that connection with the Mahayana and Vajrayana, you will not be influenced by what that teacher may commit as an error in his or her judgment.

Q: But if I fail, then I follow him blindly to hell.

A: Yes. Simply because you are responsible for your own karma vis a vis the teacher, not the teacher’s karma. If it is the teacher's karma that the teacher makes an error in judgment or falls from an ideal, that's

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the teacher’s problem. Your problem is how you relate to your connection with that teacher. That's all you can be responsible for and that's all in fact you are respon­sible for karmically. Now the same thing goes the other way. If you are going to assume that because a teacher makes a mistake you automatically suffer the conse­quences you would have to assume the other thing which is that if the teacher attains enlightenment you automatically attain enlightenment. That doesn't work either, because you are responsible for your own en­lightenment as well. From the Buddha Sakyamuni down to the present day, there have been any number of great mahasiddhas and great bodhisattvas who have attained high levels of realization, and any of us have had any amount of connection with such teachers through Dharma, but our realization does not automati­cally equal their realization simply because we have a connection. But based upon the connection, we have the potential to attain that same kind of realization. In the same way on the negative side, the fact that we have the connection with the teacher does not make us responsible for a teacher's potential mistakes, but what we are responsible for is our relationship to our con­nection with that teacher, valuing and honoring that connection because of what it has meant for us.

Q: What is the cause for phenomena arising in a bud- dha's mind? And what is perceiving that phenomena in a buddha's mind?

A: In terms of what actually manifests to a buddha’s awareness, we are somewhat limited in our language, in our ability to express this. This phrase, dakpa rab jam , this vast array of purity or this cosmic array of pu­rity that was referred to earlier is simply a way of indi­

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eating that just as we perceive things that are visible, hear things that are audible, experience mental events, there is an analogous process in the sense that what arises to a buddha’s perception is the expression of kaya or enlightened embodiment. What is heard by a buddha’s consciousness is the expression of enlight­ened speech, and what arises in the mind of a buddha is an expression of enlightened mind, just as on an ordi­nary level what we see is ordinary impure form, what we hear is ordinary impure sound and speech, and what we experience is ordinary impure emotions and thought patterns. There is an analogy here, but beyond that to try and say exactly what it is a buddha is seeing or hearing begs the question. Because when we are talking about a buddha, we are not just talking about a person or an individual, we are talking about the three kayas. The three kayas of buddhahood are dharmakaya, sambhogakaya and niimanakaya. Dharmakaya is form­less. There is no location or environment or embodi­ment or time frame to dharmakaya. It transcends all of those concepts, but the expression of dharmakaya in the perception of beings with highly purified percep­tions is that of what we term sambhogakaya. And in our own perceptions as impure beings, the expression of buddhahood, the dharmakaya buddhahood, is on the level of what we term niimanakaya. Had we been around in the time of Sakyamuni Buddha, we would have perceived this magnificent physical form marked with the thirty-two major and eighty minor marks of physical perfection with the wheels on the soles of the feet and the palms of the hands, the aura of golden light, and the mid-brow point—all of these amazing signs—on a physical level. But that still would have only been what we were capable of perceiving with our relatively impure perceptions. To say, 4Oh that’s

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buddhahood’ or ‘That's what a buddha is,’ is only a very small part of the picture. It's all that we would have been capable of perceiving directly with our lim­ited senses in that set of circumstances. If we take it from the sort of Mahayana point of view—the standard explanation—buddhahood pure and simple is dharma- kaya. It is formless realization about which ordinary concepts can't be used. We can’t say, ‘Oh it's like this or it's like that, or it's because of this or that.’ On the level that beings with a certain level of realization and purified perceptions are capable of perceiving buddha­hood or enlightenment, we speak of the sambhogakaya with its magnificent array or enlightened embodiment and pure realms. And on the physical level we speak of the nirmanakaya expression. But to then turn around and say, ‘Well, what does a buddha see?’ Well, we're talking about a much bigger picture than just a single individual with a set of eyes. We are speaking about a whole spectrum, if you will, of enlightened awareness and how it manifests in response to the perceptions of beings on various stages of the path.

Let me assure you from my own experience that I'm not going to satisfy your curiosity in a few words. It is something that requires a long process of using scriptural authority and your own reasoning and experience to come to an understanding. If you are confused at this point, I don’t blame you. I know how it feels. I've been through this process myself and I know that it takes a long time of working with scriptural authority, working with your own powers of reason and your own experience to come to anything like an un­derstanding of how the three kayas of buddhahood manifest. If you haven't got it this afternoon, don't worry. It is something that you will need to devote yourself to understanding.

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Q: I’m still thinking a little bit about the chocolate bar. We are supposed to be thinking about where a thought comes from, where it stays and where it goes. My two examples were trying to delineate that in some cases it looks like as if the thought comes from some place out­side. At other times, it's very clear that there’s no chocolate bar around; you want one, and you know it comes from the inside. So you know in this case it is somewhere coming from my mind and still where does it come from I don’t know. So I’m trying to get more at how do you distinguish, Rinpoche said it’s subject/ object. Alright, which comes first?

A: Maybe you should just never be around chocolate. That would be the easiest approach for you. You need to carry it one step further than your question implies. It’s not just a question of on a purely nominal and con­ventional level where the thought came from in terms of what triggered the thought, but following it back fur­ther. In either case, whether it’s dependent on an object of the chocolate bar that you have the thought or de­pendent on the idea of the chocolate bar that you have the thought, regardless of whether you follow it back to the object or the ideational consciousness thinking of the chocolate bar. You have to follow it back behind that and think, ‘Okay, where did either of those come from?’ Either the experience of the object of the choco­late bar that then produced the thought or the process of ideation that gave rise to the idea of the chocolate bar that then produced the thought, go back one step further and look at where any of that thought or experi­ence came from in the first place. The perception of the chocolate bar, where did that come from? As opposed to just the thought that arose on the perception of the

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chocolate bar, follow it back one step further.

Q: Then are you thinking about the thing outside or the thing inside? Because it's a subject and an object. Then, if you break it down the way you do your body or something like that, then maybe you discover the chocolate bar doesn't exist, but which do you do first?

A: In terms of which you felt first, if you have already come to the understanding of mind as the nominally inner, subjective agent experiencing the object, which has no ultimate validity, no ultimate existence, that it is groundless, without foundation, free from all elabora­tion, beyond all concepts, and that its nature really can't be proven to be this or that, then the object perceived by the mind is more or less taken care of. Whereas if you begin with the object, you still have to go to the level of mind. It’s probably more straightforward just to come back to the root principle, the fundamental prin­ciple of mind, which is responsible for the perception of the chocolate bar and all of samsara and nirvana in the first place. You remember there was the first stage of coming to the understanding of mind as the funda­mental principle that is responsible for all of our expe­rience of samsara, all of our experience of nirvana in a limited sense, all of our experience of buddhahood that transcends both of those extremes. All of that is rooted in mind. Follow it back to that, and then you don't really need to concern yourself with the object first and then the subject because you have already determined that mind is the fundamental or root principle to be ad­dressed in the first place.

Perhaps, we should just leave it at that. Per­haps, I jumped the gun a bit. I kind of gave you the an­swer from the back of the book. In Tibet, when I was

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taught this way by my teacher, all he did was say to people, ‘Go and examine your own minds. Tell me to­morrow morning what shape your mind is. Is it round? Is it square? Is it triangular? Is it flat? Tell me what color it is. Is it white, red, yellow, green, blue or what? Tell me what size it is. Tell me how it tastes. Tell me how it smells, tell me how it feels.’ He wouldn't say, ‘Oh, by the way, you’re not going to find anything be­cause it really doesn't have its own ultimate existence.’ He would say, ‘Go and find out what your mind is like, and tell me tomorrow morning.’ There would be a kind of quiz the next morning. You would come in and you would try to answer. He would say, ‘Okay, what color is your mind?’ You would try to give him some kind of answer based upon your experience. The point was not what's the correct answer. The point was to go through a process of examining the nature of your own mind. Perhaps, we should just leave it at that and ask people to examine their own minds and determine what is and is not the case about the nature of their own mind with­out giving the answers from the back of the book. You can go through the process of just examining your mind and dealing with these kinds quandaries— subject/object, that kind of thing. Just work with it, grapple with it, and see what comes out of it. Now let’s return to the commentary.

The style of practice that is known as trek chôd, the effortless approach for lazy practitioners, is one that is based upon specific instructions that derive from the great holders of intrinsic awareness who were the lineage holders of the Dzogchen path and who left as their legacy these various testaments and pithy ex­pressions of direct transmission instructions in order to guide the practitioner of trek chôd. We have such lega­c ies of in s tru c tio n s f ro m G a ra b D o rje , from M a n ju s -

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rimitra, Shri Singha, Yana Sutra, Padmasambhava, from all of the great holders of intrinsic awareness who constitute the lineage of the Dzogchen teachings in this world. The particular text that we are discussing is the so-called testament of Garab Doije, which is known in Tibetan by the title Tsig Sum Nei Dek, meaning The Three Verses That Strike the Key Points of trek chod practice.

In brief The Three Verses That Strike the Key Points are as follows. The first is known as direct in­troduction to your own true nature in all its immedi­acy. What that refers to is the experience of yeshe, the pristine awareness primordial wisdom that is inherently present as a natural attribute of the nature of mind. It is not something that needs to be sought elsewhere or cre­ated or manufactured in any way. Hence, the direct in­troduction that takes place on the level of this first line or first verse of Garab Dorje is a direct introduction to your own inherently indwelling pristine awareness without anything having to be sought or found else­where. You are not introduced to anything other than what is already inherently the nature of your mind. The second verse or line in Garab Doije’s testament speaks of coming to a decisive experience in the immediacy o f a single point o f reference, and this refers to the deci­sive experience of all of samsara and nirvana being the display that unfolds within the vast expanse of rigpa, of intrinsic awareness, with nothing falling out of the encompassing expanse of rigpa, of intrinsic awareness. To come to that decisive experience is what the second line is referring to, coming to a decision in the immedi­acy of that one point. The third line or third verse in Garab Doije's testament speaks of gaining confidence in the immediacy o f a state o f freedom. When one has come to that decisive experience of all of samsara and

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nirvana as a display that unfolds within the vast ex­panse of intrinsic awareness, then the arising of a thought or manifestation within that display is the free­ing of that thought within its own true nature. That is the indwelling confidence that one gains, that one is assured of, in the immediacy of that state of freedom. So those, very briefly, are The Three Verses That Strike the Key Points.

My comments will be based upon the commen­tary to these three lines composed by the great Patrul Rinpoche of the Dzogchen lineage. Patrul Rinpoche was recognized in his lifetime as a rebirth, as an em­bodiment of Shanti Deva, the great Indian Buddhist master, who authored among other texts the Bodhicha- ryavatara. It was Patrul Rinpoche in the last century, who composed one of the most famous commentaries on The Three Verses of Garab Doije.

The nature of this kind of teaching is such that I prefer to stick very closely to what Patrul Rinpoche discusses in his commentary without adding a lot of my own interpolation. I feel at this point that the profun­dity of the subject matter is such that any of my own comments or digressions would only obscure the pro­fundity of the teachings. So, I prefer to base my com­ments very, very closely on the text that Patrul Rinpo­che has composed. The other difficulty that might pres­ent itself is lack of adequate translation, but I feel con­fident that the translator has enough understanding and experience of this nature of teaching and discussion that the meaning you will be hearing in your own mind within the English language will be without error. So, do listen closely because the points that are being made in this text are all very crucial. There is no extraneous material at this point; it is very much to the point.

The text begins with the simple statement:

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Homage to the Guru. I pay homage to the guru. On this level of practice and teaching, the understanding is that the guru embodies all of the sources of refuge. The form of the guru is the Sangha, the speech of the guru is the Dharma, the mind of the guru is the Buddha. The form of the lama is the lama, the speech of the lama is the yidam or chosen deity, and the mind of the lama is the dakini. So, the lama is the embodiment of the Three Jewels, the Three Roots, the Three Kayas, all of the sources of refuge. In recognition of the central and cru­cial nature of the guru principle in this level of teach­ing, the text begins with the invocation: Homage to the Guru.

At this point, someone who is intent upon fol­lowing this path of Great Perfection needs to have ex­plained to him or her the view, meditation and conduct, the way that meditation is expressed in activity. What Patrul Rinpoche is attempting to do in this text, just as Garab Doije did, is to hit upon the key points and un­derline those key points in a way that makes them very practical to apply. In that case then, we begin with the fact that for the practitioner of the Great Perfection, the guru is the essential nature that unites all of the sources of refuge, the Three Jewels and the Three Roots. This is what the text brings up, beginning with this invoca­tion of homage to the lama. In order to show that re­spect or honor to the guru in the Dzogchen context, it is important that the individual practitioner have that attitude of recognizing, understanding, and appreciat­ing the fact that the guru is the union of all the sources of refuge within the Dzogchen context. That that is the crucial nature of the relationship with the guru. Above and beyond that, the point to which this part of the text is directing us is the fact that the nature of your own mind is such that it is inseparable from all of the root

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and lineage lamas—from all gurus whether they are your root teachers or the lineage teachers, the nature of their minds is inseparable from your own mind. That is a further implication in this Dzogchen context of pay­ing homage to the lama. It is not simply externally re­specting the guru, but also recognizing the inseparabil­ity of the nature of your own mind and the nature of the guru’s mind, and, in fact, the minds of the entire line­age of the gurus. That is the first point to be brought out with this simple invocation at the front of the text. It is not simply an external respect being shown to the guru, but a recognition of that inseparability.

The next line of the text by Garab Dorje states that the view is longchen rabjam, which of course we recognize as the name of a famous lama of the Ny- ingma lineage, but it also has a significance in itself Longchen refers to the vast expanse of the nature of being, and rabjam means the complete range or the en­tire range of that vast expanse. This is the view. How are we to understand this? The nature of basic space, of dharmadhatu, the basic space of phenomena, is such that there is a freedom from all conceptual elaborations of this or that, is or is not, good or bad—all of those conceptual elaborations. The true nature of reality, the true nature of all phenomena is such that there is this basic space free of all conceptual elaborations, which we may describe as this supremely vast expanse of be­ing. Within the context of that vast expanse of being, the entire range, the entire vast array of all the apparent phenomena of samsara and nirvana, all of these are perfect and complete. They are perfect and complete in a state of equality within that vast expanse. To realize the ultimate significance of that point is view. Hence, the view is longchen rabjam. The view is to understand that the vast anay of samsara and nirvana is perfectly

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complete within this expanse of the nature of being- itself.

Such a view is by its very nature free of any conceptual elaboration. When you are immersed in the view of the Great Perfection, you are not conceptualiz­ing about things as this or that or reifying the nature of reality as being something in and of itself. So, that as­pect of knowledge, of knowing this inherent nature that is free of all conceptual elaboration, is what we would term sherab, wisdom, transcendent knowledge or vipassana, penetrating insight, the deeper insight into the nature of reality. When through that experience of transcendent knowledge or penetrating insight, you as the practitioner have come to this definitive conclusion about the nature of reality, that emptiness of the basic space of phenomena is such that it is endowed with an innately compassionate quality. The realization of emp­tiness entails, as a matter of course, the experience of uncontrived and innate compassion. So, one is never separate from both the deeper insight into the nature of reality and the innately compassionate response to all beings that is automatically forthcoming, as a matter of course from that realization. The mind rests one- pointedly in that union of the calm abiding of the mind and penetrative insight—shamata and vipassana—the union of these two aspects of meditative experience. From the point of view of Dzogchen, beyond the recog­nition of view, the process of meditation is simply al­ways being immersed in and never separate from that experience of emptiness imbued with the essence of compassion. Garab Dorje refers to this in his text when he states: Meditation is the radiating quality o f wisdom and loving kindness. There is the wisdom, the knowl­edge, the knowing of emptiness, which is at the same time, imbued with the tone, if you will, of compassion.

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One imbued with that view and that approach in meditation—as a fledgling buddha—is referred to in the text as a seedling that will develop into a Victori­ous One. Therefore, you are a bodhisattva in the sense of being an embryonic buddha or a fledgling. For such an individual, the way meditation is translated into ac­tion is through the practical application of the Six Per­fections of the Mahayana path. Within the Dzogchen context that is the conduct, that is the way that the view and meditation are expressed in action. Garab Doije states that the conduct is that of a fledgling buddha, of a bodhisattva, who is enacting the Six Perfections of the Mahayana path, as an expression of that deep and profound view in meditation and Great Perfection.

In order to emphasize the fact that the individ­ual who arrives at such a recognition of view, who pur­sues such an approach in meditation and who expresses that realization through his or her actions as the con­duct of the Six Perfections, in order to emphasize the good fortune of that individual, Garab Doije refers in his root text to the practical application of all of this. Having identified view, meditation and conduct, the text states that in order to truly put this into living ex­perience, the fortunate individual proceeds as follows.

In order to apply this level of teaching and practice in an extremely effective manner, it is ideal if one is able to pursue a life in solitary retreat. One sim­ply leaves behind all one’s ordinary mundane activities and pursues this level of view, meditation and conduct one-pointedly. That is ideal if one is able to carry it out. The root text notes that if one is able to pursue the practice on that level of intensity, then one is able to gain freedom in this lifetime in the immediacy of this ground of being, this ground of original purity. In the immediacy of that, one is able to gain freedom. The

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root text states that in pursuing the practice, in putting this into practical application, in a single lifetime one can conceivably awaken to enlightenment. I want to add that the way the text is phrased here is that maybe you can awaken to enlightenment. It depends upon the student. It depends upon the diligence and perspicacity of the student, but it is possible for an individual to gain enlightenment, awaken to buddhahood, in a single lifetime through pursuing this path one-pointedly.

Even if you are not able to pursue this ideal life of practice in strict retreat, the text states that, as long as you have connection with the teachings, as long as your mind is at least on some level, however superfi­cial, involved with the principles of view, meditation and conduct in the Dzogchen or Great Perfection ap­proach, the understanding that you gain through simply continuing to pay attention to those principles is such that during this lifetime, you are able to deal with nega­tive circumstances and obstacles as they present them­selves. You are able to incorporate them into your path, this is what is known as carrying negative circum­stances on the path, transforming them into the fuel of your spiritual practice. You are also able to avoid giv­ing rise to a great deal of hope and fear about ordinary things on the mundane level—the hope and fear that continue to bind the mind to the cycle of samsara, to conditioned existence. Then, in future lifetimes, this connection of view, meditation and conduct in your mindstream assures that lifetime after lifetime your progress will be assured; your mind will attain to more and more evolved states so that in future lifetimes you come very quickly into contact with the teachings of the Great Perfection and continue to progress on that path. The root text states: In putting this into practical application it is possible that you may awaken to

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buddhahood in a single lifetime, but even i f you donft your mind is happy. How marvelous!

In the beginning of the root text and the com­mentary by Patrul Rinpoche there is this brief overview of the view, which is longchen rabjam, the entire vast range of the expanse; of the meditation, which is the rays of knowledge of wisdom and compassionate lov­ing kindness; and the conduct, which is the conduct of the fledgling buddha, the bodhisattva, the seedling who will grow into a fully enlightened buddha. Garab Doije and Patrul Rinpoche, in his commentary, have simply given brief overviews of the view, meditation and ac­tion. Next, Patrul Rinpoche in his commentary dis­cusses these three aspects in more detail.

We begin with the statement that the view is longchen rabjam, is this entire vast array of samsara and nirvana perfectly complete within the supremely vast expanse of being. Given that the text is known as The Three Verses That Strike the Key Points, this first key point is that of cutting through all of our confusion. The first key point that we hit upon is how to literally, sever the aorta o f our confusion. It’s just like draining it of all of its life force so that our confusion is no longer this self-perpetuating entanglement, but is com­pletely cut through. Its life force is severed, and it is no longer operating in our minds.

The first stage on this level of view is the di­rect pointing-out when you, the student, are directly introduced to what you have not recognized previously. In the ordinary approach, the dialectical vehicle of the ordinary Mahayana, you would use scriptural authority and your own powers of reasoning to come to an un­derstanding of the view of that particular approach. That is the accepted, time honored manner of arriving at an understanding of view in the ordinary dialectical

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vehicle. Through using these scriptural references and through using your own powers of reasoning, you come to some definitive understanding about what view con­stitutes. In the secret mantra path of Vajrayana, the pro­cess of abisheka or empowerment becomes paramount as a means of affecting this direct introduction of pointing-out the view of the Vajrayana. When you re­ceive the third empowerment of transcendent knowl­edge and pristine awareness, this level of empower­ment is designed to awaken in your mindstream what is termed literally the metaphor o f pristine awareness, the anticipation of, or glimpse of, pristine awareness. This is followed by the fourth empowerment which directly introduces you to the actual experience of pristine awareness. There are a number of different approaches that these vehicles—the dialectical vehicle and the ap­proach of the secret mantra path, the Vajrayana— employ in order to introduce the student either through scriptural authority and reasoning or through a process of empowerment. In this particular context, Patrul Rin- poche says, we are basing the whole idea of direct in­troduction, upon the practical methods developed by the practicing lineage of the masters of the Dzogchen tradition. Simply, one is introduced to the nature of mind as it is directly, not through reasoning about what that might be, but to what mind is in and of itself.

If the student's mind is very disturbed by ordi­nary discursive thoughts—by very rough or coarse, ob­vious patterns of discursive thinking that are like tur­bulent waves on the surface of the ocean, continually seeking after and attaching itself to objects in a subject/ object dualism—then even though the guru may at­tempt to directly introduce the nature of mind, the stu­dent will not recognize what is taking place. The stu­dent will not be able to grasp the significance of that

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direct introduction, and so the introduction will not be effective. First and foremost, there must be some atten­tion paid to these coarser aspects of discursive thinking in order to refine or weed them out, so that the mind is not so disturbed and so agitated. Hence, the root text of Garab Doije states: First and foremost allow your mind to simply settle in a relaxed manner. This is in order to prepare the ground, you might say, to create the context for that direct introduction to be as effective as possi­ble. Otherwise, the mind will be so disturbed and dis­tracted that the attempts by the guru to effect this direct introduction will not be effective and will not work. That is the particular approach that is adopted in Garab Dorje's text. First and foremost, for this direct intro­duction to take place, the mind of the student must be allowed simply to settle in a relaxed state of awareness without any particular disturbing influence due to grasping after this or that object.

To further create the context for this direct in­troduction to take place, the root text states: There is no proliferation o f thought nor is there any deliberate attempt to suppress thought, there simply is no thought. Now, this refers to the fact that from the Dzogchen point of view the true nature of your own mind as it is, completely uncontrived, without anything being done about it, that itself is yeshe, that is pristine awareness, primordial wisdom. That is pristine aware­ness of sheer clarity, sheer lucidity of mind. Any con­trived path, any attempt to use some contrived or delib­erate process to bring that about will not work. You will not truly realize the fundamental nature of your mind by trying to create some kind of state of aware­ness. Rather, what is necessary at this point for the di­rect introduction to your own intrinsic awareness to take place is that the approach be completely uncon­

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trived. The pristine awareness that is coemergent with being-itself is simply allowed to express itself, and is identified as simply being inherently indwelling in the nature of your own mind. That is why the text of Garab Doije states that there is no proliferation of thought. You don’t have to seek with your mind to think about something in order to make it happen. Nor, is there any deliberate attempt to suppress thought by reabsorbing all of those thoughts back into the mind and trying to implode on some level. It is simply not to entertain thought at all. There is no need to make any effort one way or the other in the proliferation of thought or the attempt to resolve thought back into the mind. Simply allow awareness to take place in a completely uncon­trived manner. Again, we are not at the level of direct introduction yet. This is simply setting the stage or cre­ating the context.

When a beginning practitioner attempts to al­low the mind to relax utterly in this uncontrived state of bare awareness, even though the student may make a genuine attempt to maintain that context of bare aware­ness, of simply allowing the mind to settle in and of itself without any contrivance, what tends to happen is that the student becomes caught up in all kinds of side issues. The student may even experience a state of such stability of mind that it in itself becomes very fascinat­ing. Or the person may experience a quality of bliss or a quality of lucidity of mind that is almost shocking in its vividness. Or it may be a state of non-conceptual awareness like some kind of trance state where the mind simply blanks out. Any and all of these are likely to crop up for beginning practitioners and to become in themselves sources of obsession, or fixation. The stu­dent may take them to be worthy goals in themselves and become lost or deeply immersed in those more su­

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perficial experiences, rather than the true actual experi­ence of resting the mind in an uncontrived way. The text points out this danger, saying that it is entirely pos­sible that a beginning practitioner may become lost in such side issues. Therefore, the root text states that when you are resting in the true nature, there is this danger that you may instead become distracted and ab­sorbed in one of the experiences of bliss, clarity, or non-conceptual awareness—any one of them can be­come a possible source of fascination and fixation and hence an obstacle.

This kind of obstacle that is likely to crop up for the beginning practitioner in which the student's mind becomes cocooned or enveloped in the absorbing experience of bliss, lucidity, or a non-conceptual trance-like state—this overlay makes it impossible for the student to directly confront rigpa, intrinsic aware­ness in all its nakedness. In order to reveal the funda­mental nature of reality in all its nakedness at that point, the root text states: Suddenly, sharply give the cry o f PHAT. Now, what this means is when you are meditating, when you are settling or attempting to sim­ply allow the mind to settle in this relaxed state but your mind has the tendency to become habituated to a certain kind of experience and fascinated with that, the way to cut through that is to simply, sharply cry out PH A T. The text emphasizes that you do this suddenly, almost impulsively in the sense that you don't think about it. It's not as though you are thinking that you are getting lost in the bliss and better say PHAT, because then you are using the contrived mind all over again. It has to be something very spontaneous, almost impul­sive as the mind begins to get just a little too comfy in some more mundane state of experience, you cut through that and return to that settling of the mind in

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its own true nature.On this note of the syllable PHAT that is ut­

tered at this point, the text states that it is an extremely valuable tool to cut through the momentum, the flow of discursive thought and also to dismantle or shatter the ordinary mental structures of the rational mind trying to create some deliberate process of meditation. That is why the syllable is recited very sharply almost with a cutting force to it—a very short, sharp utterance of the syllable PHAT. The text states: Suddenly, impulsively, utter the single syllable PHAT, forcefully, sharply. How marvelous! The text states that uttering PHAT sharply and forcefully cuts through the ordinary flow of discursive thought and even the process by which the ordinary rational mind creates or fabricates a process of meditation. It cuts through the contriving mind, the or­dinary rational consciousness, which figures out how to meditate— even that is cut through by the short, sharp force of that syllable.

With the skillful application of that syllable, that short, sharp utterance of the syllable PHAT, cutting through the ordinary flow of discursive thought, cutting through the fabrications of ordinaiy rational conscious­ness, at that point there is no fixed point of reference. There is no way in which you think, ‘Oh, so that means the nature of mind is just like this.’ There is simply the vivid experience in all its nakedness of the nature of mind, which is to say the level of freedom which sim­ply becomes evident at that moment. So, the root text states that there is nothing whatsoever, only this star­tling sense of wonder or astonishment. There is nothing to fix the mind upon, such as, it is this or it is that, or this is what the nature of mind is. There is simply that moment of instantaneous recognition; there is nothing else whatsoever, simply a state of wonderment or a

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state of astonishment. With the moment of wonder­ment or astonishment that comes with that direct recog­nition, without thinking about it through any process of the contrived ordinary mind, with that kind of recogni­tion, free from any fixed point of reference, there is the experience of dharmakaya. This is the pristine aware­ness of dharmakaya; within that context there is a very transparent and all-embracing quality to that experi­ence. There is no fixed point of reference; nevertheless there is a kind of transparent expansive, all-embracing quality. This is the experience of pristine awareness that goes beyond ordinary mind. It transcends the func­tions of ordinary mind and is always innately present as the actual nature of mind. The text states: In this aston­ished state o f wonderment, there is nevertheless this free, all-embracing, transparent quality.’

This state of transparent, all-embracing aware­ness that is not fixed upon any specific object is such that it goes beyond all of the ordinary limits that ordi­nary phenomena are subject to, such as origination, du­ration, location and cessation. It is not something that ever comes into being at any one point, where it isn’t one moment and it is the next. It does not cease to be at any moment, where it is at one point and isn't the next moment. You can’t say that it is something that exists nor can you deny the fact that the experience takes place. You can’t fall into any one of those traps of say­ing it is or it is not, or it is this or it is that, or it comes into being or it goes out of being. You can’t make any of those limited statements about the experience of free, all-embracing, transparent, penetrating awareness. It is beyond any means of describing it. You can't ade­quately describe it with your speech. You can’t ade­quately imagine it with your ordinary powers of imagi­nation, because it is the indwelling state of pristine

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awareness that goes beyond all of those verbalizations and intellectual concepts. Since the key point at this level of practice is that the innately indwelling state of pristine awareness is ineffable, indescribable, the root text states: In being free and all-embracing and trans­parent, it is ineffable, it is indescribable.

The significance of this key point is that what one experiences in that moment of astonishment, that moment of wonderment, is rigpa, intrinsic awareness. It is the indwelling ground of being. It is dharmakaya. For the practitioner on the path, the yogin, that is the view, the ultimate view of trek chôd, cutting through all which is seemingly solid and dense, and arriving at this experience of original purity. Until that single point is recognized and truly appreciated, no matter how much you try to meditate, no matter how much effort you make with your ordinary conceptual mind or ordinary consciousness to fabricate a process of medi­tation, you are as different from the practice of the Great Perfection as sky is from earth. When Tibetans say things are completely different, they say they are as different as sky and earth. So, if you try to make that experience happen, you are as far as you can be from the practice of the Great Perfection, which is the inher­ent nature of reality. To underline the importance of this key point: There is nothing to meditate upon in the ordinary sense of the word. There is nothing to think about or to cultivate in meditation, only the recognition of intrinsic awareness. Because of the importance of this point, the root text states in the imperative mode: Recognize the intrinsic awareness that is dharmakaya!

Of The Three Verses or Three Lines That Strike the Key Points, we have covered the first, which concerns the view. And so the significance of the pre­ceding discussion has been that of really striking at the

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key point of what constitutes view in the Great Perfec­tion approach, according to the direct transmission in­structions left by Garab Doije.

If this direct introduction through the experi­ence of view has not occurred for the student, then no meditation can proceed at that point, because medita­tion in the Dzogchen sense is simply maintaining rec­ognition of view. If you haven't had this direct recogni­tion or direct introduction to view, in the first place, what is there to maintain? Meditation becomes mean­ingless to discuss, until there has been that direct intro­duction on the level of view. ‘First and foremost,’ Pa- trul Rinpoche points out, ‘it is crucial that you, as the student, be directly introduced to the view of the Great Perfection.’ Only then can we begin to talk about meditation as the maintaining of that recognition, as the ongoing awareness or recognition of that view. The first key point to understand is that the recognition or the direct introduction that comes about on the level of view is paramount.

Again, remember the context that what you are being directly introduced to is your own inherently in­dwelling pristine awareness—the pristine awareness that is already inherently indwelling as the nature of your mind. That is what you are being directly intro­duced to, nothing more, nothing else. You are not be­ing introduced to anything outside or anything other than what is already the nature of your own mind. It is also not the case that you are experiencing the awaken­ing in your mindstream of something that didn’t exist before, like some new thought or some new experience that has suddenly come into being. All that is taking place is that you are finally recognizing what has al­ways, primordially been the case. It has always been the case that the true nature of your mind is dharma-

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kaya—awakened enlightened awareness, intrinsic awareness. You simply haven't recognized it up to this point. At this point of the direct introduction through view, you as the practitioner recognize that. And so, the conclusion of the first stanza of Garab Doije's text is that direct introduction to your own true nature oc­curs in the immediacy of your own true nature and no­where else.

Just to summarize at this point: When the text states that this direct introduction occurs in the imme­diacy of the true nature of your own mind, what is be­ing emphasized or what is being implied by that state­ment is that the experience is nothing other than the true nature of mind as it is. It is not what you might think about it, nor how you might try to describe it, but the true experience that goes beyond all of these ver­balizations and intellectual concepts. We might say on the one hand in attempting to get a handle on this level of experience, that it is ineffable, that it is inconceiv­able, that it is unimaginable—we can use all of these negatives. Or we can describe it in a more positive way and say it is this free, transparent, all-embracing aware­ness, but we are really just beating around the bush. Suffice it to say that the view of Dzogchen is recogni­tion of the pristine awareness of dharmakaya that has always been inherently present as a natural attribute of the nature of mind. It is the nature of mind and always has been. You must understand that beyond the level of simply thinking, ‘Yeah, that's probably so,’ or ‘That's a nice idea, that's a wonderful thing.’ Really under­standing it and recognizing it to be so, that is view. That is the view of Dzogchen. To talk about it on any more elaborate level and try and describe it in any other way is beyond the point. Can we try to conceptu­alize and try to create something that is this or that?

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Can we say that the view of Dzogchen is like this, like that, red, white, blue, yellow, big, or small? If we try to conceptualize about it in any way, we miss the point, and we will never realize the view of Great Perfection. It is simply the experience of what is the inherent at­tribute or nature of your own mind—nothing more than that and nothing less. Beyond that, very little can be said about it.

We have covered the first of The Three Verses of Garab Doije, which deals with view and is referred to as the direct introduction taking place within the im­mediacy of one's own true nature, the true nature of one’s own mind.

So you might think to yourself, ‘Well is that sufficient to have direct introduction to this view of free, transparent, all-embracing, objectless aware­ness—that's it, right?’ Not quite. That’s not sufficient. After the initial recognition you must maintain that rec­ognition, which is what we mean by meditation in this context.

Now, when we talk about the means by which one practices meditation in the Dzogchen or Great Per­fection context, what this amounts to is an ongoing presence, an ongoing flow, if you will, of settling in this true nature of mind. You simply maintain that rec­ognition, moment by moment, in an ongoing manner so that in all situations, under all circumstances, and at all times there is this presence, the awareness or recogni­tion of the true nature of mind. You don’t lose track of that or lose sight of that under any circumstance. Other than that, there is nothing to be deliberately achieved, nor anything to be deliberately blocked or prevented from happening, only the maintaining of that ongoing awareness of confronting what is termed seeing the true face o f dharmakaya. When the mind is at rest, you

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are beholding the true face of dharmakaya; when the mind is experiencing the proliferation of thought, one again maintains that awareness, understanding this to be simply the inherent dynamic energy of pristine awareness expressing itself. And so the root text of Ga- rab Doije states: From the point at which direct recog­nition o f view takes place, it does not matter whether thoughts proliferate or the mind is at rest, because there is an ongoing recognition under all circum­stances.

Regardless of whether the mind is at rest or the mind is in motion so to speak, whether it is experienc­ing a proliferation of thought, this is simply the dy­namic energy of pristine awareness expressing itself. Now, on the ordinary level of the way we experience thoughts as concrete things in and of themselves, this dynamic energy is experienced as afflictive emotions, such as anger or desire or pride. These constitute what the Buddha referred to in the Four Noble Truths, as the truth of the origin of suffering, the afflictive emotional­ity in our minds that is responsible for the suffering that we feel. As well, we experience on the ordinary level various states of happiness or unhappiness, pleas­ure or pain due to certain circumstances, which consti­tute the noble truth of suffering itself, the afflictive emotionality being the truth of the origin of suffering. The truth of the origin of suffering and the results of that afflictive emotionality are the actual states of ordi­nary pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, happiness and sadness that we experience, as part and parcel of the truth of suffering. But in this particular context the in­herent nature of such thoughts, emotions and feelings is recognized as dharmata-itself, the true nature of real- ity-itself. At that point, this display of happiness and sadness, of joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain—these

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afflictive emotions of attachment, aversion—become what is termed the vast phantasmagoria o f dharma- kaya. They are just the vast magical display of dhar- makaya. The text states that whether you are angry, whether you are desirous, whether you are happy, whether you are sad, the recognition is maintained. All of these factors, all of these elements of one’s experi­ence are nothing more than the dynamic energy of this true nature of reality. That is the true nature of mind expressing itself. Whatever arises is only part of this phantasmagoria that is the expression of this dynamic energy of intrinsic awareness. All of these elements of experience are subsumed within the vast expanse of a single pristine awareness, not as separate and discrete entities that are in any way separate from that vast ex­panse of intrinsic awareness. Hence, the root text states: Whether you are angry, whether you are desir­ous, whether you are happy, whether you are sad— under any o f these circumstances—that recognition is maintained.

To further emphasize this point, the root text goes on to state that at all times and under all circum­stances, because, of course, even though you have gained this direct introduction to view in a general sense, if you don’t then meditate—and again under­stand the significance of that word in this context—if you don’t maintain that recognition at all times and un­der all circumstances, you quickly become lost in your own confusion again. You lose that recognition and become immersed in the nexus of confusion that just draws you into its snare and holds you there. Then, your mind quickly reverts to a very ordinary, very mun­dane level of functioning. Thoughts begin to take on a life of their own as though they were things in and of themselves, and you find yourself bound in cyclic exis­

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tence again. The teachings that you have received and your own mindstream become further and further apart from one another, and you end up just an ordinary per­son again. That moment of recognition isn't enough. It must be maintained, which is what we mean by medita­tion in this context.

To guard against this danger of just becoming a very ordinary person again who has no spiritual prac­tice despite that moment of significant recognition, it is important to meditate. But the way in which meditation is described here is as the supreme state of settling in the true nature of mind that is not meditation at all. The text states, because it is necessary never to be separate from that, it is something that is maintained at all times under all circumstances. The reason why the phrase, supreme settling in the true nature o f mind that is not meditation, is used is because in the Dzogchen ap­proach of trek chod, of cutting through what is seem­ingly solid and dense, in that approach there is no de­liberate attempt to be made to meditate about some­thing or to generate or cultivate a certain state of mind in a particular way with a deliberate approach. It is not something that the ordinary rational mind is supposed to figure out. It is simply allowing the mind to settle in its own true nature in that supreme state that is beyond ordinary rational mind. Hence, it is termed the medita­tion that is no meditation. You are not meditating on something in a contrived way but simply maintaining recognition by settling in that true nature.

With this kind of approach, then, whether your mind is at rest or whether your mind is moving in the sense of experiencing the proliferation of thoughts and emotions and so forth, in any circumstance at any time, regardless of what arises—perhaps, it is an afflictive emotion, a thought of anger or a thought of desire or a

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thought of pride or ignorance, perhaps it is a specific thought about this or that—in the ordinary dialectical approach, you would deal with these specific issues with specific antidotes. If the thought of anger arises, there is a specific antidote that you select and apply in order to overcome or deal with that problem of that thought of anger. If there's a thought of desire, there's another antidote. If it’s a specific kind of discursive thinking, there’s another antidote. There are specific tools or antidotes that are used as techniques in the dia­lectical approach.

In the Great Perfection approach of trek chod practice the only antidote that is needed is recognizing that view, which was previously recognized at the mo­ment of the direct introduction to the view that took place, and just holding to that recognition. That alone is sufficient. This is termed the cure, the antidote that will suffice under any circumstances. You don’t need to approach your meditation the way you would in the dialectical approach where it would be perfectly valid to say, ‘Okay, I am practicing this kind of meditation and when this kind of thought comes up, I use this kind of antidote to deal with it.’ You don’t have a palette of antidotes to select from. In this particular case, you have the single antidote that is sufficient under all cir­cumstances, which is simply that of maintaining the recognition of view, the recognition that took place at that moment of direct introduction. Once that recogni­tion has taken place, the only task—the only tech­nique—is maintaining that recognition. There is no antidote or supportive technique in Dzogchen that is not subsumed within that single act of maintaining rec­ognition. At this point, the text states: At all times and in all circumstances, maintain recognition, the recog­nition o f dharmakaya.

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Regardless of the particular content of the thought that arises in the mind, regardless of the par­ticular afflictive emotion that may arise, none of this is separate from or other than the pristine awareness of dharmakaya. It is simply a distorted expression of the dynamic energy of that pristine awareness, distorted in the way you perceive it. It is nothing more than the dy­namic energy of that pristine awareness of dharmakaya manifesting. If you recognize the inherent nature of these discursive thoughts and these emotions is the ac­tual sheer clarity of dharmakaya, nothing less, nothing more, that recognition is metaphorically known as the mother aspect o f sheer clarity. It is the indwelling ground of being. Previously—and this is speaking of someone who is on this stage of the path at this point— when one's guru directly introduced one to one's own self-cognizing, intrinsic awareness, to the view of sheer clarity and one recognized that, that is termed the prac­tical experience o f sheer clarity. That in the context of the spiritual path is termed the child aspect o f sheer clarity. In the experience of settling in the true nature of mind, there is what is termed metaphorically the re­union o f mother and child, or the meeting of mother and child, in which the ground aspect of the inherently indwelling ground of being as sheer clarity and the practical experience of that in the context of your path, the child aspect, are realized as being inseparable. You cannot separate one from the other except in a most conventional or nominal sense. When you realize the utter inseparability of the mother and child aspect, this is what is termed as the reunion o f the mother and child o f sheer clarity. The root text states: What has previously become familiar results in the meeting o f the mother and child o f sheer clarity. And that's how that term is to be understood—the meeting of mother

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and child, or the reunion of mother and child.A key point to emphasize is that in ideal cir­

cumstances, when the practitioner is never separate from that recognition and is always in touch with that recognition of view as the true nature of his or her own mind, with that kind of mindfulness, that practitioner always remains within that context of that recognition. So, in regard to the thoughts and emotions that arise as the dynamic energy of that intrinsic awareness, nothing more need be done. There is no specific attempt that is necessary to block those thoughts from happening or to encourage and indulge them or to make any moral choice whatsoever in one’s own mind. One need not think, ‘Oh I shouldn’t think this, I should think that.’ They are all recognized for what they truly are, simply the expression of this dynamic energy of intrinsic awareness. This then is a very crucial point: The recog­nition alone suffices as the antidote, as the means of dealing with the thoughts and emotions that arise. If one holds to that authentic recognition, that alone con­stitutes the antidote. The root text in this regard states: Simply settle in the context o f ineffable intrinsic aware­ness.

Just to recap then, we've already covered the view of Dzogchen, the recognition of one’s own inher­ently indwelling pristine awareness. Now, we are deal­ing with the stage of meditation, of how one maintains that recognition.

When you are maintaining this recognition over a period of time, for a beginning meditator there is the tendency of certain experiences of a particular na­ture to arise and become the focus of the practice. Per­haps, it is an experience of bliss, perhaps an experience of incredible mental clarity or lucidity, or an experi­ence of non-conceptual awareness where mind just

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coasts without any particular thought going on but just a kind of trance-like state arises. The trouble with these ephemeral meditative experiences is that they are an obscuring overlay. They obscure your ability to per­ceive your own true face, and they become unfortu­nately the point or the focus of your meditation.

What is necessary is to continually break through to the experience of rigpa, of intrinsic aware­ness in all its nakedness, without this overlay of medi­tative experience getting in the way, so that this inher­ently indwelling quality of yeshe, primordial wisdom, pristine awareness, becomes clear in the sense of being elicited. It emerges from within so to speak. There is a saying in the Tibetan tradition that as much as a yogin can destroy his or her meditation, so much the better. Just as when water falls from a great height, the more it smashes against the rocks on its way down the better the quality of water at the bottom.

The point of destroying meditation in the sense of continually bursting through or cutting through that shell, that obscuring overlay of experiences of bliss or clarity or non-conceptual awareness, is to arrive at the direct experience of intrinsic awareness in all its na­kedness. Otherwise, by getting caught up in one of these meditative experiences and focusing upon that, as a beginning meditator, you may make the fundamental error of thinking you have arrived at some worthy goal, and you remain stuck there. Some of these experiences are of an extremely positive nature. You have an expe­rience of enormous mental and physical well-being—a blissful, ebullient quality where you just feel wonder­ful. Then you think, ‘Oh this is the point of meditation, this is what it is all about.’ You become fixated upon perpetuating that experience of physical or mental bliss. Or you may experience, even as a beginning

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meditator, incredibly vivid states of mental clarity where it seems as though you can see through walls and through mountains, You know what is going on miles away without anything obstructing your aware­ness. You have the ability to be aware of very distant events, almost like a clairaudient. It's almost as though you can see right through things in a very penetrating and clear way. Or you may experience states of non- conceptual awareness where you might meditate for a week, and seems as if during that whole week you've barely had a thought. Your mind has just been on a completely even keel without a single ripple of thought. As wonderful as these experiences are they are only signposts. They are simply an indication that you are on the path. They are in no way to be taken as goals in themselves, or as states of mind that you want to maintain or hold onto or create. Therein lies the problem, not the fact that you have the experience, but the fact that you cling to it, that you grasp at it, fixate upon it and try to perpetuate it in, perhaps, even a very subtle way. Because these experiences cloud or ob­scure the true nature of mind, according to Patrul Rin- poche, it is necessary to burst through this shell or co­coon of meditative experience. You must burst through to the true experience of rigpa, intrinsic awareness in all of its nakedness. Just as the water improves by smashing itself on the rocks on the way down the val­ley, so the yogin’s meditation improves as that yogin cuts through all of those experiences as they arise, re­fusing to become fixated upon them, but continually cutting through to that experience of intrinsic aware­ness, stripped of all conceptions and overlays. That is what is meant by the yogin destroying his or her medi­tation, not in a nihilistic sense or an anarchistic sense, but in the sense of cutting through that tendency of the

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mind to concretize a certain experience and think of that as the goal.

For this reason, the root text of Garab Doije states that you must destroy, again and again, states of mental stagnation, of bliss, of lucidity or clarity, of ebullience, any of these qualities, or meditative experi­ences that develop must be destroyed—again and again and again. Now, if ypu wonder how to go about this, imagine that you are experiencing a particular state of meditative experience. Imagine that your mind seems extremely stable, tranquil, almost stagnant or that your mind or your body feels very blissful, very happy, very wonderful. Imagine that you have an experience of mental clarity or you have just a sense of almost effer­vescent, ebullient joy when you are meditating, so that you kind of bubble over with this sense of joy or be­come very blissed out and everything appears just ab­solutely wonderful. You are totally fascinated with all of these wonderful appearances that are manifesting when you meditate.

When this kind of temporary meditative expe­rience begins to capture your attention, recall earlier what Patrul Rinpoche said in his commentary of the syllable PHAT as the means of cutting through. Here he refers to this again, and he gives an interesting etymol­ogy. The PHA of the PHAT syllable is the syllable of skillful means, which consolidates. So, as your mind begins to scatter and get lost in these qualities, it is that syllable that embodies that energy of consolidating. Then the T on the PHAT, the sharp consonant at the end is the cutting through. And that is the syllable of wisdom—skillful means and transcendent knowledge.. You collect the mind in a sense. You bring it back from this scattered quality, cut through the fixation to that particular experience, and again burst through into that

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experience of intrinsic awareness in all of its naked­ness. The root text states that by using the syllables of skillful means and transcendent knowledge—and that’s the cryptic reference to the syllable PHAT—using this, you literally come down suddenly on that particular experience. In a sense, you pounce on that experience by cutting through the tendency to become fixated in bliss or in clarity or whatever.

In one of the venerable Milarepa's Songs o f Re­alization, he refers to the syllable PHAT on the outer, inner and secret levels of significance. The outer sig­nificance or function of the syllable PHAT is that of drawing the mind back into the sense of focus in medi­tation after it has been scattered and wandered off to various objects of desire or attachment or interest. The inner significance of the syllable PHAT is to cut through the more inner problems. Above and beyond outer distraction, there are the inner problems of laxity or agitation that arise in meditation, when your mind becomes extremely dull or torpid or becomes overly agitated without necessarily being focused on any outer object; it begins to just have that energy and be very agitated and very tense and wild. So, cutting through that syndrome of laxity and agitation is the inner sig­nificance. The secret significance of the syllable PHAT is that of settling one-pointedly within the context of the fundamental nature of reality and simply remaining within that context. And so Milarepa said, T am the yogin who understands and utilizes all three meanings of P H A T He, in one of his Songs o f Realization ap­plied this technique, if you will, or this approach to these three different levels of experience.

When you are practicing in such a way that you are never separate from that key point, from this ineffa­ble state of transparent all-embracing intrinsic aware­

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ness, such that you maintain recognition of that in all circumstances, under all conditions and at all times, no arbitrary division is made between formal meditative practice and post-meditation activity. The root text states: There is no division between formal meditative equipoise and post-meditational acts. This simply un­derlines the fact that this approach in meditation is not one in which there is a specific technique that you em­ploy when you are sitting on the cushion and another technique or approach that you try to be mindful of when you are moving through your daily activities and the post-meditation awareness. Rather, the single key point of maintaining recognition of rigpa in all its na­kedness is, if you will, a technique that is to be main­tained in all circumstances, whether it is formal prac­tice or post-meditation activities. There is no distinc­tion to be made. Any distinction that you try to make at that level is completely arbitrary and meaningless. For that reason, the essential quality of the meditation that you cultivate during the formal session and the kind of meditation that you maintain in post-meditation is not separate and distinct. There are not two techniques to use. The root text continues: There is no distinction between a formal session and the breaks between the sessions. This merely emphasizes the same point in a different way. There is no other technique to pick up when you leave the cushion other than maintaining on­going recognition of intrinsic awareness.

What is being addressed here is the supreme kind of meditation that is no meditation at all in the lit­eral sense of the word. It is one's own inherently in­dwelling pristine awareness that is uniformly the same throughout all situations without specific states of mind having to be applied in specific situations. It is the ongoing flow of yoga, of yogic experience in which

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there is not the hair’s tip of anything to meditate upon. Yet, at the same time there is not a single instant of dis­traction from that ongoing recognition. As Guru Rinpo- che states, at one point, ‘There is no experience of meditation, but no experience of being separate from that recognition.’ This is not meditation in the ordinary sense. One is never separate from the ultimate signifi­cance of what it means to not meditate. Now, of course, this has to be understood not in a literal sense. To say that there’s no meditation doesn’t mean that there’s nothing happening. What it means is there is not a specific technique, there is no specific method of deliberately trying to be aware of something so much as simply maintaining that ongoing recognition. Hence, there is no meditation. But this is the supreme medita­tion that is no meditation, because there is constant recognition taking place in every moment. One’s own inherently, indwelling pristine awareness is always evi­dent, is ever present in every moment like an ongoing flow. From moment to moment there is no break in the recognition. But as he is careful to point out, nowhere is there a sense of some specific thing that you are sup­posed to be thinking, in terms of meditating on this or that. At the same time, there is not even an instant in which your mind wavers from that recognition. That is what Guru Rinpoche, Padmasambhava, is stating when he said that there is no experience of meditation, yet no experience of separation, of being divorced from that recognition. One is never separate from the ultimate significance of not meditating in the ordinary sense. In order to underline this, the root text of Garab Doije states: Remain continually in the context o f insepara­bility. In this there is never any separation of you as the meditator from rigpa, from your recognition of in­tr in sic aw a re n ess .

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If one is an individual who is a suitable recipi­ent of these teachings of this path that is particular to the Great Perfection approach that is the inherent na­ture of everything, and is of the very highest level of acumen, then one's awareness is capable of making quantum leaps. If you are a person of that type, such as Guru Rinpoche or King Indrabhuti, then there is per­haps no need for you to go through any kind of formal process of meditating. The introduction is that which triggers realization, and you are freed in the supreme freedom of the ground of being, both its apparent as­pect as phenomena and the subjective aspect of mind experiencing this phenomena. One is freed in the su­preme freedom of that ground of being so that what­ever arises is instantaneously perceived to be the vast phantasmagoria of dharmakaya—the dynamic energy of dharmakaya displaying itself For a person of that nature, who has that instantaneous leap, there is no question of something to meditate upon and someone to do something about that, because that leap has been made. So, if you are an individual of that kind, fine. But if you are like the vast majority of people, you must approach it in a developmental way. So, the prac­tice of meditation is one of continually maintaining the recognition to the extent of your abilities. As you will fail in continuing to maintain the recognition, it is a process that must be followed, because as one of these developmental people, who doesn't have the good for­tune to be able to make these quantum leaps, your mind is continually inclined to fall under the seemingly external influences of your ordinary discursive thought patterns about sense objects, ideas and so forth. Until you have gained real stability in that recognition, you need to attempt it again and again and again. The root text states that until stability is reached—meaning if

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you are not a person who cannot make those quantum leaps of understanding and realization—then you have to be practical by approaching it in a methodical way, attempting to maintain recognition in all situations to the best of your ability and continuing to improve that ability to maintain recognition.

Given that one is not an instantaneous person, who can make these quantum leaps, but must approach it in a more developmental way, it is important to ar­range the circumstances in your life so that they are supportive to your attempts to cultivate meditative sta­bility. If these supportive factors are not in place, you will find that you expend a great deal of effort and time without any sign of true meditative experience and true realization awakening in your mindstream. So, as much as you are able to avoid enmeshing yourself in business and distraction in your life, that much you are assuring yourself the best possible circumstances under which to gain true meditative insight. The root text states: It is crucial or ideal to meditate by avoiding or renouncing busyness. Busyness is a generic term for all kinds of distraction and factors in your life that rob your atten­tion from your practice. This is why people follow the tradition of going into retreat in isolated or solitary places because there is less of a chance of the mind be­ing robbed of its attention through distraction to other objects or distraction to all kinds of worries, ideas, is­sues and so forth. If one is in as restricted an environ­ment as possible, then one has a very supportive envi­ronment for the pursuit of meditation.

Furthermore on a practical level, when as a beginning meditator you are pursuing this approach in meditation, even though it is true to say that there is ultimately no distinction to be made between aware­ness gained in formal meditation and post-meditation,

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practically speaking, until you have really literally taken some stance in formal meditation, you don’t have any frame of reference to apply to post-meditation awareness. The danger, as a beginning meditator, is in accepting too quickly the idea that there is no distinc­tion between what goes on in formal meditation and what goes on in post-meditation. You can become lost in the plethora of distractions and very subtle states of confusion that proliferate in post-meditation awareness without first having taken your stance in formal prac­tice, which then can flow into post-meditation aware­ness.

The root text says: You should pursue a formal practice, dividing your time into formal meditations sessions. This means that, while it may be very well and true to say that there is no distinction to be made ultimately between the pristine awareness that you maintain during formal meditation practice and the rec­ognition of that which is maintained in post-meditation awareness, let us be realistic. When you are beginning your practice, you have to have some perspective from which to say that and to experience that statement. First, you have to develop some sense in formal prac­tice of the stance, if you will—the place that you arrive at in formal meditation. That recognition is then main­tained in post-meditation activities. Until you have some stable experience of trek chod, cutting through what is seemingly solid and dense and arriving at that recognition of rigpa in formal meditation, it is unrealis­tic to expect that in ordinary, everyday activity you are going to be able to experience what is ultimately the case—that there really is no distinction between formal meditative awareness and post-meditation awareness. But to arrive at that, you have to begin with a formal practice.

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By establishing a schedule of formal medita­tive practice with specific sessions that are devoted to formal practice of meditation, you gain a perspective. As your mind settles in formal meditative equipoise, you gain a perspective of what it is that you are main­taining both in formal meditation and in post­meditation. But you still have to be able to carry that perspective from the formal state of sitting in medita­tion to your post-meditation awareness. Otherwise, you are not able to blend the meditation that you discover in formal meditation with your daily activities. You are not going to be equal to the challenge of maintaining that awareness. You are going to find that ordinary thoughts just lead you astray and that things go very well only as long as you are sitting on the cushion. Then, as soon as you stand up and walk out of the door and become involved in your ordinary thought patterns, they start leading you off in all directions, and you end up in a very ordinary state of mind again. So, it is ex­tremely important to maintain this transparent, free and all embracing state of awareness that you experience in formal practice as an ongoing subsequent state of rec­ognition in post-meditation awareness. That is why the root text states that it is something that ideally you come to apply at all times and under all circumstances, having first gained some awareness of it in formal meditation.

Now, under all circumstances and at all times, it is not as though there is anything other than this rec­ognition that you need to be seeking. It is not as though there is any specific technique or any specific thing you should be meditating about or meditating upon. Rather, this view of dharmakaya that you experience in formal meditative equipoise is something that is simply to be maintained. There is no gimmick other than that; there

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is no trick to it. You simply maintain that recognition, such that you are never separate from that self same view that is experienced in formal meditative equi­poise. In all activities, when all thoughts arise in the mind, you maintain in such a way that you do not sup­press any of those thoughts, you do not indulge in or encourage or give energy to any of those thoughts. You simply hold to that recognition. The root text states: At all times and under all circumstances, main­tain your awareness o f the phantasmagoria o f what is the single state o f dharmakaya. Everything you en­counter in post-meditation is simply an expression of that vast magical display of dharmakaya. Maintain that single point of recognition.

This approach of practically applying the prin­ciples of meditation is a means of integrating shamata and vipassana, the calm abiding quality of mind and the penetrative insight into the nature of mind and of all reality. This genuine state of yogic experience is un­contrived awareness that is coemergent with being- itself. It is free of all conceptual elaborations. Not in any clumsy or deliberate sense, but simply maintain recognition, hold to the recognition of one's own true nature; that is the true nature of reality, the true nature of mind-itself.

This recognition and the maintaining of this recognition is the very essence of all the practices asso­ciated with all of the classes of tantra in the entire se­cret mantra path of Vajrayana. This is the ultimate pris­tine awareness that the fourth empowerment is pointing out. This is the special teaching that is the wish- fulfilling gem of the practicing lineages. This is the unblemished enlightened intent of all the great masters and siddhas of India and Tibet, of the old schools and the new schools. But you must come to that decision in

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your own experience as the practitioner. Then, as the text indicates, you don't go drooling after other teach­ings. You don’t think to yourself, ‘Well, this is nice, but I bet there is something better elsewhere.’ That is just the same, as if you were eating in a restaurant and somebody at the next table ordered some food that looked even better, and you found yourself drooling over their plate. When you come to the decision in your mind that you know that you have found the very essence of all of the practices of all of the classes of tantra of all of the secret mantra path of Vajrayana, that you have found the ultimate pristine awareness that the fourth empowerment introduces you to in Vajrayana, that you have found the wish-fulfilling gem of the prac­ticing lineages and the unblemished, enlightened intent of all of the great siddhas and masters of all of the schools of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, there is no need to go hankering after anything else. What you have is totally sufficient, it is all you need. But if you do not have that kind of certainty in your mind, then you are like the elephant keeper, who locks the ele­phant in the stable and then goes looking in the forest for the elephant while the elephant is already in the sta­ble. Once you have come to that decision, you don't need to look anywhere else for the elephant, you know where the elephant is. You need that same kind of cer­tainty in your mind, but there is nothing to seek out or seek for in your meditation. That single point is en­tirely sufficient. You come to the decision that it is en­tirely sufficient and you simply remain with that single point of maintaining recognition of rigpa, of intrinsic awareness. In recognizing that and in coming to that decisive experience, you know without hesitation that you are focusing on the essence of all tantric practice. You are focusing upon the ultimate point of the fourth

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empowerment. You are focusing upon the most special teaching that is the wish-fulfilling gem of all of the practicing lineages. But if you adopt the approach of the elephant tamer, who locks the elephant in the stable and then goes looking elsewhere, you will never find the elephant. You will never satisfy yourself, and you will never find what you are looking for. If you con­tinually seek with the ordinary rational mind, trying to figure out something even more intricate, more pro­found and more special, that must be here or must be there, you become caught in this web of contrived and confused thinking. There is no point at which you will find freedom within that. You must come to that deci­sion in your own mind about your own practice. That is the single crucial point. The root text states: You must come to the decision within yourself that there is nothing other than that.

This naked pristine awareness, this inherently indwelling awareness that is the dharmakaya, is the awakened state of buddha nature that has never known any confusion and is by its very nature pure and un­adulterated. Coming to the decision about that and sim­ply maintaining the ongoing awareness of that is the second key point that Garab Dorje’s testament ad­dresses. To emphasize the importance of it, the root text of Garab Doije sums up at this point: The second key point is coming to a decision in the immediacy o f that single point o f naked, intrinsic awareness and maintaining recognition o f that in all circumstances. That is the decision that you arrive at in the immediacy of that single point.

Just to recap briefly: What is being discussed is a one-pointedness, but not in a contrived or deliber­ate sense of concentration, but simply through the rec­ognition and the conviction in the mind of the practi­

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tioner that all phenomenon of samsara and nirvana, arises as nothing other than the dynamic energy of in­trinsic awareness, that and nothing more. The opportu­nity for freedom to occur arises simply with the ongo­ing recognition of that point. All of samsara and nir­vana is not just believed or assumed to be, but is un­derstood with conviction to be nothing other than the dynamic energy of one's own intrinsic awareness aris­ing in that particular manifestation. That is the kind of decision that is being talked about here. One comes to that unswerving decision in the immediacy of that sin­gle point.

Of Garab Dorje’s Three Verses that Strike the Key Points of Dzogchen, of the Great Perfection, we have covered the first two— the first being the direct introduction to one's own true nature that takes place in the immediacy of that true nature, and secondly, com­ing to that decision in the immediacy of that single point that all of samsara and nirvana is none other than the display of the dynamic energy of intrinsic aware­ness.

Now, we come to the third point, which is the gaining of a deep, indwelling confidence in the imme­diacy of the freedom that this recognition results in so that one experiences everything as the dynamic energy of dharmakaya, the dynamic energy of rigpa, intrinsic awareness. All that arises, all attachment, all aversion, all thought in motion, are decisively experienced to be none other than the dynamic energy of intrinsic aware­ness, this leads to the third key point. This deep, in­dwelling confidence that you arrive at in the immedi­acy of that state of freedom that results from the recog­nition that all that arises as the display of the dharma- kaya is freed in the dharmakaya.

Once, one has had a direct introduction to

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one's own true nature in all its immediacy and from that has arrived at that decisive experience in the im­mediacy of that single pivotal point, at this point, if you do not have that deep, indwelling confidence of appre­ciating how that brings a state of freedom, then your meditation is simply, in a certain sense, kind of taking a breather—your mind just relaxes or rests for awhile. You maintain recognition, but somehow it doesn't lead beyond that to any significant outcome. You really haven't yet arrived at a level of meditation that takes you beyond the higher realms of cyclic existence, the form and formless realms. So, you are not really equal to all circumstances that invoke your attachment or aversion. You haven't really cut through the continuity of karma or the causes that lead to specific effects on the level of karma. You truly haven’t attained the deep, indwelling confidence that's being discussed here. When you feel a very intense desire for some object of attachment, when you feel a powerful aversion or an­ger, when you encounter all kinds of circumstances— such as being very attached to and delighted by some­thing or finding yourself in situations where things seem to be going against you, where you are sick or in physical or mental pain, where things aren't meshing and you are encountering a sense of frustration— regardless of what arises, at that point, it is important to hold to the recognition of that pristine awareness that is referred to as the ground of freedom. Otherwise, you become lost in the dynamic energy of intrinsic awareness. Even as you appreciate it as the dynamic energy, you become lost in that dynamic energy. The root text states: At that point, regardless o f what arises—attachment, aversion, joy, sorrow, happiness, sadness, any o f these adventitious, superficial discur­sive thoughts and experiences—without exception and

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under all circumstances, you must guard that recogni­tion. If you do not understand the key point of practice so that even as a thought arises in your mind it is freed in its own true nature, beyond the direct introduction, beyond the decision that you arrive at, if you have not gained that deep, indwelling confidence in the immedi­acy of the freeing of that thought in the moment of its arising, then you have missed this third key point. Then, all of the subliminal chatter in the mind, all of the subliminal stirring of thoughts and mental activity, continues to perpetuate the causes of cyclic existence, and you truly haven’t transcended the more subtle level of the mind being bound to cyclic existence. The key point, to which the root text refers, is that regardless of what arises, it is important to maintain on-going recog­nition, so that there is the arising of the thought and the freeing of the thought; it simply vanishes without a trace, dissolving into its own true nature. That is what the root text refers to when it states that regardless of what arises—attachment, aversion, happiness, sadness, joy, sorrow—all of these adventitious or superficial patterns of discursive thought without exception are to be dealt with, by maintaining that recognition so that the arising of the thought becomes the freeing of the thought in its own true nature.

Given this is the case, it does not mean that in the face of all of these thoughts that arise, be they very coarse or subtle, that you need to focus your mind in a very tight or concentrated way to assure that you don't slip under the influence of that mental activity. Rather, it means the mind simply settles in a completely and utterly relaxed way in its own true nature. That is how you maintain recognition. Not because you are strug­gling by concentrating your mind to avoid slipping un­der the influence of any given thought, but simply be­

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cause in the context of that genuine mindfulness there is no ground for the thought to take root and lead you in any one direction or another. It is a question of never being separate from that genuine state of mindfulness. That is rang bap or self-falling, that is simply and ut­terly relaxed without any contrivance or deliberate at­tempt at all. It is a question of recognizing the true na­ture of the thought that arises regardless of its content, and simply maintaining your awareness of the true na­ture of that thought. The way to maintain this recogni­tion is such that there is no gap between the arising of the thought and the freeing of that thought in its own true nature. Just like the image of writing on the sur­face of water: The moment that you draw the pattern on the water it vanishes. The pattern is there, and then it is gone. There is the arising of the thought and then it is freed instantaneously without any gap or delay. The root text states that in the context of this recognition there is no prolonging or delay between the arising and the freeing of the thought. The text literally states: In the context o f recognition there is no prolongation, there is no delay.

Not being able to effectively bring about the natural freedom of a thought in its own true nature, that perpetuates the confused mode of existence that is samsara. With the recognition that a thought is occur­ring there must also be simultaneously, at the same time, a direct, precise appreciation of the true nature of what is taking place when thinking is occurring. This is an important distinction because even in the Tibetan schools there is a lot of loose language, such as: Just look at thoughts as they arise and they are freed. That's just not true. If you just look at the content of the thought, you end up following the thought. What you are looking at is the true nature of the thought, as it

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arises, regardless of what the thought is. So there is an important distinction to be made here: not looking at the thought, but seeing the true nature of the thought as the thought arises. That's what is being indicated. True freedom can only result if there is the recognition of intrinsic awareness, which is beyond ordinary subject/ object dualism, and to which you have been directly introduced. So you are focusing not upon the contents of the dynamic energy of rigpa as they arise as discreet thoughts, but the essence of those thoughts, and the es­sence being that self-same intrinsic awareness to which you were directly introduced at the first stage of these three key points. Otherwise, if you are just looking at thoughts, you are still involved in subject/object dual­ism, and the natural tendency is for the mind to play out the thought. There is really no difference between that and what we do anyway. That’s not Great Perfec­tion practice. Rather, one looks at the true nature of the thought as it arises. At the same time of the recognition that the thought is occurring, there is equally and si­multaneously the naked seeing of the true nature of that thought. Then that pristine awareness due to your fa­miliarity with it from the direct introduction and the process of meditation, whereby you maintain recogni­tion, is identified even in the moment of that thought occurring and that thought arising. So, you remain within that context of maintaining not just the recogni­tion of thought occurring, but the nature of what is oc­curring when that thought arises. Then the thought is purified in the sense of being freed in its own true na­ture without a trace, without leaving any residue. That is the key point. To emphasize this, the root text states: You identify or hold to the recognition o f dharmakaya as the state o f freedom.

To come back to this example of drawing on

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the surface of water, the creation of the design and the fading of the design are virtually simultaneous. It is as though they happen in the same instant. In the same way for a practitioner of Great Perfection at this level of recognition, the arising of the thought in the mind and the freeing of that thought in its own true nature are virtually simultaneous. They occur at one and the same moment. The arising of the thought is the freeing of the thought in its own true nature. There is no inter­ruption to this process of self-arising, self-freeing, naturally arising, naturally freeing. And so the text states: It is, fo r example, like drawing on the surface o f water.

It is not a question of attempting to arrest the arising of thoughts. If thoughts arise, let them arise. There is no problem at that point that has to be ad­dressed, it is a question of maintaining an on-going rec­ognition of this genuine mindfulness vis a vis anything and everything that arises in the mind. What you need to hold to as the key point of practice is not any spe­cific technique for any specific kind of thinking that may take place, but simply maintaining that on-going awareness, what is termed, carrying on the path that recognition of genuine mindfulness. Therefore, the root text states: There is no interruption to this process o f things naturally arising and being naturally freed.

By refining your appreciation of discursive thinking as simply the dynamic expression of the en­ergy of dharmakaya, then, in response to any particular thought that arises, your training is such that at this point any thought simply arises as further fuel for that appreciation. It constitutes grist for the mill and simply fuels that appreciation that you have. Regardless of how coarse, rough and obvious the thoughts of the five emotional poisons that arise in your mind, you are al­

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ways imbued with this recognition of intrinsic aware­ness of this context of freedom in all of its directness, all of its lucidity, all of its brilliance. Therefore, the root text states: Anything that arises is food fo r the na­ked union o f intrinsic awareness and emptiness. It is food in the sense that when you eat something, it sim­ply dissolves into your body and sustains your body. By holding to this recognition and by freeing the thought as it arises in its own true nature, at this point, any thought that arises, any emotion that arises, is sim­ply fuel, in a sense, for one's on-going experience of the naked union of intrinsic awareness and emptiness.

Any amount of discursive thought that stirs in the mind simply arises as the inherent dynamic energy of intrinsic awareness, arising within the context of that free, transparent and all-embracing intrinsic aware­ness. By maintaining recognition of that fact, you do not have to pick and choose which thoughts should arise because they are okay and which thoughts need to be suppressed because they are not okay. There is no acceptance or rejection due to any conventional idea about what should or should not be taking place in the mind. Rather, there is simply the maintaining of that fundamental recognition so that, even as the thought is arising, it is being freed in its own true nature. It is freeing itself in its own true nature by its very nature so that nothing that occurs, nothing that arises in one's awareness goes beyond this magical display of dharma- kaya. For this reason the root text of Garab Dorje states: Whatever stirring takes place is the majestic display o f the dynamic energy o f dharmakaya.

All of the functioning of ordinary mind, all of the ordinary thought patterns, all of the ignorance, the non-recognition of intrinsic awareness, all of the reflec­tions of one’s confusion arising as distorted perceptions

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of the world in an impure manner are purified in a sense. But not in a deliberate or clumsy way, but puri­fied in its very nature within this vast expanse of dhar- makaya, which is to say the vast expanse of intrinsic awareness—the vast expanse of primordial wisdom. Within the vast expanse of this on-going state of sheer clarity, all of the stirring of discursive thought that may occur in the mind is such that it is by its very nature empty of any self-nature, empty of any inherent exis­tence. And so the root text states: It vanishes without a trace, pure in and o f itself Ah la la! How marvelous! How wonderful/ ’

In carrying this kind of recognition on the path, when you have gained sufficient familiarity over a pe­riod of time, what you experience is that all thoughts arise as a state of meditation in this specific connota­tion of the word meditation. There is no longer any ar­bitrary distinction between mind at rest and mind stir­ring—mind resting quietly without any thoughts going on or mind stirring in the form of thoughts and emo­tions arising. Even the arising of a thought or an emo­tion cannot harm or injure the basic indwelling pres­ence of intrinsic awareness. At this point, the root text says: The way in which things arise is just like they al­ways have. On that level there is no difference. What is different is the way in which they are freed in their arising. Things don't stop arising. There is no major change at that point. It's just business as usual, things arise as before. What is different is the freeing of those phenomena, those thoughts, those emotions in their arising, which previously did not take place because one was bound in one's confusion.

Due to the dynamic energy of intrinsic aware­ness, dharmakaya, primordial wisdom arising in such a manner, for the practitioner of the Great Perfection, it

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is again not that things cease to arise. In a certain sense there is no difference. Just as for an ordinary person who has not undertaken this level of practice, various thoughts arise—pleasant thoughts, painful thoughts, hope and fear. The way in which they arise for an ordi­nary person is not significantly different from the way in which they arise for a practitioner of the Great Per­fection in the sense that they arise just as they always have, as expressions of the dynamic energy of intrinsic awareness. But an ordinary person relates to these manifestations in a very clumsy way of attachment and aversion. Certain things have to be suppressed or stopped or blocked; others have to be indulged in and craved and hankered after. So, there is a very clunky approach to what arises in the mind. That is where the whole problem of karma comes in because the person is always reacting to what arises in his or her aware­ness—reacting, creating, re-enforcing karma and fal­ling under the influence of attachment and aversion, being taken out of yourself like an external force that takes all of the power, all of the control. The practitio­ner, of course, is not approaching it from this point of view. For the practitioner of the Great Perfection, the arising of the thought or emotion in the mind is such that, in its arising, it is freed.

Practically speaking for any given individual on the path, this freedom occurs by going through spe­cific stages which we can identify. In his commentary on Garab Dorje's Three Verses That Strike the Key Points, Patrul Rinpoche notes the following about someone who has a certain amount of experience in this approach: The first noticeable stage of this free­dom taking place is one in which a thought arises, and to this one applies one’s recognition of pristine aware­ness, the intrinsic awareness that one has previously

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been directly introduced to. This is compared to meet­ing an old friend. The thought arises, and one almost says, ‘Aha, this is the dynamic energy of pristine awareness.’ It's not quite so deliberate or contrived as that, but there's a sense of familiarity, a sense of en­countering something you have encountered before.

Following this, in what we might call the inter­mediate stage of this freeing process, the thought frees itself. Even the recognition is no longer a conscious element; there is simply the freeing of the thought by itself as it arises. This is compared to the knot in the snake. If you've ever had the opportunity to tie a knot in a snake, you don't have to untie it afterwards; the snake unties itself. It kind of slithers, and the knot is freed. In the same way, the thought arises and, in aris­ing, frees itself. Whereas in the example of encounter­ing an old friend, the yogin meets the thought with the recognition, However, in this stage, it is simply the case that the thought, in arising, frees itself.

The final stage in this process of freedom that Patrul Rinpoche discusses is that thoughts are simply freed without causing any benefit or harm whatsoever. The image here is of a thief entering an empty house where there is nothing to steal; there's nothing to lose. When the thief enters an empty house, there's nothing for the thief to gain and there's nothing for the owner of the house to lose. From the very moment the thief en­ters the house, there has never been any benefit or harm that could ever accrue. In the same way, the final stage of this freeing effect of recognition is that thoughts arise in the mind with absolutely no beneficial or harmful action or influence whatsoever.

These are the key points concerning what is termed, literally, the mode of freedom or method of freedom in Great Perfection. Just as the root text stated

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earlier that although the mode of arising is similar, here the mode of freeing is enormously different. For the ordinary person and the Dzogchen practitioner the way in which things arise is not particularly different. What is different is that for the Dzogchen practitioner the way in which those thoughts are freed, whether through encountering an old friend, having the snake’s knot un­tie itself, or having the thief enter the empty house, in any of those ways, the mode of the freeing of those thoughts in their own true nature is enormously differ­ent.

There is a saying in the tradition, which basi­cally states, that although you know how to meditate, if you don't know how to bring about this freedom, in what way are you different from a god of one of the higher realms whose mind is blissed out in a state of trance? The key point here is not just maintaining the recognition, but appreciating how maintaining the rec­ognition brings about this freeing effect—the mode of freeing thoughts in their own true nature as they arise. If you know how to meditate on some level, but don't have that key point, you don't have a handle on that third key point of the freeing of thoughts. Then, your meditation is not significantly different from the kind of meditative stability, that almost trance like state that leads to rebirth in the higher realms of the form, form­less and gods realms. If you take your confidence in the process of meditation without understanding how that brings about freedom, without appreciating the sig­nificance of that recognition as the freeing factor, then you have made an error, and you fall into a very subtle, sophisticated kind of trance state.

Patrul Rinpoche says, ‘Those, who hold that it is sufficient to merely recognize whether the mind is resting or is stirring, are really no different from ordi­

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nary confused people.’ They are making the same kind of error although on a more subtle or sophisticated level. Even those people, who practice using some kind of contrived idea about emptiness or dharmakaya and apply that like a seal to things, by thinking that this is emptiness, this is dharmakaya, are making a fundamen­tal mistake. Because when they encounter negative cir­cumstances in their lives—problems, pain, frustra­tion—the invalidity and the lack of worth of this won­derful approach proves itself. With that recognition they are not able to meet those circumstances genu­inely because they are used to just glossing over things and saying, 4Oh, it's all empty, it's all dharmakaya.’ Then, when actually confronted with something that hurts, that falls away. The ineffectiveness and the hid­den flaw of their approach becomes evident, and they are not able to meet the situation effectively. The root text states: Anything other than this (what has previ­ously been discussed) is the path o f confused medita­tion. Anything other, in this case, means not only main­taining that recognition but appreciating the freeing ef­fect of that recognition.

There are any number of terms or phrases that are used in the teachings to speak of this level of expe­rience—arising and freeing—something arising and being freed in its own nature, or self-freeing or natu­rally free or something that is directly freed in all o f its nakedness—are all terms that are used. But regardless of the particular term we may use to discuss it, Patrul Rinpoche says that the fact remains that the mode of freedom we are discussing is the experience in which a thought is freed, purified in a sense, through being freed in its own nature, in and of itself, leaving no kar­mic residue. Being emphasized here is the key point that demonstrates, through your direct experience, the

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natural freedom of mind and the natural freedom of all thoughts and emotions occurring in the mind. This is the special feature of the Great Perfection path, the Great Perfection, which is the inherent nature of all re­ality. This is the extraordinary and special point of the Great Perfection. If you are endowed with that key point, if you have in your possession, in a sense, that key point, then all afflictive emotions, all discursive thoughts, whatever arises is immediately appreciated as dharmakaya, so that all confused thinking is purified as pristine awareness. All negative circumstances become your friends and supports. All afflictive emotions forge your path. Without samsara having to be deliberately rejected or avoided, it is purified in its own ground so that you are freed from the bondage both of confused, conditioned existence and the mere quiescence of per­sonal salvation and personal freedom from suffering, a merely limited form of nirvana. You are freed from the bondage of either of those states. So, you make a leap of understanding and realization to this context in which there is nothing to be done, no effort or achieve­ment required, because the very nature of the experi­ence is free of all sense of anything having to be done, of anything being incomplete or unfinished. For this reason, the root text states: Endowed with this (this key point, this leap of understanding) even though you don't meditate you are within the context o f dharma­kaya. It is not a question, at that point, of having to meditate in a deliberate sense. You don't have to main­tain anything at all because you have made the leap of understanding and realization that has brought you into the context of dharmakaya, even though you don’t de­liberately make it happen or continue to maintain that context.

If you have not gained in an authentic manner

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that indwelling confidence concerning this means by which thoughts and emotions are freed in their own true nature, then no matter how lofty your view, no matter how profound and deep you think your medita­tion is, it really doesn't benefit your mind. It really doesn't in any way address the emotional affliction in your mind, and so it cannot be considered a true path.

If you on the other hand are a practitioner, whose practice is imbued with this key point of the su­preme factor of recognition of intrinsic awareness bringing about the freeing of the thought in its own true nature—if the self-arising, self-freeing nature of thoughts and emotions, things that arise in and of themselves and are freed in and of themselves—then, even though there is not a shred of holding to some lofty view, even though there is no fixed point of refer­ence to define your so-called profound meditation, the fact of the matter is that when you are endowed with that key point, your own mindstream is freed from the bonds of dualistic grasping. It is impossible for it not to be freed of the bonds of dualistic grasping.

Patrul Rinpoche uses a metaphor as an exam­ple: When you journey to the mythical Isle of Gold where everything is made of gold, no matter how much you search for ordinary rock or stone, you won't find it. On this level of experience, regardless of what takes place—mind at rest, mind stirring, thoughts arising— everything arises as meditation. Moreover, if you try to look for confusion, even if you make a concerted effort to find a shred of confusion there, you won't find it. This is the key point upon which Dzogchen practice hinges. The question of whether your practice is effec­tive or not effective hinges entirely upon this pivotal point. Therefore, the third key verse of Garab Dorje states: This deep indwelling confidence is gained in the

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immediacy o f this mode o f freedom , this state o f free­dom.

In brief, Garab Doije’s third key verse refers to the fact that it is not significant what kind of thought arises—how powerful or subtle that thought is. It is a question of recognizing not the content of the thought particularly, but the true nature of what is occurring as that thought arises. That thought does not go beyond the context of this naked union of intrinsic awareness and emptiness, and the experience, then is one of the arising of the thought and the freeing of the thought in its own nature. Again, it's not a question, when you are a Dzogchen practitioner, that thoughts don't arise; that's not the issue. Thoughts arise, things happen. It's a question of not grasping at, clinging to, fixating upon things, objectifying them and reacting to them out of attachment and aversion. Things may arise in a pleas­ing way; things may arise in an unpleasing way. Things may arise in an attractive way; things may arise in a repulsive way, but the mere arising of the phenomena is neither here nor there. It is how we are bound by our fixation to react to those appearances; that is the issue. When there is no grasping and fixation in our minds, there is no perpetuation of the karma that binds our minds to cyclic existence. The key point is to gain this indwelling confidence in the immediacy of that state of freedom, what is referred to as the freeing of the thoughts and emotions and apparent phenomena that are the dynamic energy of dharmakaya, freeing them in dharmakaya, in their own true nature. The implication is that this is without fixation. There is no fixation or grasping in the mind to objectify those things and react to them in the ordinary sense. This, then, is the third of The Three Key Verses of Garab Doije. To sum it up in a nutshell, the final line is: The gaining or arriving at a

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state o f indwelling confidence in the immediacy o f that freeing factor, that freedom, occurs through recogni­tion o f one's own indwelling pristine awareness.

These three key points that Garab Dorje ad­dresses in his testament known as The Three Verses That Strike the Key Points constitute the key points that sum up all of the view, meditation, conduct and fruition of the Dzogchen approach, of the Great Perfec­tion that is the inherent nature of all reality. All of this is summed up in the key point of maintaining recogni­tion of one's own intrinsic awareness, this free and all- embracing, transparent state of intrinsic awareness. Not only is this instruction on the view, but it also consti­tutes direct transmission instructions about meditation, about conduct and so forth. All of these phases, if you will, of the Great Perfection approach are complete within this one treatment.

Now, in this particular approach, as was men­tioned earlier, the approach that is favored is not that of more ordinary paths in which scriptural authority and logic and reasoning are used to evaluate the nature of reality, so as to come to some understanding of what the true nature of those phenomena are. This rather more linear process of coming to this definitive conclu­sion through the powers of reason, by relying upon scriptural authority and so forth is not one that is par­ticularly favored in this approach. Rather, it is the view with respect to the naked and direct experience of pris­tine awareness, that even thoughts that arise are, in fact, that pristine intrinsic awareness. So, view and meditation are not really in any sense separate from one another. Only on the most conventional level can we speak of a distinction between view and meditation in the Great Perfection approach. There is no real prob­lem with speaking, as Garab Dorje does in his root

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text, of all of this being view, even though he is also really discussing meditation and conduct and fruition and so forth. There is no real contradiction here. It's not as though he has left something out or is ignoring something; it is simply recognition of the fact that these distinctions are purely nominal. So, the root text states at this point: This is the view that is endowed with these three key points. It isn't to say that this does­n't apply to meditation or conduct or fruition. It's sim­ply an acknowledgment of the fact that in the Great Perfection approach view and meditation are of one taste.

This approach in practice, these unerring key points of this path of original purity that is unique to the Dzogchen or Great Perfection approach, on one level we can say is the very pinnacle of the nine yanas. But, on the other hand, just as when a king approaches, his retinue and courtiers approach as a matter of course. So, in the same vein the key points of all of the so-called lower yanas are incorporated in the key points of the Great Perfection approach. No exclusion is implied here. That the Great Perfection is the pinna­cle approach does not imply that the others are useless, or no longer of any consequence. Rather, the essential nature of those approaches are incorporated in the key points of the Great Perfection path. They serve only as supports or adornments of the Great Perfection.

When one directly encounters one's own true face, this self-occurring lamp of transcendent knowl­edge, this intrinsic awareness that is by its very nature originally, primordially pure, the dynamic energy of that self-occurring lamp of wisdom expresses itself in the kind of more conventional states of wisdom that arise through one's pursuit of meditation. One's knowl­edge of specific topics or specific issues grows simply

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as the dynamic expression of that more primordial lamp of wisdom that is ever present. The expanse, the breadth of one’s knowledge begins to well forth like rivers swelling with snowmelt in the springtime and the early summer. What is described as the texture of emp­tiness is experienced or arises as supreme compassion, so that the experience of emptiness is imbued with that quality of supreme compassion. The very nature of things is such that the experience of emptiness is im­bued with this supreme compassion that wells forth as a compassionate empathy that is not based upon ordi­nary sentiments but is completely unbiased in its ex­pression. The root text states: Meditation is that which unites knowledge and loving kindness or loving com­passion.

When this key point of the path, which is the integration of emptiness and compassion, not in a clumsy sense of putting them together, but realizing their simultaneity, has become evident to the practitio­ner, then the path in terms of conduct is one that is in­corporated in the vast range of the bodhisattva's activi­ties in undertaking the Six Paramitas, the Six Perfec­tions. But these arise not in a contrived or deliberate manner, but just the way the sun's rays arise from the sun as a natural expression of the sun's nature. So this conduct of pursuing the practice of the Six Perfections is simply the natural outflow of the realization that comes from experiencing emptiness imbued with this essential texture or quality of compassion. Given that this kind of conduct on a conventional level is tied in with the accumulation of merit, the natural expression of one’s understanding, one's realization is such that whatever one undertakes from this authentic perspec­tive is such that it becomes beneficial to others. It brings benefit to others and is a support that in no way

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causes one to deviate from the correct view—the authentic view of the nature of reality. The root text states: All o f the conduct, in general, o f the Buddha's children is supportive. This means that it is entirely supportive of this realization because it is the natural outflow, the natural expression of that realization, and is in no way contradictory to it.

This approach to view, meditation and con­duct, these three phases or factors in one's practice of the path, is at the very core of the enlightened intent of all buddhas who have ever appeared, all buddhas that appear at present and all buddhas that ever will appear. The root text states: Even i f the Victorious Ones o f the three times were to comment on this, they would have nothing more to say. If you were to summon all of the buddhas of the past, present and future to a big confer­ence and ask them to comment about what Garab Dorje has expressed in these three verses, they would say that these verses alone stand as the key point of the path of the vajra essence, the path of the heart drop or nying thig, the pinnacle of all spiritual approaches, the con­summate stage of fruition. Because there is nothing more than that to attain, they would have nothing more to say. Even though all of these buddhas were called upon for their critical appraisal of Garab Dorje's testa­ment, they would have nothing to add.

The significance of what is expressed in this advice from Garab Dorje is such that it is definitely the very quintessence, the distilled essence of all of the di­rect transmission instructions of the whole lineage. The words that are used to express it are very few, but the nature of this kind of expression in which such a pro­found point can be expressed in so few words is such that it is not an ordinary composition where someone sits down and thinks, ‘Now what shall I write about?’

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Instead, it is something that arises as the dynamic en­ergy of intrinsic awareness. The root text states in con­cluding: This was composed by the terton, by the re- vealer o f hidden treasures o f dharmakaya. That is to say by the dynamic energy of intrinsic awareness-itself.

Here, Patrul Rinpoche as the author of the commentary on this text is being somewhat self- effacing. He says, ‘I, as the commentator, do not claim to any direct experience due to my wisdom, due to any practice I have done concerning the ultimate signifi­cance of what this text discusses. However, I have re­ceived oral transmission from sacred teachers, which I have been able to understand without error, and so there is a certain wisdom that has arisen through hear­ing these teachings, which has allowed me to cut through any kind of speculation or wishful thinking I might have about which these teachings are discussing. The kind of wisdom that I have developed through my contemplation has brought me to a more definitive un­derstanding of these.’ So, he claims that much. And so he says, ‘Even though I have not gained complete reali­zation of this, I have been able to take this treasure from the vast expanse of knowledge and wisdom gained through hearing and contemplating the ideas in an intellectual way and have come to some precise un­derstanding of those.’ So, he makes that partial claim for his credentials, if you will, to write the commen­tary, but falls short of claiming to have the actual reali­zation. We may take this as a very traditional form of self-effacing that one encounters in the tradition where people seldom claim to a realization that they may, in fact, have.

This kind of treasure is not like an ordinary treasure in the mundane sense, because an ordinary treasure simply dispels for a period of time the suffer­

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ing of poverty. Patrul Rinpoche says that this treasure, which has been taken from the vast expanse of tran­scendent knowledge, is in no way like ordinary treasure taken from the quintessence of earth and stone, such as gold or diamonds, or whatever one can take from the earth. That kind of treasure is not what we are discuss­ing. This treatment of these three key points of view in the Great Perfection approach, which are known as the Three Verses That Strike the Key Points constitute the testament of the nirmanakaya teacher, Garab Dorje. When Garab Dorje attained nirvana, his body become a mass of light in the sky in front of his student Manjus- rimitra. As Manjusrimitra beheld this sphere of light in the sky in front of him that was the last trace of his teacher's physical presence, he received this transmis­sion of The Three Verses that Strike the Key Points. At that point Manjusrimitra's enlightened intent and that of Garab Dorje became inseparable. The text concludes with the statement: This is the last testament o f Garab Dorje.

These key points of spiritual advice, are such that they embody the quintessence of the three lineages in Nyingma. The lineage of mind to mind transmission of the Victorious Ones pertains to this transmission of teachings, particularly in the case of the great Long- chenpa, the omniscient king of Dharma, who in his very lifetime completely realized this state of original purity, the level of enlightened intent in which all ordi­nary phenomena fall away in the vast expanse of the true nature of reality. Given that this became evident to Longchenpa in his lifetime, he awakened to complete and perfect buddhahood, thus perfecting this mind to mind transmission of the Victorious Ones. This was then further transmitted by Longchenpa, not in his or­dinary physical form, but through what is termed his

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pristine awareness embodiment to the great holder of intrinsic awareness, Jigme Lingpa. We know that this was not the physical presence of Longchenpa because lie and Jigme Lingpa lived several centuries apart, but the pristine awareness embodiment of Longchenpa centuries later appeared directly to Jigme Lingpa and conferred the blessing of this realization upon Jigme Lingpa in the manner, which is known as the lineage of the transmission through symbols of the holders of in­trinsic awareness. Patrul Rinpoche notes that it was the great Jigme Lingpa who transmitted these orally to my own gracious root lama, thus completing the third line­age, that of the oral transmission from individual to in­dividual. When Jigme Lingpa transmitted these instruc­tions orally to Patrul Rinpoche’s guru, Jigme Gyalwai Nyu Gu, he beheld directly the true nature of reality through the oral transmission that he had received. ‘Since,’ Patrul Rinpoche said, ‘I have received these instructions from he who is the glorious lord protector of beings, my own root guru, I can say with assurance that these instructions constitute the quintessence of the enlightened minds of the gurus of the three linea­ges.’

‘Such instructions,’ Patrul Rinpoche says, ‘are like the purest essence of refined gold. I shrink from presenting them to people who will not practice such a path of the heart drop, because this is to impart infor­mation that is not going to be respected or appreciated for the pure gold that it is. On the other hand, if there is one who really takes such advice to be like his or her life force or life breath and really implements these key points in his or her practice, for such an individual who is bent upon gaining enlightenment in this lifetime, I shrink from not showing it, these teachings.’ What he means at this point is they must be demonstrated to one

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who truly is intent upon practicing them and realizing buddhahood in this life. The root text concludes with the line: These are conferred upon my heart children with a seal. This means that the conferral is one of en- trustment. When you receive such teaching, in this situation or when anyone who has ever received this teaching has received it, there has been a sense of en- trustment, that you are being given something that you hold very privately and use in your own practice. It is not something for idle discussion or for broadcasting at large. It is something that you take as heartfelt advice from your teacher and hold and cherish it as the life force of your practice, keeping it very private and sim­ply using it to nurture your own practice.

The text concludes with the further verse: This is my heartfelt advice. This is the key point o f utmost significance. May this key point o f utmost significance not fade away or be lost and may these instructions, may this advice not be wasted. With that, Patrul Rinpo- che concludes his discussion of the testament of Garab Doije. This completes the discussion of the direct transmission instructions of Garab Doije, known as The Three Verses That Strike the Key Points.

In imparting to you what I understand of these instructions on the three key points concerning ground and path and fruition and concerning view, meditation, conduct, as embodied in the testament of Garab Dorje, on whatever level you can utilize these teachings, whether it is on the level of intellectual understanding, on the level of meditative experience, or on the level of true realization, it is my sincere hope that you will practice them, that you will use these teachings in your practice. Remember the text said previously that if you do practice, who knows, you could attain enlighten­ment in this lifetime. That is a distinct possibility that

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each and every one of you has before him or her. But at the very least, even if you can’t apply yourself on the level of practice that might lead you to enlightenment in this lifetime, at the very least, cherish these teach­ings. Continue to hold them in your heart with respect for the profundity and purity of what they represent. In this way you guard your samaya connection with these teachings and you establish circumstances that may very well lead to your liberation, if not in this lifetime at the moment of death, when the mind is freed from the physical body and there is the opportunity for dra­matic realization to take place. Or perhaps, in the bardo state following death and before rebirth. At the very least, by maintaining this samaya connection with these teachings through your attitude of respect of cherishing these teachings and what they represent, you assure yourself circumstances under which your mind will be reborn in favorable circumstances, into a family that holds the values of the Dharma in high regard so that in future lifetimes you can come into contact with the teachings again. By establishing that kind of positive relationship with such teachings, you assure that even though you may not, through your diligence, gain en­lightenment in this lifetime that you certainly will be­fore a very long time has elapsed—three lifetimes, five lifetimes, seven lifetimes—in a very short time, you will attain enlightenment. Such is the veiy special na­ture and blessing of such instructions. And so it is my hope that you will not use these teachings just for idle speculation about rigpa is this or rigpa is that or what do you think of this or what do you think of that, but really practice them on whatever level of understand­ing or experience or realization you are able. That is my hope.

We find a lot of terminology being used in the

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teaching, such as ground, path and fruition, or view, meditation and conduct. Please understand that these are really talking about the same thing from different points of view. When we speak of the ground aspect of Dzogchen, we are speaking simply of the inherently indwelling intrinsic awareness that is the nature of your mind. When we speak of the path, we speak of the pro­cess of recognizing that and maintaining that recogni­tion. When we speak of the fruition aspect, we speak of what is already present simply becoming fully evident to you. It's not as though there is a ground over here and that somewhere else there is something else that's a path, and, then, over here there is something else com­pletely separate that's the fruition. Ground, path and fruition are one. It is simply a question of what is al­ready inherently indwelling, what is recognized and maintained, and what becomes fully evident. And we are talking about one and the same thing from different points of view.

Another point I wish to make, as the lama who is giving these instructions, is that we couldn't discuss view, meditation and conduct, we couldn't discuss ground, path and fruition without a translator. Thou­sands of lamas could come to this country, holders of intrinsic awareness could appear before us, but if we can’t understand their language where would we be? In Tibet, we had to rely upon great translators such as Vairocana and others among the more than one- hundred magnificent translators of the early translation school who facilitated the transmission of the teachings from one language and one culture into another. And they were regarded in the Tibetan tradition as those to whom you would bow with a sense of honor and to whom you would make offerings with a sense of rever­ence. People say, ‘Oh it's due to the kindness of the la­

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mas that we receive the teachings.’ And, yes, there is kindness there—the lamas do give the teachings, but without a translator it would be difficult. It is not sim­ply a question of a translator having to be technically efficient in the language. Something of the spirit of the teachings has to come through as well. It is important that the translator be a practitioner, someone who has some taste of what is being transmitted. Of course it is necessary for the translator to know the Tibetan lan­guage in this particular case, but merely knowing the Tibetan language is not enough, there must be some flavor, some taste that comes through from the transla­tor’s own personal experience. I feel very fortunate that on this occasion the auspicious circumstances came together and a competent translator was present to fa­cilitate my transmission of these three verses of Garab Doije dealing with the ground, path and fruition of the Great Perfection approach. This is an important point I want you all to appreciate.

I would simply like to conclude with my own prayers that through the auspicious circumstances that have been established on this occasion that all of us may, as the teachings assure us, gain complete enlight­enment through our practice of the Great Perfection path. Ideally, I would wish that all of us are liberated in this lifetime, but failing that if that does not happen to be the case, I would add my prayers at this point that we all meet together as one, as a group, and enjoy and partake of the teachings of the Great Perfection path in future lifetimes. With that, I leave you with my best wishes.

Let us join together in dedicating all of the vir­tue and merit that has been generated through the giv­ing and receiving of these teachings as the virtue and merit that exemplifies all the virtue and merit that ever

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has been amassed in the past, that is being gathered in the present, that ever will be gathered in the future, dedicating all of this as our single dedication with the aspiration that this bring about the realization in this lifetime for all beings without exception the realization of their own primordial state of being, the state of the primordial Lord Protector, Samantabhadra. And so with this heart felt aspiration let us conclude with the prayers of dedication.

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