"Good sons, all hindrances are none other than ultimate
enlightenment. Whether you attain mindfulness or lose mindfulness,
there is no non-liberation. Establishing the Dharma and refuting
the Dharma are both called nirvana; wisdom and folly are equally
prajna; the method that is perfected by bodhisattvas and false
teachers is the same bodhi; ignorance and suchness are not
different realms; morality, concentration and wisdom, as well as
desire, hatred and ignorance are all divine practices; sentient
beings and lands share the same dharma nature; hell and heaven are
both the Pure Land; those having Buddha-nature and those not having
it equally accomplish the Buddha's enlightenment. All defilements
are ultimately liberation. The reality-realms's ocean-like wisdom
completely illumines all marks to be just like empty space. This is
called 'the Tathāgata's accordance with the nature of
enlightenment.' "
~ The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment
-------------------
Then the venerable Sariputra said to the goddess, "Goddess, how
long have you been in this house?"
The goddess replied, "I have been here as long as the elder has
been in liberation."
Sariputra said, "Then, have you been in this house for quite some
time?"
The goddess said, "Has the elder been in liberation for quite some
time?"
At that, the elder Sariputra fell silent.
The goddess continued, "Elder, you are 'foremost of the wise!' Why
do you not speak? Now, when it is your turn, you do not answer the
question."
Sariputra: Since liberation is inexpressible, goddess, I do not
know what to say.
Goddess: All the syllables pronounced by the elder have the nature
of liberation. Why? Liberation is neither internal nor external,
nor can it be apprehended apart from them. Likewise, syllables are
neither internal nor external, nor can they be apprehended anywhere
else. Therefore, reverend Sariputra, do not point to liberation by
abandoning speech! Why? The holy liberation is the equality of all
things!
Sariputra: Goddess, is not liberation the freedom from desire,
hatred, and folly?
Goddess: "Liberation is freedom from desire, hatred, and folly"
that is the teaching of the excessively proud. But those free of
pride are taught that the very nature of desire, hatred, and folly
is itself liberation.
~ Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra
-------------------
...The particular method of Dzogchen is called the Path of
Self-Liberation, and to apply it nothing need be renounced,
purified, or transformed. Whatever arises as one's karmic vision is
used as the path. The great master Pha Tampa Sangye [South Indian
Yogin of the 11 century (ed.)] once said: It is not the
circumstances which arise as one's karmic vision that condition a
person into the dualistic state; it is a person's own attachment
that enables what arises to condition him. If this attachment is to
be cut through in the most rapid and effective way, the mind's
spontaneous capacity to self-liberate must be brought into play.
The term self-liberation should not, however, be taken as implying
that there is some 'self' or ego there to be liberated. It is a
fundamental assumption...at the Dzogchen level, that all phenomena
are void of self-nature. 'Self -Liberation', in the Dzogchen sense,
means that whatever manifests in the field of experience of the
practitioner is allowed to arise just as it is, without judgement
of it as good or bad, beautiful or ugly. And in that same moment,
if there is no clinging, or attachment, without effort, or even
volition, whatever it is that arises, whether as a thought or as a
seemingly external event, automatically liberates itself, by
itself, and of itself. Practicing in this way the seeds of the
poison tree of dualistic vision never even get a chance to sprout,
much less to take root and grow.(p33)
So the practitioner lives his or her life in an ordinary way,
without needing any rules other than one's own awareness, always
remaining in the primordial state through integrating that state
with whatever arises as part of experience -- with absolutely
nothing to be seen outwardly to show that one is practicing. This
is what is meant by self-liberation, this is what is meant by the
name Dzogchen - which means Great Perfection - and this is what is
meant by non-dual contemplation, or simply contemplation....