I know I posted this in the forum before, but coming across this
article is really a timely reminder and a clarification on my
practice at this point in time.
Especially even in daily life, facing all sorts of conditions.
Practice and liberation is possible in daily life. It is
not by turning away from any conditions but by
fully accepting it, by thoroughly letting go and simply allow
actions and feelings and thoughts to arise and pass spontaneously
on their own without a separate observer/thinker/doer. Everything
simply arise and pass in their own accord and are not resisted but
fully experienced in its clarity.
Thought it will be helpful to everyone --
-------------------------
Dzogchen Practice in Everyday Life
by HH Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
The everyday practice of dzogchen is simply to develop a complete
carefree acceptance, an openness to all situations without
limit.
We should realise openness as the playground of our emotions and
relate to people without artificiality, manipulation or
strategy.
We should experience everything totally, never withdrawing into
ourselves as a marmot hides in its hole. This practice
releases
tremendous energy which is usually constricted by the process of
maintaining fixed reference points. Referentiality is the process
by
which we retreat from the direct experience of everyday life.
Being present in the moment may initially trigger fear. But by
welcoming the sensation of fear with complete openness, we cut
through
the barriers created by habitual emotional patterns.
When we engage in the practice of discovering space, we should
develop the feeling of opening ourselves out completely to the
entire universe. We should open ourselves with absolute simplicity
and nakedness of mind. This is the powerful and ordinary practice
of dropping the mask of self-protection.
We shouldn't make a division in our meditation between
perception and field of perception. We shouldn't become like a cat
watching a mouse. We should realise that the purpose of meditation
is not to go "deeply into ourselves" or withdraw from the world.
Practice should be free and non-conceptual, unconstrained by
introspection and concentration.
Vast unoriginated self-luminous wisdom space is the ground of
being - the beginning and the end of confusion. The presence of
awareness in the primordial state has no bias toward enlightenment
or non-enlightenment. This ground of being which is known as pure
or original mind is the source from which all phenomena arise. It
is known as the great mother, as the womb of potentiality in which
all things arise and dissolve in natural self-perfectedness and
absolute spontaneity.
All aspects of phenomena are completely clear and lucid. The
whole universe is open and unobstructed - everything is mutually
interpenetrating.
Seeing all things as naked, clear and free from obscurations,
there is nothing to attain or realise. The nature of phenomena
appears naturally and is naturally present in time-transcending
awareness. Everything is naturally perfect just as it is. All
phenomena appear in their uniqueness as part of the continually
changing pattern. These patterns are vibrant with meaning and
significance at every moment; yet there is no significance to
attach to such meanings beyond the moment in which they present
themselves.
This is the dance of the five elements in which matter is a
symbol of energy and energy a symbol of emptiness. We are a symbol
of our own enlightenment. With no effort or practice whatsoever,
liberation or enlightenment is already here.
The everyday practice of dzogchen is just everyday life itself.
Since the undeveloped state does not exist, there is no need to
behave in any special way or attempt to attain anything above and
beyond what you actually are. There should be no feeling of
striving to reach some "amazing goal" or "advanced state."
To strive for such a state is a neurosis which only conditions
us and serves to obstruct the free flow of Mind. We should also
avoid thinking of ourselves as worthless persons - we are naturally
free and unconditioned. We are intrinsically enlightened and lack
nothing.
When engaging in meditation practice, we should feel it to be as
natural as eating, breathing and defecating. It should not become a
specialised or formal event, bloated with seriousness and
solemnity. We should realise that meditation transcends effort,
practice, aims, goals and the duality of liberation and
non-liberation. Meditation is always ideal; there is no need to
correct anything. Since everything that arises is simply the play
of mind as such, there is no unsatisfactory meditation and no need
to judge thoughts as good or bad.
Therefore we should simply sit. Simply stay in your own place,
in your own condition just as it is. Forgetting self-conscious
feelings, we do not have to think "I am meditating." Our practice
should be without effort, without strain, without attempts to
control or force and without trying to become "peaceful."
If we find that we are disturbing ourselves in any of these
ways, we stop meditating and simply rest or relax for a while. Then
we resume
our meditation. If we have "interesting experiences" either during
or after meditation, we should avoid making anything special of
them. To spend time thinking about experiences is simply a
distraction and an attempt to become unnatural. These experiences
are simply signs of practice and should be regarded as transient
events. We should not attempt to re-experience them because to do
so only serves to distort the natural spontaneity of mind.
All phenomena are completely new and fresh, absolutely unique
and entirely free from all concepts of past, present and future.
They are
experienced in timelessness.
The continual stream of new discovery, revelation and
inspiration which arises at every moment is the manifestation of
our clarity. We should learn to see everyday life as mandala - the
luminous fringes of experience which radiate spontaneously from the
empty nature of our being. The aspects of our mandala are the
day-to-day objects of our life experience moving in the dance or
play of the universe. By this symbolism the inner teacher reveals
the profound and ultimate significance of being. Therefore we
should be natural and spontaneous, accepting and learning from
everything. This enables us to see the ironic and amusing side of
events that usually irritate us.
In meditation we can see through the illusion of past, present
and future - our experience becomes the continuity of nowness. The
past is
only an unreliable memory held in the present. The future is only a
projection of our present conceptions. The present itself vanishes
as
soon as we try to grasp it. So why bother with attempting to
establish an illusion of solid ground?
We should free ourselves from our past memories and
preconceptions of meditation. Each moment of meditation is
completely unique and full of potentiality. In such moments, we
will be incapable of judging our meditation in terms of past
experience, dry theory or hollow rhetoric.
Simply plunging directly into meditation in the moment now, with
our whole being, free from hesitation, boredom or excitement, is
enlightenment.
http://www.nyingma.com/dzogchen1.htm