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.