Erm, discussed before.
To reach the edge of the other shore, we have to rely on a
raft.
In regards to 'discarding the raft':
This is a high stage and for beginners like me, I still need the
raft for my cultivation. But for someone on the verge on
liberation, that's different. Its just like saying - you cannot
possibly propel your raft even onto the land. For example if you
practise meditation, eventually you will reach the state of
non-meditation. If you practise a Koan, eventually the Koan, the
Question, the Method will dissolve altogether, and what is left is
your luminous Buddha Nature shining clearly.
Thought-Free Wakefulness (a website on meditation
based on Vajrayana)
....Having perfected one taste
through the levels of the lesser, medium and higher stages, the
fourth yoga is nonmeditation. This is the point at which every type
of conviction and the fixing of the attention on something
completely dissolves. All convictions and habitual tendencies have
dissolved and are left behind. One has captured the dharmakaya
throne of nonmeditation.
In the beginning one needs to be convinced about how reality is:
one needs to have confidence in the view. Ultimately, however, any
form of conviction is still a subtle obscuration, still a
hindrance. At the final stage of nonmeditation, all types of
habitual tendencies and convictions need to be dissolved, left
behind. There is nothing more to cultivate, nothing more to reach.
One has arrived at the end of the path. All that needs to be
purified has been purified. Karma, disturbing emotions and the
habitual tendencies have all been cleared up, so that nothing is
left.
The path is necessary as long as we have not arrived. The moment we
arrive, however, the need for the road to get there has fallen
away. As long as we are not at our destination, then it is also
necessary to have the concept of path in order to get there. But
once the destination has been reached, once whatever needs to be
cultivated has been cultivated and whatever needs to be abandoned
has been left behind, the whole need for path is over. That is what
is meant by nonmeditation, literally non-cultivation. This is the
dharmakaya [the formless body of ultimate reality, one of the three
bodies (kayas) of Buddha] throne of nonmeditation. In Dzogchen, the
exhaustion of all concepts and phenomena is the ultimate level of
experience. This is the state of complete enlightenment. Both these
levels of realization are equal to that of all
buddhas...
