The Great Perfection...

 

When such people with stable minds—without being boastful about the mere number of months or years they have spent practicing in retreat—see this entrance and undertake the practice, they will definitely achieve the supreme state of Buddha Vajradhara in this very lifetime. Of this there is no doubt.

— The Vajra Essence, Düdjom Lingpa’s Visions of the Great Perfection, Vol. 3

Rest in your true nature without effort or distraction — Mingyur Rinpoche teaches the renowned practice of Dzogchen.

Lion's Roar - You are already perfect. You are already a buddha. In fact, there’s no difference between your true nature, right now as you sit reading this, and the true nature of the buddha, or any enlightened being for that matter.

That’s the view of Dzogchen, a Tibetan word that means “Great Perfection.” Dzogchen is treasured above all other practices in the Nyingma school of Vajrayana Buddhism because it helps us connect directly with our own enlightened nature.

This Great Perfection is you right now, right here in this moment, not some fully developed you after you do a lot more meditation.

Your essence, and the essence of every living creature, is pure, whole, and complete. There’s nothing missing, and that’s why we call it the Great Perfection. YOU are the Great Perfection. Don’t forget that. Dzogchen is talking about you. This Great Perfection is you right now, right here in this moment, not some fully developed you after you do a lot more meditation.

In Dzogchen, we call this enlightened nature rigpa, or pure awareness. Unlike some approaches in which buddhanature is taught in a more theoretical way, and you need to study and meditate for a long time to figure out what it is, Dzogchen is experiential. You get introduced to pure awareness directly, right on the spot.

A traditional way to describe Dzogchen is in terms of the ground, the path, and the fruition.

The Great Perfection is our true nature, whether we realize it or not. That’s the ground of Dzogchen. It’s the reality of our experience and who we are.

But that doesn’t help if we don’t experience it for ourselves. The way to do that is by having this pure awareness introduced to us, and then getting familiar with it until it becomes stable and enduring. That process is the path.

Then, once we’re familiar with our own true nature, once we’ve realized it fully and integrated it into every aspect of our lives, we will fully manifest the enlightened qualities that were there all along. That’s the fruition.

The Ground of Dzogchen

It might be a little unclear what this “true nature” really is, so let me explain a bit more about the ground.

When we use all these fancy terms like “buddhanature” and “pure awareness,” what are we actually talking about? Well, there are three main qualities to look for here. We refer to these as the “empty essence,” “luminous nature,” and “all-pervasive compassion.” That’s the ground, your true nature.

“Empty essence” means that the true nature of mind, the essence of pure awareness, transcends all our ideas, concepts, and beliefs. It is utterly beyond all our suffering and problems. It is completely free. The term for this is “innate purity”—the essence of who we are was, is, and always will be perfect. It’s completely pure, and nothing can change that.

This empty essence is ungraspable, beyond our ordinary way of seeing things, but it’s not nothing. There is also a luminous, knowing presence. This is what we call the “luminous nature.” Sometimes it’s called “self-clarity,” because this clarity is spontaneous and natural. It’s just there, all the time. Even when we’re asleep, distracted, or completely neurotic. It’s there.

The empty essence and clear nature are one and the same. They’re inseparable. This inseparability is the third quality of the ground, which we call “all-pervasive compassion.” This open, spacious clarity manifests as all our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, just like the sun radiates light. These experiences, in fact all of our experiences, are none other than the manifestations or play of pure awareness.

The Path of Dzogchen

But what good does just knowing this do us? Not much. That’s why we need a path. We need to translate this from nice words and ideas to an actual experience.

The Dzogchen path is really quite simple. That’s not to say it’s easy, but it is simple.

The only thing we need to do is to recognize this pure inner nature. We need to experience it for ourselves. That’s it. If we want to make it a little more complicated, we could say that first we need to have pure awareness introduced to us, and then we become familiar with it.

So, how does that happen?

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