The-Tibetan-Book-of-Living-and-Dying

158 THE TIBETAN BOOK OF LIVING AND DYING
with you, but you cannot see it without help. Now imagine
that you have never seen a mirror before. The introduction by
the master is like suddenly holding up a mirror in which you
can, for the first time, see your own face reflected. Just like
your face, this pure awareness of Rigpa is not something
"new" that the master is giving you that you did not have
before, nor is it something you could possibly find outside of
yourself. It has always been yours, and has always been with
you, but up until that startling moment you have never actually
seen it directly.
Patrul Rinpoche explains that, "According to the special tradition
of the great masters of the practice lineage, the nature
of mind, the face of Rigpa, is introduced upon the very dissolution
of conceptual mind." In the moment of introduction, the
master cuts through the conceptual mind altogether, laying
bare the naked Rigpa and revealing explicitly its true nature.
In that powerful moment, a merging of minds and hearts
takes place, and the student has an undeniable experience, or
glimpse, of the nature of Rigpa. In one and the same moment
the master introduces and the student recognizes. As the master
directs his blessing from the wisdom of his Rigpa into the
heart of the Rigpa of his student, the master shows the student
directly the original face of the nature of mind.
For the master's introduction to be fully effective, however,
the right conditions or environment have to be created. Only a
few special individuals in history, because of their purified
karma, have been able to recognize and become enlightened
in an instant; and so the introduction must almost always be
preceded by the following preliminaries. It is these preliminaries
that purify and peel away the ordinary mind and bring you
to the state wherein your Rigpa can be revealed to you.
First, meditation, the supreme antidote to distraction, brings
the mind home and enables it to settle into its natural state.
Second, deep practices of purification, and the strengthening
of positive karma through the accumulation of merit and wisdom,
start to wear away and dissolve the emotional and intellectual
veils that obscure the nature of mind. As my master
Jamyang Khyentse wrote: "If the obscurations are removed,
the wisdom of one's own Rigpa will naturally shine." These
purification practices, called Ngöndro in Tibetan, have been
skillfully designed to effect a comprehensive inner transformation.
They involve the entire being—body, speech, and mind—
and begin with a series of deep contemplations on