12 Ligmincha Europe Magazine Spring 2014

ing place, without any conceptual step-by-step instructions
on what to do. It is only expressed as
getting more confidence in or getting familiar
with the clear state of awareness the master has
introduced one to, the Natural State.
According to the Lopon there is no method we
can use (5, p. 114):
“There is no real method to use because it is unspeakable.
If you follow what I am saying, words,
then you won't find the natural state at all. You
are listening to the outside, and you are just
catching my words.”
So, after this very distinctive Dzogchen ‘direct
introduction’, there is still a gradual learning process
of becoming more and more familiar with this
unspeakable state of awareness and to experience
it again and again, until you are quite advanced.
The concept of this practice is easy to
understand, but the practice itself is very difficult,
because we are conditioned to reacting to all
kinds of stimuli around us in daily life. We are
very easily distracted, in contrast: you should not
be distracted from the natural state of mind, not
even for an instant. As Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
puts it nicely (2, p. 96):
“As Dzogchen practitioners, it is possible to get
distracted while cooking, but not possible to get
distracted from the natural state.”
This ‘problem’ of instructions is clearly described
in an interview by Henry M. Vyner of Lopon
Tenzin Namdak Rinpoche (5, p. 110):
“Interviewer: How do you concentrate into the
natural state? On what do you focus your awareness?
Lopon: There is nothing to do. Just leave it to itself.
If you do something, if you try to do anything,
then you are not in the natural state.
Interviewer: So there is no method.
Lopon: No. Just keep the natural state continuously.
Interviewer: How do you stabilize the natural
state?
Lopon: Just do nothing.
Interviewer: Just sit there with my eyes open?
Lopon: No. That doesn't matter. It doesn't matter
whether your eyes are open or closed or whether
you lie down in your bed. If you are familiar with
keeping the natural state, if you are quite advanced
with this practice, then you can talk, or
you can do everything without disturbing it.”
The Interviewer then checks with the Lopon: his
“Just do nothing” is not an instruction, but simply
means “do nothing within your mind: you don't
reject, accept or follow your thoughts.” It means,
when looking into your ‘mind-stream’ you do not
follow arising thoughts, because following
thoughts causes more thoughts to arise. Not rejecting
or accepting means: thoughts are allowed,
and should be left untouched.
Rinpoche and other Dzogchen masters warn us
not to confuse meditation experiences or nyams:
bliss, inner pleasure and emptiness, with the
genuine experience of rigpa (2, p. 95):
"However, these three nyams must not be
confused with rigpa or with the primordial state.
These are experiences that are comprehended by
rigpa, the self-awareness of the state.”
Also the blank state of ‘no thoughts’ is a meditation
experience (4, p. 248):
“This Natural State, which one encounters in contemplation,
is characterized by an intrinsic Awareness
or Rigpa, whereas the condition of ´no
thoughts´ is just an experience (nyams) and in the
absence of Rigpa, it does not constitute contemplation
as such. It is not just emptiness that characterizes
the state of Dzogchen, but equally this
luminous clarity or Awareness.”
Dzogchen contemplation has a different meaning
than the usual Sutra or Tantra oriented meaning
of contemplation (4, p. 248):
The Teacher and the Dharma
page
32