The Idiots Way

[idiot_stimpy]

Its always here and effortless,

So let things go their own way.

 

Nothing needs to be understood,

As everything has already been accomplished.

 

The mind cannot bring you there,

As it can't be improved upon.

 

Relaxing through not doing anything,

Nothing needs to be done.

 

Unchanging stillness that contains the changing movement,

If effort is needed to maintain it, it's not it.

 

It is dependant on no thing,

Yet is in itself every thing.

 

Awareness of the totality of the NOW, it 'just is',

The 'just is', always is, effortlessly is, right now.

 

Recognising the unchanging nature of mind,

That has always been and always will be,

You just sit.

Edited March 21 by idiot_stimpy

[silent thunder]

This!

Edited February 24 by silent thunder

[Keith108]

Already appeared. ❤️🙏

[Cobie]

 

 

11 hours ago, idiot_stimpy said:

… The mind cannot bring you there …

You posted it before (or very similar), but it’s worth putting here in a more prominent position. I repeat my previous reply:

 

idiot_stimpy, “wise enough to play the fool"  

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 24 by Cobie

[Nungali]

With a qualification ;

 

A wise man can play the fool ,  but a fool that plays wise is easily exposed .

 

 

There was a very foolish beggar  that sat by the gate to the markets , people where entertained by his idiocy  and chose him to give arms to because it was so entertaining , they would even bring their friends to watch ;

 

" Watch this ......  ' Beggar , here is  a large gold coin and a small silver one , which do you choose ? '  ".  He takes  the silver and people  laugh at him .

 

" Let me try ." a woman declared ; " beggar, will you take my gold and ruby ring , or just this plain gold one ."  He took the plain one .

 

.... and so it went all day .

 

At the end of the weekly market day he would go home and dump his goods on the table .

 

His wife ; " That was  a good haul today ! "

 

Beggar ; "  Yes , people where very interested in displaying how stupid I was, to their friends, while they distributed their goods to me ."

[idiot_stimpy]

Relaxing through not doing anything.

Nothing needs to be done.

 

 

[idiot_stimpy]

Quote

 

UNCONDITIONED PURE AWARENESS 

 

What we call “essence of mind” is the actual face of unconditioned pure awareness, which is recognized through receiving the guru’s blessings and instructions. 

 

If you wonder what this is like, it is empty in essence, beyond conceptual reference; it is cognizant by nature, spontaneously present; and it is all-pervasive and unobstructed in its compassionate energy. This is the rigpa in which the three kayas are inseparable. 

 

~ Ju Mipham Rinpoche

 

From the book: "Beyond the Ordinary Mind: Dzogchen, Rimé, and the Path of Perfect Wisdom"

translated by Adam Pearcey

 

 

Edited February 27 by idiot_stimpy

[idiot_stimpy]

 

[idiot_stimpy]

Overcoming the sickness of effort,

You just sit.

[idiot_stimpy]

Quote

 

This unchanging awareness, this Rigpa, is your true nature, the Buddha mind within, your enlightened essence. (It doesn’t become and doesn’t die or cease) 

 

Understanding Rigpa reveals the profound simplicity at the heart of Dzogchen practice. It is the realization that there is nothing to be done, nowhere to go, and nothing to become. 

 

We are already that which we seek. The journey, then, is not one of “becoming”, but of recognizing, not of attaining but of revealing. It is the direct realization that you are the mirror, reflecting the dance of existence with pristine clarity and equanimity.

 

Let us embrace the wisdom of Garab Dorje, shedding the layers of conceptualization, practice, and effort, to rest in the natural state of Rigpa. Here, in the simplicity of being, lies the ultimate freedom, the liberation that Dzogchen points us towards—a state beyond cause and effect, where the timeless awareness of Rigpa illuminates the true nature of all things.

 

 

Edited February 27 by idiot_stimpy

[silent thunder]

The Sage lets go of something each day whereas people of knowledge look to learn and gain something... stacking up high the accomplishments.

 

The Sage rather seeks simplicity and reduction.

 

My primary process in recent years has become radical wholesale release into raw being.

 

When all is allowed to fall away that which remains is true essence.

 

My former praxis of attempting to achieve finally revealed itself as the obstacle obscuring perception from what already abides... that which never arises or diminishes.

 

Rigpa is.

i am this

[old3bob]

 

5 hours ago, idiot_stimpy said:

This unchanging awareness, this Rigpa, is your true nature, the Buddha mind within, your enlightened essence. (It doesn’t become and doesn’t die or cease) 

 

Understanding Rigpa reveals the profound simplicity at the heart of Dzogchen practice. It is the realization that there is nothing to be done, nowhere to go, and nothing to become. 

 

We are already that which we seek. The journey, then, is not one of “becoming”, but of recognizing, not of attaining but of revealing. It is the direct realization that you are the mirror, reflecting the dance of existence with pristine clarity and equanimity.

 

Let us embrace the wisdom of Garab Dorje, shedding the layers of conceptualization, practice, and effort, to rest in the natural state of Rigpa. Here, in the simplicity of being, lies the ultimate freedom, the liberation that Dzogchen points us towards—a state beyond cause and effect, where the timeless awareness of Rigpa illuminates the true nature of all things.

 

pretty smart, are quotation marks missing? hehe

[idiot_stimpy]

5 hours ago, old3bob said:

pretty smart, are quotation marks missing? hehe

 

Yes that was a copy and paste. I just went back and edited everything copied into quote brackets to avoid confusion. 

Edited February 27 by idiot_stimpy

[idiot_stimpy]

8 hours ago, silent thunder said:

The Sage lets go of something each day whereas people of knowledge look to learn and gain something... stacking up high the accomplishments.

 

The Sage rather seeks simplicity and reduction.

 

My primary process in recent years has become radical wholesale release into raw being.

 

When all is allowed to fall away that which remains is true essence.

 

My former praxis of attempting to achieve finally revealed itself as the obstacle obscuring perception from what already abides... that which never arises or diminishes.

 

Rigpa is.

i am this

 

 

I love this. Thank you for sharing. 

 

I think its important to remind myself that its always here and effortless, nothing needs to be done or understood and it cannot be improved upon as everything has already been accomplished. The more you try to force it, the further it flees from you. 

[old3bob]

3 hours ago, idiot_stimpy said:

 

 

I love this. Thank you for sharing. 

 

I think its important to remind myself that its always here and effortless, nothing needs to be done or understood and it cannot be improved upon as everything has already been accomplished. The more you try to force it, the further it flees from you. 

 

sounds simple enough but, 

[silent thunder]

but conditioned minds complicate and bring obscuration to what naturally abides regardless of perceptual interpretation, projection and assumption.

[Forestgreen]

And getting back to that unconditioned state might require effort.

[stirling]

55 minutes ago, Forestgreen said:

And getting back to that unconditioned state might require effort.

 

It actually requires DROPPING all effort, not any sort of "doing". The unconditioned is always there, underneath all doing. 

[Forestgreen]

And how many do you know that are in a position to do that that got there without putting in any effort? 

[stirling]

33 minutes ago, Forestgreen said:

And how many do you know that are in a position to do that that got there without putting in any effort? 

 

All of them... or no-one, depending on how you look at it.

 

In more 3D terms, every teacher I have ever had or met with realization in the Zen or Vajrayana Buddhist traditions over the last 30 years or so of hanging around temples and meditation centers.

 

What we are looking for is just being present with the world as it happens. It doesn't require a special technique, but does require learning to notice when we are "doing" and dropping that "doing" over and over again, and then resting in the stillness that follows.

 

Quote

Be serene in the oneness of things
and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves.
When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity
your very effort fills you with activity. - From "Verses on the Faith Mind"
by Chien-chih Seng-ts'an 
Third Zen Patriarch

 

Quote

The mind of a perfect man is like a mirror. It grasps nothing. It expects nothing. It reflects but does not hold. Therefore, the perfect man can act without effort. - Chuang Tzu

 

Edited February 27 by stirling

[idiot_stimpy]

Quote

“In this nonmeditation, intellect is irrelevant. Naturally clever or educated to high discrimination, intellect is irrelevant in the capacity of nonmeditation to attain clarity and discernment – to identify with rigpa...
 
*******
Directed Nonmeditation
 
Based on the dominant contemporary lineal teaching of Jigme Lingpa’s Dzogchen Nyingtik, we have two modes or methods, of formal meditation. The first, trekcho, has been described above, and according to traditional analysis relates to what is called the Mind approach (semde). It may be reasoned that this Mind approach developed into the trekcho mode of meditation and what is known as the secret approach (mangakde) developed into the second kind of formal meditation which is perhaps better described as directed meditation – what is known as togal. Certainly, trekcho leaves nothing or very little to be developed while togal requires application of arduous preparation. Trekcho is portable as far as it can equally be performed on a meditation seat as in walking, eating, shitting, or in working or any moment of the twenty-four hour a day activity. Togal on the contrary requires a demanding discipline over a dedicated period. Yet it may be held that the nature of the meditation in both forms is indistinguishable nonmeditation in mature practice.
 
It is no coincidence that the Mind approach originated in the Empire Period of Tibetan history at the advent of Dzogchen in Tibet when the Bon culture still dominated. At this juncture, Dzogchen, the Great Perfection, was a simple mind-mudra, involving neither mantra nor tantra and no ritual. Trekcho was the formless meditation that evolved during this period. Later, when the original mystical tradition of Tibetan Buddhism was under threat from the New School traditions – the Whispered Teaching of the Kagyu and Sakya scholarship – the Nyingma School became highly formalized and increasingly organized. Under the rubric of the Secret approach (mangakde), Dzogchen developed into the fully-developed togal mode that required extensive social support, which is to say a monastic, or controlled, environment. The situation today in the West, when Dzogchen is underlying– and undermining – a still dominant post-christian humanistic culture, is similar to the advent of Buddhism in Tibet, and Dzogchen in general and the trekcho mode in particular is most appropriate. The sophisticated religious and cultural forms of Tibetan Buddhism have no place here and will wither on the vine for lack of a root. Dzogchen and other non-ritual forms on the other hand – if it is permitted by the Tibetan elite – will thrive because it is existentially rather than academically based.
 
First, togal is best practiced in short intense periods of hours or days broken by minutes or hours of rest of similar length. The preliminaries of each session of togal are not so much a series of preparatory exercises as the automatic and necessary steps to accomplishing comfortable simply-sitting postures inseparable from the practice itself. These preliminaries, however, are crucially important since they establish the frame in which the (non)meditation is practiced, scrupulously and strictly, without let or hindrance. Unlike the preliminaries in other methods of meditation, these preparations in togal cannot be separated from the nonmeditation itself, a fact that tends to challenge the very notion of nonmeditation as beyond cause and condition. These preliminaries can be laid down sequentially and logically.
 
Overall, the nonmeditation environment requires specific posture, energetic condition and contemplation. For the ‘body’, the yogic posture of ‘lion’, ‘elephant’ or ‘rishi’ is required. These postures require personal and intimate instruction from a well-practiced teacher. Regarding ‘speech’ (or vibration) silence is essential. As for ‘mind’, nonmeditation is phrased as ‘contemplation of spaciousness’. These comprise the three imperatives. More specifically, ‘the three keys’ control body, speech and mind (the three media) in a restrictive, disciplined manner. The first key is the gaze, or rather the doors through which the gaze exit, which, of course, are the eyes. The eyes, wide open, gaze unmoving, unstrained, are fixed in one of three directions. The three directions are ‘raised up’, ‘straight ahead’ or ‘lowered down’ and the names of these three gazes relate to the three kayas or dimensions – dharmakaya, sambhogakaya or dharmakaya respectively. The gaze is fixed but it is unfocused and that defocused gaze brings the entire 360-degree mandala of vision into view. This mandala may not provide the intensity of 20/20 focus demanded in industrial society, but it gives us a place to rest, a sensory field that is the realm of togal nonmeditation. In this field of nonmeditation through a fixed gaze the 360- degrees of the external mandala provide, beside a resting-place, a field of endlessly entrancing psychedelic color and form, or strings of light and color, or a pixelated rainbow vision.
 
The second key is focus on the objective field. This focus is better described as a nonfocus, because the concentrated focus of normal vision in which two lines of vision meet at a point of focus is relaxed so that the entire 360-degree mandala receives unfocused or defocused attention. This nonfocus may be described as looking into the spaciousness of the visual field, looking through the dimension of form into its formless ground or looking at the colorless essence of color, while retaining the visionary dimension of form. The field defined by the visual mandala in front of our customary meditation seat may be excited by sitting in nature gazing at the sky, never directly at the sun, always away from the sun, perhaps in the opposite direction from the sun, but always at the bright light of the sky. This field of nonmeditation may be described as an interior plane of the sky and the nonmeditation as ‘skygazing’. At night, the field of nonfocus may become the penumbra of a candle-flame (or an electric light bulb), or the moon itself.
The third key is the manner of breathing. Excited or normal breathing will slow down to a barely discernable breath directed through a small gap at the center of the closed lips, the teeth set apart. This unique Dzogchen manner of meditative breathing will gradually slow down until we are breathing in slow motion with a longer outbreath than inbreath.
 
The fourth key is rigpa. Here is the key that allows us to use the term ‘nonmeditation’ in the context of togal. Rigpa cannot be induced or developed. Rigpa is the natural light of the mind, neither an ontological nor
epistemological factor, relating to neither being nor knowing. It cannot be said to come into existence, remain in existence or become extinguished. In this respect we may call it ‘nondual’ in its reality and a function of the timeless here and now. On the other hand, rigpa is a little word that reflects the shine in every moment of ordinary sensory perception and thus denominates our common experience, the most ordinary aspects of our lives.
In the Dzogchen context, rigpa’s majesty is symbolized by an infinite string of vajras, like the vajra-string painted on the walls of every gompa at waist height, like the indestructible vajra in ‘vajrayana’ that provides a hit of clear light in every moment of consciousness, the only unfailing constant that marks our every breath from birth to death – and probably defines our awareness ante-birth and post-death. That rigpa is the final key in this togal
equation.
 
With these keys in place, the light of the mind – which has never ceased to shine – is accessed. Identified with the rigpa that is at the essence of consciousness, the form of consciousness may take on various illusory and temporary states, but all of them in rigpa’s light.
 
It is futile or counterproductive to speak of experience of the nature of mind in terms of temporal development, in terms of progress along a path. However, in this elucidation of a moment of unitary, timeless, reality, it is inevitable that in pulling apart its make-up it should be expressed in terms of a chain of consecutive links connected in space-time rather than an illuminated moment of multidimensional experience. These ‘six lamps’ are aspects of a unitary noumenal moment.
 
The first ‘lamp’ is the light of the heart-center, and the second, evidenced metaphorically, is the light of a tube originating in an infinitesimally tiny seed of light – no-seed – in the heart-center, a tube beginning as a nugatory, conceptual, hint of light and gradually becoming a visible silver thread as it ascends within the central channel, until, above the throat center, where it has become palpable as a crystal tube, it divides into two and swoops, one strand to the left and one to the right, into the centers of the eyes, which are the third lamp. The heart is the first lamp, the kati crystal tube originating in the heart center, bifurcating, and illuminating the eyes is the second lamp, and the so-called ‘water-bubble’ eyes are the third lamp. The eyes, defocused, so that the mandala of vision is a sphere, look through the array of color into the spaciousness beyond, which is the fourth lamp. The sheet of variegated color that is essentially empty, appears pixelated, where each pixel is a bindu of refracted rainbow light, and that pixel-bindu is the fifth lamp. Then, finally, as an amalgam of those five lamps, as the difference between inside and outside vanishes, rigpa becomes the sole reality, the nondual timeless reality of the here and now, which is the sixth all encompassing lamp.

The primary experience here is direct experience of the nature of mind, which, although beyond the intellect to define, may be indicated as transcending analytic thought, comparative thought and perhaps all discursive thought. Temporal signs of such transcendence are the appearance of ‘fireflies’, ‘stars’, or clusters of ‘floaters’ in the visual field. But the sense of final attainment, of nothing left to do, ‘nonaction’, the absence of any and all purpose, underlies any extraordinary phenomenal change in sensory perception.
 
Sensory experience will never be the same again, although it may sometimes be occluded. Technically speaking, the increase in radiance and intensity, the expansion of the limits of variety and breadth of perception, is denoted by the increase of the scope of awareness and spaciousness (rigpa and ying). The issue is no longer the analytical struggle between truth and falsehood or truth and delusion, but rather the degree of radiance in sensory consciousness. Externally, cognitive clarity enlightens sensory perception while internally visionary or intellectual patterns illuminate experience. The colors of the visual field rise in celebration – the traditional literature uses the metaphors of brocade and streamers – and the distinctions imposed conceptually, by habitual thought patterns, become blurred.

If the moment of rigpa in all its intensity is sustained then the duality of ordinary consciousness, the sense of a distinction between outside and inside, will be overwhelmed and we find ourselves in purelands. The central and most radical pureland is that described as buddha Vairochana’s land of spaciousness. Each of the other four buddhas have a similar but separate pureland. Each of the eight bodhisattvas likewise has a pureland. In these purelands distinction between subjective awareness and objective form still maintains but the overwhelming sense of unity is undeniable, and although unity encompasses all perception, sensory appearances are still manifesting as yabyum buddha-deities and their retinues.
 
These purelands are symbolically depicted as a miniscule part of a ‘vajra strand’, or a ‘vajra chain’, each timeless instant denominated as an indestructible pureland composed of rainbow pixels.
In that way, without attaining the consummation promised in the first moment of direct experience, the scope of our experience is enlarged to incorporate, unconsciously, the bodhisattva vow. What remains is the ultimate consummation in which the sense of duality – the I and the other, the knower and the known – has disappeared entirely. Spontaneity rules! And that spontaneity leaves no gap between the conception and the act, no time between the first and last words of the sentence, no separation between thought and being. No coming or going, no increase or decrease, constancy rules! This state of nonaction is described by the buddhists in terms of the four ‘buddha-kayas’ and their four associated aspects of awareness.
 
The togal experience in the hothouse environment of solitude and six two hour sittings a day is described as a concentrated, intensive, revelation of the nature of mind. This revelation is not always and necessarily an experience of dynamic energy. The ruling vibration may be serene and calm, with a self-possessed, smiling face. But the existential changes associated with the earthmoving experiences of togal practice as verified by the tradition reveal startling variations that seem to indicate the difference between samsara and nirvana! These signs may be seen by an objective observer in the following manner.
 
First, when either by lightning strike or stealthy creep the body-mind has been overtaken by direct experience of mind’s nature, it loses all incentive to move, and like a tortoise in a small bowl it remains immobile. Likewise, speech has lost all sense of urgency and indeed all expression may have sunk into preverbal silence. The mind also having lost samsaric motivation is like a bird caught in a net, its futile fluttering falling into helpless inertia. With increased familiarization with this novel condition, as if all energy has drained into the central channel, activity has become reflexive and involuntary and the scope of possible reaction having widened beyond conception, activity proceeds with heightened consciousness but without any shame.
 
Symptoms of disease, not long-lasting may appear at this time as the final manifestation of old karma. Likewise, extempore, seemingly lunatic, speech can arise – automatic expression of a voice box freed from strict control – as the remnants of old habits of expression. The mind meanwhile, experiencing newfound powers shows amoral response to human affairs and disengagement from all argument and dispute allowing hitherto unknown personal influence. If familiarity with this egoless, selfless condition turns into artless, spontaneous responsiveness with unthinking constancy, the body assumes a lightness that is like a bird in flight. The true meaning of all sound, all speech, is immediately grokked, so that not only can no misunderstanding ever arise but all sound is appreciated as pure and sweet. One’s own voice, meanwhile is irresistible to others and meaning is transmitted faultlessly to them. Likewise, the mind’s awareness provides immunization against all infected sound and meaning. Finally, if rigpa is all that remains in body, speech and mind, the body is like a corpse in that even as the sky collapses, the ocean floods the earth, and fire consumes all compounded things, there is no fear. All sound is uncomprehending echo. The mist of the mind dissolving in every moment of experience reveals unitary awareness. Eternal youth, lightness and fairness of complexion and an innocence incapable of untruth, is promised as the inevitable effect of nonmeditation.
…...........
Sky-gazing: Integrated Nonmeditation
One or the other of formal and directed nonmeditation can be taken as a total, all-encompassing practice. Formal meditation can be taken as means to identification with the formless nature of mind, to be followed after long and intense practice by the directed meditation that may redress a balance that has been lost by too much introspection. It is also possible if not desirable to integrate these two modes into a simple nonmeditation called skygazing.

Essentially skygazing – as the name implies – means looking intensely into the sky. ‘The sky’ is defined either as the space immediately in front of the meditator or the deep sky of the empyrean. Specifically, we use the six lamps to show us the way into the place of nonmeditation. First visualize the kati crystal tube originating in the heart center (see p.28), rising through the central channel to a place above the throat chakra and then bifurcating, thickening and curling (like the horns of cow-deer), leading to the irises of the water bubble eyes. Here the rigpa in the eyes’ gaze penetrates ‘the outer sky’ providing access to the ‘inner of the outer’. Then transferring the gaze from the outer sky to the inner sky we are looking with rigpa at the inner sky that consists of the gaps between thoughts and the ultimate
spaciousness of the thoughts themselves, the gaps between the organs of the body and the spaciousness of the body and all its constituents.
 
Since there is no dimensionality in rigpa, the inner sky is automatically joined with the outer sky, and the secret sky is revealed as an unbroken, seamless dimension, which is the third sky. We are now sitting in nonmeditation under the sixth lamp, the lamp of rigpa, which is the sole reality, a nondual timeless reality, an unborn reality of clarity and compassion. This is the sixth all-encompassing lamp. The preparatory stance of skygazing involves, first, the sevenfold Vairochana posture. Sitting in that posture we investigate our thoughts and by recollection nullify past thoughts (memory), thoughts of the future (planning), and present thought spinning off distracted senses. Then abiding in a calm innate awareness, with eyes wide open , with a straight forward gaze, we sky gaze.
 
In the description of the preparatory visualization above, rigpa is apparently reified and directed. This anomaly – absurdity – is simply a manner of speech. As far as we can let go and give up egoic identity, only thus far can we identify with the nature of mind in the ‘secret sky’. How can the ego abandon itself in favor of the greater good? Only in so far, surely, as initiatory experience has provided, or provides, certainty that the nonegoic, self-less, condition is suffused with pure delight and generates its own magnetism!
 
Afterword
 
Extensive space has been apportioned to both Formal and Directed Nonmeditation beyond any consideration of their importance relative to simple nonmeditation. But such simple meditation defines Dzogchen. If meditation is formal or directed, does it even deserve the name nonmeditation? If meditation is not a spontaneous efflorescence of mind’s nature can it be called nonmeditation? If meditation does not have the crucial stamp of spontaneity can we call it Dzogchen? Strictly speaking we should answer these questions in the negative. The label ‘Dzogchen’ should only apply to the realization of the nature of mind in the present moment. Any introductory ngondro practices, including intellectual assumptions, belong to vajrayana, which with its notional belief in the goal achieved here and now, in practice, is just the take-off strip.
 
In both Tibetan monastic praxis and the manner of instruction assumed by Nyingma teaching-lamas in the West, the weight of traditional training lies in intensive vajrayana (ngondro, kyerim and dzokrim) as a preparatory path. As a preparation for a career in professional monasticism, that training has proved highly efficient. As a springboard to Dzogchen realization in the West, it is in doubt. Taking literally the fundamental Dzogchen precept that an understanding of the nature of mind cannot be caused or effected, no particular mental constellation effectuates that most wished-for state of ‘great perfection’ more than any other. Does a loosened mind-set permit the possibility of realization more than a tight intellect? Does a negative answer to that question illuminate mind’s nature? If the answer if ‘yes’ then we have outlined a path and a goal to attain in this lifetime. If ‘no’ then we have set ourselves up for a breakthrough into the nature of mind, but that oh so-wished-for upshot remains ‘as far away as the earth is from the sky’.”
♦️
~ from Dzogchen Nonmeditation by Keith Dowman, Dzogchen Now!

 

Edited February 28 by idiot_stimpy

[steve]

22 hours ago, Forestgreen said:

And getting back to that unconditioned state might require effort.

 

21 hours ago, stirling said:

 

It actually requires DROPPING all effort, not any sort of "doing". The unconditioned is always there, underneath all doing. 

 

19 hours ago, Forestgreen said:

And how many do you know that are in a position to do that that got there without putting in any effort? 

 

For me, this is a good and important point of distinction.

All manner of practices and efforts may be necessary to bring us to the threshold of the unconditioned.

No effort whatsoever can take us across that threshold, only release and openness to what is.

No "one" can ever pass that threshold because that "one" is the very essence of conditioning.

 

 

[idiot_stimpy]

Regarding effort. 

 

Quote

Dzogchen and Non-Meditation

"It is difficult to realize the nature of Ati Yoga of the Great Perfection, so train in it! 

This nature is the awakened state of mind. Although your body remains human, your mind arrives at the stage of buddhahood.

No matter how profound, how vast, or how all-encompassing the teachings of the Great Perfection may be, they are all included within this: Don't meditate on or fabricate even as much as an atom and don't be distracted for even as much as an instant.

There is a danger that people who fail to comprehend this will use this platitude: "It is all right not to meditate!" Their minds remain fettered by the distractions of samsaric business, although when someone realizes the nature of nonmeditation, they should have liberated samsara and nirvana into equality.

When realization occurs you should definitely be free from samsara, so that your disturbing emotions naturally subside and become original wakefulness.

What is the use of a realization that fails to reduce your disturbing emotions? However, some people will indulge in the five poisons while refraining from meditation. They have not realized the true nature and will surely go to hell."

Advice from the Lotus-Born: A Collection of Padmasambhavas Advice to the Dakini Yeshe Tsogyal and Other Close Disciples

 

Edited February 28 by idiot_stimpy

[steve]

Natural mind is like a jewel.

If you’re looking for mind, you can’t find it. Even if you don’t look for it, it is never lost and never separate.

~ Geshe Dangsong Namgyal from Pure Dzogchen 

[old3bob]

18 hours ago, steve said:

 

 

 

For me, this is a good and important point of distinction.

All manner of practices and efforts may be necessary to bring us to the threshold of the unconditioned.

No effort whatsoever can take us across that threshold, only release and openness to what is.

No "one" can ever pass that threshold because that "one" is the very essence of conditioning.

 

 

Right on, those are key points! otherwise the "presumptive are leading the presumptive"