1. The Social and Ultimate Meaning of Refuge
2. Refuge in Rigpa: Pure Presence as the True Object of Refuge
3. Surrender Without Going Anywhere: The Non-Dual Ground
4. Rejecting Gradualism: No Path, No Goal, No Progress
5. Buddhahood as Delusion: The Starting Point Is the Goal
6. The Bodhisattva Vow in Dzogchen: Spontaneous Bodhichitta
7. Bodhichitta Arises Outside Causality
8. Non-Action and the Waiting Game
9. The Ritual Syllables: Hūṃ and the Role of Mantra
10. Garab Dorje’s Three Precepts: Recognition, Conviction, Confidence
11. Recognition: The First Precept and Immediate Knowing
12. Conviction Through Equality: Seeing Emptiness in All Phenomena
13. Deconstructing Dualities: Sacred/Profane, Clean/Dirty, Good/Bad
14. Working with Neuroses: Sexuality as a Mirror of Discrimination
15. Emptiness as the Basis for Tenderness and Liberation
16. The Snowball Effect of Conviction
17. The Difficulty of Seeing Relational Neuroses
18. Retreat as Clarification, Not Escape
19. Confidence in Release: The Third Precept and Karma Exhaustion
20. Faith as Progressive Certainty in Dzogchen Practice
1. The Social and Ultimate Meaning of Refuge
Of course, we take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. But this is just a social thing—so that we can tell our friends where we are at the moment. We are going to explain why we are going into retreat, or doing the seminar, or something. I guess it can be useful sometimes, although at other times it can create problems. I think if you have to tell your mother where you are going—she is a devout Christian—then you might need this conventional refuge.
But what we actually take refuge in, and the only thing that is worthwhile taking refuge in, which gives meaning to refuge, is the nature of mind, of course.
2. Refuge in Rigpa: Pure Presence as the True Object of Refuge
And then this refuge business becomes very important. Because when I say “I take refuge,” it evokes the sense of here and nowness. You are putting yourself right into the presence of the here and now. The phrase then becomes: I take refuge in the rigpa. At the moment, I am translating rigpa as “pure presence.” I don’t want to use the phrase too much, because it becomes very easily worn out. It is better to change it regularly.
So the Lord has always had a pristine presence about it. I take refuge in the Trikayas. That’s good. What does that mean? It may mean different things to each of us, because it is defined differently in different contexts.
3. Surrender Without Going Anywhere: The Non- Dual Ground
But for me, again at this very moment, it means cognitive awareness. I take refuge in the three dimensions of cognitive awareness: cognitive emptiness. The emptiness is useful because it evokes nothing—after all. Then there must be surrender: a falling into that place of refuge. That implies, of course, a loss of sense of self. This implies a loss of the sense of the will.
When we are talking about the ground of being as this all-embracing sphere or field, that concept is useful because we are identifying with something much larger than a little body. We are identifying, first of all, with something that everybody—everybody except your beings—has. More than that, we are identifying with what is the all-embracing cosmic essence.
So we—ourselves, our little self—becomes just this finite point at the apex of the pyramid or at the center of a vast sphere. Whatever you see, the identification with that requires a surrender: a surrender of sense of self, a surrender of concept of self, and at the same time an identification with what is all-embracing.
4. Rejecting Gradualism: No Path, No Goal, No Progress
The possibility of surrender implies total surrender—the capacity to surrender the will to surrender. We have to be careful here because we are not going anywhere. This—what we are taking refuge in—is not different from what we already are. It is necessary to be very careful here because this does not mean that we are going to a specific place. We are taking refuge in something that already exists.
This is a key point of the Dzogchen view: we do not make the goal different from the Dzogchen point. This is not going anywhere. We are simply turning on the light where we are, right here and now.
That is a problem with the word “surrender,” because that gives the impression of doing something, going somewhere, changing a little bit. That enters onto another aspect of the same preset: there is nothing to change.
Forget the notion of improvement. Put away the dirty words: improvement, progress, development, change, transformation, evolution. Forget it. And this is another aspect of this preset: there is nothing like progress, transformation, evolution—all these types of concepts are irrelevant.
5. Buddhahood as Delusion: The Starting Point Is the Goal
These things might be going on in time and space, but they are completely irrelevant to us. Insofar as we buy into a laden, graduated path leading toward a goal which is considered superior to the place of starting, we divorce ourselves from the possibility of identification with rigpa. That is to say, there is no benefit anywhere other than in the place where we are at the moment.
And of course, the first thing on that list to cross out is “Buddhahood.” Now stop using the word. You stop using this word, or you stop using the word. I have stopped using the word. I use “Buddha” just as a noun.
Calm down. Buddha is here and now. Buddhahood is a totally delusory goal at the end of a stupid path— because the starting point is the goal.
So: I take refuge in Buddha. I take refuge in the here. I take refuge in rigpa. I take refuge in pure Presence. I take refuge in this timeless Moment.
6. The Bodhisattva Vow in Dzogchen: Spontaneous Bodhichitta
And in the ritual of formal sitting, we conceptualize that refuge as the syllable “A.” We vocalize the Hūṃ after the nine breaths. And after the refuge comes the bodhisattva vow—the generation of bodhichitta.
It shows that bodhichitta cannot be generated through a fabricated, contrived mental process. Even the idea that that is possible provides an obstacle to the natural generation. The generation of bodhichitta is an automatic process that accompanies the spontaneity of the nature of mind.
7. Bodhichitta Arises Outside Causality
I’m not going to describe any kind of causal process there. I simply ask you to use that touchstone again: when do you know bodhichitta? Of course, I mean— comparison: when do you know that? Surely, we know it only fortuitously. We know it synchronously—without causative effect, suddenly, without a place in a linear chain. It’s a here-and-now time’s manifestation, welling up out of the heart, just descriptive.
Does it arise in any other situation? Yes—when we are faced with abject poverty or heart-rending pain in the environment or with our own. Yes, love and kindness arise: a relative compassion. That’s not it.
Let’s take the proverbial sunset situation, where real compassion arises without an object, without any image out there at all—no reason, no serial causal process. Let’s see how bodhichitta arises without causality, without spontaneous context. Because the compassion—the generation of bodhichitta, the compassion of mind—arises identical to the spontaneity of manifestation out of the nature of mind.
8. Non-Action and the Waiting Game
It cannot be forced. There’s no technique. And if it doesn’t arise—and if it doesn’t arise—now-Action is the key there. If non-action is practiced, then what is the key to non-action? The Dzogchen precept. If the Dzogchen precepts don’t work, then it’s a waiting game.
9. The Ritual Syllables: Hūṃ and the Role of Mantra
The bodhichitta is through the seeds on the bone: Hūṃ for the refuge, Hūṃ for the generation. The syllables, of course, are best used when they are in the ritual meditation situation. But you can use them, or they may arise randomly.
10. Garab Dorje’s Three Precepts: Recognition, Conviction, Confidence
Good, so let’s go back to Garab Dorje, the root. The first word, a precept, is Recognition. The second is conviction. Now you might think, “Oh well, that precept of Garab Dorje and the commentary on it—yes, we can go along with that; that’s good, and we can accept that.” And then you might get up at the end of the session, at the end of this retreat, and—having believed that precept—it gradually fades away and no longer has potency.
Maybe that’s enough. Maybe that’s all you need—that reason. Maybe that’s the button that, when pressed, lights up the pinball machine fully for the duration. But most likely, we need feeding. We need to be fed. We need to feed ourselves. We need to maintain the connection with the source of that certainty about meaning and the nature of mind and so on.
11. Recognition: The First Precept and Immediate Knowing
And the key—or rather, the proof of the pudding—is that awareness is maintained in difficult situations. In the 24-hour-a-day meditation, whatever arises becomes a source of reinforcement, intensification of the conviction about the nature of mind.
12. Conviction Through Equality: Seeing Emptiness in All Phenomena
I mentioned the Hundred Names of Peaceful Deities that represent the whole range of possibilities of our psychic life. The Wrathful and Peaceful Deities represent the gamut of our psychic life. They represent the presence of awareness in every aspect of our psychic lives. Or look at it another way: their photographs of the long chain.
The long chain—yes, space and light—but in that space and light, there’s a form visible. God has something illusory, and of course it’s color. And the color and the formulation of the color is photographed as one of the Hundred Names of Peaceful Deities.
What that means is that whatever arises, we are looking at the cognitive awareness—the cognitive emptiness—of the experience. So that nothing at all can arise which does not connect us to that root source.
13. Deconstructing Dualities: Sacred/Profane, Clean/Dirty, Good/Bad
And when we say “nothing arises which cannot,” then we have to be inclusive conceptually here. I mean, we have to destroy the distinction between sacred and profane. Because until we do so, we’re pushing the profane away and putting the sacred in.
Likewise, we must be aware of the sameness between what is clean and what is dirty—on every level. But it’s only so if you recognize it as it is. If you don’t recognize it, we can start conceptually: get rid of the discrimination between good and bad. And then we’re able to look without obscuration.
14. Working with Neuroses: Sexuality as a Mirror of Discrimination
Well, you might say, “What kind of direct perception is that?” We’re actually nibbling away at the intellectual function here. Yes, we can start with deconstruction of our intellectual function, process, propensities. This is to enlarge what Vajrayana is about.
Let’s go a little bit further in the same direction. We need to actually address our own phobias, our own personal neuroses. And I mean recognize—but simply by the recognition, we get rid of the discrimination.
Okay, use sex as the obvious illustration here. Sex is an obvious illustration—not a very good one, perhaps—but at this stage of our life, it’s relatively easy to identify our particular sexual propensity. We’re not looking so much at good and bad as at what is preferred and what is denied.
We can’t see that photograph—that image of desire—included in most of the 108 Wrathful and Peaceful Deities, until we can look through both the positive and the negative, or the acceptable and the unacceptable aspects of our sexuality.
15. Emptiness as the Basis for Tenderness and Liberation
And until we can do so—if we can see what we desire in the sexual arena and what we reject—until we can see both of those things as empty, then we have an obstruction, a serious obstruction, in the recognition of the nature of mind in every situation.
You mean that in your own sexuality or in others? In our own. I don’t think there’s any distinction there—if you see it in your own, then you see it in others. If you can accept your own body of sexuality in all its aspects, then you accept others’— as empty. In this context, that’s as empty. Emptiness is the key to equality.
Emptiness is the key to tenderness.
16. The Snowball Effect of Conviction
This is Garab Dorje’s second precept: conviction. And we gain conviction by putting the principle of equality into practice. And we do that by understanding that our preferences are just comically determined momentaries—momentarily, as it were.
By recognizing the emptiness in both what is desirable for us and what is negative—by recognizing the equality of the positive and the negative—there’s a matter of preference, not good about it in itself. That way, we’re getting rid of our whole belief system. Our belief system is based upon preferences: what is good and what is bad for us. And the whole universe is created around that basic hypothesis.
And the dualism—where the unity becomes the dualism—at that point, the belief system belongs. That’s liberation, not a loss. That is the meaning of liberation: there should not be a feeling of loss when the belief system blows up.
17. The Difficulty of Seeing Relational Neuroses
Once we’ve identified the care, the light, and the bliss also in what is most adverse in our lives, then the snowball effect picks up speed—because anything and everything is identified as the nature of mind.
When we have more and more conviction, it becomes like a snowball—growing and growing—and everything that happens in our lives is caught by this conviction of the knowledge of the nature of mind.
But even so, if you recognize that mental pattern—that neurosis—is empty, and when you do not recognize it—even so, if you’re still recognized—sometimes you still have the same negative patterns. If you still have the same destructive patterns, even if you recognize it as empty, the pattern seems the same. All will become clear.
One thing I should say here is: do not underestimate the difficulty of recognizing the emptiness of our neurosis. Because our neurosis—perhaps in the sexual field—is easy to identify, but there are other neuroses in the relational field that are not easy to perceive. It is therefore important to recognize the core of our neuroses.
18. Retreat as Clarification, Not Escape
In order to bring those areas of our consciousness which are dim and obscure into focus, we may need to go into some secure situation—retreat. We reduce the intensity. We make the frame a little smaller, but keep and pull the energy down a little bit so that we can see things that otherwise would be obscure.
So, we leave the city and go into the countryside. We leave the countryside and the village and go into the cave. Or in some way, we know where we are stressed and we know our own parameters—So, in some way, we reduce the stress and clarify things thereby.
We are not doing the Hindu ascetic thing here—going into the cave for life. Simply taking a break in order to see things a little more clearly—and then, when that is done, we come back into saṃsāra.
Why? Because the bottom line is: the greater the intensity, the greater the speed, the greater the stress—the greater the potential for liberation. That’s indicative of the conviction—that we need that degree of conviction. Then we can walk anywhere. We can walk into any dark place and engage in any circumstance whatsoever.
19. Confidence in Release: The Third Precept and Karma Exhaustion
Then we can actually explore the nooks and crannies of the Alike Yana. Then we can talk about emptying our karmic reserves.
The third precept is confidence—confidence in release. And here we are talking about release in a technical sense. This is the release of each perception—every nanosecond of internal or external perception—arising, abiding, dissolving. The dissolution is the release.
But in time and space, as you know, every action has an effect—that’s karma, the knock-on effect. If the experience takes place in the long shaw, in that timeless moment, there is no knock-on effect. Insofar as that moment of experience is released, then the propensity to return to that place again is decreased.
If we can see the emptiness of the neurosis right in front of our faces—and see the light-form—then, in the moment of the dissolution of that instant of perception, the tendency for that neurosis to return is reduced. That’s crucial. This is the essence of this third precept of Garab Dorje.
Because what is the point of observing the mind and its phenomena if it’s just going to go on and on and on? The point is release. And release is actually the exhaustion of karma—finally.
When the texts talk about the exhaustion of karma, they’re not talking about the finishing of the propensity to articulate particular words in particular ways—not even to repeat emotional reaction patterns. What we’re talking about here is the propensity to embodiment—the propensity to visualize oneself as a human being, as a psycho-organism, or more particularly as a being of flesh and blood.
Because at the end of karmic determinacy—at the end of the process of cause and effect—what we’ve got left is typically a body of light.
20. Faith as Progressive Certainty in Dzogchen Practice
Confidence in this process of liberation is the third of Garab Dorje’s precepts. You see the thing fully and you know it completely—and in that moment, you’re free of attachment to it. You’re free of the desire to replicate that moment of experience. Then they have done that—crossed it off the list.
Is it true? I’m not sure if I understand the difference between the second and the third precept. The second is conviction; the third is confidence. If I am convinced of something, I have confidence in that—absolutely.
And you would say: once you recognize the thing—once you have the initial recognition fully—then the conviction and the confidence are in there. So, as I said, you’ve only got one precept, really. But to elaborate: it’s conviction in the efficacy of the practice; confidence in the process of release.
If you’re looking at these precepts with a non-dual mind, then the whole thing is instantaneous. The recognition, the conviction, and the confidence—it’s momentary and it’s complete.
But if you want to stretch it out a little bit—with the conviction about that experience of recognition of the nature of mind—then you have the confidence to walk into any kind of situation whatsoever that you fear. And it is that faith that allows the process of liberation—and the process of liberation to occur automatically.
Existentially here—in making this realization more than a momentary experience, but more of an extended path—we need to get the juice out of that experience of reality in order to be able to walk in places where we have previously been afraid.
And that’s what Garab Dorje’s precepts do. You can do it immediately. That’s just another way to say that these precepts expand our minds. And expanding the mind is expanding the dimensions of our field of activity.
It’s difficult to say exactly how that expansion occurs or where it may occur— because surely it happens differently for every individual.