1. The Three Precepts as Dzogchen Essence
2. The Nature of Multiplicity Is Non-Dual
3. Unity, Duality, and Plurality as Expressions of One Ground
4. The Initiatory Experience of Non-Duality
5. The Peril of Believing in Substantial Reality
6. Social Constructs as Karmic Projection
7. Phenomena as Inclusive, Interconnected Situations
8. Pure Simplicity and the Light of the Ground
9. Why Legislation Fails in a Non-Dual World
10. Institutions as Illusory Constructs of Fear
11. Meditation as Construct-Free Presence
12. The Ground of Clear Light Beyond Concepts
13. Thoughts as Foam Returning to the Ocean
14. The Moon-in-Water Simile: Nature of Appearance
15. Samadhi of Reality—Free from Judgment
16. Transmission as Direct Reflection, Not Doctrine
17. Integrating Non-Meditation into Ordinary Life
18. Social Reality as Illusory Performance
19. Conduct: “There Is Nothing to Do”
20. Recognition as the Only Activity—Spontaneous Perfection
1. The Three Precepts as Dzogchen Essence
The son of nurses—those of you who have the book—we’re very lucky to have this printout, which we’ve done overnight, just magically, of course, of the three verses of precepts. Maybe we could distribute this later on. Yes, I need to correct it and then I will print it, or I will send it to people by mail. So, the first line—it’s got six lines and they’re in three couplets. The first couplet refers to view, the second to meditation, the third to conduct.
2. The Nature of Multiplicity Is Non-Dual
These are the three essential precepts here, each sufficient to deconstruct—or to determine—the nature of view, meditation, and conduct respectively. The first: the nature of multiplicity is now-dual.
3. Unity, Duality, and Plurality as Expressions of One Ground
And here we have three things: unity, duality, and plurality. We say unity is perfect, duality is perfect, plurality is perfect—but this is only because plurality is unity, multiplicity is unity, duality is unity. Because what appears to be dual has never left the ocean of unity; it is always and only, and only can be, unity. When I say unity, I mean non-dual.
4. The Initiatory Experience of Non-Duality
Again, let’s go back to Garab Dorje’s first precept: the experience of non-duality in duality. That recognition is simply this: the recognition that all multiplicity is non- dual. This is the initiatory experience that is our touchstone. We can’t really start with the intimation. The intimation of non-duality is what reinforces an initiatory experience, but we must have some initiatory experience to begin with.
5. The Peril of Believing in Substantial Reality
It’s very useful to know what to expect as initiatory experience—or what to recognize as such—but if we never had that introduction, conceptual or otherwise, then in post-initiatory experience, we need to recognize at some point what we already have. I mean, most of us know what we’ve got and recognize the non-dual experience when we have it. But those who did not recognize it at the time may recognize it later on, having been introduced to it conceptually, then knowing what they should have expected.
This is not to be considered a difficult experience—difficult of access. It’s always just underneath this sheen of duality and figures. So: the nature of multiplicity is non-dual. And the ramifications—which before the break I was mentioning—are so important that it’s the difference between light and darkness.
If we think that multiplicity is multiplicity and each element of our universe has some substantial existence, then we are doomed. Because we are isolates—just little balls of consciousness in this universe without apparent purpose. If we are just tiny bubbles of consciousness, there’s no possibility of any kind of true communication; there’s no possibility of union.
6. Social Constructs as Karmic Projection
But more than that, we think that our neuroses are real—like they truly exist “out there.” We believe that our paranoias are actually based on true fear, and then we’re stuck in them. If there’s no possibility of resolution—if I think that another person, somebody out there, is actually an embodiment of hatred—then my peace is blown forever. I can’t exist like that. I cannot exist in a world surrounded by enemies.
Likewise, I can’t exist in a world surrounded by objects of desire that are unattainable. I can’t exist in a world of constant frustration. I can’t live in a world of constant fear of division. And how do I know that? When my alienation reaches a certain threshold, I get angry—and my anger actually turns into violence. And you know what happens when the common consciousness reaches that threshold? Then you’ve got war.
Because society thinks that there is an actual threat out there, and it’s not a projection of mind. We think that the multiplicity—and the isolates that compose the multiplicity—are substantial, and their attributes are real and indestructible. No: multiplicity is non-dual.
7. Phenomena as Inclusive, Interconnected Situations
It means that multiplicity is just a screen for all our karmic projections. It’s a display—a dance of joy. Because there’s nothing in non-duality that is substantial at all; it’s just this gossamer clay of light. The nature of multiplicity is non-dual, and things in themselves are pure and simple. The things are the components of the non-duality of the multiplicity.
8. Pure Simplicity and the Light of the Ground
“Pure and simple” is actually the pure and simple attribute of Dharmakaya. And pure and simple is non-dual. It’s cognizant light—cognizant emptiness, cognizant lucidity. All things whatsoever.
Let’s talk about “things.” What is a dharma? Dharmakaya is the Sanskrit term for dharma. That may be a more sophisticated translation: phenomena. All phenomena—yes, all things—but “phenomena” tends to be interpreted as external, objective situations. The term dharma includes subjective experience too. So, what we’re looking at here is that things are inclusive situations. We can’t actually isolate a thing.
9. Why Legislation Fails in a Non-Dual World
A thing is something that we have arbitrarily—or society has arbitrarily—decided is an entity divided by a particular line and a pattern of colors. It doesn’t end at its line of definition. It includes the space around it—and therefore the next thing that exists in that space. Through that analysis, we come to a phenomenon.
A phenomenon is a situation in which “I” and the environment are actually interconnected. Of course—yes—there’s no difference between inside and outside. It’s all a singular field. And the multiplicity is, first of all, the multiplicity of patterned objects which compose a single field—a single phenomenon. And then there’s the multiplicity of phenomena in time, through time, one after the other in the flow.
All pure in its nature because it has never been separated from its original source—that is, the light of the ground being, the pure light of the ground being. For that reason, it’s pure and simple. And being pure and simple, there’s nothing hidden. What we’ve got here is upfront—nothing else at all. In your face. There are no levels; there are no hidden dimensions. You can see it all in the face. There are no hidden passages and hidden caves in the mind where spirits or genies reside.
That’s why legislation is such an impossible task. In general, you have to pin down particular things existing by themselves and extract them from the context—and then you can apply judgment. If we say “society,” including all the social institutions, there’s a tendency for society to want to pin things down—to make it all legal or illegal, black and white, controlled. This is the dualized mind in its state of fear.
10. Institutions as Illusory Constructs of Fear
Our society tries to divide everything between the acceptable and the unacceptable, the good and the bad. This is the result of this dualistic concept that is connected to fear. It’s incredible that there is—that multiplicity is taken as reality. You can call it “the establishment,” if you like, as a synonym for multiplicity.
So, from the Queen, the President, the legislation, the legal and medical systems, the professional hierarchies, and the social hierarchy as defined by Marx—the whole of this establishment is complete delusion, projected by the fearful in an attempt to create something we can believe in. I think monarchies and presidential regimes come from this fear and from wanting to fix things.
The military is also non-dual. The military is simply a pigment of our imagination—an attempt by the intellect to pin down certain things as constant realities. And this is connected to myth—yes, it’s part of that, of course, of everything that arises from the ground. Everything that is produced comes from there—that’s why it tries to open up.
You start by saying that even the military is unity. And that was a little different— if you start from the end: all our institutions are the non-dual unity. Yet we take them very seriously, as if they were substantial entities. We’re not talking about individual human beings as sentient beings; we’re talking about some creation— some concept. In themselves, those institutions—and, of course, the sentient beings that animate them and give them life—are our delusion.
11. Meditation as Construct-Free Presence
That’s the view. Then we go to the meditation: being here and now is construct-free. The long chain—the being here and now—we only know the here and now through the long chain: that space of experience in the month of the inexpressible, that space of experience beyond concepts. In that space, there are no constructs; there are no institutions.
12. The Ground of Clear Light Beyond Concepts
And human beings are a project—they are simply a ball of karmic propensities. I am a ball of karmic propensities, and you are balls of karmic propensities. We all are like that. There’s no substance anywhere. And there’s no soul, and there is no principle of transmigration—nowhere other. And there’s no God that has some substantial essence. And there’s no hierarchy of spiritual beings beyond what is projected by our intellectual imaginations.
13. Thoughts as Foam Returning to the Ocean
The whole thing is constantly moving, constantly transforming—a net of common projections and personal projections. Mayājāla is the term: the technical term for that net of transforming illusion. And it constitutes a very large part of the Nyiwgma Gyübum, the collection of tantras of the Nyingma school.
But in our meditation, is there nothing substantial? Is there only this illusion? It’s like a matrix—mayājāla. Being here and now as construct-free means that, in our meditation—or our non-meditation—our meditation is defined as a state in which we can see the light, the elemental light, of all delusion. This is a state free of elaborations and delusions.
Practically speaking, when we sit down on our seat, we come out of the samsaric world of convention. Everybody assumes that the institutions, the individuals, and the whole thing are real. But what we’ve got are quite specific thoughts. And as we relax, we leave saṃsāra. We are only with our thoughts—but then we leave even that. We are into very specific thoughts, and the thoughts are quite easily separated.
14. The Moon-in-Water Simile: Nature of Appearance
Then, as we relax, the thoughts become increasingly non-specific. We are relaxing into the ground out of which they arise. And the ground is the clear light. And if our non-meditation is non-meditation, then the thoughts fall back into the ground—just like the foam of the waves falling back into the ocean.
And then what shines out of that ground? I mean, we are not in a state of emptiness. We are not in a state of what’s it called—the samādhi of nothingness. No—in that ocean, realities shine like the reflection of the moon in water. There you’ve got the magic. Because you can’t say anything about the reflection of the moon in water. It’s not the moon. It’s not the water. Come, hold it. Come and analyze it. Separate it out. It’s a magical creation.
15. Samadhi of Reality—Free from Judgment
And that’s what arises in the non-meditation—and that’s the samādhi of reality. You see: the moon in water that has no ethical consideration. It’s not good or bad—anywhere there in that reflection, in that phenomenon, in that experience. There’s not only no ethical qualification—there’s no analysis. There’s no judgment on any level whatsoever.
And that reflection shines out in all its forms—always all good. And that’s the reflection of samādhi of Vajra.
That’s the transmission of samādhi of Vajra. That’s the definition of transmission: what is described by that simile of the reflection of the moon in water. That’s the transmission of Vajra—that’s the reflection of the moon in water. And all good—not good as opposed to bad, but good as essentially transcendent.
16. Transmission as Direct Reflection, Not Doctrine
Then we get up from our meditation—and it’s not a matter of getting rid of that experience. It’s a matter of taking the potential of that image out into saṃsāra. So “good” as essentially transcendent—not as opposed to bad. Because it’s not the same as transcendence, but I think that after you... not good as opposed to bad, but essentially transcendent—not as opposed to it.
17. Integrating Non-Meditation into Ordinary Life
We take our yab-yum—or our awareness—out into saṃsāra, and there is unification. So out there, as in here, what we’re looking at is just a magical projection without any substantiality, without any existence. You know that feeling of going out into the streets and being restricted by what society demands and what people expect? We are not free of that so long as we believe those constrictions have any kind of force.
18. Social Reality as Illusory Performance
In reality, we are working that very thin line down a very grey street—from life to death, from birth to death—with the knowledge that there’s nothing there. It’s just luminescence. It’s just like... that social force, that body of social law—social rules, that social weight—has no consistency. It’s illusion. It’s illusion. We can, on the contrary, project a display of sound and light that is pure circus—just pure dance, or a multi-dimensional performance: a multi-dimensional life.
19. Conduct: “There Is Nothing to Do”
That’s the meditation—the non-meditation—taken out of the body of the meditation room and maintained in the gaps between sessions. And thus, the 24- hour day meditation.
Then the third is the śloka on conduct, which says: there’s nothing to do. It’s already there, so there’s nothing to do. But we have recognized the nature of mind. That was the activity—and that remains a constant. And there’s nothing else to do.
20. Recognition as the Only Activity—Spontaneous Perfection
Okay, let’s qualify that a little bit: there’s nothing that you must do. There’s no discipline that we must perform in order to attain this state of being. The nature of mind was there before we were born, and will be there after we pass away. It’s always there—you cannot, no way, get rid of it. It’s always already there. There’s nothing to do. It’s a pre-existent perfection. And spontaneity is inevitable in that situation.
Another way to put it: the only thing to do is the recognition of the nature of mind—which, because it is the natural state, is always trying to infuse us.
So that’s the cuckoo's song. That’s it—it’s finished with the blue and the red hūṃs. The blue hūṃs in the body. Cloudy blue hūṃs projected into the room, into the beams, and the objects in the room. Wherever they touch, they gently stroke— they pacify, they assuage. The in-breath: the in-breath back into the lungs—the whole swarm of hūṃs, large and small. Sky blue—scintillating sky blue.