1. The Rainbow Body and Semdzin
2. The Function of Semdzin in Dzogchen Practice
3. A Simple Visualization: Heart-Centered Radiance
4. On the Infinite and the Finite Globe
5. Songs as Vehicles of the View
6. Samantabhadra as the Speaker: Archetype and Danger
7. The Risk of Egoic Identification with Buddha Nature
8. The Timeless Moment and the Paradox of Unfoldment
9. Samantabhadra’s Emanation: Apparent Yet Non-Existent
10. No Distinction Between Sentient Beings and Buddhas
11. The Futility of Striving and the Necessity of Non-Action
12. Ambition as Obstacle to Spontaneous Creativity
13. Spontaneous Presence vs. Crystallized Form
14. The Doha-Like Structure of Dzogchen Songs
15. On Gender, Duality, and the Gankyil Symbol
16. Union as Reflection of Samantabhadra’s Nature
17. The Peril of Spiritual Materialism
18. The Illusion of Path and Goal
19. Non-Duality Cannot Be Reached by Technique
20. The Tarnished Gold: Recognizing Innate Perfection
1. The Rainbow Body and Semdzin
It's the Rainbow Body Semdzin. Semdzin is a collection of exercises brought together by Longchenpa.
2. The Function of Semdzin in Dzogchen Practice
Semdzin is a difficult word to translate—“mind-holders.” When the mind is too diffused, when it’s tired or anxious, then Semdzin serves to focus the mind, returning it to a place where a window can open back into the nature of mind.
3. A Simple Visualization: Heart-Centered Radiance
The exercise is simple enough. Again, sit comfortably, and then imagine yourself sitting inside a globe—a perfect sphere—such that your ankles touch the bottom and the crown of your head touches the top of the globe’s inner surface.
4. On the Infinite and the Finite Globe
From the heart center, visualize rays of light—colored rays, rainbow hues— emanating in a full 360-degree sphere, radiating outward in all directions.
Can you imagine those rays extending into infinite space? The only function of the globe is to define a finite point of origin. Beyond its skin, the rays extend limitlessly. That’s the only role of the globe: to mark the finite from which the infinite unfolds. Let’s do this.
5. Songs as Vehicles of the View
It’s the songs which focus the precepts on the view. Who knows—each individual requires a different input regarding the view, and each individual needs different precepts, and different numbers of precepts. In a sense, the more the better.
The Soktik Kusum and Padmasambhava’s commentary on the Three Words of Garab Dorje are seminal—the foundational texts.
6. Samantabhadra as the Speaker: Archetype and Danger
I want to go quickly through Radical Creativity, because a rather different set of precepts is presented here. The first thing about this song—I call it a song, a tantra—is that it is spoken by Samantabhadra, which gives it a rather different flavor.
I haven’t spoken much about Samantabhadra particularly, but it is Samantabhadra who represents Dzogchen’s inexpressible unity or primordial cognitive experience.
7. The Risk of Egoic Identification with Buddha Nature
You may ask: what are we doing with this Buddha representation in our radical Dzogchen? It’s a valid question. It’s beautiful—but do we need to justify it any further than that?
Yet it does give us an objective potential for attachment. Is it dangerous? Well, I don’t know of any story in which a lama approached a Buddha image on an altar and hit it with a club to destroy it—though we’re familiar with such incidents from the Zen tradition.
Even after only a few decades of exposure to Tibetan Buddhism, we must remember to destroy the Buddha image occasionally. It’s a very potent object of attachment.
8. The Timeless Moment and the Paradox of Unfoldment
We know that the tigle—those tiny luminous spheres seen in the visual field—in the elaborate cosmologies of Dzogchen, are believed to contain Buddha forms. If you look closely enough, you can actually see them.
Now, I can see how a Tibetan, conditioned from birth, might perceive the Buddha in these tigles. But we—who’ve had at least eighteen years of Christian conditioning—probably can’t. I’m sorry, but that’s the reality.
Yes, it’s an archetypal image, a universal archetype. We must understand such representations as skillful means.
9. Samantabhadra’s Emanation: Apparent Yet Non- Existent
The visualization of Tara projected in the sky before us is a method of evocation— a vocation of awakened presence. And when we say, “That is Tara,” yes—but surely that, too, is just a skillful means.
Like the names we’re given—our Buddhist names—are those also skillful means? The Tibetan names we receive? Yes, they can be.
In the representation of Samantabhadra that we’ve adopted, we’re going to leave it out here in the world of saṃsāra. I’m just saying: let’s be a little wary when approaching this mantra where Samantabhadra is the speaker—particularly where the word “I” is used.
10. No Distinction Between Sentient Beings and Buddhas
We must approach this teaching knowing that Samantabhadra is the speaker, and that “I” refers to that primordial ground. In one sense, it serves the purpose of identification—our real selves are Samantabhadra.
But if there is any ego remaining—if we perceive ourselves as any kind of substantial entity at all—then we are in danger of falling into the abyss of Vajra Hell.
The danger lies in identifying our ego with the Buddha archetype. If we do that, we empower the ego and thereby manifest its delusion.
11. The Futility of Striving and the Necessity of Non-Action
Detractors of Dzogchen will point to this danger and say, “Don’t just watch out— don’t even go there.” But I actually think it doesn’t matter whether you’re in Dzogchen or in Indiana—the danger is always present.
We don’t even need to practice meditation to give the ego a divine charge.
Anyway, let’s continue. A vital notion here is the unfoldment of the Moment. The problem is that if we use the image of “unfoldment” to describe the nature of the moment, we imply a time frame.
12. Ambition as Obstacle to Spontaneous Creativity
The nature of reality is potential. In each timeless moment, there is an unfoldment—an emanation—of that potential. But that seems to require time. A process can only evolve in time, yet it’s in the timeless moment that the heart center emanates the fully open lotus.
This is the failure of our limited, relative mind to apprehend the timeless moment. We can’t really say that potential emanates in a timeless moment—yet that’s exactly what happens. The thought alone throws our intellect into confusion.
We’re forced to resolve that paradox.
13. Spontaneous Presence vs. Crystallized Form
Every instant—every timeless moment—is a manifestation of Samantabhadra. Each instant is a transmission: a dharmic teaching.
What is the teaching? That the world—our phenomenal experience—is apparent but non-existent. You can see it, but there’s nothing there. That’s the nature of Samantabhadra’s emanation.
Samantabhadra’s emanation includes mountains, trees, landscapes, and all animate beings. It’s all transmission. It’s all momentary creativity.
And the “eye” that says, “I create all this,” is the eye that resides in the heart center. There’s no point debating whether that heart center is a physical point or the totality itself. The miracle is the emanation—the illusory projection.
I’ve said this before: the creator is that eye, and the creativity is the potency of that eye—the manifesting energy.
Everything whatsoever is the manifestation, the transmission of Samantabhadra. Nothing is excluded.
14. The Doha-Like Structure of Dzogchen Songs
There’s no problem in Dzogchen like, “Why is God laying this bad stuff on us?” Everything arises as perfection.
Thus, any distinction between sentient beings and Buddhas is purely an aberration of the intellect. For this reason, there is nothing to do—we’re already there.
Even the thought, “I am merely a sentient being and must strive toward Buddhahood,” is itself a perfect thought—yet the initial understanding of the identity between sentient beings and Buddhas is necessary so that we don’t do anything.
But if that distinction becomes a fixed belief, we’ll strive for self-improvement— and the opportunity for non-action is lost.
15. On Gender, Duality, and the Gankyil Symbol
Ambition has no place in this radically creative output. The moment ambition enters, it’s messed up. Ambition implies a goal—and dissatisfaction.
In fact, ambition is counterproductive; it inhibits the creative impulse from unfolding. The spontaneity that creates is always the same—untouched by intention.
This leads us to the word lhundrup—often translated as “spontaneous perfection.” But that phrasing suggests something is being created to perfection. In truth, nothing is ever created.
Everything remains in potential.
Look at your visual field: the only thing giving shape, color, and form to objects— and to this room—is the mind’s propensity to crystallize and to look back at what has “been done.”
But if we’re truly in the present, there’s only creativity itself—pure spontaneity— not the spontaneously produced forms of delusion.
Thus, we cannot say anything about the here and now; it only becomes concretized by looking back. Therefore, spontaneity is always the same.
16. Union as Reflection of Samantabhadra’s Nature
These songs seem to me constructed much like the dohas of Mahamudra— collections of verses, each standing uniquely on its own, with little logical connection between them.
This next verse speaks of the union of duality—“two in oneness.” Here, we’re stepping slightly down from pure Dzogchen into tantric expression.
In Dzogchen itself, there is no gender—only the sameness of pure being. Gender is delusory; the distinction arises from karma and intellect.
The classic Samantabhadra-Samantabhadri image—often called Gakyil or Gabyum in the Longchen Nyingtik—expresses the absolute nature of mind. But even that image doesn’t represent the inexpressible non-dual ground; it points to a stage just before that oneness.
Thus, it’s a skillful means—the union of opposites, whether physical, energetic, or mental. And importantly: those two are never truly separate.
The physical union of man and woman is not merely metaphor—it’s a reflection of Samantabhadra’s universal process.
Given the social taboos around sexuality, societies impose prohibitions. But here, the teaching asserts the absolute morality of union.
17. The Peril of Spiritual Materialism
This verse expresses the Anuyoga precept of “two in oneness.”
The next verse—and indeed, the last three verses of this tantra—are warnings. We are warned here about spiritual materialism.
Spiritual materialism is a disease born of dualistic thinking, goal orientation, and the concretization of a path
If our goal—Buddhahood—becomes something solid, substantial, and external; if the path becomes something reliable, inevitable, etched in stone—then what’s the difference between that and money management?
Wealth is the goal; business schools teach techniques to acquire it. Both systems operate through rules, ethics (or lack thereof), and conduct. What’s the essential difference?
18. The Illusion of Path and Goal
Put another way: what’s the difference between the professional priest and the professional banker? Both have a sense of self and personal ambition. Both seek to achieve their goals in time and space.
The colors and shapes differ—but the underlying impulse is the same: selfish desire.
This is spiritual materialism. The trouble is, those selling it won’t tell their students the path is redundant. The priest won’t say the quest for salvation is nonsense.
If your goal lies eons ahead, what difference does it make in this life? So—what distinguishes spiritual materialism from a valid path?
19. Non-Duality Cannot Be Reached by Technique
In the Dzogchen view, we gain nothing by seeking. What we gain through seeking is entirely delusory.
Buddha is discovered through non-action. In this adventure, there is no ladder above. We cannot reach the absolute by manipulating relative delusion.
Causality is a function of the mind—an imposition. Through technique, we cannot attain non-duality.
Thus, the priest who teaches ritual as a ladder—with a goal at the tunnel’s end—is deceiving you. Preparation and technique have no validity.
There is no technique. The nature of mind reveals itself synchronistically when we are ready. We cannot prepare for it.
If someone claims to map a path to a non-existent goal, ask them to prove it. Non- duality abides nowhere.
If you can’t locate it, how can you map a path to it? If you can’t describe it, how will you know when you’ve arrived?
20. The Tarnished Gold: Recognizing Innate Perfection
Suchness yogi—no one going nowhere.”
If we rest in that long enough, we become familiar with the place. There is no seat. She says it’s a kind of path with a kind of technique—“no one going nowhere.”
But you can’t say anything that doesn’t immediately set itself up to be knocked down.
Finally, we have the image of tarnished gold as the Great Perfection. The tarnish isn’t dirt—it’s a fine oxidation on the gold’s surface. You can rub it off with your fingers.
The gold appears other than gold only when tarnished. But if you know the tarnish is also gold, then there’s never anything to do.
These warnings seem aimed at those who cling to established religion—Tantra and Vajrayana as institutions.
But my final warning: don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. The baby—the essence—is inside.