1. The Dzogchen Arena
2. Dzogchen in the West: A Tradition in Infancy
3. Defining Dzogchen: The Great Perfection
4. Inclusivity and Universal Recognition
5. Dzogchen Beyond Religion, Ritual, and Dogma
6. The Natural Basis: Human Perfection as Given
7. Non-Meditation and the End of Fabrication
8. Institutionalization and the Concealment of the Essence
9. The Radiance of Awareness Beyond Culture
10. Secrecy and the Self-Revealing Nature of Dzogchen
11. Lay Lineage and Political Dimensions of Transmission
12. Radical Dzogchen: Non-Discrimination and Cultural Acceptance
13. The Buddha Nature in Every Perception
14. Historical Origins: Pre-Tibetan Dzogchen and Archaeological Evidence
15. The Paradox of “Non-Doing” and Effortless Recognition
16. Recognition as Immediate, Not Procedural
17. Karma and the Embodied Human Condition
18. Awareness Consumes Karma: From Body to Body of Light
19. The Heart-Mind and Cultural Misunderstandings
20. Spontaneous Creativity as the Expression of Dzogchen
1. Introduction to the Dzogchen Arena
Welcome to the Dzogchen Arena. It is the arena of real life.
I say that now because that’s the reality. That is all our reality. The Dzogchen exposition is the assertion of that fact.
And there’s nothing more that I like than to share that immediate, direct pointing- out of that fact.
I cannot help but do that tonight—but on the other hand, it’s my duty to go around the topic, to point it out objectively to some degree.
2. Dzogchen in the West: A Tradition in Infancy
Dzogchen is still in its infancy in the West. It’s been welcomed, it’s been greeted with open arms. It’s the pinnacle, the apex of our attitude. Still, though, it needs a definition—it needs clarification. I hope I can do that a little bit tonight.
I think “radical” was on the poster, on the flyer: Radical Dzogchen. And it is radical Dzogchen that I represent. It’s radical Dzogchen that, to me, is the most important thing in the Tibetan tradition in my life—and I believe it is in the life of all people everywhere.
I’ll define what I mean by radical, as opposed to traditional or elaborate Dzogchen, a little later.
Later, I will look at the forum—please ask, please bring to mind any topics that you want to discuss or any points that you want to clarify. We’ll leave plenty of time for that.
3. Defining Dzogchen: The Great Perfection
So—Dzogchen translates as the Great Perfection, or the Natural Great Perfection. That’s easy enough. In the Tibetan word, Dzogchen literally means “completion.” Completion in the sense that everything whatsoever can be assimilated—can become a subject of awareness—in this state of perfection.
4. Inclusivity and Universal Recognition
Here’s the first primary pointer at the nature of mind in this Dzogchen: it’s inclusivity. It’s all-inclusivity. Inclusivity in the sense that every sentient being is included in this Great Perfection. There is nothing that we can do—there’s nothing that can be done—which is excluded from this Great Perfection. All living beings are welcomed into this arena.
There’s no ethical, no qualitative, no judgmental aspect that excludes anyone or anything from this Great Perfection. We are pointing at something that transcends all discrimination or intellectual division. No social grouping is excluded—and of course, no racial grouping is excluded. All is equally accepted.
There’s nothing we can do that can put us outside and beyond that clear light at the very beginning. And of course, no religious group is excluded.
5. Dzogchen Beyond Religion, Ritual, and Dogma
You see—it’s not religion that we talk about here. There’s no ritual in this radical Dzogchen, and there’s no dogma either. And there’s no technique, if you know what I’m talking about.
It happens that the way I personally came into contact with Dzogchen was through Tibetan Buddhism and the Tibetan tradition. But we can find Dzogchen in the Zhang Zhung tradition of Tibetan religion.
And since Dzogchen is likely to include all non-dual views, we can include the Advaita Vedanta of the Hindus— and we can accept the non-dualism of Christianity and of Islam as evidence of the Dzogchen view.
Dzogchen is like the proverbial sandal that you put on your feet, rather than covering the surface of the earth with leather. You can’t walk anywhere barefoot—but with sandals, the whole earth becomes your path. Into whatever culture, whatever religion—you see, it’s not religion we’re talking about.
6. The Natural Basis: Human Perfection as Given
Therefore, we come to the next qualitative index: natural. Its origin is natural. If you like, you can look at its origin now as the natural basis—the essence of your being.
If you believe that human nature is perfect in potential—if you believe that human nature is perfectible—then you’re on this doctrine’s wavelength. If, on the other hand, you have a deep-seated belief that original sin has been etched into our nature in a way that it needs rebuilding, then there is a significant obstacle to the acceptance of this view.
The Great Perfection is natural. It is essential to our being. And that’s not a tenet of belief—that’s not part of any dogma. It has to be, and indeed I believe it is in all our cases, experiential.
We may not have had some total illumination—an epiphany that has purified all our belief systems—but we’ve all had some intimation of that perfection. We’ve all had some intimation of the nature of our mind, the pure nature of our mind.
And that’s the key. That’s where we begin: with a recognition of that moment of intimation of perfection. From that point, we can begin to expand the view until it is indeed all-inclusive.
7. Non-Meditation and the End of Fabrication
You see, Dzogchen literature is rather terse—it’s composed of pith-like verses or pith-like chapters that are constantly pointing back to this essential nature of mind that’s inherent to perfection.
We’re not attempting to convince you of anything. Actually, the intellect is virtually redundant in this experience of the nature of perfection. If you like, Dzogchen is a universal mysticism—and it asserts that we, all human beings, are mystics in our potential nature.
The material world is merely a thin veneer—a crusty veneer—on top of the depths of our mystical nature. But that depth is essentially vast, spacious, luminous, and aware.
So—natural. Very important. And of course, if it’s natural, then we really don’t need any technique to reveal what is already present. I’m giving you the essentials of the view here.
The other side of this view is now-Meditation. We use this term “non-meditation” to make a distinction between what is actually contrived and fabricated meditational technique.
That said, meditation—or rather non-meditation—is absolutely essential to broadening the nature of the view. It’s easy enough to say, “Yes, I have this intuition of my own perfection—this is how it is.” But that might just be an intellectual hope.
It’s the meditation—the non-meditation—which actually integrates that view into our lives. Maybe that instantaneously, when one hears this Dzogchen teaching, it’s like a blast of fresh air—and in that moment, all of the frosted, frozen detritus of our intellectual life may be melted.
More likely, we need to sit down and allow the heat to gradually thaw out the minds that have been frozen into conventional belief patterns. That’s where the retreat aspect comes in.
The tradition says: when hearing this exposition, some individuals can get the whole thing right there and then—no need to do anything else. If they leave that space of instruction—in that space of transmission—and never look back again, their life will unfold in the Great Perfection.
Simply sit with warm hands against that fire. So—natural Great Perfection and Dzogchen. And... adept, radical Dzogchen.
8. Institutionalization and the Concealment of the Essence
You see, what happened was that these precepts—which were put down in the great volumes of texts written in the 7th or 8th century—in the volumes of precepts, the message was taken and institutionalized.
That was already underway. In the case of institutionalization of the message, certainly I would like to talk about these things—but I won’t bore you with the history of the Bön and Nyingma lineages from the 8th to the 18th century.
But in the last 300 years, we have theocracy in Tibet—the ultimate institutionalization of that message. And in this theocratic context, techniques evolved—and a ladder system evolved.
Tibetan culture became identified with the tantric religion—with its spirituality, its dogma, its logic, its scriptures, its shamanic magic. And the practice of that religion became identified with the practice of talk—in the Nyingma school of religious practice.
You see, the culture became identified with the spark of awareness that is the principal focus of it. And the real culture—the real message—became concealed underneath the weight of the Tibetan tradition.
9. The Radiance of Awareness Beyond Culture
Personally, I’ve been involved with the Tibetans now for 45 years. I can see myself in India, coming face to face with the Tibetan tradition and being mesmerized by the doctrines, by the brocade surfaces, by the power and force of the ritual.
Let’s not forget the compassion of the realms. These manifest aspects—extremely potent forces—are my own mind anyway.
But then I’ve been living in India, in Nepal—and I’m now more familiar with that culture than I am with yours.
And what it all comes down to essentially is this rigpa—you can call it chakshu, the mudra of the Mahasandhi tradition—very, very little distinction there. Every school has its own rigpa: the Sakya school has lamdré, and even the Gelugpas have uma chenpo.
But it is rigpa which is the root of all of that non-dual system—awareness, the root of awareness. What is it all about? You see—it’s that which actually provides the radiance.
I was there in India in the ’60s, when the Tibetans were still coming over the mountains—still crossing the passes, escaping the invading Chinese. And what was extraordinary was the radiance of the faces of these exiles.
Everything they owned gone—moving down into a climatic system which would kill many of them—but still they were radiant, they were blissful.
I’m saying—it wasn’t their religion which gave them that radiance. It wasn’t their doctrine, their rituals, or their theocratic culture. What it was, was that essential awareness.
Maybe we’ve lost this essential awareness in the West—this awareness of emptiness. And maybe there’s been a tendency to grab onto something material— to hold onto perceptual dualism—and the belief that there is something out there that can give us happiness.
The more the external environment becomes comfortable and giving—and apparently feeds our desires—the more that belief increases, and the more we lose touch with our inner awareness.
10. Secrecy and the Self-Revealing Nature of Dzogchen
The Great Perfection of Dzogchen is innate. It comes along with human birth— and actually, it precedes human birth.
What the Tibetans did—and what their essential message was—is to shake us and bring us back to that natural condition, that natural state of being.
There is another issue here: the matter of secrecy in the Tibetan tradition. Dzogchen has always been considered hermetically sealed. This is for at least two reasons.
The first reason is that in the Tantric—Tibetan Tantric Buddhist—tradition, there is a ladder in which disciples are led progressively. The next level of endeavor should not be exposed until the previous one is fulfilled.
There are two things to say about that. First: we are not Tibetans entering a monastery in infancy and then taken by the hand by a mentor who leads us through the stages and levels.
As Westerners, we need to be taught a different way—and the way which has evolved, or at least is evolving in these last few years, is the very direct pattern: taking the individual and dropping them in the center of the mandala, rather than having them knock at the gate for years or lifetimes before taking the path to the center.
The second thing I have to say is this: in my experience, there is no well-defined ladder path in spiritual practice. We don’t start in youth and work gradually toward the light at the end of time.
Personally speaking, I’ve had the strongest intimations of the nature of mind—of the Great Perfection—in my childhood. And in my maturity, there was so much going on, so many demands upon me, that the light dimmed.
Rather than a linear path, there is simply a random succession of moments of recognition—of full experience. There are moments of what we call synchronicity: moments that simply fall from the sky, moments that have no cause or condition.
At one point, this cause or that condition simply arises without any rational reason.
So—it’s not something that one who has it keeps hidden until the right moment to give it. No. It’s secret until it is revealed in ourselves by ourselves. In this way, the subject is self-secret. It remains a mystery until it is revealed—and it does reveal itself in us all, more or less, at moments without cause or condition.
11. Lay Lineage and Political Dimensions of Transmission
There’s another reason for secrecy. This concerns the Dalai Lama, whose secret practice subject is Dzogchen.
The Gelugpa school—the principal reformist philosophy school of Tibet—began in the 14th century, at which time the Nyingma tradition was already 600 years old.
In the 17th century, the Great Fifth Dalai Lama—the greatest of the Dalai Lamas— made an alliance with the Nyingma school and took the Dzogchen initiation.
Since then, the Dalai Lamas have held the Dzogchen lineage—but they’ve had to keep their practice of Dzogchen secret for political reasons, insofar as the monastic establishment disapproved of the rather loose Nyingma lifestyle and way of teaching.
I should clarify that the Nyingma tradition—the holder of the Dzogchen lineage— has been principally a lay tradition. So, for that reason, the Dalai Lamas kept their practice of Dzogchen secret.
The Gelugpa path is extremely monastic—but there is no exclusion in the praxis of Dzogchen. The praxis is the same. But it began as a lay tradition—and so, for political and institutional reasons, it remained hidden in certain lineages.
12. Radical Dzogchen: Non-Discrimination and Cultural Acceptance
Let me finish by putting stress on the radical nature of this Dzogchen, which I am talking about.
I am talking about non-discrimination, non-judgmentalism.
It is about the acceptance of the forms and modes of human culture that have arisen throughout the world.
We are not looking here to change the culture. We don’t want to change this form into that.
Transformation is not a word that is significant in Dzogchen—but recognition is.
We are not interested in self-improvement. How can you improve what is perfect already?
The key is recognition of who we are and what we are—and what we are can be defined more or less in terms of culture.
What we do with this Dzogchen view is to recognize the intrinsic value, the light, the compassion, and the meaning in the culture.
It doesn’t matter what the variety of the culture is. It can be a revolutionary mode. It can be the most rigid, conservative, and traditional.
It doesn’t matter what the culture is—it can be secular or religious, modern or ancient.
Gender is irrelevant.
13. The Buddha Nature in Every Perception
You see, what the Dzogchen view aims at is entering into the awareness that is inherent in every moment of perception, whether that is external or internal.
And recognizing that—in that inherent awareness—to put it very simply—is the nature of the Buddha.
Whether it is ear consciousness or eye consciousness, nose, tongue, skin, intellect, emotion, or pure mystical intuition—Whatever it is, in each and every perception, there is a Buddha’s view.
And that Buddha—we know from the relatively earliest Buddhist tradition— embodies light, love, and awareness.
It’s a good place to start.
14. Historical Origins: Pre-Tibetan Dzogchen and Archaeological Evidence
Please, let me have topics that I can enter into. I need to guide you. Two questions were raised: one relative, one absolute.
On the relative plane: Do we have historical evidence from the ancient Dzogchen tradition, from pre-Tibetan Buddhism?
We have Buddhist texts from the 10th century.
The question is whether the Semde or Shangshung Dzogchen lineages go back earlier—as they claim—but we don’t have scientific or archaeological evidence that predates the 10th century.
Some of these texts were discovered hidden in caves at Dunhuang and Maratika.
So, while oral and visionary transmissions may stretch further back, empirical verification remains limited to what was physically preserved—and that begins around the 10th century.
15. The Paradox of “Non-Doing” and Effortless Recognition
Second question: How to “do” non-doing?
From an intellectual standpoint—through meditation or emulation—we can grasp the concept of non-meditation, like the Chinese wu wei: “non-action.”
But if you consciously try to meditate—or not to meditate—that’s still an act of will. It’s still “I am doing this.”
How to go beyond “I” and the sense of doing?
The simple answer: come to retreat, and we’ll do it together.
But more deeply: non-meditation arises from your own recognition of the nature of mind.
That recognition isn’t cultivated by effort—it arises spontaneously, like a flash of lightning.
We can’t practice timelessness. Timelessness isn’t in the field of cause and effect.
So, any “practice” must be held lightly—in quotes—and approached with deep skepticism.
16. Recognition as Immediate, Not Procedural
Someone asked: “Does recognition happen in a moment—a state, a place—and then fade? Is that the process?”
There is no process.
Recognition is immediate. It’s not built step by step.
What we call “practice” is really just familiarization with that touchstone moment of recognition.
You’re not creating awareness—you’re reacquainting yourself with what’s already fully present.
So, yes, you may have a sudden glimpse—and then ordinary mind returns.
But that glimpse never truly vanishes. It echoes. And with familiarity, its resonance deepens.
Still—you cannot practice what is beyond time and space.
So, “practice” here is a provisional word, a raft to be discarded upon arrival.
17. Karma and the Embodied Human Condition
Another question: What is the Dzogchen view on karma?
Karma has given us this human embodiment—our gender, our senses, our personality, our life trajectory from birth to death, with all its joy and pain.
You cannot escape your root karma. It’s embedded in your very form.
Some say it’s held in the muscles, in the breath, in the subtle channels—but wherever it resides, it’s inseparable from your human condition.
And that’s not a flaw. That’s the field of awakening.
18. Awareness Consumes Karma: From Body to Body of Light
To put it simply: the light of awareness eats up your karma. First, it weakens karma’s grip by dissolving your Attachment to it.
Then, as your recognition stabilizes—as the radiance of rigpa intensifies—karmic patterns lose their power.
Eventually, at the culmination of the path, you manifest the body of light (’ja’ lus), which is free from karmic conditioning altogether.
This isn’t metaphorical. It’s the fruition spoken of in the Dzogchen tantras: the dissolution of the physical body into luminous awareness at the moment of death—or even before.
19. The Heart-Mind and Cultural Misunderstandings
One final point: the word “heart” is problematic.
In the East—particularly in Dzogchen and Mahamudra—the “heart” refers not to emotion but to the heart-mind: the seat of vast, luminous awareness.
In the West, “heart” often means sentiment, feeling, romantic longing.
But in the tantric chakra system, emotional turbulence is not the essence of the heart center—it’s a distortion.
The true heart is rigpa itself: clear, open, unobstructed.
So, when we speak of “awakening the heart,” we mean recognizing awareness— not indulging sentiment.
20. Spontaneous Creativity as the Expression of Dzogchen
And what of art, creativity, expression?
Art is not a cause of awakening—it’s a spontaneous product of it.
When rigpa is recognized, creativity erupts naturally—uncontrived, uncalculated. The self-conscious artist tries to represent truth.
But the Dzogchen practitioner is the art—a living, breathing expression of spontaneous presence.
Every gesture, every word, every silence becomes a mandala of awareness. So, yes—Dzogchen is radical.
It doesn’t ask you to become anything new.
It only asks you to recognize what has always been true—here, now, in the arena of real life.