The Great Secret of Mind

taught the twenty different kinds of emptiness, many sravakas’ heads burst open,
and some died vomiting blood. In Dzogchen, right from the beginning, all
elements of experience are introduced as pure presence. This pure presence is
primordially free of conceptual elaboration and is the contemplation of the minds
of all the buddhas. Putting any effort into purifying it or adulterating it by concepts
tends to conceal its nature and is counterproductive. We need to abandon all effort,
along with deductive reasoning and speculative concepts, and for this, first, we
need to receive instruction from a lama. Applying his instruction, we will
understand that there is no other possible way.
If we have single-pointed devotion to the idea of the lama as buddha, and we
seek the instructions that induce the vision of the pure presence of Dzogchen, the
rigzin-lama skillfully introduces pure presence to us through signs, words,
experiences, and so forth. For instance, Lama Tsangpa Drubchen introduced pure
presence to Kyilkhor Rinpoche while they were herding yaks. The lama gave his
student personal instructions on Dzogchen all day long, and then as the evening
drew in, when lama and student were sitting on a rock, all of a sudden the lama
shouted “Move back!” and Kyilkhor Rinpoche pushed himself bodily back on the
rock. “No! No! Not like that!” whispered the lama, and understanding that pure
presence should be distinguished from dualistic perception, he experienced naked
pure presence clearly. “Today we have killed the real enemy, which is grasping,”
said the lama happily. “Now go to a place of deep seclusion, perfect the practice,
and accomplish buddha in this lifetime.”
Here is a similar story. Before Drubwang Pema Dewai Gyelpo met Dudjom
Lingpa, because he retained a little attachment to the accomplishment that he had
gained from his practice, he thought of displaying it to the lama. Immediately
upon meeting him, the lama caught Drubwang by the throat and slipped his knife
up and down in its sheath with his right hand so that Drubwang could hear what
he was doing, and asked him loudly to tell him his realization. Instantly
Drubwang’s sense of accomplishment vanished, and he clearly saw naked pure
presence.
The way accomplished lamas give introduction is unpredictable. Sometimes it is
given through discursive teaching, and sometimes it is given playfully. There are
many ways of introducing pure presence. Longchenpa in his commentary upon
The Treasury of the Dharmadhatu, describes the introduction to pure presence as
either without words or by one of six different contrived methods. Check out those
details!
In short, putting aside the lower path’s deductive reasoning and rational
fabrications, we should rely solely upon introduction to the view as the naked
experience of pure presence that is the natural state of mind. To facilitate that, first
we need to establish all our experience of samsara and nirvana as baseless and
rootless subjective envisionment. Then, without modifying the immediate
awareness of our original condition, we can be introduced to the ground of being
that is without dualistic perception and that is primordially pure and free of any
conceptual elaboration. This introduction is not a part of the Approach with Signs
and is also absent in the lower tantra approaches. It is the unique special supreme