method he or she can easily and quickly become an expert. Consider someone who
may have forgotten a past conversation but with a single simple reminder
recollects it clearly. Likewise, through a lama’s precept or by means of a single
sign or symbol, we can recall pure presence and verify it. That is known as “the
path of clear light” or “pure presence as process.” Resting loosely in this pure
presence, we will gain confidence, and signs of accomplishment will appear
gradually or instantaneously. Finally, the basic pure presence that is
unconditioned and pure presence as process mingle into one another, like a child
nestling into the lap of its mother.
1.38 THE POTENTIAL OF PURE BEING AND PRIMAL AWARENESS IS ALREADY MANIFEST IN BASIC
PURE PRESENCE
All the visions of samsara and nirvana are present in the space of pure presence. If
we do not manifest the potential that resides in the ground, path, and fruition of
intrinsic presence, it is like having an audience with the king but remaining
ignorant of his palace, subjects, wealth, power, and fame. Thereby we will
underestimate his power at the very moment when it is vital to know it. We may
know the essence of intrinsic awareness, but what of the essence of pure presence,
the three dimensions of being, and the five modes of awareness? Is it necessary to
strive to accomplish what was apparently absent before, or do those aspects arise
spontaneously? Of course they arise spontaneously! In primal awareness the
ground, path, and fruition, and view, meditation, and conduct are all, already,
primordially complete. If we are searching for manifest buddha-potential
somewhere else, it is like having a lake in front of us and looking for some water
behind us, or like keeping an elephant in its stable and searching for her footprints
in the jungle.
Basic pure presence is the source of all the buddhas of past, present, and future,
the treasury of pure being and primal awareness, and the chariot to traverse the
path and the stages: it is a grand mansion replete with uncountable entryways to
fully manifest buddha-potential. In this primal awareness, the buddhas’
dharmakaya, sambhogakaya, and nirmanakaya are timelessly and unconditionally
accomplished. If we look into the obverse side of pure presence, its essence, free of
all conceptual elaboration, is the dharmakaya; its nature, unmodified and
unadulterated clear light, is the sambhogakaya; and its expression of compassion,
uncrystallizing and unconfined, is the nirmanakaya. To take the crystal as an
illustration: its transparency is its aspect of emptiness, the dharmakaya; its
radiance is its aspect of clarity, the sambhogakaya; and, as the basis of the
appearance of an uncrystallizing multiplicity, it is the nirmanakaya.
In the tantra The Supreme Source it is said,
In my all-creating bodhi-nature
As effortless spontaneity,
Lies the heart of buddha, the trikaya:
My uncontrived nature, the dharmakaya,