The nominal informal contemplation is no antidote to the apprehension of
things as concrete and substantial, so it cannot release us from emotional
afflictions such as desire and lust.
These days many people with spiritual pride say that religious practice does not
affect the mental life and that meditation cannot transform the mind. In The Three
Incisive Precepts, Patrul Rinpoche says,
Knowing meditation but not release,
Isn’t that the divine trance of the gods?The mere ability to abide in formal contemplation free of mental elaboration does
not necessarily take us into informal contemplation that is different from the
ordinary activity of body, speech, and mind. If we are unable to mix the practice of
unelaborated formal contemplation with informal contemplation, there will be no
benefit.
If, on the other hand, we can integrate our experience of simultaneous arising
and liberating and our experience of reflexive release and liberation into pure
presence, and so on, with the happiness and sadness of body, speech, and mind,
real benefit will emerge. If we cannot integrate the two, our meditation is like the
concentration of child’s play—bound by attachment. During formal contemplation,
gross happiness and sadness will not arise, but when we get up from shamata, the
joy or the pain will come as before. Just as we contain a heap of dust by sitting
down slowly on it, but upon our getting up, the dust arises in clouds, in the
concentrated absorption of child’s play, gross thoughts are stopped for a while, and
we seem to experience happiness, but when we arise from the concentration, we
find that more gross thoughts intrude than before. This is why people say there is
no benefit from meditation.
These days it is rare for informal contemplation practitioners to have certainty in
the profound view. Due to this, their meditation is just like taking time out and
that will not release anyone from the threefold world. When strong sufferings,
acute pains, or misfortunes temporarily afflict our minds and sickness afflicts our
bodies, it sometimes seems that we react like ordinary people. That occurs first
because we are not recognizing the profound Dzogchen view of Cutting Through.
Second, even though we are meditating, our meditation is based on a mere
intellectual understanding of the alpha-purity free of all propositions, and
therefore we do not abide in the essence of naked pure presence. Finally all effort
is meaningless if we lack confidence in its reflexive function of arising and release
during informal contemplation between sessions. During life, death, and the
bardo, when we are tortured by intense fear, sickness, and sadness, and there is no
help, to remember this instruction is the crux.
3.6 A CATEGORICAL ASSERTION THAT DZOGCHEN TRANSCENDS CAUSE AND EFFECT
In the informal contemplation phase, if the crucial function of release upon
arising is recognized at all times and in every circumstance, then no matter what