The primordial dharmakaya Buddha Samantabhadra, who cannot be found in
either samsara or nirvana, is reflexively released in self-recognition of basic pure
presence beyond any need of the intervention of an external guide. The pure
presence that was not known previously is not a function of the lama or the
Buddha’s prediction but rather it arises afresh with intrinsic awareness. Thus it is
the oral instruction that is not received by transmission.
All the buddhas of the past, present, and future are primordially free of the
labeling function of the intellectual mind, and, since they are free of the eight
types of consciousness, they never experience delusory samsara. They recognize
pure presence through reflexive release and thus they are the buddhas not
originating in mind.
All experience of the external universal container and the internal lives of
sentient beings depends upon negative causes and conditions derived from the
habitual tendencies inherent in nominal delusion, and so, in reality, this
experience is not as it appears. On the other hand, intrinsic awareness is the
essence of the dharmakaya, forever untouched by the habitual tendencies
emanating from nominal delusion. It does not depend as much as a hair’s breadth
upon the meritorious two accumulations and traversing the path of liberation. In
the knowledge of basic natural perfection, pure presence is reflexively released
and thus is a result not generated from a cause.
3.22 DISCURSIVE THOUGHT NECESSARILY DISSOLVES INTO BASIC PURE PRESENCE
Until we realize that intrinsic awareness is already present, we must understand
that striving to generate that awareness is a wrong path. If we wonder how
effortless self-arising awareness is practiced, look at this: during formal and
informal contemplation, no matter what outer object of the five senses arises and
no matter what afflictive inner thought arises, at the moment of its arising sustain
that space without modification, and it will release itself as it arises, just like a
drawing on water. What is self-arising and self-releasing will not abide for a
second moment, but will just disappear like a line drawn in water or a snake’s coil
unwinding. There is no need of any antidote to the dualistic perception because it
releases into the dharmakaya, just as it is. In The Three Incisive Precepts, Patrul
Rinpoche says,
Spontaneous arising and release are incessant;
Whatever occurs nourishes naked empty presence;
Whatever moves is the creativity of sovereign pure being.
It is traceless natural purity—amazing!When thought arises, if we recognize its arising without following it, that itself is
the crux of liberation, and the thought will not touch the meditation but rather
intensify it. As it is said, “The more thoughts, the more dharmakaya.”
In the sutra The Pile of Jewels, it is said,