recipient, and without attachment to the gift itself. Likewise, in order to live a
moral lifestyle, we should practice morality untouched by any reference to act,
agent, or object. This is the root of buddha-dharma. If engaged in morality with
attachment, even an otherwise pure monk cannot attain nirvana and buddha. In
Entering the Way of the Bodhisattva, Shantideva says,
The root of buddha-dharma is the monk,
But the path of the monk is very difficult;
And because of mental fixation,
Nirvana is very difficult to attain.If we have attachment to samsaric activity, of course we cannot attain anything,
but if we have attachment to the conduct of the six perfections, which is a certain
path to nirvana, we will lose our way. Due to the propensity to become attached to
samsara, nirvana, and the path between them, such instruction is said to be on a
lower level than the provision of sutras and tantras that teach the definitive truth,
and, particularly, these lesser instructions are inferior to Dzogchen. The tendency
to establish samsara as what must be rejected and nirvana as what must be
attained, and to follow this, considering it a true path, is a point of temptation to be
avoided on the effortless Dzogchen path. Samsara, nirvana, the path, or any
reference point whatsoever, cannot help but vanish into itself, reflexively released,
like a magician’s illusion. This is the special Dzogchen teaching.
3.24 “HAND-HOLDING” INSTRUCTION, IN SHORT
The following is extracted from Longchenpa’s The Most Secret Essence of the
Lama:
To sustain informal contemplation experience, first, in formal contemplation,
hang loosely, relaxed, with open, natural clarity, without labeling and without
any attachment to the primal awareness of naked empty presence. Without
reifying the form in the eye, the sound in the ear, the taste on the tongue, the
sensation in the body, or the hosts of positive or negative thoughts in the mind
—the six kinds of phenomena—with open cognition, know pure presence.
Without following or running after the object, in translucence, experiencing
forms that are without hope or fear, without modification or adulteration,
without rejecting appearance, they are released by themselves. The mind that
apprehends apparent objects is in this way reflexively released, and there is
nonduality of subject and object.
The purified eye is a god’s eye, without obscuration, so that, for example,
walls, fences, mountains, and so on, appear transparent. The ears can hear the
voices of the gods and the nagas, for instance, regardless of whether they shout
or whisper. The nose has a vast range of smell, larger than the human range.
The tongue without eating can taste the hundreds of tastes of concentrated
absorption. The body can feel the heat of clarity and bliss and primal