4. The Attainment

4.1 THE SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATION OF BUDDHA-POTENTIAL IN BASIC PURE PRESENCE

PROPERLY ESTABLISHING the view of natural perfection on the path of the natural

great perfection, we rest—we hang loosely—in all-embracing primordial alpha-
purity. By attesting the key point of the practice—that through reflexive release of
whatever arises in informal contemplation we arrive at the one taste of formal and
informal contemplation—the propensity toward dualistic appearance and its most
subtle tendencies dissolve, and intrinsic awareness is revealed as timeless buddha.
It is not that through engaging in the practice of meditation as the path that the
nature of pure being and primal awareness of buddha, not present previously, are
suddenly newly created and thereafter recreated in every moment. Rather, the
adventitious obscuring concepts of mind and mental events arising with dualistic
perception in the presence of naturally abiding primal awareness dissolve in their
own spaciousness. At that time, the buddha-potential of basic pure presence shines
forth spontaneously, and it is irrelevant whether “the nature of mind is revealed as
‘buddha’” or “buddha-nature manifests in sentient beings.”
In The Treasury of the Dharmadhatu, Longchenpa says,

If we gain familiarity with the luminous essence,

The luminous spontaneity of things,

Through the key precept of nonstriving and effortlessness

Another buddha awakens in the timeless buddha

And that is the actuality of the peerless vajra-heart.

In the spontaneity of intrinsic awareness, arise the five dimensions of being, the
five modes of primal awareness, and the rest of the twenty-five aspects of buddha-
potential in fruition, manifesting naturally. Thereby, like the reflection of the
moon appearing in limitless buckets of water, limitless compassion arises as the
display of all beings of the six realms of the ten directions. So long as samsara
exists, buddha activity fulfills the requirements of all beings according to their
needs and continuously and precisely shows profound and broad physical,
energetic, and mental dynamism—the movement of manifest buddha-potential.
The reason for such activities is mentioned by Ju Mipham in Beacon of Certainty:

This body of form, the apparent aspect,

Protects all beings

With its potential for happiness:

Thus ultimately its nature is compassion.