The Great Secret of Mind

pure Dzogchen precepts that are contained herein, we would hold in our hands
the keys of radical Dzogchen, the pure Dzogchen of the old tantras. The structure
of the text whereby the secret Dzogchen instruction forms a patchwork together
with moralistic homilies and instruction on meditation technique imitates the
manner in which recognition of the nature of mind may arise within the
framework of the practices of Vajrayana Buddhism. Essentially, then, the message
is, “Catch the ultimate meaning if you can, but otherwise settle down to a life of
immersion in the tantric cultural traditions of old Tibet until your time is right, or
until the synchronicitous moment adventitiously occurs.” As Rongzompa says in
Applying the Mahayana Method,

For those who are unable to remain in the natural state that is the great

perfection, we teach the graduated, progressive mode of striving.

And as Pema Rigtsal himself maintains:

We will be released by the realization that everything is the intrinsic creativity

of pure presence. When we fail in this understanding, holding object and

subject as two, we wander in samsara where we need to depend upon

antidotes and gradual progress on a path of cultivating the good and rejecting

the bad.

Until we recognize creativity itself as the magical illusion of pure presence,

until we have gained confidence, optimized our creativity, and attained

release, we must train on a gradual path.

So long as we are plagued by dualistic concepts, like the viewer of a painting

who sees in three dimensions what the artist had painted in two, we must

distinguish between view and meditation. For this reason, the yogins and

yoginis should strive in their meditation in a secluded place.^4

Another way of saying it is that until the factors of enlightenment arise
synchronistically and adventitiously in the mind, there is nothing better to do than
sit and meditate. The merit accumulated may facilitate communication with one’s
fellow creatures and the environment because contrived meditation for the most
part produces greater facility on the monastic or bodhisattvic path. More
specifically, the meditative techniques of shamata (calm abiding) and vipasyana
(insight meditation) are most usefully practiced in the absence of realization of the
view, or in the case of some kind of permanent regression from the view. When
the lama is preaching the value of the graduated path, insisting upon the
importance of shamata as the method of taking us up the ladder of Dzogchen
through the stages of Cutting Through (trekcho) and Direct Crossing (togel), rather
than providing a method of realization, he is preaching the value of monastic
Vajrayana culture. If shamata were effective in the recognition of the nature of
mind, the world would be full of Dzogchen masters. Pema Rigtsal writes,