in the same breath, as it were, the author lets the cat out of the bag when it is
made clear that direct experience of the nature of mind cannot be induced while
under a cloud of dualistic thinking on any of the nine approaches, which include
Cutting Through and Direct Crossing:
Applying ourselves to a process with the impure delusions of the vision of
ordinary beings, or with the pure or impure vision of yogins or yoginis, as the
case may be, or even with the Buddha’s pure vision, there is no way to avoid
the distinctions inherent in the rejection of some sensory appearances, the
acceptance of antidotes, the graduation of stages and paths, and the difference
between karmic cause and effect.And in The Heart-Essence of Vimalamitra, Longchenpa says,
Buddha will never be attained on the paths of the nine graduated approaches
by engaging in their view, meditation, and conduct. Why not? Because in the
views of the nine approaches, there is only intellectual conjecture that is
sometimes convincing and sometimes not, but which can never induce the
naked essence.In this context, Pema Rigtsal explains,
This pure presence is primordially free of conceptual elaboration and is the
contemplation of the minds of all the buddhas. Putting any effort into
purifying it or adulterating it by concepts tends to conceal its nature and is
counterproductive. We need to abandon all effort, along with deductive
reasoning and speculative concepts.Shamata meditation technique is not exempt from this blanket rejection of all
contrived meditation methods:
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.Shamata, concentrated absorption, does not induce recognition of the nature of
mind, but it can provide a relative calm in which to appreciate the profound
refinements of cultural Vajrayana. Indeed no cause or condition can make
manifest the realization of pure awareness as the ground from which all causal
phenomena arise. However, it is the defining belief of this latter-day Dzogchen
lineage that the rigzin-lama is the doorway into the natural state of mind, the
timeless moment of the here and now: