Dzogchen In Plain English: A Beginner's Guide To Self-Liberation

Pure from the very beginning, not made pure by anything. Spontaneously present, not manufactured by anyone. This, just as it is, is your own awareness.Dzogchen, the great completeness, is the summit of the Nyingma tradition and the plainest teaching it has. Its root instruction is three sentences long. Garab Dorje left them as his final testament, and Patrul Rinpoche's commentary on them is the tradition's best loved short text. The literature that surrounds those three sentences is vast, technical, and written for people who already have a teacher standing beside them.This book walks the path those three sentences describe, lesson by lesson, in language a modern reader can hear.What You Will PracticeThe four thoughts that turn the mind, the special preliminaries, and guru yogaRushen, which separates the ordinary mind from awareness by searching for the mind and failing to find itPosture, the open gaze, and resting in natural stillnessSemdzin, the short techniques that settle the mind or cut the flow of thoughtThe ground: essence, nature, and energy, primordial purity and spontaneous presenceTelling rigpa from sem, which is the distinction the whole path turns onThe three words: direct introduction, deciding upon one thing, and confidence in liberationTrekcho, cutting through, and the four ways of leaving things just as they areCarrying recognition into daily life, sleep, and dyingThe three meditative experiences, and the strayings that imitate realizationHow Each Lesson WorksTwenty lessons across six modules. Each one gives you something to read, something to contemplate, and something to sit with, so that studying the path and walking it stay close together. A glossary of terms is included for the Tibetan vocabulary the tradition uses.Who It Is ForFor anyone drawn to look directly at their own experience. You do not need to be a Buddhist, to have taken any vow, or to belong to any lineage. It is meant to serve a beginner arranging a cushion and a longtime practitioner returning to first things alike.