Things I've Learned from Quintessential Dzogchen

I have been reading Quintessential Dzogchen: Confusion Dawns As Wisdom, a book of teachings compiled to make clear and accessible the Dzogchen path to anyone familiar with Buddhism, and specifically with the Vajrayana school. It is highly readable, and I am finding myself greatly inspired by the dharma once again through its medium. Many of the teachings and instructions come from Tulku Urgyen Rinpoché, and these are interspersed with guidance from other well-known contemporary masters as well as songs and poems by some of the ancients of Tibet. I've found this book not only epochally diverse and yet entirely relevant today, but also replete with a wealth of wisdom in regards to the colossally enigmatic thing we call the mind.

What is the mind? This is the question that seems to define my life, and so this type of research truly fascinates me. I studied the minds of children in university, conducting the research necessary to write a thesis on a narrow slice of the topic (specifically, preschool-age children's understanding of intention as it relates to their theory of mind and inhibitory control). It was an incredibly rewarding experience to do so, but nevertheless, the answers I felt I found -- which were slim pickings -- only generated and begged hundreds more questions. I've also been a Buddhist practitioner for going on a decade now, which to me involves a lot of mind-probing. But like my academic studies of Buddhism, my personal practice has brought a lot of satisfaction without answering the question.

Of course, there is no answer. I have trusted this as long as I can remember. My background in Western psychology does not allow me to say that I have proven there is no answer, since proof of something not existing is simply not scientifically possible, but I have poked and prodded and sought and questioned enough to satisfy myself that what I have heard is true: Mind is empty of true existence. There is no substance, no colour or taste or texture to mind. It cannot be found to arise in, abide in, or go to any particular place. And yet the mind exists: Though we cannot find it upon analysis, it certainly expresses itself as thoughts and perceptions, memories, hopes and fears, pleasures and displeasures. Quintessential Dzogchen reminds us that these are the two facets of the mind according to the pinnacle of the Vajrayana teachings: emptiness and cognizance. The mind is neither nonexistent nor truly existent. It is empty, and yet it appears as that which is aware.

The mind's essence -- as opposed to its expression -- is primordially pure, is identical to buddha nature, and this is one of the key points of Dzogchen, elaborated upon in this book. The difference between samsara and nirvana, between sentient beings and buddhas, is simply in the recognition of the primordial purity of our mind-essence. We can be introduced to the nature of mind by a guru, but we are not generally aware of it until it has been thus pointed out to us. Thereafter, we can train in seeing our mind-essence more often and for more prolonged periods, and eventually on a constant basis, at which point we have attained buddhahood. According to Shakya Shri Jnana,

"Primordial purity means that the basic nature of awareness belongs to neither samsara nor nirvana, and therefore its identity is primordially pure. No type of virtuous karmic cause and effect improves this primordial purity, nor does any type of unvirtuous karmic cause and effect worsen it... This primordially pure identity of awareness can be neither improved nor harmed by anything whatsoever." (p. 32)

When I read this passage, I found it to be very radical. In essence, it is pointing to the mind as something stable, unborn and undying as buddhahood itself, which is quite the opposite of the Buddhist conception of impermanence when applied to the mind. But the middle way is just that, and after reflection I think I better understand what these words point to. On the relative level, in which the mind expresses itself in its various manifestations, there is no stability. Thoughts and memories and plans and ideas are fleeting and impermanent, and our buddha nature is obscured by all kinds of karmic imprints. But on the level of absolute truth, verified experientially throughout millennia, mind is none other than the Great Perfection itself, untainted and unobscured.