Insight Editions · No. 369
Ultimate Dzogchen
An Interview with Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche's interview on the Great Perfection, from the meaning of the word to daily-life practice: the great benefit and great danger of Dzogchen, recognizing, training and stability, deliberate and effortless mindfulness, the Mahamudra pointing-out method and resting freely. Every answer in order, with diagrams and practice notes.
A study guide to Ultimate Dzogchen, an interview with Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (Rangjung Yeshe translation, first published in the Vajradhatu Sun). Shared free for personal reading; not for sale and not endorsed by the publishers. Please read the original teachings.
CORE CLAIM
Dzogchen is not a doctrine but the state of your own mind: the unity of being empty and cognizant, held with a core of awareness. It must be recognized in experience, not kept as theory.
SCOPE
The whole interview, given to the Vajradhatu Sun, in eight sections: the meaning of the word, benefit and danger, advice for householders, the preliminaries, the three stages, two kinds of mindfulness, the Mahamudra method and resting freely.
KEY FIGURES
Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (1920 to 1996), Nyingma and Kagyu master; Tilopa and Naropa; Machig Labdron; Jamgon Lodro Thaye; Shantideva (Bodhicharya Avatara).
BEST FOR
Practitioners who have received or want to understand pointing-out instruction, and readers who want Dzogchen without the mystique: what to do, what to avoid, and how practice fits into ordinary life.
The Interview on One Page
Ultimate Dzogchen is a short interview in which Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche answers a handful of questions and then teaches at length on how recognition of mind nature is trained. It moves from definitions to warnings to method, and ends with the instruction to relax completely.
The Argument in Brief
- Summit and simplicity. Dzogchen crowns the nine vehicles, yet it is simply your mind's empty cognizance.
- Benefit and danger. Direct recognition is the swiftest path; as theory it becomes nihilism.
- Three stages. Recognize, train, stabilize, like planting a seed.
- Mindfulness is the switch, not the light. Press it, then let the natural state run.
- Relax. The best relaxation brings the best meditation.
Map of the Interview
| No. | Section | Payload |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | What Dzogchen Means | Nine vehicles; Trekcho and Togal |
| 2 | Benefit and Danger | Experience versus theory |
| 3 | Householders | Practice in daily activity |
| 4 | Preliminaries | Purification; sunlit space |
| 5 | Three Stages | The flower seed |
| 6 | Mindfulness | Light switch and bell |
| 7 | Mahamudra Method | Looking at the looker |
| 8 | Resting Freely | No thing to recognize |
What Dzogchen Means
Dzog means perfection or completion; chen means great. "Everything of samsara and nirvana is complete within" mind, says the tantra Rinpoche quotes.
The Summit of Nine Vehicles
All the Buddha's teachings fit into nine gradual vehicles. Dzogchen (Ati Yoga) is the ninth, "like the highest golden ornament on a rooftop spire." All eight lower vehicles are contained in it, but it is not contained in the lowest, the shravaka vehicle. That one-way inclusion is what "complete" means.
Just the State of Mind
We usually speak of Dzogchen as a Dharma tradition, but Rinpoche says "actually it is just the state of one's mind." The unity of being empty and cognizant belongs to every sentient being and is nothing special. What makes it a path is to encompass it with "a core of awareness."
- Trekcho, Cutting Through. "Primordially pure essence." The view itself is present in all nine vehicles.
- Togal, Direct Crossing. "The spontaneously present nature." This is Dzogchen's special quality.
- Their unity is the unique teaching of Dzogchen.
Dzogchen has a gradual system too, but its hallmark is to point out naked awareness directly to sharp students, "instead of beating around the bush."
Great Benefit, Great Danger
All teachings are finally resolved in Dzogchen, either through intellectual understanding or through experience. The same directness that makes it the swiftest path makes it the easiest to counterfeit.
The Benefit
When naked awareness is pointed out and recognized directly, and that recognition becomes the main practice, there is "incredible great benefit": it is "the very direct and swift path to enlightenment."
The Danger
The danger is to keep it as an idea: "In Dzogchen there is nothing to meditate upon, nothing to view, nothing to carry out as an action." This becomes a concept of nihilism. The goal is conceptlessness, yet one has built an intellectual idea of Dzogchen and holds it tightly.
It is more beneficial to practise Madhyamika or Mahamudra step by step, with their reference points of theory, experience and realization, than to stray into intellectualized Dzogchen.
The Test of Death
Tilopa told Naropa, "Theory is like a patch. It will wear and fall off." After death, amid panic and terror, the idea "my essence is free of confusion" is "only a thought, another concept."
Advice for Householders
Asked for advice to the Vajradhatu Sun's mostly lay readers, Rinpoche gives a three-step answer: receive the pointing-out instruction and recognize your essence; do not lose its continuity; mingle it with daily activity.
Four Activities, or Five
Tradition lists four daily actions: moving, sitting, eating and lying down. The point is that no situation is outside practice. With familiarity, activity becomes "the adornment" of awareness.
Dualistic mind is like a strand of hair in the wind, bending to every breeze and falling prey to the five sense objects. Recognized awareness is like a needle: however thin, the wind cannot bend it. The condition is that recognition is correct.
Do not hunt for more sitting time; refuse the split between practice and activity. Recognize briefly, return often.
The Preliminaries and Realization
How long should one do the Ngondro? Rinpoche's answer is a single guideline: until obscurations are purified. "There is no real guideline other than total purification."
Why Purify
"When obscurations are removed, realization occurs spontaneously." Only obscurations and negative karma prevent realization, and the preliminaries remove them.
Sunlit Space
Rigpa is like sunlit space: space and awareness are indivisible, and you do not create the sunlit sky. Clouds of thought cannot be pushed away, only left to dissolve. When recognition becomes easier and self-sustained, that can be called realization: "the total and permanent collapse of confusion."
"I hate these thoughts! I only want the awakened state!" This grasping never gives way to enlightenment. Note too that the text gives no measurable criterion for "total purification"; it relies on the teacher.
Meditation That Is Not Meditating
Mind essence is already empty, so there is nothing to empty; it is already cognizant, so nothing to make aware. "All you have to do is leave it as it is." After the initial recognition, undistracted nonmeditation is the key point. When thoughts return, recognize again.
Recognize, Train, Attain Stability
The heart of the teaching is a three-stage path and one image: the flower seed. Recognizing is holding the seed and knowing it; training is planting and watering it; stability is the bloom.
The Seed Is the Whole Flower
Realization comes from repeating the short moment of recognition many times. A seed shows no petals, yet "the moment of recognizing the awakened state is definitely the basis for buddhahood itself."
Do not expect rigpa to be spectacular. Its one truly amazing feature is that conceptual thinking and the three poisons are totally absent.
Devotion and Compassion
Devotion to enlightened beings and compassion for unenlightened beings are "a universal panacea, the single sufficient technique."
- Heart signs. Compassion, devotion, an acute sense of impermanence.
- Fewer thoughts. Conceptual thinking diminishes.
- Longer recognition. Nonfabrication lasts longer without deliberate maintenance.
Fabrication is the main error: "this state is not exactly right," "now I've got it, now it slipped away." Doubt is the obstacle that obstructs the view. Thought is like a sneak-thief: invite him in broad daylight before a crowd and he can steal nothing.
Two Kinds of Mindfulness
There are deliberate and effortless mindfulness. Beginners need the deliberate kind first.
The Light Switch
That which goes astray is our attention. To turn on a light, "you must put your finger on the light-switch and press it." The moment you notice "I have wandered off" and recognize who was distracted, you are back in the view. Once the light is on, you do not keep pressing the switch. This is the meaning of "the artificial leads to the natural."
The Bell
Strike a bell and the sound continues. Deliberate mindfulness recognizes the essence; then simply let it be and the recognition lasts a while. This is sustaining the continuity.
| Deliberate mindfulness | Effortless (innate) mindfulness | |
|---|---|---|
| Image | Pressing the switch; striking the bell | The lit room; the ringing sound |
| Role | Preliminary: brings you back | Main part: the natural state itself |
| Dzogchen phrasing | "Mindfulness of deliberate attention" | "Sustain primordially free awareness with innate mindfulness" |
- Ordinary mind. Thought follows thought, carried away day and night.
- Yogi's mind. Thought is "like writing on the surface of water": it arises, the essence is recognized, it dissolves.
- Recognition. Like "a snowflake meeting water." Do not focus on the expression; recognize the essence, and the expression "folds back into the essence."
"Within thought I discovered nonthought," runs a line from Jamgon Lodro Thaye that Rinpoche quotes. Looking, one sees no "thing" to see: this is prajnaparamita.
The Mahamudra Pointing-Out
Rinpoche describes, step by step, how a Mahamudra teacher introduces the nature of mind. For a diligent student the first stage alone takes two or three months.
Knowing the Character of Mind
The student reports that mind sometimes thinks and sometimes rests. The teacher names these occurrence and stillness. Being able to detect them is "knowing the character of the mind," and "as long as you do not go beyond this exercise, you will not reach enlightenment."
Losing the Thinker
Then comes the turn: "When there is thinking, look into the thinker. When there is stillness, look into what feels the stillness." The student returns bewildered: both have vanished. The teacher replies: "No, you are not at all at a complete loss. Now you have arrived at Mahamudra. What is left is the nature itself."
"Counterfeit emptiness, a mere idea, does not cut through the root of the three poisons." The moment one thinks "This is emptiness!" it is artificial. Written down without a teacher checking the reports, it is easy to mistake a blank pause for recognition.
Tighten Tight, Loosen Loose
The interview ends with a sustained warning against effortful watching. What is tiring is not recognition but the dualistic mind trying to keep track of it.
The Antidote to Exhaustion
Rinpoche quotes Machig Labdron: "Tighten tight and loosen loose." Alternating recognition and forgetting can feel strenuous: "Now I recognize. Oops! Now I've forgotten!" The antidote is to relax deeply from within from the very beginning.
"Tighten tight" means simply to look into mind essence. "Loosen loose" means to totally let go of any idea of recognizing. To hold on to a recognizer and a recognition is conceptual, "the root of samsara." Recognition artificially extended turns into a dualistic state.
No Thing to Recognize
What is recognized is that there is no "thing" to recognize. Otherwise subtle fixation remains. "Trying to catch the natural state is tiring."
- Body like a mountain. Let it rest, unmoving.
- Breath like an ocean. Unimpeded, like a calm, undisturbed surface.
- Mind in awareness. Remain in the nature of mind: "The present wakefulness is totally fresh."
Master Takeaways
The interview compresses a whole path into a few images. These are the points to carry away.
Fifteen Takeaways
- Dzogchen is your mind's state, held with awareness.
- Recognition must be experiential, not believed.
- Intellectual Dzogchen is nihilism.
- Gradual paths are safer than a counterfeit.
- Short moments, many times.
- Do not fabricate; leave it as it is.
- Mindfulness is a switch, not the light.
- There is no thing to recognize.
- Relax deeply.
- Devotion and compassion suffice as support.
- Purify until purified.
- Doubt blocks the view.
- Progress shows as compassion and fewer thoughts.
- Mingle with daily life.
- Theory fails at death.
Images and What They Teach
| Image | Teaches | Sec. |
|---|---|---|
| Patch that falls off | Theory fails at death | 2 |
| Hair and needle | Stable awareness | 3 |
| Sunlit space | Rigpa is uncreated | 4 |
| Flower seed | Recognition is the basis | 5 |
| Light switch; bell | Two mindfulnesses | 6 |
| Mountain, ocean, awareness | Resting freely | 8 |
An oral interview, lightly edited: answers repeat, and the mindfulness teaching reads like a separate talk. It presumes a reader who already has a teacher and cannot give the pointing-out it insists on. Its strength is its clear warnings, useful on any path.