Insight Editions · No. 408
Vajra Heart
Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche's graduated day of practice, from waking up to the collapse of confusion
Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
A study guide to Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche's Vajra Heart: his life and lineage, the history of Dzogchen, the pointing-out instruction, the four mind changings, the wake-up practice, development stage, recitation, torma, shamatha and vipashyana, experiences, no sessions and no breaks, and stability, with tables, diagrams and practice notes.
A study guide to Vajra Heart by Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, compiled by Marcia Binder Schmidt, translated by Erik Pema Kunsang, edited by Wayne and Judith Amtzis (Rangjung Yeshe Publications, 2nd revised ed. 1991). Shared free for personal reading; not for sale and not endorsed by the publishers. Please read the original book, and practise with proper transmission.
CORE CLAIM
Every practice of the day, from waking up to mantra, torma and sitting, should be done without separating it from the view of Dzogchen: recognize self-existing wakefulness, train in short moments, and gain the confidence that holds even at death.
SCOPE
Thirteen short teachings given to Western students at Nagi Gompa, compiled by Marcia Binder Schmidt, translated by Erik Pema Kunsang, edited by Wayne and Judith Amtzis; first issued for restricted circulation in 1988, second revised edition 1991.
KEY FIGURES
Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche; his uncle Samten Gyatso and that master's former life Argey Samten (Ngagtrin Lama); Chokgyur Lingpa; Situ Padma Nyinche; Jigme Lingpa; Machik Labdrön; Milarepa; Tsewang Drakpa.
BEST FOR
Practitioners who have received the pointing-out instruction and want a graduated path "that can be followed in the course of a day or a lifetime," especially those practising the Barchey Künsel guru sadhana.
The Book on One Page
The preface names the book's method in one line: Rinpoche "never separates any practice or activity from the view of Dzogchen." The chapters follow a practitioner's day: wake, supplicate, visualize, recite, offer, sit, carry the practice into activity, and finally face death without fear.
The Argument in Brief
- The ground is already complete. Essence, nature and capacity are present in buddhas and beings alike; the difference is pure gold and gold mixed with impurities.
- Recognition must be experiential. Dzogchen has "great advantages but also great dangers": experience brings swift awakening, intellectual understanding brings conceptual nihilism.
- The relative practices still matter. Waking, visualizing, reciting and offering torma are expressions of the view, not stages to discard.
- Mindfulness turns into wakefulness. Start with deliberate attention, let it become effortless, and drop the thought "I am undistracted."
- The proof is confidence. Stability means no doubt and no fear, even when "the abyss of the hells is opened."
"Through proper exertion in meditation it is possible to destroy confusion. When confusion falls away, enlightenment is attained."
Map of the Chapters
| No. | Chapter | Payload |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Preface and Introduction | Teaching through experience; the Barchey Künsel cycle |
| 2 | Brief Life History | Teachers, retreats, a caretaker's warm spot in the sun |
| 3 | History of Dzogchen | Gold simile; three ignorances; devotion and compassion |
| 4 | The Pointing-Out Instruction | Benefit and danger; "Don't wander!" |
| 5 | Preliminary Teachings | Four mind changings; four ends; five senses |
| 6 | Wake-Up Practice | Stale breath; Buddha of the Three Times; pure perception |
| 7 | Development Stage | Discovering what is already there |
| 8 | Recitation | Four intents; iron chain and golden chain |
| 9 | Torma | Local deities, obstructing forces, three enemies |
| 10 | Shamatha and Vipashyana | Lightning gate; words like rice husks |
| 11 | Experiences | Body as guest house; love opens the empty nature |
| 12 | No Sessions, No Breaks | Short moments; the donkey and the grass |
| 13 | Stability | Egolessness empties hell; the film stops |
How the Book Reads
Vajra Heart was the second title in a series "for restricted circulation," and the translator asks readers to treat it with respect and share it only with people who have "a sincere respect for the Buddhist teachings." The talks are answers to Western students' questions, so they are short, repetitive and practical. Many of them were later folded into the much longer Vajra Heart Revisited; this earlier book is the compact version, built around one sadhana and one day.
Preface and Introduction
Marcia Binder Schmidt explains why private answers became a book, and Erik Pema Kunsang introduces the teacher and the terma cycle that the practical chapters assume. The point of both: Rinpoche teaches "instruction through one's own experience."
Why the Book Exists
Western students had been bringing questions and doubts to Rinpoche for years, and he answered "with the compassionate brilliance of a great teacher." Keeping those answers for "a small group of friends" began to seem "a bit selfish," so topics suitable for a wider audience were selected. The collection is meant "for the beginner as well as the advanced practitioner," and lays out a graduated path for a day or a lifetime. Rinpoche himself wanted readers to grasp one thing above all: the importance of receiving the pointing-out instruction from a qualified master.
The Teacher
The introduction gives the outline of a life told more fully in the next chapter. Born in Nangchen, eastern Tibet, in 1920, Rinpoche was recognized by the fifteenth Karmapa, Khakyab Dorje, as the reincarnation of Guru Chöwang Tulku and an emanation of Nubchen Sangye Yeshe, a chief disciple of Padmasambhava. His family holds the Barom Kagyü line, and through his great-grandfather Chokgyur Lingpa he holds the Chokling Tersar, which he passed on to the regents of the Karma Kagyü and many young tulkus. He built monasteries at Boudhanath and the Asura Cave, lived at Nagi Gompa, and completed four three-year retreats.
Rinpoche was known for "profound meditative realization" and a "concise, lucid and humorous style." Using few words, his method of "instruction through one's own experience" points out the nature of mind and lets the student "actually touch the heart of awakened mind."
The Barchey Künsel Cycle
The practical chapters all refer to one terma. Chokgyur Lingpa received the root text at twenty, kept it secret for eight years, and later received the empowerments from the wisdom body of Padmasambhava. The cycle, Lamey Tukdrub Barchey Künsel, is described as "the essence of the heart of Padmakara" and "like the great treasury of the universal monarch," holding every means for the supreme and common siddhis.
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| Tantra basis | Great King of Tantras, the Magical Net of the Vidyadhara Guru |
| Category | Eight Sections of the Magical Net; also Lotus Speech among the Eight Sadhana Teachings |
| Content | Extracted essence of development, completion and activity practices |
| Best known sadhana | Trinley Nyingpo, the Essence of Activity |
| Use | Given by the Karmapa, Dilgo Khyentse and Rinpoche on first visits West; practised daily by the sixteenth Karmapa |
The translator records that Rinpoche "personally expressed his wish that this book not be made available as an open publication." Much of this material was later published openly in Vajra Heart Revisited, but the original request is a reason to read this guide as a map, not a substitute, and to receive the practices from a teacher.
Brief Life History
Rinpoche tells his own life in a few minutes: teachers, transmissions, retreats, and why he built a monastery he calls "insignificant." The chapter ends with the shortest possible case for retreat: remove outer distraction so only your own mind is left.
Teachers and Transmissions
His father gave him mind teachings from the age of eight; the rest came from a circle of uncles and masters.
| Teacher | Main transmission |
|---|---|
| Chimey Dorje (father) | Kangyur; Chokling Tersar; first mind teachings |
| Samten Gyatso (uncle) | Full Chokling Tersar; Dzogchen guidance |
| Kyungtrul Karjam | Dam-ngak Dzö; Nyingma tantras; Lamrim Yeshe Nyingpo |
| Tersey Rinpoche (uncle) | Dzogchen, from a disciple of Shakya Shri |
| Karsey Kongtrul | Rinchen Terdzö |
| Sixteenth Karmapa and others | Remaining Five Treasuries |
Retreats and Lineage
He spent three years in retreat in Kham "simply reciting the Mani," three more at Tsurphu, and nearly three in Sikkim. His Barom Kagyü line runs from Gampopa's disciple Barom Dharma Wangchuk. Of his supposed former lives he says, "who knows that for sure? (Laughs)." His predecessor, Chöwang Tulku, was a secret yogi whose body shrank to one cubit at death without decomposing.
"In this age of degeneration, carry the burden of the doctrine. If you are unable to do so, simply your fear that the teachings may die out will have tremendous merit." Saying quoted by Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
Why a Monastery
Four monks make a sangha, "a simple image of the doctrine in this dark age." Whether they practise "is their own business"; a benefactor's merit is assured regardless.
A Caretaker at Nagi Gompa
The Karmapa handed Nagi Gompa to Rinpoche to look after. "So this old man here is just a caretaker (laughs)." He is "not at all like Milarepa"; he has "a nice spot to sleep and a warm place in the sun."
In seclusion, with no visitors and no going out, "there will be no distractions other than those of one's own mind." Exertion then destroys confusion, and when confusion falls away, enlightenment is attained.
History of Dzogchen
A short history leads straight into doctrine: why the human body is the best support, what "Great Perfection" means, and the gold simile for ground, path and fruition. The chapter closes on the warning that meditation alone is not enough without devotion and compassion.
Where the Teachings Came From
The Dzogchen teachings were first offered in Akanishtha, then Tushita, then on the summit of Mount Sumeru, and spread among the gods before humans. Among humans they were spread by Garab Dorje; among the nagas by the naga king Jogpo. The Twelve Great Perfection Teachers, not all of them human, taught in different worlds.
Why a Human Body
In the higher heavens and formless states emotions are weak, so the wakefulness that meets them is weak too. Rinpoche's image: a fire with little wood dies out; a bonfire with wood to feed it "will blaze forth tremendously." The human body has six elements that other beings lack.
| Element | In the body |
|---|---|
| Earth, water | Flesh and blood |
| Fire, wind | Warmth and breath |
| Space | The cavities |
| Consciousness | Mind and thoughts |
The stronger the five poisons, the stronger the wakefulness that can arise. Recognized, they are the five wisdoms: mirror-like, discriminating, all-accomplishing, equality and dharmadhatu wisdom. Unrecognized, they are the five disturbing emotions.
The Name
Dzogchen, Mahasandhi, is the ninth vehicle, "the royal peak." Dzog, complete, means all lower vehicles and all phenomena are contained within it; the Kunje Gyalpo Tantra says "everything of samsara and nirvana is complete within this." Chen, great, means no method is higher. Yet it is "nothing other than the basic state of one's mind."
Ground is pure gold. Path is gold mixed with impurities being purified. Fruition is pure gold again, stable recognition of the primordially pure ground. The difference between buddhas and beings is "merely the difference between gold mixed with impurities and pure untainted gold."
Essence, Nature, Capacity
Ground Dzogchen is essence, nature and capacity, the three kayas. Buddhas never strayed: their essence ripened into enlightened body, nature into speech, capacity into mind. Beings strayed onto "the path" when these were obscured by three kinds of ignorance: single identity, coemergent and conceptual. Because those ignorances are fleeting, we can become "re-enlightened" instead of "primordially enlightened."
The third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje, said the basic nature is not existent, since even the buddhas have not seen it, and not nonexistent, since it is the basis of samsara and nirvana. This is "the middle path of unity," not a contradiction like fire and water on one plate. Dzogchen calls the empty side primordial purity and the cognizant side spontaneous presence. Because this unity is the ordinary state of every being, there is nothing special about it; the practitioner should "suffuse it with awareness."
Devotion and Compassion
"Merely repeating 'empty, empty, empty!'" is not enough. You need a qualified master's blessing, the accumulations and purification. Upward devotion to all the buddhas and lineage masters, downward compassion for the six kinds of beings who were your mothers.
Rinpoche calls this belief mistaken. Even a "very intelligent, bright and even industrious" practitioner without devotion and compassion is "not the way to practice." With them, "the view will automatically and naturally blaze forth like a fire."
The Pointing-Out Instruction
Dzogchen's special feature is that it points directly to naked awareness instead of leading the student through long preliminaries. Rinpoche explains the three kayas in one moment of mind, the danger of intellectual Dzogchen, and a child tulku who was introduced by a scolding.
Three Kayas in Mind
To find the mind's essence, ask: is it compounded or uncompounded? What is compounded has substance; mind has nothing for the eyes to see, the ears to hear or the hands to hold.
| Aspect | Kaya | Point |
|---|---|---|
| Empty essence | Dharmakaya | Substanceless, like space |
| Cognizant nature | Sambhogakaya | Not a void; "perfect abundance" |
| Manifold capacity | Nirmanakaya | Their unobstructed unity, all-embracing |
If the emptiness "were a total void there would be no talk of the buddhas attaining enlightenment" and beings wandering. Capacity is not coarse substance but the unobstructed self-display of empty cognizance.
Great Benefit, Great Danger
Because every teaching is finally resolved in Dzogchen, resolving can go two ways.
The danger is the idea: "If I meditate in the morning, I am a buddha in the morning. When I recognize at night, I am a buddha at night." Many in the past assured themselves they need not meditate or practise. For that reason, the gradual path of Madhyamika or Mahamudra, alternating theory, experience and realization with reference points, is often "much more beneficial."
A student told to remain free from concepts thinks, "I am free from concepts, I am never distracted!" and walks around "with vacantly gazing eyes." That is intellectual understanding, and it "will not help us when we have to die." Tilopa told Naropa: "Theory is like a patch, it will wear out and fall off."
The Test Is Doubt
Hearing about a meal is not tasting it. Jigme Lingpa said that with stability "there is no need for 100 panditas"; even when scholars question you, doubt will not arise. The proof of having recognized the mind essence is that one feels no doubt, no matter how much one may try. When a qualified master meets a worthy student, "iron strikes flint, creating fire immediately."
Receiving the pointing-out instruction is taking fruition as path: in the moment of recognition, the cognitive obscuration is absent, which is called touching the fruition. Mind is like the shadow of one's hand; awareness like the hand itself, so no being lacks awareness. And the thought "I understand, awareness is just such and such" is useless, since awareness is the absence of fabrication.
Naturalness and Freshness
In Dzogchen, shamatha and vipashyana are preliminaries called resting in naturalness and sustaining freshness. A Kham saying applies: "The innermost can be seen from the outside," like a shrine room seen through an open door. "Sometimes the preliminaries are more profound than the main practice."
"Don't Wander!"
An eight-year-old tulku, Argey Samten, was playing while an old lama drummed for the protectors. The lama scolded him: "Don't wander! Don't wander!" The boy asked what that meant. "Look at yourself, look into your own mind!" He recognized mind nature right there, and later said he never needed anything further pointed out.
That boy became Ngagtrin Lama, retreat master at Palpung and the former life of Samten Gyatso. When Chokgyur Lingpa first arrived, Situ Padma Nyinche, who had "no faith in tertöns," asked him to check the visitor in his dreams. The dream carried a great prophecy, and Situ accepted Chokling, insisting he give the Sabdün Phurba empowerment in person: "Vajrayana is not just something you put on the head."
Ngagtrin Lama's tummo kept snow from ever settling on his hut's roof. Called to do phowa for a patron beyond a pass blocked by ice curtains two or three stories high, he refused to break samaya by staying home, and in the morning announced, "Last night I cleared the way!" The ice had melted.
"If one has the karmic potential, what transpires may be extraordinary. The traditional sequence does not always apply." Some people are introduced during the general preliminaries, some during resting in naturalness. Treat every stage as a possible doorway.
Preliminary Teachings
The basis for all practice is the four mind changings: the precious human body, death and impermanence, karma, and the defects of samsara. Rinpoche fills each with concrete Tibetan images: chinaware breaking on a stone, a merchant's mules stretching to China, a moth diving into a flame.
Eight Freedoms
We are free of eight unfree states, any of which would leave us "fettered by our conditions." Rinpoche's image: "With no container, where can you pour your tea?"
| Unfree state | Why practice fails |
|---|---|
| Hells | Suffering of heat and cold |
| Hungry ghosts | Hunger and thirst |
| Animals | Too dull to know how |
| Barbarians | No Dharma where they live |
| Long-living gods | Distracted by luxury for aeons, then fall "like rain" |
| No buddha in the time | No teaching to hear |
| Wrong views | "Who has returned from the hells?" No interest even if they met the Buddha |
| Unable to communicate | Cannot receive teaching |
When Dharma Exists at All
A great kalpa has four phases of equal length: creation, abiding, destruction by seven suns, and voidness. Only during abiding is there Dharma. Abiding has eighteen middle aeons plus one at each end, twenty in all. We live in a descending aeon of the Excellent Aeon, in which a thousand buddhas will appear; four have come so far.
Ten Riches
| From others | From oneself |
|---|---|
| A buddha appeared | Born human |
| He taught | In a central country |
| The doctrine survived | Senses intact |
| There are teachers | Livelihood not perverse |
| They continue to teach | Confidence in the Three Jewels |
Such a life is like a wish-fulfilling gem, and also "like holding an old piece of chinaware in our hand; the moment it hits a stone it completely breaks."
Impermanence
The universe will burn at the end of the aeon. Universal monarchs of the golden, silver, copper and iron wheel, Indian kings who flew and sat on Indra's throne: "only their names remain." There are 404 sicknesses and eighty thousand evil forces as causes of death. Lock yourself in an iron chamber guarded by one hundred thousand soldiers and death still comes; beauty cannot seduce it, bravery cannot defeat it, gold cannot bribe it.
- Birth ends in death. Milarepa: "Between being alive and being dead is only the difference of one breath."
- Hoarding ends in dispersion. The merchant Norbu Sangpo had mules that would stretch from Lhasa to China; nothing remains but his name.
- Meeting ends in separation. Families and communities are "like customers in a market place who come and go."
- Building ends in destruction. A house may last a thousand years; it will still be a ruin.
The Lord of Death is "like the mountain's shadow coming closer and closer," and then, Rinpoche snaps his fingers, the time is up. Everything changes; "Buddha nature alone is permanent and stable. Nothing else lasts."
Weariness and the Five Senses
Loss brings weariness, and weariness brings the thought "what else is there to do but practice Dharma?" Renunciation sees that the five sense objects deceive us.
| Sense | Victim | How it dies |
|---|---|---|
| Sight | Moth | Dives into the butter lamp |
| Sound | Deer | Lured by a hunter's flute |
| Smell | Bee | Shut inside a flower at evening |
| Taste | Fish | Swallows the baited hook |
| Touch | Elephant | Sinks in a mud pool |
Karma
"Karma follows oneself like a shadow follows a body." No one, "not even the strongest man in this southern Jambu Continent," has thrown it away. Only one thing ends it: self-existing wakefulness. A white or black cloud does not change the sky; "can anybody paint the sky red or white?"
Without practising the ten virtues, they "automatically become the ten unvirtuous ones," since wrongdoing needs no encouragement. Turn it around: give up the ten negative actions and the ten virtues are produced automatically. Their fruit is "high position" in the higher worlds and "true goodness," buddhahood.
Three Sufferings
| Suffering | Example |
|---|---|
| Change | An earthquake: yesterday a family, today begging with a stick |
| Suffering upon suffering | On top of that, leprosy or cancer |
| All-pervading suffering of formation | Drawing nearer to death every moment |
Beings feel the third as a hand feels a hair in the palm: nothing. The noble ones feel it as an eye feels a hair. A man from Lang-ro-tang who saw life running out was sad all his life, and was called "Dark Face from Lang-ro-tang."
Rinpoche asks for these four thoughts to be taken to heart "not with mere theorizing but by actually assimilating the meaning." Pick one image a day (the chinaware, the mules, the market, the moth) and let it shape what you do with that day.
Wake-Up Practice
The day begins by "stirring from the sleep of ignorance": expel the stale breath, supplicate Guru Rinpoche, dissolve him into yourself, and take up the two attitudes of Sutra and Mantra. Waking up "just in an ordinary manner has little benefit."
Expelling the Stale Breath
Since beginningless time, the wisdom wind has been obscured by the wind of disturbing emotions, which drives attachment, aggression and delusion. Straighten the body and exhale three or nine times.
Exhale with a hissing sound, imagining karmas, kleshas, illness and negative forces leaving "like smoke from a chimney." Inhale slowly, imagining five-coloured rainbow light of the buddhas' blessings, wisdom, compassion, activity and qualities.
Buddha of the Three Times
With the root guru above your head, chant "Buddha of the Three Times," a supplication "especially suited for these times" that small Tibetan children knew by heart. Its first three lines hold all three levels of Chokgyur Lingpa's guru practice.
| Line | Meaning | Practice |
|---|---|---|
| Düsum sangye guru rinpoche | Buddha of the three times, Guru Rinpoche | Outer: Barchey Künsel |
| Ngödrub kündag dewa chenpo shab | Lord of all accomplishments, great blissful one | Inner: Sampa Lhündrub |
| Barchey künsel düdül drakpo tsal | Dispeller of obstacles, wrathful tamer of maras | Secret: Dorje Draktsal |
The obstacles to be pacified are outer (the elements), inner (channels and winds) and secret (grasping and fixation). "When obstacles are cleared away, the siddhis will be spontaneously accomplished." Recite one rosary of "Lama khyenno," "Lama, think of me," then the guru melts into light and your body, speech and mind become inseparable from his.
"Glorious" refers to the twofold benefit: realizing dharmakaya for oneself and manifesting form for others. Among root gurus, the one who introduces the unborn dharmakaya of one's own mind is called the precious root guru.
Two Attitudes
| Attitude | Vehicle | Content |
|---|---|---|
| Vast thought | Sutra, bodhisattva | "May all beings as vast as the sky have happiness... I will practice this profound path" |
| Profound method | Secret Mantra | World as celestial palace, beings as dakas and dakinis, thoughts as primordial purity |
The second is the threefold mandala: appearances as deity, sounds as mantra, thoughts as wisdom, also called "the three things to carry." Even dogs and pigs have the enlightened essence and the five elements. The five aggregates are the five male buddhas, the five elements the five female buddhas. Hindus honour fire and water gods as worldly deities; in Vajrayana the deities are wisdom deities, and the elements hold "not even a dust mote of impurity."
Rinpoche insists "we need not superimpose our own view on phenomena." Pure perception is "simply a recognition of the primordial state itself," not turning what is into what is not. This is a strong metaphysical claim; the practical test is whether the attitude reduces grasping or merely adds a new layer of imagination.
Sleep and Stupidity
Sleep is an aspect of ignorance, but not stupidity itself: "the real stupidity is ignorance of the true meaning." "This king of stupidity has sleep as his minister." So wake to Guru Rinpoche and the dakinis singing, ornaments of jewel and bone dangling, hand drums and bells playing, and think: "Now I have awakened into the space of awareness wisdom."
The liturgy Rinpoche sings asks the guru and dakinis to "gaze upon me with your compassionate eyes," notes that "all sentient beings of the three worlds are asleep with their minds in a state of indifference," and resolves to practise learning, contemplation and meditation within four sessions in a mountain retreat, for the two benefits.
Development Stage
Visualization is not imagining something that is not there. In Dzogchen the development stage "is the discovery of what primordially exists within oneself," and done well it is inseparable from the completion stage.
Ground Abiding, Ground Manifesting
The deities abide in the buddha mandala of one's body as "abiding in the ground." The ritual makes that manifest. "It is not like raising someone from the dead, after which the deities appear." The real root of development stage is spontaneous presence; practising it is like awakening from a dream. Its purpose is to purify evil deeds and keep thinking from falling under the kleshas.
The four visions of Tögal appear "just like one's face shows itself in a mirror." It is not that you had no face and after much meditating a face appeared. Spontaneous presence, lhündrub, means what cannot be created. Rejecting development stage outright is "throwing away that which is intrinsic to oneself."
Who Needs It
"People with thoughts should practice development stage." Some have so much thought activity that only development stage helps: "It would be better to have something to think of." Thinking of the palace and deity uses thoughts without gathering karma. Completion stage alone is "not at all incorrect"; Trekchö with skill in Tögal contains both.
Real and Fake Samadhis
The first two samadhis can be faked.
"Just as water is wet and fire hot, the natural expression of awareness is the flame-like heat of compassion."
The Sequence
The white HRIH appears like the moon or a star in space; it emanates E for space and YAM, RAM, BAM, LAM for the elements; SUM becomes Sumeru and SHRUM the palace. The syllable is the verbal sign, the hand emblem the mental sign. Around the deity's heart circles the mantra chain, and in Barchey Künsel twelve emanations follow like rays from the sun.
With and Without Recognition
| Situation | How to practise |
|---|---|
| Accustomed to awareness | Let thoughts arise as the visualization, "like waves moving on the surface of water" |
| Not yet | Step by step: emptiness, compassion, seed, elements, palace, deity |
| Attached to solidity | Dissolve: palace into deity, deity into syllable, syllable into nada, then emptiness |
| Best addition | After visualizing, look into who it is that meditates |
Without completion stage, development is like a man constructing a building. With recognition, visualization cannot harm awareness: "All thinking is empty; empty movement... It is like a child at play."
Resolving in the Three Kayas
Body, speech and mind are the three vajras. Mind and awareness are told apart as clouds and sky: "Mind is changing and awareness is unchanging."
| Vajra | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Body | Uncompounded | Space, dharmakaya |
| Speech | Unceasing sound | Sun and moon in space, sambhogakaya |
| Mind | Unobstructed awareness | Moon reflected in water, nirmanakaya |
The reflection appears wherever there is water; so the nirmanakaya acts "in an expansive and unrestricted way."
"Visualization is sufficient once in the beginning of the session. After that, let go." Alternating visualizing and resting does no harm. But without some stability the expression becomes too forceful, the essence goes "out of sight," and development stage only adds discursive thought.
Recitation
Mantra recitation is the place to train nondistraction, and Rinpoche uses it to give the book's longest teaching on mindfulness. Its sharpest point: thinking "I am undistracted" is a golden chain, no less binding than the iron chain of wild thought.
The Mantras of Trinley Nyingpo
| Mantra | Phase |
|---|---|
| Amitayus | Approach |
| Avalokiteshvara | Full approach |
| Guru Rinpoche | Accomplishment |
| Tötreng Tsal | Great accomplishment |
| Harinisa | Application of activities (the four gatekeepers) |
All four phases can also be completed in a single mantra through four intents.
The moon with a garland of stars is HRIH ringed by mantra; the firebrand is the mantra circling; the king's messenger sends light up as offerings and down as purification. True great accomplishment needs one practitioner per deity: a hundred people for the hundred peaceful and wrathful deities. Beyond the four activities lies the supreme activity, the samadhi of self-existing wakefulness.
Three Stages of Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the method for nondistraction, like a herder watching cattle on the mountainside.
At the end, "mindfulness has turned into wisdom, yeshe," and there is nothing to guard. Jigme Lingpa: "The watcher disperses into emptiness." Different schools name the faculty differently.
| School | Term | Flavour |
|---|---|---|
| Dzogchen | Wakefulness | Mindfulness and awareness mixed |
| Mahamudra | Watchfulness | Keeping guard |
| Madhyamika | Alertness | Mindfulness, conscientiousness, care |
Madhyamika carefulness is compared to a newly wedded bride who speaks softly, moves gently and does everything with consideration. "Such carefulness is appreciated!" Rinpoche calls presence of mind, conscientiousness and care "definitely necessary."
In Barchey Künsel, approach, accomplishment and activities happen "simultaneously, like bees swarming from the hive": sights as the deity's body, sounds as speech, thoughts as mind. Mindfulness grows from effort into a river's constant flow.
Artificial Nondistraction
Sitting and thinking "I am not distracted, I am not distracted" is like a stomach medicine that, undigested, becomes poison. Our downfall is the idea of a meditator and an object of meditation: "The lama said there is something empty and cognizant. This must be it. I must not lose it."
"Wakefulness is beyond being fettered and beyond being freed." Something tied would need untying, and "we would have a job to do." Being primordially unfettered, "we need only attend to the truth." A master quoted by Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
The Golden Chain
Cast away both thoughts, "I am distracted" and "I am not distracted." The first moment of noticing is deliberate mindfulness; in that very moment simply remain in naturalness, "like switching on a flashlight." This, Rinpoche laughs, is "the borderline between buddhas and sentient beings."
Jigme Lingpa: "The first instant is like one thousand ounces of gold." Without thought it is naked; thinking "I am undistracted" is putting clothes on again. Trying to prolong it makes it "scaffolded by concepts," not cutting through but "slow cutting."
Like a Child
Rest "thought-free like a child," who lives in the immediate present. The difference: a child has not been introduced; we have. "Without casting away the five aggregates, we will not attain the five buddhas." When the moment of natural awareness is lost, mindfulness brings you back, "just like switching on again the light that went off."
Torma
Offerings, tormas to local deities and the expulsion of obstructing forces look like ritual for its own sake. Rinpoche's answer: "Don't imagine that because one practices Ati Yoga, one should abandon the act of presenting these offerings." The chapter ends with three enemies and the demon of postponement.
Material and Mental Offerings
Material offerings "serve as examples and are actually less important." We add mentally created ones because "the relative should be sealed with the absolute." When delusion clears, symbolic offerings are no longer needed.
| Level | Offerings |
|---|---|
| Outer | Drinking water, washing water, flowers, incense, lamp, perfume, food, music |
| Inner | Amrita, rakta, torma |
| Secret | The unity of bliss and emptiness |
Two Kinds of Recipient
Ask the owner of the land for permission, and offer torma to the local deity and the lord of the place, both kshetrapalas. At Nagi Gompa these are the lord of Shivapuri and Maheshvara, deity of all Nepal. Say: "Please don't be displeased... My only purpose is to benefit all these beings." Imagine them replying, "Child of noble family, use this place as you wish."
The gektor is given in three escalating ways.
| Way | Action |
|---|---|
| Peaceful | Give the torma: "Now, don't stay here. Go elsewhere." |
| Insistent | "I have many herukas on my side." Send the torma out with mantra |
| Wrathful | Emanate rakshas countless as dust and chase the forces beyond the world ocean |
"The tantras should be combined with the scriptures, the scriptures with the instructions, the instructions with the sadhana ritual, and the ritual with the personal application. Do not disregard the application." The ultimate offering is beyond offerer, offering and recipient.
Sign, Symbol, Meaning
Signs are what is on the shrine; symbols are the mudras of the hands, which to an outsider look "like children's play." The meaning is the unity of appearance and emptiness. In Nyingma rituals "wisdom fire, wisdom wind, wisdom water" always carry the word wisdom, because "there is nothing without wisdom."
Completion has two parts. Dissolution (world into deity, into HUNG, bindu, nada, emptiness) clears the view of permanence. Emergence as the deity, with the pride of the deity, clears nihilism. Then the dedication.
Three Enemies
| Enemy | What it is |
|---|---|
| External | Those hostile to the doctrine: "no deities, no mantras, no blessings" |
| Internal | Grasping outwardly at objects and fixating inwardly on mind |
| Ultimate | The concept of antidote; doubt, identical to the cognitive obscuration |
Machik Labdrön named substantial, insubstantial, joy and pride demons, and "the demon of pride is the root of all." It takes the form of indecision about the view: "Is this really it? Maybe it isn't." Substantial enemies can be burned, chopped and carried off by water; insubstantial ones, the gek, cannot be pierced by swords yet can still kill.
Of the four general maras, the son of the gods is laziness: "I'll practice tomorrow." Waiting for perfect conditions means "one is already possessed by the mara without even beginning practice." "The perfect time to practice meditation is when one feels completely without peace." Sickness and hardship are better incentives than comfort, and next year is never certain.
Shamatha and Vipashyana
Rinpoche separates calm abiding, which always carries a slight fixation on bliss, from vipashyana, which is "bare, but wide open." He then warns against being too particular about awareness and against trusting the words of instruction too long.
What Shamatha Holds On To
Shamatha means "abiding peacefully." Peace brings bliss, and "abiding" means fixation on that bliss. You hold the state, thinking "What a fantastic meditation I have!", and dare not move your body in case it collapses. That duality sows the seed of rebirth in the three worlds, which is why "mere shamatha practice does not bring liberation."
The Great Lightning Gate
A line says: "By the great lightning gate, both buddhas and beings are freed." Nowness is like lightning from the sky. "Buddhas" here means good thoughts such as devotion and relative compassion; "beings" means bad thoughts and ego-clinging. In the first instant both are freed.
Too Particular
| Mistake | Correction |
|---|---|
| "I must make my state a little more wakeful" | Born of intellect; drop it |
| "Self-existing wisdom has no knower" | Without cognizance we would be unconscious |
| "This is probably just conceptual mind" | You did not make your awareness; it is self-occurring |
| "There must be something better" | In this very moment, awareness is nakedly manifest |
Remain "totally loose in that very instant, as it is, not making it worse, not trying to uplift or improve it." Do not defame or praise it. And "we are not to blame if we slip into fabricating a little", since we have done so since beginningless time.
"How can words compare to the naked, self-existing awareness itself? Words are just like rice husks. You will gradually cast words away as your view deepens... When the view reaches fullness, you will really know how much damage words cause." Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
Herding Rigpa
"Herd primordially free rigpa with innate mindfulness," as you would herd grazing cattle, then rest freely. Here mindfulness is without duality: rigpa watching itself. For beginners, Mahamudra is kinder: "By fabricated mind, one is led to the natural state." Its mindfulness is mixed with shamatha in one-pointedness and discarded only at simplicity.
Chokgyur Lingpa's son, asked for mind teachings, refused: "I am a person who made it to the roof of the house without using the stairs." A teacher must know which step to take first; a sudden realizer may not be able to guide anyone.
The Match and the Seed
"At the moment of noticing the distraction, you arrive at rigpa," as a flame appears the instant a match is struck. But you must know when there is distraction and when there is not, or you will fancy yourself always undistracted. Do not prolong or shorten naturalness: "If it's long, it's long; if it's short, it's short."
In that moment there are no three poisons and no thoughts of the three times, so the seeds of the three worlds have nowhere to grow: "No crop grows if no seeds are planted." Thoughts that arise are self-occurring and self-liberated. Without confidence in this freeing, even recognition cannot destroy delusion.
When you catch yourself wandering, note "This is ignorance!" without rejecting it; that is sufficient. Rinpoche: "Do you understand?"
Experiences
The body is a guest house: some nights comfortable, some not. Rinpoche sorts the signs and experiences of practice, names the six hindrances, and gives his strongest claim for devotion and compassion: "In the moment of love the empty nature dawns nakedly."
The Guest House and the Road
"The body is just a guest house offering various pleasures and pains." Do not be governed by it. Yet it is an immense advantage: without it we would be a bardo consciousness without power, and no one in the hells or animal world recognizes mind essence. Channels and winds make us "sometimes feel at ease and sometimes disturbed," even without an outer cause.
Travelling to Bodhgaya overland means mountains and valleys, rivers and gorges. "If we don't stop anywhere, sooner or later we will arrive." Aim, literally "the way you point your nose," at nonconceptual wakefulness. "Whenever I go abroad, my home place is Nagi Gompa."
Signs and Experiences
| Type | Examples | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Signs of blessing | Vision of the yidam; lights, smoke, mirage | Perceived concretely |
| Pleasant nyam | "Today my meditation is really good!" | Passing |
| Unpleasant nyam | Cannot sit; depressed or angry | Also a sign |
| True sign | Mind without fixation, naturally without difficulty | The real one |
All of these are clouds in the sky of primordial purity: rain, storm, snow, or sunshine with rainbows. The true sign is also like "the sky suffused with the warmth of sunlight": a mind endowed with devotion, faith and compassion.
Six Hindrances
| Dullness | Agitation |
|---|---|
| Feeling dull | Feeling scattered |
| Drowsy | Agitated |
| Obscured | Absentminded |
"Even the slightest fixation, the most subtle sense of holding on, can harm our practice."
Love as the Shortcut
"In the moment of love the empty nature dawns nakedly." Devotion upward and compassion downward are both love; when body, speech and mind are overwhelmed by it and you look inward, it is "like a sun unobscured by clouds." That is how Kagyü and Nyingma practitioners attained enlightenment without being learned.
Devotion and compassion are "100 times better than meditating on deities and reciting mantras." If you truly know how, meditating on emptiness is sufficient; if not, compassion is extremely effective and will lead you there.
The unity of empty cognizance clears both extremes: cognizance clears nihilism, emptiness clears eternalism. Devotion and compassion are "like the summer warmth which melts the ice." "Emptiness without compassion is never taught. Water will always be wet." Rinpoche even asks the student to imagine one's mother tortured before one's eyes to feel what compassion is.
The torture image is traditional and deliberately extreme, meant to break indifference. Some modern readers will find it counterproductive or distressing; the instruction's aim, an overwhelming wish for beings to be free, can be reached with gentler reflections, and Rinpoche himself stresses that compassion "can be cultivated."
No Sessions, No Breaks
Dzogchen does not split the day into meditation and postmeditation. Instead: short moments, many times, from morning till night. Rinpoche then turns to dreams and the bardo, where habits without a body still feel cold, hunger and fear.
One Continuous Practice
"Clarify consciousness at dawn, give the daytime experiences the natural seal." In Sutra, formal meditation is like space and postmeditation like illusion. Dzogchen makes no division.
"The best diligence is never to be separated from the practice." As long as you alternate, you will keep awareness in sessions and lose it in the breaks. Sleep leaves the mind unfree, so apply diligence on waking.
Short Moments
Jigme Lingpa: "If the short moment is extended it becomes conceptual." A beginner cannot remain unfabricated for long; practise in short periods, but repeated many times.
People claim "for a whole hour, I am undistracted." If someone kept count, "they are probably distracted a hundred or a thousand times during one hour without noticing." What lasts a long time is conceptual mind telling itself it is meditating.
Long stretches of unfabricated wakefulness come "after many years of practice." A child born today does not have the strength of a twenty-five-year-old. Back on the road to Bodhgaya: if you think "I can't go," in a hundred years you will never get there.
Dreams and the Bardo
At night the body lies comfortably in bed while the mind roams "terrified or fascinated." Habitual patterns have no material substance; that is why they persist after the body is cremated, producing a mental body that still feels hunger, thirst and cold.
| State | Body | Experience |
|---|---|---|
| Waking | Physical, linked to objects | Sense world |
| Dream | Lying in bed, not linked | Joy, fear, delusion |
| Bardo | Mental body only | Sounds, colours, lights, terror |
If you look into anger, the anger dissolves. In the same way, recognition conquers karmas, habits and the deluded experiences after death. But "unless we can destroy them right now, then after death, it will be impossible."
In the bardo, your own innate deities shout "HUNG HUNG! PHAT PHAT!" and the dead person thinks the Lord of Death has come. A Tibetan proverb: "The donkey flees from rustling grass." The grass it fears is its own food; the deities you flee are the spontaneous display of your own buddha nature.
Conceivable and Inconceivable
The conditioned can be explained and technically applied; the unconditioned cannot be grasped by intellect. Words only point, like looking up at the summit from the foot of the mountain.
Longchen Rabjam mastered the inconceivable; "Western scientists have mastered the conceivable." Mastering the conditioned benefits your present situation, but when the aggregates and elements collapse in the bardo, only familiarity with the unconditioned helps. "It is inconceivable wisdom, not conceivable wisdom."
Stability
The measure of practice is confidence without fear at death. Rinpoche argues that realized egolessness leaves hell with nowhere to happen, distinguishes that from saying so, and ends with pure perception, rainbow houses and a film that stops.
Hell Needs Two Things
Rebirth in hell needs a place and someone to be born there. The egolessness of phenomena removes the grasped object; the egolessness of the person removes the one who grasps. "In awareness, rigpa, the basis for hell has been destroyed."
Unless grasping and fixation are actually destroyed, "just saying 'Now there are no hells!' is completely useless." In Kham they sewed patches on top of clothes; intellectual understanding is such a patch and "will wear off, fall apart." The honest test is the doubt that comes when you imagine the bardo's sounds and the hot and cold hells.
Four Verses on Conditioned Things
| Line | Gloss |
|---|---|
| "Life is conditioned; it has no permanence." | What depends on others cannot last |
| "Objects are perceptions; they have no true existence." | Hell too is mere perception |
| "The path is confusion; it has no reality." | Straying from primordial purity into six worlds |
| "Mind essence is the natural state; it has no concreteness." | Dzogchen's primordial purity is Mahamudra's nonarising |
| "Mind is conceptual thinking; free from ground and root." | Thought moves only toward the five objects |
Mind inside, five sense doors between, five objects outside: the link holds us in samsara until egolessness breaks it. Hell's torturers would need parents, its fires someone to light them, its shalmali trees someone to plant; all are made by habit. "If the understanding of emptiness is all right, everything is all right."
An Infant on a Battlefield
Recognition without familiarity leaves you "like an infant in a battlefield" when thoughts turn into enemies. With stability, "even if the three-thousandfold universe is turned upside down... and the abyss of the hells is opened, not a hair of your body will move."
"So what it actually comes down to is the view." Confidence means never despising yourself, knowing "without any pride or arrogance or conceit" that you have no fixation. "Who is superior to me?" "I am just joking." Milarepa thought beings were crazy; beings thought Milarepa was crazy.
How Appearances Coarsened
Phenomena first began with the sphere of Neither Presence Nor Absence of Conception, then coarsened.
Form in the seventeen heavens is a form of light; in the desire world it is flesh and blood. Pure phenomena are like a rainbow in the sky: visible, with nothing to grasp. "Awareness must return to the inner space" in reverse order.
Pure Perception
For a realized yogi "a house will be a celestial palace" of rainbow light, with no experience of earth, water, fire or wind. Others do not see it so, because "due to their obscurations they themselves don't perceive this purity." "Enlightenment is like awakening from sleep."
"You can create the Third World War in a film, but if the movie stops, so does the war; thus, the collapse of confusion." Milarepa passed through rock not by force but because phenomena have "not even an atom of concrete existence." If they truly existed, buddhas would have to annihilate them to pass. "The collapse of confusion is quite amazing! (Rinpoche laughs)"
Master Takeaways
Vajra Heart's day of practice repeats one pattern: do the relative practice fully, recognize the view inside it, and drop the thought of having done so. These are the points that last.
Twenty Takeaways
- Never separate practice from the view: the book's method in one line.
- Retreat removes outer distraction so only your own mind is left.
- Strong emotions are good fuel: the bonfire needs wood.
- Gold is gold: buddhas and beings differ only in impurities.
- We are re-enlightened, not primordially enlightened.
- Meditation alone is not sufficient without devotion and compassion.
- Experience, not theory: "Theory is like a patch."
- No doubt is the proof of recognition.
- "Don't wander!" can be the whole introduction.
- Four ends: death, dispersion, separation, ruin.
- Karma follows like a shadow; only rigpa ends it.
- Wake into the space of awareness, not just out of sleep.
- Development stage discovers; it does not invent.
- Visualize vividly once, then rest.
- The golden chain still binds: drop "I am undistracted."
- The first instant is a thousand ounces of gold.
- Do not abandon offerings because you practise Ati.
- The best time to practise is when you have no peace.
- Words are rice husks.
- Short moments, many times, with no sessions and no breaks.
- The donkey flees its own grass: bardo deities are your own display.
- Egolessness empties hell; saying so does not.
Frameworks in the Text
| Framework | Content | Chapter |
|---|---|---|
| Gold simile | Ground, path, fruition | 3 |
| Three ignorances | Single identity, coemergent, conceptual | 3 |
| Three kayas in mind | Essence, nature, capacity | 4 |
| Benefit and danger | Experience versus intellect | 4 |
| Eight freedoms, ten riches | Precious human body | 5 |
| Four ends | Birth, hoarding, meeting, building | 5 |
| Three sufferings | Change, upon suffering, formation | 5 |
| Outer, inner, secret obstacles | Elements, channels, fixation | 6 |
| Two attitudes | Vast thought and profound method | 6 |
| Three samadhis | Suchness, illumination, seed | 7 |
| Four recitation intents | Moon, firebrand, messenger, great | 8 |
| Mindfulness stages | Deliberate, effortless, dharmata, wisdom | 8 |
| Three enemies | External, internal, ultimate | 9 |
| Six hindrances | Three dullness, three agitation | 11 |
| Twofold egolessness | Phenomena and person | 13 |
Vajra Heart is a restricted practice text for people inside one lineage, and it reads that way: it assumes the Barchey Künsel empowerment, treats tummo melting ice and rainbow houses as plain fact, and defines success as a confidence no outsider can check. Its value is in the unusually precise psychology of the practice chapters: the golden chain, the rice husks, the count of a hundred distractions an hour. Those can be tested in one's own sitting, and Rinpoche asks for exactly that.
Who's Who
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche | The teacher |
| Marcia Binder Schmidt | Compiler; preface |
| Erik Pema Kunsang | Translator; introduction |
| Wayne and Judith Amtzis | Editors |
| Chimey Dorje | Rinpoche's father and first teacher |
| Samten Gyatso | Rinpoche's uncle and Dzogchen teacher |
| Argey Samten (Ngagtrin Lama) | Samten Gyatso's former life; "Don't wander!" |
| Chokgyur Lingpa | Tertön of Barchey Künsel; great-grandfather |
| Situ Padma Nyinche | Palpung master who tested Chokling |
| Tsewang Drakpa | Chokling's son; "roof without stairs" |
| Jigme Lingpa | "First instant like a thousand ounces of gold" |
| Machik Labdrön | Founder of Chöd; four demons |
| Rangjung Dorje | Third Karmapa; neither existent nor nonexistent |
| Milarepa | Passed through rock |
Connect It
Vajra Heart Revisited expands this book into a full Trekchö manual. Repeating the Words of the Buddha gives the same four mind changings and bardo teaching for a public audience, and Vajra Speech keeps several images here, gold in impurities and the patch of theory, in short form.