Dzogchen

Dzogchen, the Great Perfection, is the highest teaching of the Nyingma school. It points directly to the nature of mind, which according to this teaching is already complete and lacks nothing. The Tibetan dzogpa chenpo literally means "great completeness". Not something to be achieved, then, but something already present and consistently overlooked.

Why "perfection"

Most practice moves from a to b. You are restless and want to be calmer, tight-fisted and want to be more generous. Dzogchen sets out from somewhere else. It holds that mind is pure from the very beginning, kadag, and that everything appearing arises spontaneously out of that purity, lhundrub. What troubles us is real enough, but it covers something rather than replacing it.

The image usually offered is sky and cloud. The clouds are real, they darken the day, and yet there is no moment at which the sky itself is damaged. Anyone who genuinely sees this has no need to fight the weather.

That sounds liberating, and it is, though there is a catch. The idea that nothing needs doing is remarkably easy to understand and remarkably hard to realise. The tradition is firm about the difference.

How it is taught

Dzogchen is not learned from books. It begins with the pointing-out instruction given by a qualified teacher, the moment they turn you towards your own mind and for a second you see what is being talked about. After that comes the long work of making that recognition stable. The two main practices are called Trekchö, cutting through to primordial purity, and Tögal, direct crossing.

Precisely because the teaching is so direct, the tradition insists on the foundation. Ngöndro comes first, not as an obstacle but because a mind that has not been prepared simply fails to notice what is simple. Longchenpa and Jigme Lingpa wrote the texts we still work from today.

Our centre carries Dzogchen in its name and practises within the Düdjom Tersar and the Longchen Nyingthik. The road there runs through the Saturday Ngöndro meetings in Hoofddorp and the teaching weekends with masters of our lineage.