Dzogchen Practice in the Bardos

How Liberation and Delusion Develop Out of the Clear Light of the Ground

Root Text by Yukhok Chatralwa Chöying Rangdrol in Italics

"In the tradition of the Clear Light Great Perfection, it is said that the subtle wisdom we call the ‘youthful vase body’ — an inner clarity that is immanent and unobscured — is present in the mindstreams of all living beings, beginning with the lowliest spirits of the charnel ground."

Youthful vase body means the fourth time beyond time and space, beyond change, beyond moving. It’s youthful because it doesn’t come and go, no birth and death. It is known as stillness, tawa, dharmakaya nature of mind, great mother ocean of dharmakaya. It does not change, it does not move, it is the inner clarity that is imminent and unobscured, present in all mind streams. It is what allows them to coalesce as streams or currents. Without this, in its fullness and completions which is the stillness which does not preclude movement, the awareness which is aware of itself – as the dancing stillness. Without this there is no life, no hope, no fear, no sentience, no occurrence, no colors, no light.  It is the inner light, the light of vitality, the light of the experiencer. 

"This youthful vase body is the wisdom of uncompounded clear light, which is ‘youthful’ in the sense that it is beyond birth and death, ageing and decay."

It is uncompounded clear light. It is called a vase body because the seal of spontaneous presence remains unbroken. This means the illusion of free will has not been succumbed to. Striving, choices, this(s) and that(s) are not there. Before you fall into that “tar pit,” where the flow simply is, andwhere streams merge and separate, and eddies swirl through the currents of vitality in the essence of bodhicitta itself, in union with śūnyatā. This is the seal that remains unbroken by grasping and shoving – the attempting to take control.

Stop trying to fix things, make it go the way you want it to go. Stop attempting to take control of your stream to get it somewhere better rather than somewhere worse. Stop trying to improve upon what is occurring. To muck about with it. To poke at it. To change it the way you think you want it to change, with lust and avarice, with sloth, fear, anger, and jealousy swirling – all the multiple categories. You break the seal of the Youthful Vase Body in the moment you grasp or shove at any of this, breaking the inherent spontaneous presence which is the natural state of vitality and aliveness.

"It is a ‘vase body’ in that the seal of spontaneous presence remains unbroken. It is an inner clarity, which does not obstruct the [three] kāyas and [five] wisdoms. And it is a subtle wisdom, which is generally difficult to realise."

This is where you're going to differentiate yourself between Buddhas and sentient beings. This one single step. Nonfixation! Relax, let go, leave it be. Give up all control of the situation. Permit occurrences to occur without trying to guide it. This is the doing of non-doing. Let things unfold, as you engage in the unfolding. This is the key to the bardo. 

"Obscuration by the three kinds of habitual tendency is likened to a vase."

The three kinds of habitual tendencies are desire, aversion, and ignorance. But it’s more than just ignorance, it’s “I don’t wanna bother with it.” There is a laziness in the ignorance – an indifference. 

"And subtle wisdom itself, which has the identity of the three kāyas, is likened to a lamp within this vase.

Following the conclusion of all the stages of dissolution, during the dharmakāya intermediate stage of dying, you remain in the clear light of the ground for five ‘meditation days’."

When you enter the bardo, you remain in the clear light. At first, you are in the Bardo of Dharmata. How long you stay there depends entirely on how well you can leave it as it is. Remember: relax, let go, leave it be. How long can you leave it be? How long can you let it unfold on its own, without trying to improve it, fix it, or get it the way you want? This is something worth practicing now.

You might try seeing how long you can keep your hands off it, while still responding to your environment. As the urge to poke arises, see if you can recognize both what you are poking at and what you are poking with—the little finger, the mind, the thought. The object, the subject, and the action of poking are all the same. If you can recognize the clear-light nature of the one being poked, the one doing the poking, and the poking itself—while, not after, the poke—it doesn’t matter. 

"When rising from this state, if you recognize the clear light of the ground as your own projection, then, in the first instant, you recognise the natural state of the original, primordial ground of primordial purity; in the second instant, the recogniser dissolves into absolute space; and in the third instant, by seizing the stronghold within absolute space, you are liberated at death into dharmakāya reality."

Seizing the stronghold into absolute space means that as you find yourself emerging, entity-lessly, as a stream of mind out of being—all that is and all that is not—the utter openness of the dharmakaya, the nature of mind, inseparable from sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya. From this emergence, it seems as though they split. It feels as if a consciousness or awareness separate from what it perceives arises from that ground. If you can recognize this illusion as nothing more than the natural illusion of the movement of the time–space continuum, which you have just entered, it will not fool you. Then movement will occur without a mover, never separate from the movement itself nor from that through which it moves through.

This is the doing of not doing. It is permitting occurrence to occur without trying to guide the occurrence, allowing it to be guided naturally by the primordial purity, your own Buddha nature and the patterns within.

If you recognize the clear light of the ground as your own projection, then in that first instant you recognize the natural state, the original primordial ground of primordial purity. This immediately will lead to the second instant where the recognizer sees that it does not exist and dissolves into that very space. And in the third instant there is a direct perception of one taste that simply occurs. This is what is meant by Seizing the stronghold within absolute space. It’s a relaxing into space without resisting. You don’t grab/seize space, you recognize it and relax into it, for it’s who and what you always have been, without separation of anything.

"If you are not liberated in that intermediate state, however, then during the intermediate state of dharmatā, the seal of the youthful vase body breaks, causing the secret gateways of spontaneous presence to open and five-coloured lights to emerge. When this process unfolds in a pure way it is as follows:

In the first instant, you recognise the experience as your own projection. In the second, you recognise that your own projection is unreal. In the third instant, the recogniser (or analyser) is liberated in the expanse of dharmakāya."

When that seal breaks and you enter the movement of time, the five-colored lights emerge. You are back in a state of entity-ness, though still subtle. You don’t yet have a body—nothing solid enough to, say, scratch your nose. But now the rainbow lights appear, the different colors from which you create forms out of.

If you are not confused at that time, if you remain in a state of equilibrium and free from confusion the as soon as the lights appear, you recognize the lights as your own projection. These five-colored lights signal entry into the bardo of the Dhyani Buddhas. Yet as you encounter the bardos of the Dhyani Buddhas with all their intensity, do not mistake the lights, sounds, tastes, and feelings as something outside yourself. They are simply the natural play of the five-colored lights—created when the clear light of dharmakaya shines through the crystal of vitality, creating the sparkle of the five colored lights which is all that is and all that is not. This includes the realities you make up, the ones others make up, and everything in between.

If you remain as you are trained to do in Dzogchen practice—resting in awareness without poking at experience—then the bardo unfolds naturally. Just as the bardo of being alive unfolds now, it is the same. All appearances you see right now are all those five-colored lights shaped by old karmic patterns. Outwardly radiant forms of consciousness –all that you see– are recognized as projections, they dissolve back within and the inner clarity, the stirring of consciousness, is liberated into the original, absolute space. Consciousness stirs because it is its nature to stir. To stir is to move. It is the nature of vitality to dance, to flow, to move—yet all without actually doing anything.

In the first instance, you recognize the experience you are having as your own projection —you made it up. In the second instance, you recognize that the experience itself is what you are made of. At that point, you are no longer able to maintain a separation between yourself and the experience. The empty mirror reflecting the empty mirror.

In the third instance, the recognizer—the one who perceives these two points—recognizes that both are created by the very experience they are having, and that there is no “them” apart from what exists in this moment, created by this experience, including their own thoughts and feelings about it. In that third instance, the recognizer is liberated into the expanse of the dharmakaya, dependent on these first two recognitions.

Three points:

• Dharmakaya — the emptiness, the stillness.

• Sambhogakaya — the seer, the awareness.

• Nirmanakaya — the dance of stillness and movement, the experience.

Awareness experiences the stillness of dharmakaya. It is made of stillness. It has never moved, and it has never been anything other than dharmakaya—this awareness. Yet it also experiences the shimmer and sparkle of the dance of movement. When awareness recognizes that it is created by that very dance of movement, which itself arises from the whole cloth of dharmakaya, the three come together. That is the point without separation—no subject and object, no doer and done. Usually at this time, a momentum is still present. That momentum still has to wind down. 

"At that time, outwardly radiant forms of consciousness revert within, and inner clarity, the stirring of consciousness, is liberated into original, absolute space. For a while, you remain, unmoving, within the original ground. Then there follows the manifestation as teachers of the three kāyas: arising as the dharmakāya with the essence of wisdom within the empty essence; arising as the sambhogakāya with the essence of light in the cognisant nature; and arising as the nirmāṇakāya with the essence of awareness in all-pervading compassionate energy. The pure realm manifests from the lamp of utterly pure space; the peaceful and wrathful palaces manifest from the lamp of empty spheres; the forms of the peaceful and wrathful ones manifest from the vajra chains; enlightened speech manifests from the self-sound of dharmatā; the wisdom of the omniscient mind manifests from the radiance of the awareness of compassionate presence; and one’s own projections are liberated as the sambhogakāya."

This is how you move through the bardo in Dzogchen. Whatever arises as the intensity of the Dhyani Buddhas comes at you, recognize it as the five wisdoms:

• The wish-fulfilling jewel. 

• Bodhicitta itself.

• The all-accomplishing flow.

• The mirror-like wisdom of equanimity.

• The infinite open spaciousness of awareness which contains all of this.

This is the intensity of the Dhyani Buddhas. It is just this—simply the pattern repeating. Embrace it. Don’t run from it into little safe corners, choosing “this but not that.” Embrace it in its totality.

Yes, it unfolds in an order of colors: blue, yellow, red, green, and white. The colors are elements, the dance of creation. But it is the dance of enlightened creation. Unless you resist and try to make something else out of it enlightenment is natural. Resistance is futile. You cannot miss it in the first bardo. You will be enlightened beyond time and space forever there. 

But due to restlessness and habitual tendencies, you may choose to come back. If you can anchor your bodhisattva vow in place of restless tendencies, you will fare much better, an choose to come back. That choosing to return breaks the flow. If you return for the sake of bodhicitta, if you step out of the first bardo into the others for the four reasons of bodhicitta, you will fly with the Dhyani Buddhas. The intensity will not trouble you, for it will be easy to recognize that you made it up because you wanted to be a bodhisattva hero. In the laughter and self-laughter of recognizing there is no separate self apart from phenomena, you can still continue to act and manifest in the three realms as needed.

But to do this, you must wait. No pushing. Don’t step forward out of hope, fear, or desire. Wait for the pattern to assert itself—the colors and shapes of the five wisdoms, the fierce and wrathful archetypes, which arise in the form of the five families. They arise in groups, not at random, always in the same pattern—which is you.

"If the process unfolds in an impure way:

Dharmatā becomes the basis for the delusion of perceived objects; the five-coloured lights become the basis for the delusion of the environment and inhabitants; and awareness becomes the basis for the delusion of ordinary mind." 

When you mistake them instead of seeing them as they are—when you see the dharma, infinite open awareness, vital and alive, lucid and luminous, shimmering and sparkling with its innate creativity of that lucidity—it is easy to mistake that as if it’s real.

The innate awake awareness, that clear light nature itself, the nirmāṇakaya nature of mind—it’s easy to mistake that for being all the people, all the things, all the stories, the five-colored lights. 

The creativity, the shimmer, the sparkle are the basis for the delusion of the environments and their inhabitants. It’s easy to mistake the sparkle of the five-colored lights for “this is and that, these and those.”

Delusion of ordinary mind means “small mind” the delusion of the personality. Awareness becomes the basis for the delusion of ordinary mind, the delusion of your personality—its little, tiny hopes and fears.

"The five-coloured lights appear as the five elements; spheres appear as ordinary dwelling places; the vajra chains appear as your own body; the eight collections of consciousness appear out of the omniscience of compassionate presence as the ordinary mind, the basis of delusion, by means of the three causes and four conditions; and the various languages of the six classes of beings emerge out of the spontaneous sound of dharmatā. And with this, we experience delusion within the endless cycle of saṃsāra."

The five-colored lights are the nirmāṇakaya, the dance of movement, moving, shimmering, sparkling which become the five elements, the five colors, the five Dhyani Buddhas. Spheres, tiglés, creativity appear as places, as houses.

And yet, the infinite open awareness, emptiness, space—becomes the basis for the delusion of matter, as if it were real. As if you couldn’t take all those atoms apart into their components, which can be taken apart into their components, which can be taken apart into their components, and so on, ad infinitum—until you don’t find anything in there except little bits of nothing spitting.

Do you see how out of the dharmakaya, sambogakaya, nirmāṇakaya, due to the basis of delusion, causes and conditions of karma, we create form out of emptiness. We create small-mindedness, our little bitty personalities out of vitality.

We create everything, everywhere, and all the stories that hold it together—out of the sparkle of the five-colored lights.

Look at how you do that. Don’t shove that away. The doing of that is not bad, wrong, or evil. Don’t shove. Release. Let it do that until it’s done. Any attempt to force it to let go makes it tighter. Don’t tug. Don’t force. Be aware of how you do it, and relax into it.

The practice is to relax, let go, and leave it be. Rest in awareness, recognizing you are making it all up (images, feelings, etc.) That it is not real. Rest in that awareness while going through the dying process.

Kyema! Now when the bardo of dying dawns upon me,

I will abandon all grasping, yearning and attachment,

Enter undistracted a state in which the instructions are clear

And recognize my own awareness in the sphere of infinite space 

As it always has been; unborn & undying.

As I am about to leave this compound body of flesh and blood of the elements,

I will know it to be a transitory illusion.

Kyema! Now when the bardo of dharmata is dawning upon me, 

I will abandon all fear and terror.

Recognizing all appearances as the natural display of awareness,

I will know it to be the way this bardo unfolds.

Now that I have reached this momentous, crucial point

I will not fear these natural manifestations, 

the peaceful and fierce archetypes.

Kyema! Now when the bardo of becoming is dawning upon me,

I will concentrate my mind with single pointed determination

Relaxing into the essence of the results of good karma,

Within the patterns of bodhicitta, the essence of geywa opens.

The entrance to rebirth is narrow [and constricted].

Without constricting into that, recognize pure perception for what it is.

This is when direct recognition of your own nature is required.

Do not construct around the sensation of grasping & striving.
The union of your teacher in yab yum, let your attention rest on that. 

With mind distracted and no thought of impending death,

Performing the meaningless activities of this life,

To return empty-handed now would be utterly deluded;

Recognize what is needed: The totality of the dharma.
In this very very moment as always shall be,

As the great accomplished ones have said, 

If you do not follow the instructions as given,
Are you not deceiving yourself?