Garab Dorje was the founder of Dzogchen in the Nyingma lineage. He
offered the transmission of the realization of the deepest and most transcendental Nature of Mind. He stated that only this “realization” is necessary, as an immediate insight that transcends all concepts of “cause and effect”, practices and effort. Here is an imaginary discussion between Garab Dorje and a student that reveals his core transmission, the gnosis of which is called “rigpa”. Student: What practice is best for realizing rigpa? Garab Dorje: No practice is necessary. Rigpa is equally present during disturbing mental events as well as during their absence. Rigpa is ever present as the pervasive and unchanging space of every experience. It’s like the empty and unchanging space of the sky in which clouds of mind appear and disappear. Student: How then does one become established in rigpa? Garab Dorje: Rigpa is already established as your current awareness. No practice or insight alters or improves this. Student: Then if recognized, how do I stabilize rigpa and not lose it? Garab Dorje: Rigpa is the only aspect of consciousness that is always stable and that can never be lost. The notion of rigpa being “stable or unstable” are just thoughts appearing within ever stable rigpa. Thoughts about “losing rigpa” are just thoughts about “losing rigpa”, known in rigpa, which can never be lost. Student: Then why can’t I know rigpa now? Garab Dorje: The knowing by which you could know rigpa, is itself rigpa. Student: How do I then remove the obstacles that block my knowing of rigpa right now? Garab Dorje: That which knows the presence of the “thought” that “something blocks rigpa”, is itself rigpa. Student: Then what can I do to see and know rigpa in this moment. Garab Dorje: Release rigpa’s power of attention from upon all its current topics; whether as thoughts, emotions, sensations of self, sensations and all perceptions. Then that “freed-up” power of attention, will self-illuminate its own Nature. Student: And if there is still no rigpa? Garab Dorje: Then that upon which attention is still attached, is the content of experience, instead of rigpa. That which notices what attention is fixated upon, is itself rigpa.