A path of reflection to find your own happiness!

Riding the Ships of our Shared Delight...

Please read the following passage with the following perspective in mind first, then in a conventional sense as you would to a team you serve.

As the leader of all of your sub personalities- I invite you to read the following, with each of them in mind, as if you are reading this on stage to all the parts of yourself,  as the team navigating spaceship called you

You are the Captain 

and the crew 

and the ship 

made of pure light and love 

sailing in the ocean 

of your own 

dream cosmos

Tuner adjusting the flow, revealing the gift.

The artist of spirit chiseling away the illusion for each one of us,
Clearing the crusty barnacles of old memories past,
Revealing the real, embracing the pristine ships
Ready to sail forth on our joyous journey,
Together we embark as love.

Seer synthesizing the vision, tracking the star maps
Plotting our course, knowing the networks and illuminating the pattern
Connect the dots and painting the picture,
Of the future manifest we hold so openly in the present.

Listener attuning to the necessary, feeling the patterns of the flow.
Recognizing the hearts' nourishment, following the fragrant threads of light,
Which illuminate the path of cultural evolution.
Feeling the heart of all as it pulses with innate rhythm, dancing joyous evolution.

Conductor curating the flow, synergizing the systems and
Orchestrating the harmonies of the emerging timelines.
Manifesting the collective magnificence born
From dynamic cooperation with your seamless choreography.
Inspiring the teams with radiant heart minds, clear eyed warrior of light coordinating the choir.

Sayer singing the meaning, sounding the resonance of joy.
Living lyrical awakenings through the voice of the heart.
Celebrating the deeper metaphors shared through song, stage and screen.
Awakening the hearts' return to soulful nutrients long forgotten.
Unveiling the grand gala of free spirits on a mission to serve our collective destiny.

Servant leader, never alone, ever listening to the team.
Heart centered you guide us into the unknown as we each discover our own meaning with this mysterious destiny.
Ever refining the essence of leadership, curiously discovering it is you.
Your revealed greatness lays the path for the greatness of all.

Leapers eternally surrendering to the leap of love,
Feel the power, feelers.
"Feel the Know," feelers say!
Our expansion expands us, as we ride the waves of time.
We evolve our flow, weaving the threads of love.
Growing the tapestry of the heart based culture.

We are visionaries peering through the spectacle
Of our collective novelty, a Hubble microscope...
We, fully living the possibility felt in our hearts,
Forge the tools and build the ships to sail to distant horizons seen and unseen, eons away.
From a community of landed architects, theorists and cogitators, anchored on the shore,
We, visionary sailors follow our full hearts, trusting.
We set sail on the holy ark of our destiny.
We seeing, feeling and hearing, courageously create the space for all to ride into the sea of the loving heart.

- a poem I wrote years ago... feels like I wrote it for today.

a new way to reinvent our science of ourselves? Sympoiesis

Shoshana Dubiner, “Homage to Lynn Margulis”

New and prescient ideas in science sometimes seem like magic, yet that's how science grows and evolves. New ideas, regardless of  their "scientific validity" from the more "conventional" scientific perspective - all evolution in science has been grown in imagination, beyond the mindsets who want to perpetuate the limitations of the paradigms of the day...  In the spirit of expanding our vision, in what I feel is an intelligent direction of exploration and possibility, this expands the imaginal limits in a good way. Curious where it takes you! This thought provoking article articulates:

"In sum, the new biology, which is influenced by quantum physics, microbiology and complexity science, is striving towards a new species. This species will require that the boundaries of our present human understanding change. Even the boundaries within the human body have to change so that so there is continuity between the human body and the living processes of the Earth. This will require a major transformation that cannot be forged on a dualistic model alone. This challenge will require an emergent ontology that is capable of holding things together as they dissolve and come together in a new way. A process akin to metamorphosis, ontogenesis, morphogenesis and embryogenesis—all transformational processes that involve the transfiguration of something already given. And unique to all these processes is the inexhaustible plasticity that drives the continuous shaping and reshaping of the genetic material (genotype and phenotype) into new forms. It is in this continuous reshaping of the genetic material that we create new levels of tissue, cellular, and genetic interaction and complexity that would not arise otherwise. This is the ultimate definition of creative mutation. From this place, you could say the human participates in his or her own conscious practice of self-directed biological transformation."

Originally I posted this article with  link to the original piece, and it is no longer there. I do not know the author, so please PM me if you know who wrote this. Good thing I posted the entire text of the article, shared below.

Towards an Emergent Ontogenesis with the Cosmos

The future is not some place we are going to but one we are creating. The paths to it are not found but made, and the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination

(Schaar, 1993 in Hempel 1996, p 5).

Just as there has been a time in life when the human was not yet embodied on the earth, the higher planes of consciousness may be waiting their time to become a part of our present embodied reality. The human body in sympoiesis with Nature and Cosmos provides coherent ontology for an emergent ontogenesis with the cosmos. This unifying view sees the world of human, Nature and Cosmos as one interwoven primordial reality where higher and higher forms of consciousness emerge out of a process of involution and evolution at different planes of multiplicity. This is the next stage of development for the entire planet if we are to survive the fragile condition we find ourselves in.

 As we approach the age of ecological collapse, the human must now shift towards new strategies for survival. We can no longer be sustained by an ontology of separation. We must find new ways to re-constitute ourselves within the community of life-systems that shaped us.

This community of life-systems includes bacteria and viruses, which are by far the largest gene repository known on the planet. The importance of these entities in replicating and evolving all living organisms pervades any other process on earth. Their innovative seeding of all life in the biosphere can be likened to a process of ontogeneis or cosmogenesis. “Cosmogenesis” is a term used by Teilhard (1959) to refer to a process of increasing complexity, self-organization and self-awareness of the cosmos. 

The New Biology

Right now, our knowledge about the human body is going such through a deep renaissance that it is challenging most of what we knew just a few decades ago. At its center is the realization that our human genome is interwoven with the genetic remnants of multiple bacteria, viruses and other parasites, most of which are more ancient than our human genome. What’s more, we have 150 times more DNA in our bodies that belong to other species (mainly bacteria), than our own. Not only are we a human species composed of cells, genes, tissues and organs, but living in us and on us, are numerous colonies of microbes that influence everything from our immune system to our digestion, to our ability to break down toxins, and so much more. In fact if you take away the trillions of viruses, bacteria and fungi that coexist with our human cells, we would not survive. At our most fundamental level, our human life is deeply interwoven with the greater web of microbial life that informs and sustains it. In grasping this scientific reality, we realize that we can no longer conceive of genes, organisms, viruses, human beings or ecological systems separately. We are one body of life in the biosphere. 

This major shift in our scientific understanding has vast implications for expanding the notion of what we call a human body, towards what we call a planetary, or even cosmic body. Adding to this notion is the idea of phenotypic plasticity, our biological capacity to reshape the current fragmented ontology, which has become a developmental constraint. We modern day humans have developed apart from other species and as a result, we no longer identify with the web of life that shaped us. As human activities continue to disturb the Earth’s climate, biota, and entire ecosystems at unprecedented rates, the need to explore biological complexity and the processes of life makes itself clear. 

For the first ever time in human history we have a scientific understanding of the importance of the morphological and genomic processes that underlie our evolutionary relationship with the Earth. With this new understanding we can take hold of the current deviation away from our species development and realign ourselves within the creative dynamics of a self-organizing, self-generating universe. This can be likened to a path of cosmogenesis or “becoming with” Nature. Sympoiesis is a term that Donna Haraway (2016) uses to describe our completely interwoven nature with other beings in the biosphere, most of which are microbes.  

Sympoietic systems are evolutionary because they are always building upon the possible web of relations that can be realized (Dempster, 2000). This is similar to the concept of endosymbiosis, or DNA recombination, which is now recognized as an important source of novelty in evolution (Deacon, 2013; Capra & Luisi, 2014). Notably, ‘the discovery of DNA recombination and the trading of genes ranks as one of the most important discoveries of modern biology” (Capra & Luisi, 2014, p. 193). In view of these new discoveries in science, we could say that collaborating with Nature may well be the next paradigmatic turn for unrealized human potential, a potential that can transform the mechanistic reductionist worldview into one of creative collaboration with the Natural world.

In sum, the new biology, which is influenced by quantum physics, microbiology and complexity science, is striving towards a new species. This species will require that the boundaries of our present human understanding change. Even the boundaries within the human body have to change so that so there is continuity between the human body and the living processes of the Earth. This will require a major transformation that cannot be forged on a dualistic model alone. This challenge will require an emergent ontology that is capable of holding things together as they dissolve and come together in a new way. A process akin to metamorphosis, ontogenesis, morphogenesis and embryogenesis—all transformational processes that involve the transfiguration of something already given. And unique to all these processes is the inexhaustible plasticity that drives the continuous shaping and reshaping of the genetic material (genotype and phenotype) into new forms. It is in this continuous reshaping of the genetic material that we create new levels of tissue, cellular, and genetic interaction and complexity that would not arise otherwise. This is the ultimate definition of creative mutation. From this place, you could say the human participates in his or her own conscious practice of self-directed biological transformation. 

Phenotypic plasticity is not just a concept, but an actual somatic method that we can engage in to shift biological complexity across many levels of organization including the mental, molecular, physiological, chemical, genetic, and neurological. When we shift biological density, we are driving tissues, cells, genes, and microbial populations to interact and link in different ways. This happens through a multitude of feedback loops and networks that are biological as well as ecological resulting in a wide variety of complexity to arise. We are in a genesis with ourselves. The biological and physical importance of phenotypic plasticity is clear. It enhances the communication and interaction of many different cells, tissues, and genes at different scales. This is critical for the evolution and divergence of our species.

The Collapse of our Ontogenetic Niche

For most of our evolutionary history as a species, our ancestors were embedded within the living matrix of the Natural world. It was a way of life that kept the human in close proximity to the Natural world, as resources were often scarce and difficult to obtain. Land, animals and human were tightly woven, and behavior towards Nature was based on a reciprocity (mutual exchange) that reflected the interdependence of both human and Nature. There was a deep reverence for the Natural world that guided humans to care for and protect the land, air, water and animal life. It was a dynamic and interactive co-existence that shaped our human body and genome. 

In early modern Europe, between 1500 and 1700 AD, humanity’s relationship with the Earth began to shift toward a mechanistic or Cartesian worldview. It was this shift in particular that created a division between body and mind, and altered our relationship to the Earth. With the establishment of the Cartesian model of reductionism, all aspects of Nature, including the human body began to be perceived from a mechanistic point of view, like machines reduced to their segmented parts. This, along with other socio-economic forces, allowed individuals to grow more and more identified with their mind, which was seen as superior to the world of matter and Nature. Confusion and disagreements over why and how Nature and humans were linked and how to honor those linkages thus ensued. This confusion eventually ossified into a dismembering dualism, which resulted in a body-mind and Nature divide. 

In the 18th century, the Industrial Revolution emerged altering the course of human history and the Earth’s environment more rapidly and profoundly than any other previous cultural transformation. The notion of a limitless machine-driven world allowed humans to surpass their biophysical limits and put them on a trajectory to thinking they were superior to Nature. Nature thus became an object or commodity that we could dominate and exploit for economic purposes. At the same time the Industrial Revolution profoundly altered the way we related to our body as machines and began to infiltrate and take over every aspect of human life at home. With machines, the natural rhythms of our body and its vital connection to the Earth became increasingly minimized or ignored. How we lived our lives was taken over  with machines run by electric power. In short, the Industrial Revolution was a combination of technological, economic, scientific, and biosocial transformation that rapidly and radically altered the course of human history, and reconfigured our relationship to the human body, and the Earth. No longer in touch with our developmental constraints as a species, we were free to impress our will upon the world.

The turn of the nineteenth–twentieth century brought the Second Industrial Revolution marked by universal electrification, mass production and the birth of the global world market. In other words, the biosphere became the “technosphere” (Haff, 2014). To paraphrase Haff (2014), the technosphere generates its own living tissue, thus replacing biology. This is accomplished by devising a virtual world devoid of any kind of interactive relationship with the body or the Natural world. We barely notice or care anymore that the separation from our bodily selves is con­stant, insidious, and potentially dangerous as we constantly interact with machines.

After hundreds of thousands of years living in close proximity to the Earth, we have ineffectively become an indoor, mechanistic species. This is in strong contrast to the ‘ontogenetic niche’ that shaped and sustained our human genome. This radical change coupled with overuse of antibiotics, vaccines, and the mass spraying of synthetic pesticides, has brought untold ecological carnage, the greatest threat of which is to our bodily selves. 

As future narratives of artificial life and colonization of space emerge, the body and its evolutionary relationship with the Earth is erased. From this perspective, we could say that the entire human race now faces a single collective challenge. We have evolved a way of life that is direct conflict with the inherent needs of our genetic coding. This genetic coding requires other species of life that have helped shape us and in part evolve us. The task therefore is to support the body in its ontological primacy. This means recognizing that human bodies have their own specific ontology, which is distinct from society, culture, and technology. This ontology requires a relationship with the Natural world, which is critical for the flow of genetic as well as environmental information and influence. 

The Need for Radical Life Making 

“Cyborg Madonna“

The human body is the product of an interaction between a unique genetic endowment (genotype and phenotype) and the Natural world. In this case Nature represents our genealogy as well as our primary environment of adaptive evolution. As individuals spend unprecedented amounts of time in front of computer screens or embedded in other forms of cyberspace, our bodies are intrinsically bound up in technology, which directly impinge as feedback. This process is then further intensified as a direct result of technological culture, both individual and large-scale. Thus, the body finds itself in a circular feedback loop with the machine (cyborg) instead of Nature. This causes inner states of dissonance, which may affect the body’s capacity to self–reference or self-correct. Said another way, contrary to the way a machine functions, the body needs feedback from the Natural world in the form of genomic and environmental information to stay ahead of entropy.

So the question becomes, how do we sustain biological coherence with the Natural world in the midst of increasing environmental dissonance and estrangement? How do we guide the development of our next species within the constraints of our genetic coding? In this case, human/ creature agency is absolutely crucial for seeding, constituting and complexifying our human genome. It implies having the agency to source ourselves in a way that runs counter to the way our modern  culture runs now. It is about using our free will along with the fullness of our genetic material (genes and somatic environment) to re-align ourselves with the cosmic unfolding. Such a possibility offers a conscious exercise of ontogenesis with the universe.

Phenotypic Plasticity: The Somatic Environment

The body is always in a process of becoming and plasticity is key to this constant becoming. All we need to do is look at the developing embryo to understand this power. Without precise instructions from the genes, the embryo brings forth its entire body through the mechanism of folding, bending, layering, and refolding. Following this logic, it becomes clear why plasticity is the medium of emergent forms. Plasticity is critical for emergent forms because what is formed may have to dissolve, re-organize, complexify, while also communicating from the inside to the outside. This means that biology is always receiving and responding to genomic and environmental input on the inside as well as on the outside. And plasticity is key to this receptivity and responsivity. 

If we look at the human form throughout the evolution of our species, it was plasticity that allowed our very earliest human ancestors to diverge from the apes and to become upright bipeds (Lieberman, 2014). Once bipedalism evolved, it created new conditions for anatomic changes in the hands, feet, and pelvis, which improved abilities to hunt and use tools (Lieberman, 2014). From this perspective you could say that plasticity is the basis for all anatomical change as well as evolutionary change. I believe that as our consciousness expands from a dualistic ontology to a more universal ontology our tissue structure will organize itself quite differently. Just as our ancestors underwent stunning biophysical conversions as they evolved, we too may be on the verge of a whole new conversion of our biophysical system. That is why it is so important that we prepare our somatic environment to receive it. Our full genetic material includes the somatic environment (phenotype) as well as the genes (genotype). We now know that the effects of genes depend as much on the receptivity of the somatic environment (phenotypic plasticity) as they do on the specificity of the genes themselves. 

Phenotypic Plasticity is a somatic characteristic that we can easily cultivate to serve our physiology in a way that is life enhancing rather than life alienating. Using conscious movement that is slow and intentional, we can dissolve the mechanistic mindset and consciously enfold the living environment into ourselves. Layers of being and becoming that cannot be included in a dualistic ontology arise in the creative dimensions of stretching, folding, shaping and bending. The boundaries of self, world, culture and Nature fall away and we are resting in the elemental kinship between the body and the Earth. When we cultivate phenotypic plasticity, alienated parts of ourselves are nourished by a whole new set of relationships and inter-connections. Ever-changing cross linkages of being and becoming are fed as our movement becomes a constituting principle within the Natural world. Like the unfolding embryo we give ourselves fully to the life yearning to be born. We are home in ourselves and in the universe.

We are Already Becoming Something Else

Archan Nair

Of course, it is impossible to know what a body is capable of. And it is important to acknowledge that biology is in a renaissance. What it means to be human has already changed with complexity science. We are one body of life in the biosphere. In grasping this scientific reality, we realize that we need the full force of our species wisdom to meet the challenges of our time. This species wisdom includes other species of life that have helped shape us and in part evolve us. Anything less is to deny the planetary forces that shaped us. 

The promise of the new biology is certainly inspiring and could open us up to all kinds of possibilities beyond any rational or logical sense. However, tuning into our morphological agency (phenotypic plasticity) launches the human into an intimate relationship with his/her creative agency. From this place, the human participates in his/her ongoing transition to something else. This supports a shift in consciousness away from what is conditioned, rational, and separate, towards what is ever-evolving and interconnected to all of life. 

Self-organization, phenotypic plasticity and multispecies interactions arise naturally in Nature, and pervade the Universe. The human is no exception. In fact, at critical transitions and times of crisis throughout history, quantum leaps in evolution required these exact complex dynamics. We are at one of those critical thresholds now. As I write this, a novel corona virus has stopped the world. We are already becoming something else. The best we can hope for is to be willing participants in it. What I am proposing   opens up an entirely new anatomy of human being and becoming along with new ways of being human that go beyond our present thinking and behavior. And this will be the mark of the coming planetary age; the individual’s awareness of the formative processes that unites him or her with Nature and Cosmos. We can no longer evolve apart from Nature and cosmos. In thinking that we can, we have become dangerous to ourselves and all other species on the planet. 

---

References

Capra, F., & Luisi, P. (2014). The systems view of life: A unifying vision. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Deacon, T. (2013). Incomplete nature: How mind emerged from matter. New  York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.

Dempster, B. (2000). Sympoietic and autopoietic systems: A new distinction for self-organizing systems in Proceedings of the World Congress of the Systems Sciences and ISSS 2000. J.K. Allen and J. Wilby, (Eds.), Presented at the International Society for Systems Studies Annual Conference, Toronto, Canada, July 2000.

Haff, P.K. (2014). The technosphere concept. In C.N., Waters, J.A. Zalasiewicz, M. Williams, M. Ellis, & A.M. Snelling (Eds.), A stratigraphical basis for the anthropocene (pp. 301-310). London, UK: The Geographical Society

Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the chthulucene. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

animal communication, a gift we all have

"Spaceship Earth" Bucky Fuller Interview on the TV Show "Psychic Phenomena"

Deep thoughts from Bucky on the genesis of his awakening to thinking for himself and then seeing spaceship earth we are on - and what flowed from that....

Consider weaving together personal integration, art science and evolution of money together

    

Amazing Video - inspires ways we can revision science, art and culture - from observing the life of a person who helped shape our worldview of nature and science centuries ago...

Now, as he did, are we to find new and better meanings in the self-organizing universe from which we must evolve ourselves?

Perhaps we humans can learn from the way he learned, and  simply see ourselves as nature, as her very own inspiration evolving ourselves toward a greater beauty?

Can you feel sheer magic as you imagine our spirit and body, heart and mind, precision and passion, art and science as mere gemstones blazing beauty on the crowns of your soul?

real yogis in the Himalayas, or on Main Street?

All this posturing and judgement surrounding conflicting world views in all of our circles, where sometimes defending one’s identity even over opinion is paramount.

This kind of defense of worn mindsets is now infecting nearly every one of our circles, including the yoga and new age communities, where conflicts of worldviews can be deftly obviated when we reflect deeply on the manner that true minds of clarity and insight navigated the unimaginable difficulties faced by the aeons old Tibetan cultural treasures as they were digested, in part, by the ravenous Chinese memes...

Yet some thrived with the bounty that the situation created for the spread of their advanced civilization’s source codes.

This was exemplified in a story of a Lama, after many years in the Chinese gulag, where he told his friend that he almost lost it “three times” under the cruel oppression exerted over him...

His friend asked “lost what?”

He said he almost lost his “compassion for the Chinese...”

It is really curious to me by what means someone would arrive at such a benevolent conclusion?

And still even more curious to me how many of us have done little to cultivate a stance of wisdom and compassion for ourselves, or our closest friends & family members, over our trifles and commentary on the very grave and mostly trite questions of the day...

May your find your own questions and curiosities by watching this incredible account of living history, would you share what you discovered please?

The Big Leap - it's time to master your Zone of Genius

Love to all the Mothers today

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!!

You beautiful loving Moms
(and... you too...
dog and cat and other Moms !!!)

Simply
I love you !
and I love your love
forever no matter what
As a mother’s love
is the deepest
in ways
unconditionally for her children
And
may you shine
your unconditional love
on yourself
for all of yourself
as may you be
the love you need
for yourself
the pure unconditional love
as would a mother
completely hold love
for her child
as the child of light
and love
born from love
and light
is the deeply loved child
who lives as you

I love you forever!

a poem for the quarantined and curious

here we are again
spiraling spring with word within forever now and forever when
we think we are thinking in new ways today
yet what we say today what ancients have been known to say
here we are again spiraling our truths into the now
somehow somewhere in some timeline we find that the what becomes the how

EARTH - Overview Movie

OVERVIEW from Planetary Collective on Vimeo.

The Water Planet: Spaceship Earth

Savants and wits celebrate living in the gift of now

Lover of Wisdom savants & wits
swim yoga walk repeat
Deep listener
Living my purpose, joyously,
I Love poems and
ideas like
Conscious self evolution &
A new civilization
turn me on
gratitude is a verb
arts music nature play...
* following our heart light *
Celebrate living
In the gift of now

You are, We are, I am the great perfection. Simply that.

This great article from Lions Roar by by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche outlines the essence of  Dzogchen.
"You are already perfect."

"You are already a buddha."

If you don't get that - here's the rest of the article:
"In fact, there’s no difference between your true nature, right now as you sit reading this, and the true nature of the buddha, or any enlightened being for that matter.

That’s the view of Dzogchen, a Tibetan word that means “Great Perfection.” Dzogchen is treasured above all other practices in the Nyingma school of Vajrayana Buddhism because it helps us connect directly with our own enlightened nature.

This Great Perfection is you right now, right here in this moment, not some fully developed you after you do a lot more meditation.
Your essence, and the essence of every living creature, is pure, whole, and complete. There’s nothing missing, and that’s why we call it the Great Perfection. YOU are the Great Perfection. Don’t forget that. Dzogchen is talking about you. This Great Perfection is you right now, right here in this moment, not some fully developed you after you do a lot more meditation.

In Dzogchen, we call this enlightened nature rigpa, or pure awareness. Unlike some approaches in which buddhanature is taught in a more theoretical way, and you need to study and meditate for a long time to figure out what it is, Dzogchen is experiential. You get introduced to pure awareness directly, right on the spot.

A traditional way to describe Dzogchen is in terms of the ground, the path, and the fruition.

The Great Perfection is our true nature, whether we realize it or not. That’s the ground of Dzogchen. It’s the reality of our experience and who we are.

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But that doesn’t help if we don’t experience it for ourselves. The way to do that is by having this pure awareness introduced to us, and then getting familiar with it until it becomes stable and enduring. That process is the path.

Then, once we’re familiar with our own true nature, once we’ve realized it fully and integrated it into every aspect of our lives, we will fully manifest the enlightened qualities that were there all along. That’s the fruition.

The Ground of Dzogchen
It might be a little unclear what this “true nature” really is, so let me explain a bit more about the ground.

When we use all these fancy terms like “buddhanature” and “pure awareness,” what are we actually talking about? Well, there are three main qualities to look for here. We refer to these as the “empty essence,” “luminous nature,” and “all-pervasive compassion.” That’s the ground, your true nature.

“Empty essence” means that the true nature of mind, the essence of pure awareness, transcends all our ideas, concepts, and beliefs. It is utterly beyond all our suffering and problems. It is completely free. The term for this is “innate purity”—the essence of who we are was, is, and always will be perfect. It’s completely pure, and nothing can change that.

This empty essence is ungraspable, beyond our ordinary way of seeing things, but it’s not nothing. There is also a luminous, knowing presence. This is what we call the “luminous nature.” Sometimes it’s called “self-clarity,” because this clarity is spontaneous and natural. It’s just there, all the time. Even when we’re asleep, distracted, or completely neurotic. It’s there.

The empty essence and clear nature are one and the same. They’re inseparable. This inseparability is the third quality of the ground, which we call “all-pervasive compassion.” This open, spacious clarity manifests as all our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, just like the sun radiates light. These experiences, in fact all of our experiences, are none other than the manifestations or play of pure awareness.

The Path of Dzogchen
But what good does just knowing this do us? Not much. That’s why we need a path. We need to translate this from nice words and ideas to an actual experience.

The Dzogchen path is really quite simple. That’s not to say it’s easy, but it is simple.

The only thing we need to do is to recognize this pure inner nature. We need to experience it for ourselves. That’s it. If we want to make it a little more complicated, we could say that first we need to have pure awareness introduced to us, and then we become familiar with it.

So, how does that happen?

This is where a teacher becomes important. There’s a lot going on in our minds. We have all sorts of memories and reactions, emotions and expectations. In short, we have monkey mind.

Seeing the subtle quality of empty clarity in the midst of all this mental activity isn’t easy. If it were, we would have recognized rigpa a long time ago! But a skilled teacher who has recognized pure awareness in him or herself, and who holds an authentic lineage, can point it out to us. They can help us find our way through all the complexities of the mind to see this simple, ever present reality.

You might think that because you are already perfect, because this awakened nature is fully present as the very nature of your mind, then you don’t need to meditate or practice. Nothing could be further from the truth. The trick is how you practice. You still need to meditate, but meditate effortlessly. You still need to practice, but practice naturalness.

Rather than practicing with the notion that there’s some level to achieve beyond where you are right now, the main practice is learning to trust that this original purity is always present, especially when it feels like it isn’t. Every step you take on the path should reinforce your trust that pure awareness is right here, right now. Until your recognition is unshakeable, you still need to do formal practice.

The Fruition of Dzogchen
As I said, the core of the path is simply recognizing the nature of mind and coming back to that recognition again and again, until it’s as familiar as an old friend. If you do that, there will come a time when you’ve experienced this pure awareness so thoroughly and completely that you never lose touch with it. When you’re meditating, you’re meditating in pure awareness. When you’re eating, you’re eating in pure awareness. Even when you’re sleeping, you’re still resting in the recognition of pure awareness.

That’s what we call “full realization,” the fruition of the path. At this point, all the qualities of the ground, your true enlightened nature, become manifest. These were there all along, but because you didn’t know they were, it was almost as though they didn’t exist. But now you know them. You know them thoroughly and completely. Perfect wisdom, boundless compassion, the spontaneous capacity to benefit others—all of these manifest.

This fruition is simply the full expression of your true nature. It’s as though you go out and travel the whole world, looking and searching high and low for some peace of mind. But in the end, you come home and realize that everything you were looking for was right where you started. That’s the Great Perfection.

Practice: Dzogchen
The trickiest part of Dzogchen practice is that it is not something we can do. The whole point is that we are learning to recognize what is already there, while our “doing” impulse is based on the assumption that who and what we are in the present moment needs improvement. So how do we put this into practice?

Dzogchen meditation involves three important qualities: effortlessness, presence, and naturalness. In traditional terms, these three are called non-meditation, non-distraction, and non-fabrication.

To connect with effortlessness, we shift from a mode of “doing” to one of “being.” We let go of the impulse to fiddle with the knobs of experience and give ourselves permission to simply be. We rest in effortless awareness.

But while we rest in effortless awareness, we are not lost or distracted. We are fully present, alert and aware. This presence is the second quality. It’s not something we need to make happen. It’s already here, with us all the time. When we drop the effort and simply rest, we’re giving ourselves the opportunity to recognize the open clarity of awareness, to be this open clarity.

Nothing can diminish this effortless awareness. All our thoughts, emotions, perceptions, and impulses arise from this knowing presence, and dissolve back into it. For this reason, we do not need to create any special state of mind to experience the mind’s innate purity. We don’t need to block our thoughts and emotions or control the movements of our attention. Just be as you are.

This is the third quality—naturalness. We let everything unfold without trying to correct, alter, or improve anything.

As we grow more comfortable with resting in awareness, these qualities of effortlessness, presence, and naturalness will emerge, and we will slowly come to see that this spacious awareness is who we truly are.