illumination of spontaneous presence unfolds unobstructedly from the primordially pure essence. The development stage can take place while recognizing mind-essence, since its expression is unobstructed. If the essence were obstructed, the development stage could not arise; but it isn’t so. The development stage is allowed to develop, to manifest, without harming the primordial purity one bit. Without moving away from unchanging primordial purity, the spontaneous presence, the expression of awareness, takes place. This is the indivisibility of primordial purity and spontaneous presence.
This is also why development and completion are basically a unity. The developed in development stage refers to “what is formed as an expression of unobstructed awareness.” Thought, on the other hand, can obstruct rigpa. When the expression moves as thought, there is delusion. Ordinary thinking is the process of forming one thought, then thinking of something else, and so on, incessantly. The new thought interrupts the previous one, and the next thought interrupts that one. True development stage is not like that at all. The key point lies in this unobstructed quality of rigpa; the samadhi of illumination does not cut off the samadhi of suchness. The seed syllable manifesting in the middle of space doesn’t obstruct the compassionate emptiness. In fact, it is the expression of compassionate emptiness. Thus, you are not only allowed to let visualization unfold out of compassionate emptiness; it is the real way to practice.
This type of development stage takes place without having to leave behind the state of mind-essence. There is no need to avoid recognizing mind-essence in order to think of these things; let them unfold naturally. Simply allow the visualization to unfold out of compassionate emptiness, the unity of empty cognizance. This is called “letting development stage unfold out of the completion stage.” In this way, there is no real separation between them. Otherwise, a common misunderstanding is that the development stage steals the completion stage, and that later you have to kick out the development stage to give the completion stage a chance. Similarly, when you start to think of one thing, the previous thought disappears. That is called “visualizing with dualistic mind.”
This is how it may seem in the beginning, when you are being taught, but, really, it isn’t like that at all. The reason is that primordial purity and spontaneous presence are a natural unity; they cannot really be divided. If they weren’t a unity, you would have only primordial purity, a void state where nothing can take place, or a spontaneous presence that was the same as dualistic mind. There would be a battle between dharmakaya and sambhogakaya. In actuality, there is no conflict, because spontaneous presence is indivisible from primordial purity. You are not only definitely allowed to let the development stage unfold from within the completion stage, but also it is perfectly all right and permissible to do so. There is no conflict between the two. As a famous saying goes, “Some say development stage is right. Others say completion stage is right. They pitch development against completion.”
The unity of emptiness and cognizance has an unobstructed capacity. If it were obstructed, we wouldn’t be able to know anything. It would be a total blank. If cognizance and emptiness were not a unity, one of them would occur when thinking and the other when not thinking. Conceptual thought obstructs, and confines; this is how development and completion can be obstructed. However, the expression of awareness is unimpeded. If this were not so, rigpa would not have any capacity. But the essence does have a capacity. The dharmakaya and sambhogakaya do manifest.
Dharmakaya is a totally unconstructed state, and sambhogakaya is the great enjoyment, meaning an abundance of perfect qualities. From the empty essence of primordial purity, the spontaneously present nature manifests unobstructedly. Likewise, we are allowed to practice the development stage unobstructedly. Otherwise, without the samadhi of suchness, development stage would be an imitation. We might even think the wrathful deities were literally angry!
Rainbows give us a very good way to understand this. When a rainbow appears in the sky, it doesn’t damage the empty sky at all, and yet the rainbow is totally visible. It doesn’t change the sky or hurt it in the slightest. It’s exactly the same when recognizing the essence of mind, which has been pointed out as being utterly empty. That is the samadhi of suchness. That recognition doesn’t have to be left behind in order for cognizance, the samadhi of illumination, to be present; it is spontaneously present by nature. That is true compassion. The sky is the samadhi of suchness, while the rainbow is the samadhi of illumination, the development stage. There is no fight between space and a rainbow, is there? It’s exactly like that. First of all, you need to know the samadhi of suchness. Having recognized that, the expression of awareness arises from the essence as the development stage. It is not like construction work. Like the rainbow appearing in the sky, the expression of awareness is the perfect unity of development and completion stages.
Applying this approach is not always possible for every practitioner. The next best way is when you think of one detail at a time, like the head of the deity, the arms, the legs, the body, the attributes, and so forth. Every once in a while, you’ll recognize who is visualizing, and again you’ll arrive at the state of original empty wakefulness. Then again think of some visualized details, and again recognize, alternating back and forth between the two. That is called the “next best,” the medium way of practicing. The least, or minimum, requirement is to first think that everything becomes empty. Recite the mantra OM MAHA SUNYATA … and after that say, “From the state of emptiness, such-and-such appears.” In this way, think of one thing at a time, and at the end of the sadhana, again dissolve the whole thing into emptiness. These are three ways to practice development and completion together.
However, while again and again recognizing your buddha-nature, you can allow the visualization to take place unobstructedly. There is no law that you have to think of one thing after another. The expression of awareness is unobstructed. It is not like bricklaying, where one puts things on top of each other in a very concrete way. Whatever unfolds out of the samadhi of suchness is like a rainbow. The celestial palace and the deities are all like rainbows. This rainbow manifestation doesn’t have to somehow block off the space in which it unfolds. It is not necessary at all. The first two samadhis are the unity of primordial purity and spontaneous presence. In the seed samadhi, the word seed means it is the “source” or “origin” of the whole mandala and all the deities. The seed syllable is also called the “life-essence of the mind,” the deity’s mental life force. As mentioned before, for Guru Rinpoche, that is the syllable HRIH, which begins the visualization. But remember, this hrih and whatever follows are not tangible or material.
The authentic way of practicing is to let visualizations of the development state unfold out of the samadhi of suchness. That is the best, foremost way. The samadhi of suchness is the dharmakaya state. The samadhi of illumination is the sambhogakaya state, and the seed samadhi is the nirmanakaya state. In actuality, all of samsara and nirvana unfold from the expanse of the three kayas. This is the example for the unity of development and completion stages.
Here is another way to understand development stage. All things take place from within the space of the five mothers, meaning the five female buddhas. The five elements are empty yet the cognizant quality knows them. This perceiving quality is the male buddha Samantabhadra, the yab, while the empty quality is the female buddha Samantabhadri, the yum. The outer objects, the five elements, are not the perceivers; they are the empty aspect. In actuality, the five elements are the five female buddhas. In the impure state, we perceive them as being earth, fire, water, wind, and space, but they are, in fact, the properties of the five female buddhas. In this way, everything in this world is already the mandala of the five female buddhas. Within this type of celestial palace is the pure nature of the five aggregates, the five male buddhas. We are not inventing anything here; this is our basic state as it is. Mind and phenomena, the experiencer and the experienced, are Samantabhadra and consort. In the development stage, we don’t perpetuate ordinary impure perception in any way whatsoever. Everything is regarded as the pure wisdom deities, the unity of experience and emptiness.
All phenomena are already, by nature, the unity of experience and emptiness. All experiences, all things in this world and in your life, are already the unity of experience and emptiness. There is nothing that is not empty. The essence of development is the experiencing aspect. The essence of completion is the empty aspect. These two are primordially a unity. There is nothing impure whatsoever.