as well; we just don’t recognize this. Still, it is not enough to pretend this is so. We can pretend to be a buddha, but still we won’t be enlightened by thinking, “I am a buddha.” We need to authentically acknowledge what actually is. Even though our world is a nirmanakaya buddhafield, we need to also know it.
There are the six munis, one for each of the six realms of samsara. There is Dharmaraja for the hell beings, Khala Mebar for the hungry ghosts, Senge Rabten for the animals, Shakyamuni for the humans, Taksangri for the demigods, and Shakra for the gods. Each of the six realms of samsara is in fact a nirmanakaya buddhafield. Even though this is so, beings don’t know it. We need to know that our nature is an unconfined empty cognizance. Knowing this to be as it is is the mandala of the victorious ones—just as the buddhas know it to be. However, we have fallen under the power of wrong views and distorted concepts, and we are wandering about in the confused states of samsara.
The four lines for ultimate bodhichitta, included in the preliminary practices of Kunzang Tuktig, say,
Namo
I and the six classes of beings, all living things,
Are buddhas from the very beginning.
By the nature of knowing this to be as it is,
I form the resolve towards supreme enlightenment.
By the nature of knowing this to be as it is,
To recognize self-existing wakefulness is to see things as they are. This is unlike taking a white conch shell to be yellow; there is no way that this is so. When you have jaundice, you see a conch as being yellow. The conch definitely isn’t yellow; it never was, but the gall in the body makes your eye yellow, so you see white as yellow, even though it isn’t. This exemplifies confusion, the mistakenness of sentient beings. We don’t see things as they really are.
Since I and all other sentient beings are buddhas from the very beginning, I resolve to attain supreme enlightenment by the power of recognizing this to be as it is, by the ultimate bodhichitta. This is the way of acknowledging the all-encompassing purity of all that appears and exists. All-encompassing purity abides within us.
According to the Dzogchen teachings, the state of primordial enlightenment has never been confused. The basic state of buddhas is like pure gold that is not covered by any dirt. Dirt is an example of the confused thinking that temporarily takes place. If the gold always remains pure, there is no cleaning to be done and there is no achievement of purity, because it already is like that from the beginning. The state of primordial enlightenment is analogous, because self-existing wakefulness was never confused. If there is no being confused, how can we use the phrase being liberated? It is impossible, because liberation is totally dependent upon having been confused. Since the awakened state of the buddhas is not confused, you cannot really say that buddhas become liberated either. We can clear up confusion because we’ve been mistaken. Unless there is confusion, it is not possible to be liberated.
We sentient beings have the same self-existing wakefulness as the buddhas. There is no difference whatsoever in our natures. However, the self-existing wakefulness of the buddhas, all the infinite qualities, never became confused, like the gold that never became tainted. Even though we possess the same gold, ours fell in the dirt. Not knowing this dirty gold to be intrinsically pure, we fell under the power of confused thinking. This is what obscured us: our thinking. The gold of the buddhas was known to be what it is. Buddhas do not have discursive thinking. It won’t help us sentient beings to act as if we were primordially pure gold, if we have already become confused and are now unaware of our own nature. It doesn’t become true. We have to apply the practice we have, of first recognizing the view, then training in meditation, and acting in accordance with that as the conduct—thus realizing it fully as fruition. This practice is like the special chemicals that clean away dirt from gold. In other words, view, meditation, and conduct remove the confusion.
In recognizing our nature, the confusion is liberated. For buddhas, neither the words confusion nor liberation apply. The word confusion connotes “bewilderment, being mistaken, deluded.” Confusion is nothing other than the expression of rigpa that has moved in a mistaken way. As long as you are confusing yourself by your awareness being extroverted, nobody else can ever solve that. There is only you, right? Otherwise, confusion goes on and on. That is exactly what samsara is, confusion going on and on. Even though we sentient beings are buddhas, we are like the dirt-encrusted gold; we don’t recognize the gold for what it is, due to deluded thinking. In our basic essence, there is no thinking; the essence is wakefulness that is pure from the beginning. By recognizing your buddha-nature, the three kayas become an actuality.
The empty essence is dharmakaya, and the cognizant nature is sambhogakaya—awareness and the expression of awareness. We need to allow the expression of awareness, of rigpa, to be liberated. It is said that nirmanakaya recognizes sambhogakaya, which in turn recognizes dharmakaya. In awareness itself, there is neither the word liberation nor confusion. It is the expression that has fallen into conceptualizing. If the expression of rigpa recognizes itself, it dawns as knowledge, sherab. This is not the ordinary knowledge that is the outcome of learning, reflecting, and meditating. It is the real prajnaparamita, “transcendent knowledge,” the expression of awareness recognizing itself. In that moment, the expression of awareness dissolves back into awareness, and there is only the state of rigpa, which is identical to the state of primordial enlightenment of all buddhas, the state that never strayed from itself.
A famous and important quotation describes this, “When the expression moves as thinking, it is confused. When the expression dawns as knowledge, it is liberated.” That doesn’t mean there was ever any difference in the state of the essence, rigpa. The state of rigpa, buddha-nature itself, is never confused and never liberated. The confusion and liberation can only take place in the expression.
The state of original enlightenment is the essence itself, where there is no confusion and no liberation. The state of sentient beings is to be constantly absorbed in confused thinking. It is the expression, the thinking that can be liberated again. Yet, all the time, the essence was never different from that of any other buddha. That is the important point: recognize your own essence. That is also the key point in the first samadhi of suchness. Real development stage practice is not possible without the samadhi of suchness, and this suchness is not recognized without first having the nature