completed on the side; you never saw them as his main aim or occupation.
In the latter part of his life, he basically abandoned all involvement in conceptual activities and didn’t put any obvious effort into building. Yet temples still seemed to rise up continuously and many tasks were accomplished. He always spent the money that came during the day, and when the sun went down, he had nothing. He didn’t keep a project schedule, and I never saw or heard about him sending out any fundraising letters, which are so plentiful these days. Even so, it seems he was able to build more temples than any other contemporary lama, no matter how much effort they put into it. So I feel confident that he accomplished his aims without hardship.
In terms of Vajrayana, he had perfected the practices of both development and completion. I know he spent at least four three-year retreats doing sadhana and recitation. Later, he remained in what you could call life-retreat at his hermitage, Nagi Gompa. The scriptures mention something called the “threefold gathering” and the “threefold blazing forth,” which is achieved upon having perfected the practices of the development and completion stages. I feel he possessed these in entirety and taught these practices from the expanse of the view.
To truly practice development and completion stages and teach them, one needs to have actualized and stabilized the view. The great dharmadhatu is free of center and edges, coming and going, outer and inner. Resting in the equanimity of rigpa, out of this great emptiness, the unimpeded display, the great compassion, appears as the deity, indivisible and complete—empty but apparent, luminous yet empty. From this unified, empty luminosity, all the characteristics of the deity appear, completely perfect. The appearance is the deity; the mantra is the self-resounding sound; the deity and resounding sound unfold from the nongrasping mind, which is recognized devoid of solid reality. A realized being knows that it is not appearing from outside but from the nature of mind, without elaborations. The deity is the empty essence, the cognizant, clear nature—nonexistent, like an illusion; free of concept; luminous; and liberated upon arising. One’s mind, free of elaboration, empty in essence, and luminous in nature is the completeness of the deity. This form unimpededly manifests as empty appearance, from which all phenomena arise; from within this state, the great display unfolds, and the mantra is recited.
The crucial point of the Nyingma teachings is that first the view is ascertained. In the new schools, the view is of the great purity, but it is considered inconceivable, as according to Rangzom Pandit’s commentary Ascertaining Appearances As the Deity. First, the view has to be established according to the Nyingma way, which is very profound and precise. In the new schools, if the view of the great purity is not ascertained, then what does not exist needs to be created and that is complicated.
All that appears and exists is the great primordial purity, from the beginning. Do not grasp after the words; recognize the meaning. The expanse of the great purity is seeing things as they are: All appearances are the display of the deity. There is nothing to visualize; merely know things to be as they are. For the practitioner, the deity and oneself are the same. There is no big or small, good or bad. For the intellectual, the Dzogchen view just does not fit in their brains. But if it does, that is the way to practice a deity. Vajrayana begins with pure perception, the purity of all. As one’s experience of that increases, it brings greater blessings. It is pure phenomena, free of any dualistic grasping, but if impure perceptions obscure this, then one is unable to experience pure phenomena. Some can talk about this but not really know it. The ultimate view in Vajrayana is pure perception. The basis is the buddha-nature, where there is no mention of pure or impure. It is completely pure. If you think that the deity and you are separate, that the deity is pure and you are impure, as a duality, then there is no way to accomplish a deity. All duality needs to be dispersed; once that happens, then one can practice deity yoga. The whole root of deity practice is realization of nonduality. That is the way to practice, and this is how Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche practiced and taught.
I feel certain that there is not the slightest difference between the state of mind of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche and Samantabhadra. For those who regard him as Vajradhara in person, the perfect root guru and the support for their supplications, he is definitely extraordinary. To summarize, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche was an incredible master, both learned and accomplished. Teachings should always be given upon request. So, since I was specifically asked, I have said what I personally know and have witnessed.
ORIGIN
Kunzang Yab Yum
Dzogchen Key Points1
Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
Our basic nature is essentially identical with the ground. It has two basic aspects: primordial purity (kadag) and spontaneous presence (lhundrub). Our mind’s empty essence is related to primordial purity, while its cognizant nature is linked to spontaneous presence.
Spontaneous presence literally means “that which appears and is present by itself.” Besides our cognizant nature, it includes the deities that are experienced in the bardo as well as all the Tögal displays. In the same way, the pure wisdom realms that unfold out of the expanse of the three kayas, which is the state of rigpa devoid of clinging, are also experienced as a natural presence. To rephrase this, all the self-appearing and naturally present Tögal displays, the kayas and wisdoms, which unfold out of the state of dharmakaya, free of grasping, manifest from the primordially pure essence and spontaneously present nature, kadag, and lhundrub.
This lhundrub quality also pertains to samsaric experience. Spontaneous presence includes everything that “appears automatically,” due to ignorance of our true nature: the worlds, beings, the three realms, the six classes, and all the rest of samsara. These all appear automatically; we don’t need to imagine any of them. In other words, the samsaric states that unfold out of the ignorant dualistic mind are all experienced vividly and clearly. Mind and its objects—the perceived objects in the three realms of samsara and the perceiving dualistic mind with its three poisons—all unfold within the arena of dualistic mind, sem. We don’t need to visualize our world. The sems experiences include the different experiences of the six classes of beings, which are visible yet intangible. Currently our “impure” samsaric experience is clearly present and quite tangible. We can touch the things around us, right? In “pure” awareness, known as the kayas and wisdoms, experience takes place in a way that is visible yet insubstantial. This immaterial or nonphysical quality means that the experience is something you can see but not grasp—like a rainbow.
The sambhogakaya buddhas and realms unfold, visible yet intangible; they are insubstantial like a rainbow in the unconfined sky of dharmakaya. After you first recognize your basic state of primordial purity and then perfect its strength and attain stability, your body returns to rainbow light. In other words, within this very body, your realization is equal to that of sambhogakaya. All the inconceivable adornments and sceneries belonging to sambhogakaya are then as visible as rainbows in the sky. Unlike sentient beings in samsara’s three realms, who experience things in a material way, the displays of kayas and wisdom are immaterial and unconditioned. Have you ever heard of a sambhogakaya buddha needing to visit the toilet? That’s because they are insubstantial, not material. The six types of beings, on the other hand, must defecate and urinate after they eat. That’s direct proof of their corporeality. Deities are in an incorporeal state, celestial and rainbow-like. You can’t eat rainbows and then shit them out! With a rainbow body, there is no thought of food; but ordinary sentient beings, who have material bodies, can’t go without food. If they do, they die of starvation. The materiality I am speaking of here has three aspects: the material body of flesh and blood, the material disposition that needs food as fuel, and the material mind that is born and dies, arises, and ceases. The deities’ immaterial purity lies beyond those three, beyond every kind of materiality. This is why we say their bodies are made of rainbow light. In short, samsara is
