“After your meditation session, hold the view of purity and observe everything you feel, see, and think, as the appearance and playful dance of the state of Dzogchen. See everything as transient forms of reflected light, like the waves and tides on the surface of the ocean. Observe without clinging; let things arise and let them go. Do not block the movement of the true nature by neurotic grasping and rejecting. Learn to perform all of your activities with this awareness. This is the way to practice Guru Yoga.

It is very important to integrate meditative and post-meditative states until they become one single flow, with no division between sessions and breaks. Engage in meditation, visualize Guru Padmasambhava, receive his blessings, and maintain your mind in the natural state of the guru. Subsequently, bring that realization into the world of your family, friends, co-workers, and every situation in your daily life. See everything as a display of wisdom; as a magical manifestation of the true nature. Then you can endlessly perform beneficial activities, extending bodhichitta to all beings.

With devotion, you can sustain and expand this view. Devoted practice to Padmasambhava reveals the true nature more and more. This increases love and compassion and confidence in bodhichitta, so you can more easily actualize your understanding. New levels of mental stability and insight alternate back and forth, so your realization and ability to help others increase.”

Venerable Khenpo Rinpoches
Illuminating The Path: Ngondro Instructions According to the Nyingma School of Vajrayana Buddhism (pgs 136-137)
www.padmasambhava.org/chiso/books-by-khenpo-rinpoches/illuminating-the-path-ngondro-instructions-according-to-the-nyingma-school-of-vajrayana-buddhism

Photo of Ven. Khenpo Tsewang Rinpoche lama dancing after a Riwo Sang Chod Fire fire puja ceremony with the local PBC sangha at Padma Gochen Ling in Moneterey, Tennessee on June 10, 2023, by Sandy Mueller.

“Our relative world exists because we maintain a belief in its solidity. Yet in reality, it only exists as a mental state, as a conception. Although it has no real existence other than as a belief we cling to, from the viewpoint of relative truth, this world does appear—regardless of whether it actually exists or not—so we do need to be able to deal with it in various ways. It does function and have utility on the common level of perception between sentient beings.

From the point of view of ego, everything seems to exist as material form. We strongly believe that physical objects truly exist—we ascribe qualities to them, and consider them good, bad, or we’re indifferent. Mipham Rinpoche presents us with a method to carefully examine this relative level of existence where our underlying assumptions have not yet been investigated or analyzed, and to discern the true nature of existence. Without applying a mental analysis like this, and combining it with meditation, true wisdom does not arise. From the point of view of true wisdom, the existence of solid objects (dngos po) is a hallucination. All existence is illusory display.

The famous Nyingma master Patrul Rinpoche explained the nature of relative truth with the following story. In Tibet, children would collect hailstones and hold them in their hands thinking they had something precious. But the tighter they held them, the quicker the hailstones melted. When they opened their hands, they were gone.

Upon investigation and careful analysis, the warmth of awareness melts away the relative truth of our mistaken conventional perceptions like hailstones eagerly picked up and tightly held by curious, delighted children.

When the solidity of relative truth dissolves, we see that there is more to the world than mere appearances. This moment of realization is the view of the true nature (gnas lugs), the absolute truth of “great emptiness” (stong nyid chen po). It is the fundamental absolute nature where everything is complete, the emptiness nature that underlies and pervades all relative truth.

Although the Buddha taught that the phenomenal world is illusory, he did not ignore its relative level. Instead, the Buddha taught an absolute view that encompasses the relative within it. From the point of view of analysis, the relative state is an appearance, like a bubble, a mirage, or a reflection of the moon in water. The Buddha didn’t deny that the relative world does in fact appear. He simply pointed out that its existence is illusory.”

Venerable Khenpo Rinpoches
Uprooting Clinging: A Commentary on Mipham Rinpoche’s Analytic Wheel of Meditation (pg 85-86)
www.padmasambhava.org/chiso/books-by-khenpo-rinpoches/uprooting-clinging-a-commentary-on-mipham-rinpoches-wheel-of-analytic-meditation

“When we practice meditation correctly, we lose our feeling of confusion and of being compelled, and instead, our meditation brings a sense of openness, freedom, and clarity. We see that clinging to any particular object or person ignores the fact that the object or person is constantly changing.

Not only does everything change, but everything is also interdependent. There is no object that is independent from and totally unrelated to everything else.

According to our ordinary perception, we see phenomena as solid or substantial. But for someone who has attained the subtle view of impermanence, phenomena are not substantial. In the state of luminous-emptiness, there is no reason to cling or be attached. Clinging ceases to exist. Instead, there is a total acceptance of the fact that everything is changing.”

Venerable Khenpo Rinpoches

Uprooting Clinging: A Commentary on Mipham Rinpoche’s Analytic Wheel of Meditation (pg 64)
www.padmasambhava.org/chiso/books-by-khenpo-rinpoches/uprooting-clinging-a-commentary-on-mipham-rinpoches-wheel-of-analytic-meditation