Natural State
The natural state (rNal ma) is what we are when nothing is being done to us or by us to alter what we are. It is what Dzogchen points at as already the case — not something to arrive at, not something to build.
Key Points
- The entire Dzogchen instruction, per the Introduction, is five words: remain in the natural state.
- Nothing to change. “There is nothing to change — nothing to give up or alter in any way. We simply need to be what we are.”
- Etymology of naljor: rNal ma (natural state) + ‘byor pa (remaining). A naljor is “natural state remaining”; the Four Naljors are four methods of such remaining.
- Meditation as relaxation: “The teaching of Dzogchen declares that meditation is the state of relaxation — a means by which we can be what we are, without tension, tyranny, or anxiety.”
- Lion’s roar of reality: the natural state is not fragile — it is the self-existent proclamation of self-existent confidence, “the empty confidence that has no need of reference points.”
The Paradox of Accessibility
The natural state is “so close, so accessible, so present, and so simple” that this is precisely why complex beings cannot reach it directly. What blocks us is not its distance but its proximity — we look past it because it is not a “thing” arriving from elsewhere. The Introduction:
It is also too close, too accessible, too present, and too simple — for people as complex as we find ourselves to be.
This is the paradox (dog-drö, lDog ‘gros) that necessitates view, meditation, and action.
What Practice Does (and Doesn’t) to It
Practice does not produce the natural state. It cannot — the natural state is already the basis of the practitioner. Practice is the progressive dismantling of what occludes recognition:
- Shi-nè — dissolves addictive attachment to thought
- Lha-tong — (later)
- Nyi’med — (later)
- Lhun-drüp — (later)
When these occlusions relax, what remains is not an achievement but what was there the whole time.
Related
- Dzogchen — the view that posits the natural state
- Four Naljors — methods of remaining in it
- Naljor — the term “natural state remaining”
- Lion’s Roar of Reality — its self-existent proclamation
- Reference Points — what the natural state’s confidence does without