Emptiness and Buddhahood
Without emptiness practice, one cannot practice dzogchen. There is no such thing as dzogchen without the foundational realisation or insight of empty nature of mind. For this reason, we need to understand that we actually cannot practice atiyoga without complete purification. Without emptiness, dzogchen becomes entirely dualistic because the "natural state" is seen to be separate from thoughts and emotions. However, if you read any past master they make it clear that thoughts and emotions are not apart of the natural state. So what you need to practice is vipashyana, emptiness meditation, to release the sense of me-ness from all and any mind objects. In Pemako, we do this both by sutric and tantric means, sutric and tantric vipashyana. Sutric means to study, investigate and liberate selfing from the mind objects directly. Tantric vipashyana means to practice deities through their mantras and visualisations. Both result in directly seeing that whatever mind objects appear in the mind: any thought, any emotion, any dream, any desire, any fantasy or any subtle formless energy, is without this entity that samsaric beings refer to as "me" or "I". This solves the problem and this is the meaning of liberation in buddhadharma. From there, from emptiness of all phenomena, from exhaustion of all phenomena, great perfection or buddhahood is seen and attained. This means purifying the bhumis 1-10 and becoming a mahasiddha, or a buddha, whose mind has been exhausted of self-delusion. There are no distractions or bumps in the mind of a buddha, and no sudden surprises, no hidden blind spots... Completely clear and pure, radiating soft blessings...
Kim, 9.6.2021