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12004

An Introduction to the Tibetan Dzogchen

(Great Perfection) Philosophy of Mind
David Higgins*
University of Vienna

Abstract
This article is an introduction to the philosophy of mind that developed within the syncretistic
rDzogs chen (Great Perfection) tradition of Tibetan Buddhism between the 8th and 14th centuries
CE. Despite the growing interest in this tradition in recent decades, there has so far been no sys-
tematic appraisal of its views on mind that traces their evolution and complex relationships with
antecedent Buddhist philosophies of mind. These views merit attention not only because of their
intrinsic interest and relevance to contemporary consciousness studies but also because they pro-
vide an essential key to understanding the tradition’s leading ideas and practices. From a traditional
standpoint, discerning the nature and structure of human consciousness in accordance with the
crucial distinction between dualistic mind (sems) and primordial knowing (ye shes) is deemed indis-
pensable to understanding rDzogs chen view and meditation. To this end, the present article
focuses on how this distinction allowed rDzogs chen adepts to precisely describe, on the basis of
careful first-personal observation, what occurs when a human being becomes a buddha, and to
articulate a disclosive model of goal-realization commensurate with their findings. It traces the
development of the distinction within its historical and doctrinal contexts and then examines its
subsequent clarifications and refinements as a soteriological model. It finally summarizes the tradi-
tion’s distinctive (re)intepretations of ‘mind’ and ‘primordial knowing’, and concludes with a brief
assessment of the contemporary relevance of the distinction.

Introduction
Despite the growing volume of academic and popular literature on the syncretistic Tibe-
tan tradition known as rDzogs chen (‘‘Great Perfection’’)1 over the past few decades, its
philosophical foundations remain largely unknown to those unacquainted with its primary
sources. The bulk of recent academic literature has been devoted to the important and
difficult task of historical reconstruction of rDzogs chen traditions based on relative chro-
nologies of the texts and their doxographical classes and revisionist accounts of historical
events and leading figures. There have also been numerous studies devoted to specific
religious and sociocultural aspects of the tradition. Comparatively little attention has been
devoted to elucidating its principal doctrinal developments during the formative 8th to
14th centuries or the soteriological problems and interests that guided them. A notewor-
thy case in point is the absence of any systematic appraisal of rNying ma views on the
nature of mind that traces their evolution and complex relationships with other Indian
Buddhist philosophies of mind such as Cittamatra, Madhyamaka, Pramanavada, and Vaj-
rayana. The rNying ma views merit attention not only because of their ˙intrinsic interest
and relevance to contemporary philosophies of mind but also because they provide an
invaluable key to understanding the tradition’s distinctive doctrines and practices. To this
end, the present article looks at the rDzogs chen philosophy of mind, with a particular

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442 David Higgins

focus on the distinction between dualistic mind (sems) and primordial knowing (ye shes)
that the tradition deems indispensable to understanding its systems of philosophy and
meditation. From its inception as an esoteric instruction (man ngag) transmitted by early,
mostly Indian masters of the Royal Dynastic Period (610–910)2, through its articulations
and justifications within wider contexts of Buddhist doctrine and soteriology by scholar-
adepts of the Period of Monastic Hegemony (1249–1705), the mind/primordial knowing
distinction emerges as a formative element of the rDzogs chen system.

A Short History of the Distinction Between Mind and Primordial Knowing

Between the 8th and 14th centuries, a succession of rNying ma scholar-practitioners pre-
sented and defended certain phenomenological distinctions that were considered indis-
pensable for understanding Great Perfection (rdzogs chen) view and practice. Foremost
among these was the distinction between dualistic mind (sems) and primordial knowing
(ye shes)3 that is first systematically presented in the seventeen Atiyoga tantras (rgyud bcu
bdun) that make up the Heart Essence (snying thig) subclass of the Esoteric Guidance Class
(man ngag sde) of rDzogs chen teachings (these traditions are discussed in Dudjom Rin-
poche 1991 and Germano 2005a, b). These teachings often take the form of personal
instructions advising the practitioner to discern within the flux of adventitious thoughts
and sensations that characteristize dualistic mind (sems) an invariant prerepresentational
structure of awareness known as primordial knowing, open awareness or the nature of
Mind (sems nyid) from which this turmoil arises. The idea is to directly recognize (rang
ngo shes) and become increasingly familiar with this abiding condition without confusing
it with any of its derivative and distortive aspects.
rNying ma historical and biographical sources trace the distinction to the teachings of
early rDzogs chen masters, in particular the oral transmissions of Vimalamitra (bi ma snyan
brgyud), an identification that appears at first glance to be supported by the the many eso-
teric instructions (man ngag) on distinguishing mind and primordial knowing that are
found scattered among rNying ma collections such as the Bi ma snying thig4, Bai ro rgyud
’bum, rNying ma rgyud ’bum and dGongs pa zang thal. A survey of these sources confirms
that the detailed accounts of the mind/primordial knowing distinction presented in the
seventeen tantras represent the culmination of a conspicuous gnoseological trend in early
rDzogs chen exegesis of the Royal Dynastic Period (610–910) marked by a persistent and
pervasive interest in articulating a primordial nondual mode of knowing and establishing
it as the conditio sine qua non of Buddhist theory and praxis. This trend is reflected in the
widespread employment of terminology specifying this mode of awareness that include
(in varying combinations) primordial knowing (ye shes), open awareness (rig pa), self-
awareness (rang rig), awakened mind (byang chub kyi sems), and Mind itself (sems nyid). The
main lines of the rDzogs chen gnoseological trend can be traced to the Guhyagarbha tantra
and other works belonging to the Mayajala cycle (sGyu ’phrul dra ba skor) and affiliated
Mahayoga tantric corpus, and through a variety of texts assigned to the Mind and Space
Classes (sems sde and klong sde) of Atiyoga that are ascribed to a group of early (8th-9th
c.) figures that includes dGa’ rab rdo rje, Mañjuśrı̄mitra, Śrı̄simha,Vimalamitra, and their
Tibetan colleagues, Vairocana being the most important (On ˙these figures see Germano
2002 and Karmay 1988). This same circle of early masters are traditionally identified as
the earliest human proponents of the rDzogs chen sNying thig (Great Perfection Heart
Essence) system which (re)emerges as a relatively minor Central Tibetan religious tradi-
tion in the eleventh century but steadily eclipses other rDzogs chen traditions in the cen-
turies to follow.

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 An Introduction to the Tibetan Dzogchen (Great Perfection) Philosophy of Mind 443

From the fourteenth century onward, the distinction between dualistic mind and pri-
mordial knowing is systematically elucidated, with a level of phenomenological rigor per-
haps unparalleled in the history of Buddhist thought, by luminaries such as Klong chen
rab ’byams pa, rTse le sna tshogs rang grol (b. 1608), ’Jigs med gling pa (1730–98), Yon
tan rgya mtsho (19th century) and more recently by ’Jigs med bsTan pa’i nyi ma (1865–
1926) and Tshul khrims bzang po (1884–1957). Above all, it is Klong chen pa’s detailed
exegesis of the distinction as a cornerstone of sNying thig doctrine and contemplation
and his creative appropriation of it in formulating an inclusivist schematization of the
Buddhist path in terms of the progressive disclosure of primordial knowing – a clearing
process (sbyong byed) that seamlessly integrates elements of Mahayana, Vajrayana and
rDzogs chen – that lays the doctrinal and hermeneutical foundation for all the subsequent
rNying ma treatments. His soteriological standpoint is neatly epitomized in the definition
of the path of awakening (bodhimarga) that he presents in the autocommentary to his
famous path summary entitled Easing Weariness in Mind itself (Sems nyid ngal gso):
When the turbulence of mind and its mental factors have come to rest, Mind itself – luminous
primordial knowing – arises from within. We call the progressive familiarization with this [pri-
mordial knowing] the path of awakening (Sems nyid ngal gso ’grel vol. 1, 130).
An assessment of Klong chen pa’s extant corpus reveals that the distinction was a central
and unifying theme in the author’s rDzogs chen writings that he would return to again
and again during his lifetime and that he repeatedly characterized as ‘‘extremely impor-
tant’’ (shin tu gal po che) but also as ‘‘very difficult to understand’’ (rab tu rtogs dka’).

Developments and Clarifications

The rDzogs chen philosophy of mind is inseparable from its distinctive soteriology. By
investigating the complex and heterogeneous structure of consciousness the adept seeks to
determine how afflictive thoughts and emotions arise and how they can best be quelled
to allow for the recovery of latent capacities for spontaneous, altruistic modes of thinking,
feeling and acting. The treatments of the distinction between mind and primordial know-
ing in classical sources are perhaps best viewed as responses to a recurrent question that
was already posed in the earliest stratum of rDzogs chen literature: How do people
become enlightened? Stated otherwise, what are the conditions necessary for a human
being to become what is known as an ‘awakened one’ (buddha : sangs rgyas), a being in
whom cognitive and affective obscurations have cleared (sangs) so that inherent capacities
for caring and knowing (mkhyen brtse nus ldan) are able to fully manifest (rgyas)? From this
followed more specific questions: How are primordial knowing (ye shes) and dualistic
mind (sems) co-present within the psychic and corporeal dimensions of lived experience?
And, from a soteriological perspective, How can a practitioner reclaim unconditioned pri-
mordial knowing from the subjective appropriations and reifications of conceptually and
emotionally distorted mind?
Such questions preoccupied rDzogs chen scholar-adepts from as early as the 8th cen-
tury and led them increasingly to differentiate between conditioned and unconditioned
modes of being and awareness. If adepts of the early Mind Class (sems sde) of rDzogs chen
teachings (8th century onward) were inclined to emphasize the underlying unity of the
‘minds’ of buddhas (sangs rgyas kyi thugs) and sentient beings (sems can gyi sems), classical
Heart Essence (snying thig) adepts increasingly underscored the need to establish clear pri-
ority relations between them. To better understand this shift in perspective, it may be
useful to take a closer look at the attempts during this period to describe and explain the

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444 David Higgins

nature of consciousness and its role in spiritual awakening. On the earlier account, the
abiding condition of Mind (sems kyi gnas lugs) is present equally in buddhas and sentient
beings, but they differ according to whether or not they have recognized (rig/ma rig) and
remained attuned to this condition. Already by the ninth century, however, the rDzogs
chen master gNyag Jñanakumara had taken a more nuanced view of the matter. Strictly
speaking, the minds of buddhas and sentient beings are neither the same nor different: if
fundamentally the same, humans would already be fully realized buddhas without making
any effort and errancy would be impossible; if fundamentally different, humans would live
in perpetual self-bondage and enlightenment would be impossible. In a series of argu-
ments, gNyag adduces a number of absurd consequences that follow from assuming that
sentient beings and buddhas possess fundamentally identical or different kinds of minds.5
More than anything, gNyag’s arguments draw attention to the need to distinguish realized
and non-realized persons based on a rigorous investigation of relevant phenomena rather
than on an uncritical acceptance of traditional typologies. Useful phenomenological dis-
tinctions can all too easily congeal into rigid dichotomies when their grounding in living
praxis is lost sight of. By reframing the constructs ‘buddha’ and ‘sentient being’ as avail-
able modes of being and awareness rather than as idealized, oppositional categories,
rDzogs chen scholars such as gNyag and, later, gNubs chen Sangs rgyas ye shes (9th–10th
c. CE), were able to bring attention back to, and develop a language to describe, the uni-
fied experiential continuum or field which is the condition of possibility of buddhas and
sentient beings. To be a buddha is to be directly acquainted with, and live out of, this
abiding mode of being; to be a sentient being (sems can) is to be subject to (can) the vaga-
ries of mentation (sems), viz., the nexus of self-reifications of this dimension that cause
beings to overlook it.
Such developments paved the way for the increasingly nuanced distinctions between
the modes of being and awareness specific to buddhas and sentient beings advanced by
the sNying thig tradition that emerges from relative obscurity in the 12th century and
steadily gains momentum in centuries to follow. On this account, although the nature of
Mind, or buddha nature, is universally available to humans beings as a discernable invari-
ant structure of lived experience, it not readily accessible, concealed as it is behind a morass
of objectifying and nominalizing superimpositions of thought. In the words of the fore-
most classical rNying ma scholar-yogin, Klong chen pa,
When open awareness is free from dualistic mind, since it is also, by implication, free from
mind’s distorted appearances, there is no ‘place to go’ apart from the unique state of buddha-
hood. This is because the very essence that is buddhahood becomes actualized through freedom
from what obscures it. When open awareness is associated with mind, it is called ‘mind-gov-
erned being’ (sems can). When dissociated from mind, it is called buddha (Chos dbyings mdzod
’grel: 494 f).
The aim of the distinction, then, is to illuminate how mind’s self-reifying activities lead
the aspirant to overlook the simple taking place of presence itself in favour of the myriad
perceptual and epistemic objects that claim our attention. Meditation is therefore viewed
as a process of de-reification that restores an undistorted vision of how things present
themselves and a mode of being and living commensurate with this vision. The distinc-
tion is widely adopted by classical exegetes as an interpretive scheme for articulating the
conditions of nondual primordial experience. In this regard, Klong chen pa commends
the distinction not only as a unique hermeneutical key for unlocking the implicit inten-
tion of Buddhist scripture but also, and more fundamentally, as a crucial point of entry

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 An Introduction to the Tibetan Dzogchen (Great Perfection) Philosophy of Mind 445

into understanding the nature and structure of consciousness, one that best accounts for
the range of phenomena involved in realizing the Buddhist goal of spiritual awakening.
By clarifying the mind/primordial knowing distinction, rDzogs chen sNying thig
scholars were in effect articulating the preconditions for the kind of knowing said to be
constitutive of being a buddha (sangs rgyas kyi ye shes: buddhajñana) while at the same time
delimiting the entire range of factors that are considered adventitious obscurations, or
even obstacles, to illumination. Klong chen summarizes the distinction in this way:
In brief, ‘‘mind and mental factors’’ refer to the arising of conceptualization and analysis of
objects that is ostensibly causally produced by the subject-object [dichotomy]. ‘‘Primordial
knowing’’ refers to a [simple] object awareness in which the subject-object dichotomy has com-
pletely subsided. (Sems nyid ngal gso ’grel, 132.5.)
Needless to say, this dimensional account of consciousness, suggesting as it does an ever-
elusive but nonetheless personally available prerepresentational stream of experiencing
‘beneath’ the concurrent flow of representational thought, had far-reaching doctrinal and
soteriological implications. On this account, the Buddhist path is construed not as a
developmental process of accumulating merits and knowledge that serve as causes and
conditions leading to goal-realization (as in Mahayana gradualist paradigm), but as a dis-
closive process of directly recognizing and becoming increasingly familiar with primordial
knowing as the mind’s objectifications and their obscuring effects subside.
It is important to note that the specifically rDzogs chen sNying thig treatments of the
distinction combine two types of discourse that reflect the different doctrinal-soteriologi-
cal contexts in which they developed: (A) an exoteric account that largely follows tradi-
tional Indian Buddhist philosophical views on the respective characteristics of mind and
primordial knowing, and (B) an esoteric, specifically sNying thig account emphasizing
embodied and embedded dimensions of mind and primordial knowing that draws on
complex tantric physiological models presented in the seventeen tantras and supporting
literature. The fifth Dalai Lama Ngag dbang Blo bzang rgya mtsho (1617–82) noted that
this esoteric sNying thig treatment of the distinction which is based on ‘‘directly seeing
mind and open awareness without confusing them’’ was a special quality (khyad chos) of
rDzogs chen absent in the Middle Way traditions of Other Emptiness (gzhan stong) and
Own Emptiness (rang stong), in the Mahamudra of the Abiding Condition (gnas lugs phyag
chen)6 or in any other Tibetan systems. He does add, however, that these key points are
not different from the implicit intent of the gSar ma (New or Reformist) Mantra system
if one realizes its true import (Ngag dbang blo bzang gsung ’bum vol. 24, 94.1). Given the
scope and intricacy of the esoteric accounts, which are perhaps best viewed as specialized
applications of the basic distinction that draw upon a diverse repetoire of spiritual exer-
cises, we have mainly confined this introductory discussion to a synoptic treatment of the
exoteric account.

The rDzogs chen Analysis of Mind (sems)

In rDzogs chen doctrine, mind (sems) is identifed with a complex variety of phenomena that
Buddhism has traditionally held to be causes of error, suffering and samsara itself. In the sev-
enteen tantras and their commentaries, mind is associated inter alia with ˙ ignorance (ma rig
pa), actions (las) and their conditioning traces (bag chags), error (’khrul pa), subject/object
dualism (gzung ’dzin), discursive elaborations (spros pa), adventitious mistaken concepts (glo
bur ’khrul rtog), delusive perceptions, the Yogacara substratum consciousness (kun gzhi’i rnam
par shes pa : alayavijñana) with its eightfold ensemble of cognitions, and the karmic energy

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446 David Higgins

currents (las kyi rlung : karmavayu) and their energetic pathways as these are detailed in
rDzogs chen tantric physiology. In short, mind comprises all that is constructed and condi-
tioned (’dus byas rkyen dbang) and constitutes the sum total of obscurations to be eliminated
(spang bya’i sgrib pa), stopped (’gags bya) or cleared away (sbyangs bya), as all these were identi-
fied and codified in the various Indian Buddhist doctrinal systems.
While a detailed consideration of these points in light of their historical-doctrinal con-
texts would far exceed my abilities and the scope of this article, it may be worthwhile to
briefly summarize how rDzogs chen scholars characterized mind in terms of its subject-
object structure. According to Klong chen pa, ‘‘mind constitutes adventitious defilement.
It functions as the fundamental cause of samsara. It depends on habitual tendencies of the
three realms. As it creates the conditions of˙ worldly life, it is that from which we should
be emancipated’’ (Zab don gnad kyi me long, in Zab mo yang tig vol. 2, 281.3.). These vari-
ous elements are then shown to be consequences of the complex dual structure that is
held to be constitutive of mind. Dualistic mind is said to have two aspects: an appre-
hended object-oriented mind ([yul] gzung ba’i sems) that gives rise to the intended objects
(yul) of the five sensory capacities, and an apprehending subject-oriented mind ([yul can]
’dzin pa’i sems) that, under the distorting influence of karma and various cognitive and
affective factors as these are identified and classified in earlier Buddhist psychological liter-
ature, gives rise to the sense of an independently exiting ‘self’ as the possessor of these
objects (yul can). In this way, ‘‘samsara which consists in grasping an object where there is
no object and grasping a mind where ˙ there is no mind’’ is held ‘‘to appear before sentient
beings like a dream, having arisen from the manifesting of aspects of subject-oriented and
object-oriented mind’’ (Chos dbyings mdzod ’grel, 495.3).
This portrayal draws on the Yogacara-Cittamatra view that mind (citta), under the
influence of defiled ego-mind (klistamanas), has both intentional (object-intending) and
reflexive (‘I-intending’) operations ˙˙that structure experience in terms of an ‘I’ (subject)
and ‘mine’ (object). Mind’s activities in the three realms are shot through with dualism,
the only difference being whether the reifications are coarse (as in the desires realm) or
more subtle (as in the realms of forms and formlessness). Elsewhere, Klong chen pa char-
acterizes mind as encompassing act, object and agent in a manner reminiscent of
Nagarjuna’s analysis of mind in Madhyamakakarika 23.15.7 The author proceeds, however,
to claim that the source of this tripartite intentional structure is the efflugence of primor-
dial knowing (ye shes kyi gdangs) as it is explained in sNying thig tantric physiology. From
the foregoing, it is clear that the rDzogs chen understanding of dualistic mind is syncretis-
tic, combining analyses of its act-object structure that are known from traditional Cit-
tamatra and Madhyamaka sources with accounts of the psychophysical genesis of this dual
structure that are specific to sNying thig tantric physiology.

The rDzogs chen Analysis of Primordial Knowing

If much of what one encounters in the sNying thig exposition of mind (sems) has been
drawn from traditional Abhidharma and Cittamatra psychology, the descriptions and
explanations of ye shes (Skt. jñana) and related gnoseological terms reflect strongly indige-
nous interpretations in which antecedent Mahayana and tantric formulations are assimilated
to the rDzogs chen disclosive paradigm. The term ye shes itself has presented something of
an enigma to contemporary scholars of Tibetan Buddhism since the prefix ye (‘‘primor-
dial’’) has no obvious equivalent in the Sanskrit jñana which it renders. Traditionally, the
Sanskrit term jñana has been rendered into Tibetan as shes pa, mkhyen pa and ye shes
according to context (See Tshig mdzod chen mo s.v. ye shes and discussion by Almogi 2009,

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 An Introduction to the Tibetan Dzogchen (Great Perfection) Philosophy of Mind 447

160 f.). Of these, shes pa is a generic term for knowledge, while its honorific form mkhyen
pa and the more technical abstract noun ye shes are both used with reference to the special
knowledge of a realized being. The Tshig mdzod chen mo dictionary provides the following
definition of ye shes: (A) primordially existing knowedge (ye nas gnas pa’i shes pa), i.e. an
empty and luminous awareness that is naturally present in the mental continuum of all sen-
tient beings, and (B) the knowledge possessed by Noble Ones.8 As for the particle ye, the
dictionary lists the following connotations: (A) beginning, origin, root, (B) constant, per-
petual, and (C) certain, definite.9 It is reasonable to view the addition of element ye in ye
shes as an example of the Tibetan penchant for specifying technical uses of the more gen-
eric Indic originals (e.g. citta, jñana, vidya), terms that had through semantic accretion taken
on many diverse, and at times divergent, associations and connotations in the course of
their long and complex conceptual histories. In this regard, it is interesting that the Karma
bKa’ brgyud scholar gTsug lag ’phreng ba (1503/4–1566) observed that early Tibetan
translators found it necessary to render jñana as shes pa (‘‘cognition’’) or rnam shes (‘‘con-
sciousness’’) when describing the cognition of a sentient being, but as ye shes (‘‘primordial
knowing’’) when describing the cognition of a buddha, there being no such difference
explicit in the original term (Zab rgyas snying po, 764.4 f.).
A survey of the ways ye shes has been variously employed in rDzogs chen sources
leaves little doubt that the element ye in ye shes has had connotations of ‘primordial’ (ye
nas) and ‘enduring’ (gtan) from the time of the tradition’s earliest available literature. Used
adjectivally, the ye (‘primordial’) qualifies shes (‘knowing’ in a generic sense) in order to
specify a mode of knowledge that is considered genuine, abiding and originary in contrast
to normal cognition that is adventitious, transient and derivative. rDzogs chen scholars
employed ‘primordial knowing’ and related gnoseological terms to characterize and affirm
a mode of experiencing that is neither derivable from nor reducible to the (re)presenta-
tion of perceptual and epistemic objects. From a rDzogs chen perspective, it is a mistake
to arbitrarily limit the range of human experience to empirical and ideal objects. To do
so is to assume that the experience of spiritual awakening that is said to occur with the
dissolution of cognitive and affective obscurations along with the sense of self that
anchors them consists merely in a change of knowledge, an altered state of cognition. To
make experience coextensive with objects of cognition is to exclude vitally important
affective and embodied dimensions of lived experience that play a decisive role in rDzogs
chen soteriology.10 According to the seventeen tantras, primordial awareness pervades the
lived body like oil in sesame seeds; it is therefore elicted not only through mental disci-
plines but physical ones as well. Its realization is often accompanied by powerful feelings
of love and compassion, spontaneous expressions of the fundamental care structure (thugs
rje) of primoridal knowing that are said to overwhelm and transcend subject-centered
cognition. In these ways and others, ‘primordial knowing’ can be seen to circumscribe far
more than what we normally associate with the term ‘consciousness.’
In this regard, rDzogs chen thinkers rejected the idea advanced by Indian Buddhist
epistemologists such as Dharmakı̄rti that the spiritual realization attained by overcoming
ignorance is a matter of exchanging incorrect representations of phenomena with correct
ones. But they also rejected, or consider merely provisional, the Yogacara-tantric idea
that awakening consists in the transformation (gnas ’gyur : aśrayaparavrtti) of consciousness
(sems : citta) from one state to another. It makes little sense to say that˙ afflictive states (e.g.
nyon mongs) are transformed into enlightened ones (e.g. ye shes), especially given the
adventitious and obscuring character of the former and abiding, unfabricated character of
the latter. It is more accurate to say that afflictive states must be eliminated in order for
enlightened ones to manifest. Thus, the rDzogs chen affirmation of primordial awareness

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448 David Higgins

is perhaps best seen as an attempt to go beyond a merely psychologistic account of what

occurs when a human being becomes a buddha. We gain a sense of this in the recurring
admonition to not confuse the prerepresentational path of primordial knowing (ye shes
kyi lam) with the representational paths grounded in dualistic mind (sems kyi lam). Indeed,
rDzogs chen testimonial accounts of the experience of primordial awareness suggest that
the entire edifice of representational epistemology – the sense we have of being a know-
ing subject over against a totality of independently existing objects that we come to know
through our representations of them – collapses with the disclosure of primordial know-
ing. In this way, the attempt to discover and articulate nondual primordial awareness led
rNying ma scholars to abandon subject/object epistemologies, realist as well as anti-realist,
in a manner comparable to attempts by Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Wittgenstein to
overcome mediational epistemologies in Western philosophy (See Taylor 1995).

Concluding Remarks
From the foregoing, it is evident that the rDzogs chen sNying thig analysis of consciousness
reflects an innatist view of Buddhist soteriology that draws on Mahayana philosophical,
Tathagatagarbha (buddha nature) and tantric currents of thought, but introduces much that
is original as well. On this syncretistic account, the conditions for spiritual awakening and
delusion, freedom and errancy, are located in the heterogeneous structure of human experi-
ence. The meditator learns to discover the abiding nature of Mind, or buddha nature, which
is simply the undifferentiated and invariant structure of the experiential continuum, and dis-
tinguish it from ‘mind’ which comprises the adventitious reflective and thematic differentia-
tions that arise within this continuum. Buddhist soteriology is, from this standpoint,
construed as a task of recovery or retrieval, a clearing process (sbyong byed) that brings to light
what is already present though temporarily and adventitiously obscured.
This brings us to the question of what, in general terms, rDzogs chen views of mind
can contribute to the contemporary study of consciousness? Today, there is a growing
sensus communis among scholars in various disciplines that there is something irreducibly
subjective about conscious experience and that explanations of consciousness that discredit
or avoid first personal descriptions in the name of scientific neutrality and objectivity are
therefore bound to be impoverished and self-defeating. This concern has arisen largely in
reaction to the prevailing materialist-reductionist philosophies of mind that developed
alongside the ‘‘cognitive revolution’’ over the past half-century with the shared goal of
explaining mental processes in strictly evolutionary and neurobiological terms. Their
ambition has been to reduce talk of mental processes to talk of neurological processes,
with more extreme advocates, eliminative materialists, recommending that we do away
with the former entirely. Among a wide range of disciplines, some form of scientific nat-
uralism has become the default metaphysical position (See Zahavi 2009). In this regard, it
may be worth considering the critical role that a sophisticated prescientific phenomenol-
ogy of consciousness, such as we find articulated in rDzogs chen, could play in restoring
a measure of balance to an area of study that has increasingly taken its direction from the
objective sciences. The rDzogs chen philosophy of mind does not merely reaffirm the
primacy of first person experience in the task of understanding the nature, structure and
plasticity of phenomenality, and therefore of consciousness itself. Its soteriological-ethical
inquiry standpoint also reopens to investigation neglected areas of human experience –
those prerepresentational modes of thinking, feeling and acting that are the focus of
Buddhist path discourses – that may well lead us to rethink why we should be interested
in investigating consciousness in the first place.

© 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Religion Compass 6/10 (2012): 441–450, 10.1111/rec3.12004
 An Introduction to the Tibetan Dzogchen (Great Perfection) Philosophy of Mind 449

Short Biography
David Higgins is a Research Fellow in the Dept. of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist
Studies at the University of Vienna where he is exploring the synthesis of Mahamudra
and gZhan stong traditions in bKa’ brgyud scholasticism during the 15th and 16th centu-
ries. His research interests include Indo-Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and epistemology
with a particular focus on bKa’ brgyud Mahamudra and rNying ma rDzogs chen doc-
trinal systems. He has authored papers on Mahamudra and rDzogs chen philosophies of
mind for the Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies and has given guest
lectures at the universities of Vienna, Lausanne and Victoria and at conferences in Tai-
wan, Vancouver, Atlanta, and Thimpu, Bhutan. His forthcoming PhD dissertation enti-
tled Philosophical Foundations of Classical rDzogs chen in Tibet: Investigating the Distinction
Between Dualistic Mind (sems) and Primordial Knowing (ye shes) offers a philosophical analysis
of rNying ma views on the nature of mind that traces their evolution and complex rela-
tionships with Indian Cittamatra, Madhyamaka, Pramanavada, and Vajrayana views and
explores their soteriological implications. ˙

Notes
* Correspondence address: David Higgins, Spitalgasse 2, Hof 2.7, Vienna 1090, Austria. E-mail: david.
higgins@univie.ac.at
1
Teachings classified as rDzogs chen are common to Tibet’s two oldest religious systems, the rNying ma (Ancient
Ones) school of Tibetan Buddhism (Rinpoche and Yeshe Dorje) and pre-Buddhist Bon tradition. While these tra-
ditions share many doctrines and practices, their lines of transmission and scholastic developments are quite different.
This paper considers only the rNying ma rDzogs chen system philosophy, on which see Karmay 1988, Achard
1999, Germano 2005a and Higgins (forthcoming). For an systematic overview of Bon rDzogs chen philosophy, see
Rossi 1999.
2
The three periods referred to in this article are the Royal Dynastic Period (610–910), The Period of Fragmenta-
tion (910–1249), and the Period of Monastic Hegemony (1249–1705). I have adopted a somewhat pared down ver-
sion of the periodization scheme proposed by Cuevas 2006. I sometimes use ‘‘classical’’ with reference to the
Period of Monastic Hegemony.
3
The principal distinctions are traditionally associated with the hearing lineages (snyan brgyud) of Vimalamitra and
other early rDzogs chen masters. They receive their first systematic treatment in the seventeen Atiyoga tantras, their
commentaries (six of which are extant) and supporting materials in the Bi ma snying thig and canonical collections.
For specifics regarding these sources, the reader is referred to Higgins (forthcoming).
4
On the chronology of the Bi ma snying thig and seventeen tantras, see Prats 1984, 197–209 and Achard 1999 pp.
78–83.
5
These arguments are adumbrated in gNyag’s commentary to the Mirror of Manifestation (’Phrul gyi me long dgu skor
kyi ’grel pa, 983.2 f.). On these arguments, see Higgins (forthcoming).
6
gNas lugs phyag chen is widely used as a descriptor of goal-realization in Tibetan Mahamudra teaching introduced
in the so-called Upper ’Brug pa bKa’ brgyud tradition by rGyal ba Yang dgon pa mGon po rdo rje (1213–58) and
made famous by the 17th century ’Brug pa master Padma dkar po. At several points in his celebrated Ri chos skor
gsum, Yang dgon pa draws a distinction between Mahamudra in its mode of abiding (gnas lugs phyag chen) and
Mahamudra in the mode of errancy (’khrul lugs phyag chen).
7
Zab don snying po, in Zab mo yang tig pt. 1, 452.1: ‘‘Concerning the reason for using the term [‘mind’]: Because
of the three factors of what is ‘minded’, by what means it is minded, and what does the minding, we speak of
‘mind’.’’ This analysis resembles the phenomenological analysis of intentional experience in terms of an intentional
act (noesis), intentional object (noemata) and what Merleau-Ponty called the intentional arc (l’arc intentionel).
8
Tshig don chen mo s.v. ye shes: (1) ye nas gnas pa’i shes pa ste sems can thams cad kyi rgyud la rang bzhin gyis gnas pa’i
stong gsal gyi rig pa, (2) ’phags pa’i mkhyen pa.
9
Tshig don chen mo s.v. ye: (1) thog ma dang| gdod ma| rtsa ba| … (2) gtan dang| nam rgyun…(3) nges par dang| mtha’
gcig||…
10
Indeed, it is on account of the ratio-cognitive bias sedimented in terms such as ‘consciousness’, ‘mind’, and ‘cog-
nition’ that I have frequently resorted to the admittedly more ambiguous and wide-ranging term ‘experience’ in my
discussions of ye shes and other gnoseological terms. For a discussion of this problem in the context of Western
mystical traditions, see Steinbock 2007, 24-5. et passim.

© 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Religion Compass 6/10 (2012): 441–450, 10.1111/rec3.12004
450 David Higgins

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