Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche

It is not possible to be enlightened while still having obscurations and negative karma.

They need to be interrupted and purified.

And that is why one does purification practices and apologizes for any negative deeds one has done.

There is also a way to thoroughly and perpetually bring an end to negative karma and obscuration.

We begin with mindfulness in order to find our way out of the delusion and dualistic fixation that have gone on endlessly in Samsara.

Mindfulness, however, could have a definite dualistic connotation.

It could be like putting a hook in a piece of meat and holding it steady so that a dog does not run off with it.

That is the point of separating sem and Rigpa.

Sem, the dualistic frame of mind, means involvement with thoughts of either past, present or future.

Rigpa simply means the awakened state.

that is uninvolved in thoughts of the three times.

However, for a beginner, without the mindfulness of reminding, there is no recognition of mind essence.

That is called deliberate mindfulness.

It is dualistic mind that reminds you to recognize.

But the seeing of no thing to be seen is Rigpa, the awakened state free of duality.

According to the Dzogchen system, first there is deliberate mindfulness, literally the mindfulness of deliberate attention.

You should exert yourself in this, and once you have become quite accustomed to it, you will at some stage automatically get into effortless mindfulness, where there is no need to push.

As soon as one is carried away, one notices, I am distracted.

And immediately you arrive back in awareness.

Some people may think that the preliminary practices are somehow inferior.