When we look at the origins of Dzogchen, we begin with Garab Dorje (Wylie: dga’ rab rdo rje). Within the Nyingma tradition, Garab Dorje is the first human teacher of Dzogchen. He stands at the fountainhead of the transmission that flowed through Manjushrimitra, Shri Singha, Jnanasutra, and eventually entered Tibet through Padmasambhava, Vimalamitra, and Vairocana.
The earliest Dzogchen tantras appear in the 7th to 9th century. These include texts attributed to Indian masters and later grouped into what became known as the Three Classes within the Dzogchen lineage, or the Semde, Longde, and Mengagde.
Among the most influential is the tantra known as All-Creating King (Kunjed Gyalpo, kun byed rgyal po), which became one of the most widely cited and philosophically significant Dzogchen scriptures within the Semde Class.
These early tantras present themes that are central to the practice of Dzogchen. They introduce the nature of mind as being primordially pure and spontaneously present. In the Mahayana sutras, we find talk about the union of appearance and emptiness, or awareness and emptiness, but that insight takes place within an analytical framework. In Dzogchen, we are introduced to the inseparability of awareness and emptiness in the immediacy of our own experience.
Although the early scriptural transmissions took shape over time, the Dzogchen lineage attributes their essential transmission to Garab Dorje and his immediate disciples, whose instructions became the basis for the later Tibetan flourishing of the Great Perfection.
Transmission to Mañjuśrīmitra
According to traditional accounts, Garab Dorje transmitted the complete empowerments and instructions of Dzogchen to his chief disciple, Manjushrimitra.
The story of that first transmission is very symbolic.
When Garab Dorje demonstrated passing into parinirvāṇa, it is said that his final testament appeared spontaneously and was received by Mañjuśrīmitra in a crystal casket no larger than a fingernail. That last testament is known as tshik sum nedek, “The Three Statements That Strike the Vital Point.”
The size of the casket is part of the teaching. The vastness and profundity of the Dzogchen tantras was condensed and contained in this tiny vessel.
The Three Statements as Final Testament
Namo Shri Guruye.
Homage to confidence in the realization of one’s own awareness!
This awareness, which is not established as anything whatsoever,
Is completely unobstructed in the way one’s own experience arises.
Therefore all appearances and existence arise as the field of the Dharmakāya.
And that very arising is directly liberated in its own ground.
In this point, the realization of all the Sugatas is brought together.
In order to arouse the fallen into wakefulness, this pith instruction in three statements
Cuts through the ties of both saṃsāra and nirvāṇa.
So store this final testament deep within your heart.
Ithi.
The pith instruction that reveals awareness directly:
Recognize your own nature.
Come to a decisive experience about one thing only.
Continue with confidence in liberation.
There is your own nature, and what appears as other. These two being inseparable is recognition.
Ithi.
Garab Dorje says that these Three Statements are the distilled intent of all Buddhas. They are the essence of Dzogchen view, meditation, and result. These Three Statements are the framework upon which the entire Dzogchen path is understood and practiced. Together, they describe recognition of one’s true nature, stabilization of that recognition, and effortless integration of all experience within it.
At first glance, these three statements may appear sequential. Recognize your nature, then come to decisive experience, and then continue with confidence in liberation.
But they are not meant to be progressive stages of development. They describe the deepening certainty of liberation within a single moment of recognition.
The first statement is the recognition itself.
Rigpa, or intrinsic awareness, is directly recognized in the immediacy of one’s own experience. This is not a conceptual understanding. It’s not an inference using logic or reasoning or analysis. It’s not an idea about awareness or our true nature. It is recognizing our nature in the immediacy of our own awareness as it is right now, free from modification or fabrication.
The second statement is to resolve all doubt and uncertainty about this unique state.
“Come to a decisive experience” does not mean making a logical conclusion. It means resting without wavering from what has been recognized. The movement of doubt, seeking, and expectation must be resolved in one’s own experience. View and meditation are not separate. Recognizing and abiding in the view is the meditation.
The third statement is continuing with confidence in liberation.
When recognition is decisive, thoughts and appearances no longer need to be managed. Whatever appears is liberated in its own place (Tib. rang grol). Experience unfolds, and resolves, within the same ground of awareness.
Seen this way, the Three Statements describe one realization viewed from angles. Recognizing our true nature directly, we simply rest in that experience, and in that resting, appearances in all their variety are naturally liberated upon arising.
The structure is simple. Living it in practice is not easy.
The Root Verses
Before we dive into each of the Three Statements, we have to let the opening verses speak. Garab Dorje begins with the view.
Namo Shri Guruye.
Homage to confidence in the realization of one’s own awareness!
This awareness, which is not established as anything whatsoever,
Is completely unobstructed in the way one’s own experience arises.
Therefore all appearances and existence arise as the field of the Dharmakāya.
And that very arising is directly liberated in its own ground.
In this point, the realization of all the Sugatas is brought together.
In order to arouse the fallen into wakefulness, this pith instruction in three statements
Cuts through the ties of both saṃsāra and nirvāṇa.
So store this final testament deep within your heart.
Everything that follows rests on this foundation. If we miss this introduction of the view, we will misunderstand the Three Statements.
Awareness Has No Concrete Identity
The opening verse says awareness is not established as anything whatsoever.
That means it is not an object or subtle entity. It is not a refined state or some type of eternal substrate. It cannot be located or measured. It is insubstantial and without characteristics.
This is why all the great masters describe it as beyond conceptual elaboration. When we search for its shape or location, we do not find one. When we look for its center or boundary, we do not encounter one. And yet awareness is not a void nothingness. In Secret Path of the Siddhas, Younge Khachab Rinpoche says:
The whole exercise of looking at the abiding and movement of the mind, all those lead toward the realization that awareness is like space. There’s no discrete object to fixate on. That’s the final analysis. Having done that thoroughgoing investigation, you arrive at a sky-like experience.
Empty Yet Luminous
The opening verse continues:
Is completely unobstructed in the way one’s own experience arises.
In the Dzogchen tradition, awareness is described as empty yet luminous. Empty, because it has no fixed identity. Luminous, because there is unceasing clear knowing.
This knowing is immediate. It does not need to be produced. It is present before thoughts comment on it.
When Rinpoche writes that awareness is “sky-like experience,” he is clarifying this very point. Emptiness does not cancel out experience. Luminosity does not solidify into a thing. These two are inseparable. This inseparability is the ground of the entire Dzogchen path.
All Appearance Arises as the Dharmakāya Field
The verse goes further:
Therefore all appearances and existence arise as the field of the Dharmakāya.
This is a decisive clarification of the Dzogchen view. Appearance is not other than awareness. The field of experience, all thoughts, perceptions, emotions, and phenomena do not arise outside of the ground of awareness (Tib. rigpa gzhi). They arise as its display (Tib. rol pa).
If we imagine awareness as one thing and the world of appearances as another, we have already left the view.
This is why we sometimes see the metaphor of the “mother and child.” The mother represents the ground of awareness. The child represents recognition within experience. They are not strangers meeting for the first time. They are of one nature.
Recognition is like recognizing one’s own reflection. Like knowing one’s own voice. Like meeting an old friend.
There is intimacy, direct knowing. Familiarity.
Arising and Liberation Are Simultaneous
The verse then states something that cannot be overlooked:
And that very arising is directly liberated in its own ground.
Liberation is not a secondary event. It is not something added onto experience. It is not the result of analysis or suppression or antidotes. Arising and liberation are simultaneous. This is the meaning of rangdrol, or self-liberation.
When the ground of awareness (Tib. rig pa gzhi) is recognized, what arises is already free in its own place. Nothing extra is required. Nothing needs to be done.
This is why liberation is not a technique we employ in meditation like you would when you place your attention on the breath, visualize a deity, or recite a mantra. It is not something we apply or do to our experience.
It is the nature of arising itself.
If recognition of this nature is absent, then thoughts bind us and we get carried away by reactive emotions. If recognition is present, thoughts and emotions are seen through and naturally liberated.
The difference is not in the mind of the intellect. It is in the recognition of the ground of awareness itself.
Garab Dorje uses the opening root verses to establish the view before the instruction of the Three Statements.
Awareness has no identity.
It is empty yet luminous.
All appearance arises within it.
Arising and liberation are not separate.
When we understand the foundations of the Dzogchen view, the Three Statements make sense. They become pointing-out instructions. Otherwise, if we don’t understand the view, we will try to use them as methods to try to improve the mind or project ideas onto our experience. But Garab Dorje is not offering a developmental path of improvement. He is pointing out what has always been the case.
First Statement: Introducing Directly the Face of Rigpa
The first statement is the recognition:
Recognize your own nature.
Everything depends on this.
If this introduction and recognition does not occur, the second and third statements are just concepts and philosophical ideas. If it does occur, the resting in the nature of the mind unfolds naturally.
Let’s be precise about what Garab Dorje is introducing.
Garab Dorje does not say analyze the mind. He does not say purify the mind. He does not say construct a subtle meditative state.
He says recognize. In the immediacy of one’s own experience. Without inference points. Without conceptual overlay.
The opening verse has already established that awareness has no concrete identity and that all appearances arise within it. So what is introduced is not something new. It is the already-present awareness in which all experience is unfolding.
Recognition here is direct. It is the face of awareness itself.
In The Heart Essence of Mother and Child Jamgön Kongtrul writes:
Your present mind in this moment, free of all contrivance, all distortion, all antidotes–is awareness.
We are instructed to recognize this awareness, with nothing added, nothing corrected, nothing applied.
This is a decisive recognition of the view.
Rigpa is not an improved state of mind. Kongtrul continues by describing awareness as:
Primordial wisdom, empty but luminous, …is beyond the ordinary mind with its memories and thoughts.
Empty, because it has no fixed identity. Luminous, because there is unceasing clear knowing. And beyond conceptual definition. This prevents the mistake of turning awareness into an object of meditation, like meditating on the breath or a visualization.
If you are observing awareness as something separate like a witness, you are still stuck in dualistic perception. Younge Khachab Rinpoche stated this clearly in the 2015 Annual Dzogchen Retreat:
Recognition cannot happen conceptually. We can discuss the ground of awareness (rigpa zhi) and the energetic expression of awareness (rigpa tsal). We can explain emptiness and luminosity. We can analyze the nature of mind. But explanation is not introduction.
Rinpoche often uses a simple image: recognition is like meeting an old friend. There is familiarity in the immediacy of experience. And he emphasizes something essential, if this ground were not already present, pointing-out would be impossible.
The teacher does not create rigpa or pass it on to us. The teacher points out what is already here.
Pointing-out instructions work because awareness is already present. Pointing out instructions are shining light on what has always been the case but overlooked and never recognized.
Sometimes the first statement can be misunderstood as theory. The theory of the nature of mind. As Rinpoche says, we can explain emptiness and the nature of the mind in teachings. But if awareness is treated as an idea, direct recognition never happens.
It’s also frequently misunderstood as a calm state. But calmness is something we even experience in common shamatha. Rigpa is not produced, it is not a thing, yet it’s energetic expression appears as all that appears and exists, whether of samsara or nirvana.
What is being pointed out or introduced is not something distant. It is the primordially pure, empty yet luminous ground of awareness which is always present. From that recognition, everything else becomes possible.
Second Statement: Deciding Upon One Thing
The second statement reads:
Come to a decisive experience about one thing only.
At first glance, this can sound like conviction or choosing to believe a teaching. It is none of those.
This statement describes resolving all experience within the immediacy of that recognition. Think back to the opening verse when Garab Dorje says all appearances and existence arise as the field of the Dharmakāya. That’s what we are coming to a decisive experience of. It is not about forming a view. It is about no longer wavering from what has already been recognized.
When recognition of rigpa has occurred, decisiveness means you no longer look elsewhere for confirmation. You do not oscillate between experience and analysis. You do not step out of awareness to examine awareness.
The mind that was previously searching lets go of its compulsion to find something. This is what is meant by deciding upon one thing.
Jamgön Kongtrul clarifies this in The Heart Essence of Mother and Child:
You should rest without moving in the dharmakāya beyond mind… completely free of contrivance and alteration.
This resting is not effortful holding to an object of concentration like in shamatha. It is the unwavering presence of awareness itself.
Kongtrul uses a simple image of muddy water that is left undisturbed, naturally becomes clear. The clarity is not produced. It appears when agitation stops.
This is decisive experience.
Kongtrul is explicit:
The mind remains lucid, vivid, and clear, without slipping into distraction or mental dullness.
This protects the instruction from forcing stillness through rigid concentration or collapsing into a hazy dissociated experience. Decisiveness is steady clarity without contrived effort.
Rinpoche often connects this statement to Longchenpa’s presentation of the four samayas in the Nelug Dzod that seal the decisive experience of awareness:
Ineffability because it cannot be captured in concepts. Once recognized, you see why language fails to contain it.
Openness free from limit or boundary. Awareness is equal to the expanse of space.
Spontaneous presence, the unfolding of experience naturally within awareness. Nothing needs to be manufactured.
Oneness with no duality between the ground and its energetic expression, between awareness and appearance.
Explained simply: nothing stands outside of the recognition of this single sphere of awareness. Rinpoche says that even if you were to meet Samantabhadra himself, you would have no further questions. Not because you know everything. But because the experience of the ground is clear and decisive. Doubt has nowhere to land. Uncertainty has nowhere to grab a hold of you.
If decisiveness has not occurred however,we return to habitual patterns of concepts and thinking. We seek out new teachings or try new methods. We look for alternative explanations. We study more. We compare more.
Rinpoche emphasizes that without decisiveness, we may lose what glimpse we have had. This is why he says view and meditation are the same in Dzogchen. If view is something we understand conceptually, and meditation is something we do later, we will not come to the decisive experience.
In genuine decisiveness recognition is the view. Resting in it is meditation. There is no gap.
The structure is simple. Recognize our own nature, the ground of awareness itself. Rest immovably in that ground. Do not improve it. Don’t analyze it. Do not alter it. Let it be as it is.
When recognition is present, rest. If distraction occurs, cut through those thoughts and recognize the ground again.
Decisiveness is not about intensity. It is the continuous flow. When doubt and uncertainty exhausts themselves, the ground becomes accessible and available to us. And from that stability, the third statement becomes possible.
Third Statement: Confidence in Liberation
The third statement reads:
Confidence with confidence in liberation.
If the first statement establishes recognition, and the second resolves all experience within it, the third describes its natural function as the primordially liberated state, the natural Great Perfection.
This is where Dzogchen is most often misunderstood.
Liberation here refers to the Tibetan term rangrol, meaning self-liberation or naturally liberated. It literally means: free in its own place. Liberation is not something we apply to thoughts. It is not a method we perform. It is the way phenomena are when the ground is recognized.
The opening verse has already introduced this view:
And that very arising is directly liberated in its own ground.
Arising and liberation are not separate events. From the perspective of the originally pure, empty ground, all that arises is unborn and unceasing. What arises in awareness in no way binds or obscures that ground. Not because it disappears, but because it was never separate from the ground of originally pure emptiness.
Jamgön Kongtrul gives us language that makes this experiential. He writes that when one settles in this limpid, uncontrived state:
Although plain and ordinary mind unfolds toward objects, these spontaneous arisings steadily and continuously subside, just like the ocean’s waves, which naturally sink back into the water.
The wave does not fight the ocean. It is the ocean.
He also compares the mind to a clear, pellucid lake. When it is undisturbed, it is transparent, pristine, clear. Even when movement appears, nothing leaves a trace.
Thoughts arise. They naturally subside, leaving no trace.
Younge Khachab Rinpoche sharpens this point by distinguishing between rigpa zhi, the ground of awareness, and rigpa tsal, the dynamic display of awareness.
These are not two things. Just like the ocean and the waves, they are distinguished only for explanation. In lived experience, they are inseparable.
All appearances are tsal, the energetic expression of awareness. They are not external to awareness and they do not obscure it. Rinpoche emphasizes:
The ground is originally pure emptiness.
All that appears as display is an ornament. Appearances are not obstacles to awareness. They are its radiance. Rinpoche often uses the image of birds flying through the sky, the flight of the bird is clearly apparent, yet they leave no tracks.
What we are pointing to here is sometimes described in Tibetan as thigle nyagcik, the single sphere of awareness. It means that everything is contained within this single experience of rigpa. In Dzogchen, we have this term ying-rig, which means that space and awareness are inseparable. There is no inner and outer, no subject-object duality, no awareness in here and world out there. Everything is experienced within this single sphere of awareness.
Even confusion, doubt, thoughts, and emotions.
The decisive point, as Rinpoche states, is recognizing that everything experienced occurs and is liberated within this present awareness.
There is nowhere else to go and nothing else to do.
Because this teaching is subtle, it is easy to miss the significance of this point. Some people might interpret self-liberation as meaning they can ignore karma or that nothing matters. But without recognition of the ground, causes and conditions continue to function. Non-duality does not mean our actions do not carry weight. Self-liberation functions when recognition is present, but without recognition, there is the endless proliferation of thoughts and the cycle of samsara turns.
This is why the second statement matters so much for the third point. Confidence in liberation rests on decisiveness.
Mother and Child: The Non-Dual Key
In the root verses of the Last Testament of Garab Dorje, it says:
There is your own nature, and what appears as other. These two being inseparable is recognition.
In Dzogchen language, we often see the metaphor of the mother and child. The mother refers to the ground, the primordial purity of awareness itself. The child refers to recognition, awareness recognizing its own nature within experience.
Mother and child are not two separate beings meeting for the first time. They share one nature.
Recognition is awareness recognizing itself. There is no object outside the field of awareness. There is no distance to bridge.
This is why Garab Dorje introduces the view that rigpa cannot be grasped as an entity. The moment we position awareness as something inside and appearances as something other, we have reintroduced duality.
Jamgön Kongtrul clarifies that awareness is “empty but luminous” and beyond conceptual elaboration. When recognition occurs, it is not a subject observing an object. It is luminosity knowing itself.
The mother recognizes the child because they are of the same essence. The child recognizes the mother because it has never been separate.
We may think we are trying to actualize awareness. We may imagine awareness is somewhere deeper, higher, or beyond our ordinary experience. But the teaching says otherwise.
There is no external object to attain. There is simply recognition in the immediacy of awareness itself, and when that recognition happens, confusion has nowhere to stand.
Liberation happens because the ground is pure as the empty nature of all phenomena.
The ground, rigpa zhi, is originally pure, empty, unconfined, and unstained. It is never damaged by confusion. Liberation happens because the display of appearances is inseparable from the ground.
When recognition is absent, we fixate on appearances. We chase after them and identify with them, which leads to the cycle of reactivity and conditioned existence.
When recognition is present, that cycle falls apart. Nothing needs to be cut away. Nothing needs to be repaired. The knots loosen because they were never bound to anything in the first place. The waves resolve in the ocean, having never left.
This is why Dzogchen is not a gradual path of meditation. It is not a strategy for calming the mind or eliminating thoughts. It is not an achievement produced through a gradual process of refinement.
It is recognition of the fundamental nature of our own mind.
We need effort to apply ourselves to the practice. We need to prepare the foundations so that we can actually recognize what is being introduced. But liberation itself is not manufactured.
Practicing Today
These Three Statements that Strike the Vital Point are the essence of Dzogchen.
Recognition does not require years of study or preparation. It does not require becoming someone new. But preparation matters and we need to do the work. If the mind is constantly agitated, scattered, or unstable, recognition is either difficult or impossible to sustain.
In Secret Path of the Siddhas, Younge Khachab Rinpoche lays out the foundations of practice needed to prepare for that recognition. Without preparation, it is easy to mistake a brief glimpse for realization. It is easy to speak about emptiness while remaining ruled by habitual patterns and reactivity. Garab Dorje’s second statement warns us against this. Decisiveness matures through repeated practice, humility, honesty, and guidance from a qualified teacher.
Don’t let a brief experience fade into a distracted, busy life. A steady familiarity with awareness, renewed again and again throughout the day, reshapes the structure of our perception and our experience.
Recognize. Rest. Do not waver. When distracted, recognize again.
Over time, our confidence grows. We gain confidence in the liberation of thoughts and emotions. Nothing needs to be forced. The nature of arising is liberation. Our own true nature is the primordially liberated state, here and now, just waiting to be recognized.
Our practice is not to create awakening, but to recognize what has never been absent.
