Rigpa

Rigpa, Tibetan for “knowing” or “awareness”, is in Dzogchen the nature of mind itself: empty of any substance or self, luminous, and aware. It is contrasted with ordinary mind (sems), the mind that grasps at objects, judges and builds a sense of self. Thoughts and emotions arise in rigpa like clouds in the sky or reflections in a mirror, without staining it.

Rigpa is not a state to be achieved through effort, since effort belongs to ordinary mind. It is to be recognized, and the recognition is traditionally introduced by a teacher in a direct pointing-out. The practice that follows is to remain in that recognition, at first for moments, until it is continuous through waking, dreaming and dying. Dzogchen texts describe its qualities as primordial purity and spontaneous presence.

Comparable language appears in the Mahāmudrā teaching of the Kagyu school, which speaks of the nature of mind, and in Chan and Zen’s “seeing one’s nature”. Scholars have also compared rigpa with Advaita’s witness consciousness, while noting that Dzogchen describes awareness as empty rather than as a self.