Why “Effortlessness” Alone Is An Incomplete Meditation Practice

[This is an excerpt from my book Radical Dzogchen:The Direct Way to En-Light-enment, which is available in Kindle and paperback at Amazon and from other book sellers.]

But Dzogchen is about the Great Perfection, which is already the case prior to any attempt to attain Union. Hence, true Dzogchen practice is simply effortlessness.

There has never been, and never will be, a yogi who practiced/practices just “effortlessness” as the means to Enlightenment. The greatest Realizers, including Buddha, Ramana Maharshi, and Milarepa, all had to practice forms of conscious focusing in addition to utter letting go. And even utter letting go doesn’t amount to effortlessness, because one has to exert an effort to remain alert in order to remind oneself to resume “declutching” as soon as one notices oneself grasping. Prior to full Enlightenment, meaning permanent union with Light-Energy, or Spirit, conscious effortlessness for protracted periods of time is not possible.

But in Tilopa’s Song of Mahamudra, he “sings” that“without making an effort, but remaining loose and natural, one can break the yoke, thus gaining liberation.” And Longchen Rabjam, in his teachings, repeatedly enjoins yogis to practice effortlessness.

Both Tilopa and Naropa, whom Tilopa addresses in his Song of Mahamudra, practiced Anuttarayoga Tantra, a set of spiritual practices intended to accelerate the process of attaining Buddhahood. And Naropa taught his Six Yogas of Naropa rather than just effortlessness, because he knew that effortlessness alone does not cut it as a sadhana. But my heretical take is that neither Tilopa nor Naropa understood what “Mahamudra” really means, which is “Great Gesture.” “Maha” means “Great” and “Mudra” means “Gesture”—and this “Great Gesture” is the “Sacrament” (or Sacred Enactment) of Holy Communion, or Yogic At-One-Ment. In other words, the essence of Mahamudra is not effortlessness, but the practice of what I call Plugged-in Presence. This practice generates maximal consciousness-force (or “voltage”), and if it is understood as a synonym for Mahamudra, then there is no need to supplement low-energy, or “effortless,” Mahamudra with tantric practices. Rather, “effortlessness,” or utter letting go (or “ohms reduction”), becomes the “yin” complement to the “yang” practice (or “Gesture,” or “Enactment”) of Yogic At-One-Ment, or Plugged-in Presence.

In his Yogic Commentary in the classic W.Y Evans-Wentz text Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines, Translator-Professor Chen-Chi Cheng writes: “The Six Yogas are productive of more yogic power than Mahamudra… Traditionally, the Mahamudra has been prescribed as a mild antidote, and the Six Yogas as a strong antidote, for Ignorance.” In other words, because Tilopa and Naropa failed to properly present Mahamudra as direct, immediate conscious at-one-ment, or plugged-in presence, but instead promoted it as passive letting go and self-emptying, it lost its mojo as a “strong antidote for Ignorance,” and thus needed to be supplemented with other practices, such as the Six Yogas.

The ramifications of Tilopa and Naropa’s misrepresentation of Mahamudra can be seen in the historical presentations of the teachers that followed them. Because none of these Mahamudra teachers of old (including the iconic Dako Tashi Namgyal) or new (such as Geshe Kelsang Gyatso) grokked/grok the true meaning and practice of Mahamudra, they had to incorporate “voltage” practices to compensate for the perceived lack of “yogic power” in Mahamudra.

Because effortlessness, or non-meditation, alone is insufficient as a sadhana, Mahamudra developed into a four-phase practice: one-pointedness, simplicity, one taste, and non-meditation. From an “electrical-spiritual” perspective, one-pointedness is a match for voltage, and non-meditation for (maximal) ohm’s reduction. Simplicity (non-judging) and one taste (seeing all phenomena as empty) are “in-between” practices that involve degrees of one-pointedness (or focused attention) and non-meditation (or effortlessness).

In his Song of Mahamudra, Tilopa describes the yogi’s En-Light-ened mind thus: “In the end, it is a great vast ocean, where the Lights of Son and Mother merge in one.” The Mother Light—really Mother Light-Energy, or Sambhogakaya—is the Spirit-current (amperage). So, from an “electrical-spiritual” perspective, one-pointedness (voltage) is the thesis, non-meditation (ohms reduction) is the antithesis, and the Mother Light-Energy, which subsumes the Son Light (the yogi’s consciousness), is the synthesis, which “produces” En-Light-enment, realization of the Dharmakaya.

Longchen Rabjam contradicts himself on effortlessness. In The Precious Treasury of the Way ofAbiding and A Treasure Trove of Scriptural Transmission: A Commentary on The Precious Treasury of the Basic Space of Phenomena, he’s a salesman for trekcho and effortlessness, but in Precious Treasury of the GenuineMeaning, he emphasizes the shortcomings of (what he considers) the effortless practice of trekcho, and instead promotes the superiority of the effortful practices of togal. If he’d known of my Electrical Spiritual Paradigm (ESP), he’d have understood how, in a Dzogchen context, to resolve the effortlessness/effort dialectic by providing the spiritual synthesis that integrates it.